HEALING & LOVING THROUGH GRIEF
Volume 32

The Unclosed Door

The person may be a parent, spouse, child, best friend or pet. It is immensely difficult to say goodbye and let go.

I lost my  father when I was 21. He was just 48 years old. He had suffered a stroke and after being hospitalized for a couple of weeks, he passed away.

At that time, I lived far from my family, and when my aunt called to deliver the news, I didn’t exactly know what I was feeling or how to respond to the news. I just went through the motions of being shocked and flew home. Instead of going to my college graduation ceremony with my parents, I attended my father’s funeral with a numb, empty heart and dry-eyed that day.

Despite the numbness, a peculiar emotion surfaced. It was rage. I was angry at my father for leaving so abruptly. I was angry at my family for not informing me about his illness and hospitalization. I was angry at myself for not being there and caring for him during the last days of his life. But most of all, I was angry at the Creator for taking him away from me.

During the grieving period, I didn’t know how to process my emotions. I had never been taught how to do it and no one was available to support and guide me through. I felt completely lost and alone. Unable to handle the grief, I turned to work as my coping mechanism, which turned me into a depressed workaholic.

Having proper closure is an important part of healing grief.

Father

My father was a man of few words. I couldn’t recall having a meaningful conversation with him. Since I had lived away from my parents from the time I was 10, our relationship was distant and formal. I never felt particularly loved, supported or guided by him. But his death had a huge impact on my life. It was as if my grief had unlocked the love within.

I wished my father and I had been given more time together to move our relationship to a warmer and more loving place. I wished I had told him how much I loved him. I wished he had been able to attend my college graduation since he was proudly looking forward to it. I wished he had lived to see me and my siblings marry. I wished he was still around to play with his grandchildren. The regrets weighed me down and made me feel powerless and helpless.

Grandma

A decade after losing my father, I lost my maternal grandmother who had been like a mother to me. I had lived with her since I was 10 until I was 17. She was a warm, kind and loving soul. I remember sobbing in my bed, overwhelmed by sorrow. Sadly, I couldn’t attend her funeral; by then I was completing my Master’s degree overseas. How I wished I had been there to care for her when she was ill and see her face one last time before they closed the coffin.

Marriage

Another devastating of grief was the death of my marriage. My husband and I had been together for 8 years and for the most part, our relationship was wonderful and loving.

When the marriage fell apart, it broke me into pieces as it happened very quickly. I went through a phase of deep depression, had suicidal thoughts, lost a significant amount of weight, went bald, and had to consult a psychiatrist and a doctor who placed me on antidepressants.

Again, I coped by filling up my schedule and being busy. The wishful thinking replayed in my head. I wished I had been a more loving and caring wife. I wished we hadn’t lived apart for the last couple of years we were together. I wished my husband had given our marriage a second chance. I wished my husband hadn’t fallen in love with another woman.

The betrayal hurt me deeply and made me feel unworthy and unloved. After living in the US for nearly 8 years, I returned to Indonesia, with a broken heart. And again, I drowned myself in work. It was the only way I knew to survive the sadness I was suffering through.

What I Did To Process The Grief

In my healing journey, I discovered the following to be some of the best ways to process grief:

Meditation

For me, time didn’t heal the wounds but during my depths of despair, something wonderful happened: I discovered the power of meditation. Meditation allowed me to transform my negative emotions into love and light. I learned to process my emotions in a healthy way so that rather than having them consume me, they empowered me.

Since then, meditation has been my guiding light. I joined a grief healing workshop and did the meditations. At the workshop, I was reminded of the Kübler-Ross’s stages of grief – denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance – that I had learned in graduate school. But this time, instead of understanding what I had gone through with my brain, I accepted the phases I was going through and the reality with my heart. Given a safe space, I finally opened up to feel all the pain and sadness from losing some of the dearest people in my life. I allowed myself to be vulnerable, to cry as much and as long as I wished and shared my emotions with others. It was deeply cathartic.

Retreat

I signed up for a spiritual retreat in Nepal. At that retreat, I let myself burn from the rage I felt towards the Creator and had a heartful conversation with Him through meditations. Like a child, I was blaming Him for everything that had gone wrong in my life, especially for taking my father’s life. To my surprise, I felt that He listened, truly listened. Amazingly, simply being heard and consoled by Him gave me the courage to release myself from the chains of sorrow. I realized I couldn’t turn back time or change anything. I could only change myself and my perceptions about death. I was powerfully reminded by the facts of life – there’s an ending in every beginning, and a beginning in every ending. I learned to see the beauty in the cycle of life.

