Lessons Learned: Love, Loss, and Love Again
I just finishing watching “Love Again,” a movie that came out in 2023 with Celine Dion and Priyanka Chopra, on a flight from Portland to Minneapolis.
I loved it. I’m a romantic at heart, a lover of Hallmark, Pretty Woman, and watching romances that end with kisses and kisses.
The movie spoke to me in the questions that it asks and answers.
How do we deal with loss and its accompanying grief? How do we find our love for life again after loss?
Love, loss of love/death/divorce, grief, love again. It is a common plot line. Love again or loving again, for me, isn’t always about romantic love. It is also about loving life and learning how to love living again. It is also about how we navigate and adjust to death and its finality in terms of one’s relationship with the physical body and what it represents – the touch of voices; the touch of breath; the touch of bodies; the touch of hands. It is also about learning how to have a relationship with the spirit world. And, as we approach holiday season, the grief journey is often even more profound. In my new book Blackwildgirl: A Writer’s Journey to Take Back Her Superpower (available now for preorder, out April 2, 2024),
I share about my profound grief after losing my mother almost 10 years ago. I didn’t know what to do, how to be in the world. I felt like an orphan.
My life changed when a wonderful sage told me to develop a relationship with Mama’s spirit. He told me to create an altar and talk to her. In addition to talking to her, since I had journaled my entire life, I decided to write to her in my journals: “Dear Mama,” journal entries.
In “Love, Again,” the movie, two characters who have lost love begin a new relationship with their spirit-loves. One pours two drinks, talks to her, and drinks both drinks! The other sends texts to her spirit-love’s old phone number that she thinks is inactive. Both share information about their day and their feelings to their spirit-loves.
I understand this relationship with spirit-loves. It is about learning how to engage the interstitial liminal space—the in-between space of life and the afterlife—a space for candles, conversations, altars, and libations. It is a space of power, even though we often engage it from a place of helplessness. I am so fascinated by the interstitial liminal space and what it represents to engage in that space.
In Blackwildgirl, I share how my grandma on my father’s side from Freetown, Sierra Leone, in West Africa, shared libations of food and liquor at the local cemetery and introduced my mom and me to the ancestors. I was too young to understand then. Not now. She understood how to navigate and respect that space between those who are symbolically “below ground,” and those of us who are “above ground”. She knew that the ground was not a concrete impenetrable barrier, but rather semi-permeable. I have learned from Blackwildwomen many lessons about the grief, death, loss journey. I thought I would share them for anyone who has lost love, perhaps through death or through a relationship or marriage that has run its course. I share these lessons for those who want to “love again.”
I think this quote epitomizes this grief journey: “I sit with my grief. I mother it. I hold its small, hot hand. I don’t say, shhh. I don’t say, it’s okay. I wait until it is done having feelings. Then we stand and we go wash the dishes.”
– Callista Buchen, from Taking Care. See Jeanette Chan’s marvelous illustrations of this quote.
Lessons learned:
1.Develop a relationship with your grief. This beautiful quote is such wonderful wisdom: “Sit with it; Mother it; Hold its small, hot hand; Don’t say, shhh; Don’t Say, it’s ok; Wait until it’s done having feelings.” One of my Facebook friends named her grief and gave her grief a name. She understood that this energy was going to be in her life and she respected that, accepted that, and acquiesced to the reality. This acceptance is such an important first step. Grief is real and it, She, He, will show up whenever it wants and we have to deal with it, he, she. The quicker we accept that, the easier a very difficult journey will be. For purposes of this article, I’m going to call my grief, Willow, like the weeping willow tree.
2. Stand up and wash the dishes, metaphorically. It is a reminder not to give Willow too much power every day. She gets moments and hours but not everything. Willow cannot get all of us. Get up. You can lay in bed some days and some days, all day. You cannot lay in bed all day every day. At some point, you have to stand up. Like the theme song in “Love, Again,” “you don’t have to move a mountain, just keep moving. The sun will rise again.”
3. Create a ritual. There is power in consistency. Determine what your regular ritual will be with your Willow. Is it daily, weekly, monthly? Is it lighting candles? It is writing journal entries? Rituals are important and almost act like a vaccine to prevent outbreaks that are perhaps unmanageable and uncontrollable.
4. Understand the complex relationship of time. The edginess of grief eases with time. You cannot rush time but it is important to know that time takes the edge off of grief, eventually. It has been almost 11 years since Mama passed. I’m much better at year 11 than I was in month 3, when I was suicidal and thinking about taking my life to be with Mama. Patience in the journey will be rewarded.
5. Develop a relationship with music. It doesn’t matter what type of music you like. But music is a powerful moving energy, and in this relationship with Willow, it is easy to get stuck. Music can keep you from getting and staying stuck. Music is an energy that can be healing, cathartic, and consoling. This version of Precious Lord by Aretha Franklin is so touching and emotional. It creates a space for Willow to just be.