Family Constellation

This therapy which reveals hidden family dynamics to address the root causes of unresolved family issues and heal them, also helped me reconcile my relationship with my father. Through this method, I was able to communicate with him and release trapped emotions.

Yoga

For over a year, I have been practicing Father Salutation. I use poses similar to the Sun Salutation flow in yoga to salute him in front of his picture. In the end, doing the child pose, I bow and talk to his soul. It may sound unusual but I feel more connected with my father now than when he was alive. I know he loves me and is proud of me. Though unseen, his spirit is always around to support me.

I also connect and converse with my father through prayers, meditations, automatic writing, and mediumship oracle cards.

Ho’oponopono

I wrote a letter to my ex-husband, while listening to the powerful Ho’oponopono mantra, to resolve the unfinished emotional communication by expressing my forgiveness, gratitude, and unconditional love for him. It was one of the most painful yet liberating experiences of my life.

I no longer wish to turn back time or change anything. Everything is meant to be. I am exactly where I am meant to be. For every loss, there has been a gain. By losing my husband I had found myself again. I fell in love with the most important person in my life – myself. I love and honor myself no matter what and I feel whole and complete. I am worthy of love and I am loved, always.

Writing

Writing this article has been therapeutic in itself. Though it was the most difficult piece I’ve ever written, it has rewarded me with a vital awareness. I realized I had “died” during the process of healing, that I had to let go of big parts of myself to become my true self. I had said goodbye to my corporate career that had become my identity, goodbye to a constant companion named Depression, and goodbye to self-limiting beliefs that no longer serve me.

When I wrote my new autobiography, my old self had a hard time recognizing my new self. I have embraced new roles and transformed into a more loving, joyful, and powerful being. I realized that to have a new life, I had to let go of the old life. Now I feel brand new, like a baby. And I am empowered to rewrite my story and history.

Love

My spiritual growth was recently tested with the loss of my six cats. One simply disappeared and the other five died one by one from various illnesses in the past year. Though by then I was better equipped to handle death, I still experienced immense grief and wept while burying each of my beloved pets.

Through their deaths, I healed another layer of grief I still carried from the past. I realized I still had the fear of getting hurt again and it was holding me back from loving others fully including my pets. But after losing six cats, I finally learned a big lesson. I learned to love and to be loved completely and fearlessly. No longer am I afraid of getting hurt, betrayed, or abandoned. I just love. The last remaining cat, Ebony and I are now showering each other with unconditional love.

Postscript

Once, a meditation teacher shared a memorable story from the time of the Buddha:

A woman named Kisa was grieving about her lost baby. She had a hard time accepting the reality of the death and refused to bury her son. The villagers advised her to consult the Buddha so she immediately went to him and pleaded for him to bring her son back to life. Buddha promised to grant her wish with one condition. She must find a mustard seed from a house where no one residing there has ever lost a family member. After going to many houses, she learned that everyone had lost loved ones to death. She finally understood that death is an inevitable and natural part of life. She then buried her son in the forest.

Understanding the natural cycle of life doesn’t always diminish the pain we feel from losing our loved ones. But it may help us move towards unconditional acceptance, which is a crucial part of healing. Everything happens for a reason. Grief is a universal experience that helps us learn and grow.

Through my healing journey, I discovered that death is merely a physical illusion. Though the body may disappear, the memories and the love that we shared with the loved one remain in our hearts forever. The love never dies. It is permanent and everlasting. Only love is real. The best gift we can give to those who have left us is to love and live fully, joyfully, and purposefully and cherish those who are still with us.

By making peace with death and the past, I live a fuller life. I do not take life for granted anymore. Before I go to sleep, I thank the Creator for allowing me to live one more day, and when I wake up, I am grateful to still be alive. This encourages me to live simply in the present, one day at a time, to do my best, and not regret anything.

Nevertheless, I remain motivated and hopeful about life and the future.

Death is not the end. Life continues. The journey continues.

Thank you, Grief.

Dedication

I am dedicating this article especially to those who have physically left us during the pandemic. May your souls rest in peace and love. And to all of us who have lost loved ones during these extraordinary times. May we find peace and courage to let go and move forward.

Personal Tributes

I bow and salute you all with the deepest love, gratitude, and reverence: The Golden Space family, Master Umesh for the life-changing Nepal retreat, Tan Keng Ann who introduced me to the Ho’oponopono mantra, Stacey Lee for the transformative family constellation sessions, Joyce Wonsono for your amazing grief workshop and class, Michaael Wong for your powerful Healing Grief meditation, Talita Setyadi for the memorable automatic writing therapy, my Qigong Master, Ronan Tang, who taught me Mother and Father Salutation, and my Vipassana Guruji S. N. Goenka, who shared the story of Kisa Gotami and the Mustard Seed.