Music can move emotions, instigate the release, so that Willow doesn’t take up a permanent home in your heart and spirit. In Love, Again, it was wonderful seeing the role of opera and also Celine Dion’s music. I bought my baby grand piano, Simone, as my 28 year marriage was ending. Named after Nina Simone, the first piece that I played was a Nina Simone song, “I wish I knew how it would feel to be free.”
https://www.linkedin.com/embeds/publishingEmbed.html?articleId=8969751133456624232&li_theme=light
Click below to see Nina Simone singing this signature song:
Nina Simone Singing “I Wish I Knew”
6. Connect with art. If you are an artist, continue to do it, as you are able. If you are not an artist, explore developing a new relationship with art and artistic expression, dancing, painting, and singing. Despite the pain, the peculiarity of grief creates an unusual space of creativity and newness, yearning for release. I have found that paint by numbers, wine and design, and molding clay is a singular activity that is almost meditative. Get a coloring book and color! Whatever releases creativity, find it and do it, regularly.
7. Exercise. Some kind of physical exercise helps grief move around inside our bodies and not get stuck. At a minimum, try walking around the block. If you have done other types of physical activity—running, a sport, even in the midst of grief, try to keep moving. For me, walking has been therapeutic, especially during the trauma of COVID and George Floyd. Recently, I have been blessed to be part of an amazing community of women tennis players.
8. Drink water. Drinking water, staying hydrated is so important. The tears that are being shed must be replenished. Willow must be treated tenderly and watering her is like caring for a delicate plant. It is about tending to her and paying attention to her. It is also about knowing that water helps align us with a core element of our essence. It helps to regulate us and keep us a bit more of an equilibrium. Drink as much and as frequently as you can.
9. Be courageous. It just takes courage to keep moving and living after grief. Navigating the grief journey is not for the faint of heart. It will take courage to be around others. It will take courage to say yes when invited to an event. Many and most days you may prefer to be alone. That is fine sometimes, but not all the time. Some days you will just have to talk to yourself and encourage yourself to be with others, get dressed, and walk out the door. Be courageous enough to call for help. There were days where when I literally didn’t think I could go on, and I had to call friends to just come and hold me until Willow moved on.
10. Be in nature. Nature reveals wisdom. Nature comforts. Nature reminds us of its compassion. Noticing trees, leaves, flowers, the moon, the sun, bodies of water allows the spirit to connect with its essence. Nature is not stagnant and nature often provides evidence of renewal. Special trips, vacations, and visits to new places help to create shifts with the grief to minimize stagnation and the overwhelming power of grief. I often take photos of flowers, noticing the amazing colors and beauty in the world.
11. Practice Gratitude. In the midst of grief, it is easy to delve into self-pity and to see darkness, all the time. Our eyes can also become blind, and it becomes almost impossible to appreciate, find, and notice blessings or good things. But they are there. Seeing them and being able to express gratitude, perhaps in a journal, helps counter the energy field of grief with gratitude. In gratitude, we might be able to notice the small ways that spirit shows us an almost imperceptible gentleness, kindness, care, and concern. Writing them in a journal can help bring to our remembrance moments we might overlook or have forgotten.
12. Remain Open. Be on lookout to manifestations from the spirit world. Our spirit-loves may manifest “above ground.” Perhaps it will be in our dreams; perhaps it will be in an unexpected blessing; perhaps it will be in a soft whisper or advice; perhaps it will be a memory. These manifestations remind us that we remain connected to them and that we are not alone. In Blackwildgirl, I share how my parents’ spirit manifested in powerful ways.
13. Forgiveness. Often, Willow makes us angry and the circumstances surrounding the loss are profoundly painful, in addition to the actual loss. Forgiveness is an ongoing practice. In my experience forgiveness is not a one-time act. It is often a continuous journey. However, the active practice of forgiveness helps the grief not become hardened within the spirit. It helps create a more fluid membrane between the above-ground world and the below ground world.
14. Love Again. My 14th lesson, in honor of the day of love, February 14th, is to be open to love again. It isn’t always another person, though sometimes it is. But, it is also being open to loving life again, finding the zeal and zest for living. In being joy and love in the world, you will be moving in a frequency that is more likely will attract the energy of love and joy back. In my journal as my marriage was ending, I wrote, “I want a Hallmark romance.” The universe heard and answered my prayer. I am living my Hallmark romance with a love from almost 30 years ago. Love again.
As Celine reminds us in the movie, she knows what it means to love and lose love. Hopefully, she will love again.
Celine Dion singing Love Again
Lyrics
Rising tides, tears you cry every night seem never ending But that’s just life The last goodbye, high and dry it leaves you empty You might think your world is ending but it won’t You might think you need to give up, but you don’t
‘Cause you don’t have to move a mountain, just keep moving Every move is a new emotion And you don’t have to find the answer, just keep trying The sun will rise again, the storms subside again This is not the end And you will love again
Summer rain, day by day, sadness fades, the wound is healing And time goes by, eyes will dry, and you will find someone to heal with You might think your world is ending but it won’t You might think you need to give up, but you don’t
‘Cause you don’t have to move a mountain, just keep moving Every move is a new emotion And you don’t have to find the answer, just keep trying The sun will rise again, storm subside again This is not the end And you will love again
You will love again, again, love again You will love again, again, love again
‘Cause you don’t have to move a mountain, just keep moving Every move is a new emotion And you don’t have to find the answer, just keep trying
The sun will rise again, the storms subside again
No, this is not the end
And you will love, you will love, you will love
Again