The Answer to Everything Is…

It’s been a hard week here. It started out with calling 911 on Sunday because the baby was choking on something she picked up off the floor. It took a visit to the ER and several panicky hours to figure out she had a small piece of thick plastic lodged in her throat that the Doctor was finally able to remove. On top of that, several of my closest friends have been dealing with life-threatening illnesses for themselves or their kiddos, so basically my heart has been walking around outside my body all week feeling the ache of lack of protection and acute vulnerability.

I tend to get mad when things like this happen. I have a strict Don’t Mess With My Loved Ones policy that the Universe does not seem to adhere to. Dangit. I also really don’t like being such a sensitive BIG feeling soul when my lovelies are hurting, and I really don’t like it when all my lovelies are hurting at once. That is just about unbearable.

But, you and I both know I’ve walked this road a million times before. I am a self-certified Tragedy Specialist. So, sitting in the discomfort of vulnerability today, watching my lovelies suffer, I just had to find a little compassion within and tell myself this:

Ok, Megan, here we go. You know what’s happening. The squeeze is on. You’re being ground and twisted and wrung to a fresh pulp yet again…so what will you do different this time, knowing what’s on the other side of this pain is the promise of LOVE, beauty and immense wisdom? Knowing you’re going to come out of this a sweet, sweet cherry-limeade, ripe with empathy and love?

Here’s what I think I’ve figured out about all of this.

Anything…ANYTHING can be made bearable if you surround it with enough LOVE.

Francine Wheeler, Mother to 5-year-old Ben, who was one of the Sandy Hook victims, said someone told her after her son’s death that there would always be a hole in her heart. BUT, if she surrounded it with enough love, that love would build a protective coating around the hole that would eventually make it possible to live with a Swiss cheese heart.

So here’s my answer to everything, I think:
FEED IT MORE LOVE.

Whatever is broken or hurting or vulnerable or quaking in your heart, whatever your holes are, your aches, your dreams, your losses…feed them more love til there’s so much love around them, it doesn’t hurt as much anymore.

In the darkest depths of pain, loss and grief, LOVE is always possible. In the uncertainty of fear and unknowingness on the life to your dreams, MORE LOVE is always possible. When someone has hurt you or betrayed you, MORE LOVE for yourself and for them is always possible…because if we can forgive ourselves, we can forgive others…when we realize EVERYONE’S always doing their best.

When you are scared, feed yourself more love. When you are sad, feed yourself more love. When your lovelies are aching, feed yourself more love…so then you can overflow onto them when they need it most.

Yup, more love, more love might be the answer to everything. 

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Are you following me on Facebook? This post was shared on my Writer’s Page over there today. I often post brief musings on Facebook that I don’t post here, so run on over and click like if you want to hear more of my thoughts on life, love, tragedy & everything in between. 🙂 

The Safeway Story: Be a Miracle

Do you believe in miracles & magic? Do you believe that without any doing of your own, an opportunity can be put in your path, a promotion can come your way unexpectedly, or a simple, kind gesture from a stranger can completely transform your day?

I believe in miracles, because I have seen they happen to me frequently throughout these last 5 years of loss & hardship.

Lighting our candle for her best friend this year. She passed away unexpectedly at age 5, when my daughter was a precocious 3 & 1/2. Each year brings new waves of grief for us both in losing this beautiful child.

I was having a particularly rough day last week. Lots of emotions have been hitting on every front, one of which was the anniversary of my daughter’s best friend’s death. After several days of holding my 6-year-old while
she cried, seeing her understand death at a new level now, I was feeling emotionally exhausted. All the memories of the worst conversation of my life, telling her the news, hugging her best friend’s Mom at the service (meeting her for the first time at her daughter’s funeral), and years of her grievous outbursts of pain…all came flooding back.

I went to the grocery store with a tear-stained face, trying to hide my pain from the world.

My Most Unusual Gift

Sometimes I get scared to keep sharing my story, because there are people who see me continually speaking to death and pain, who perceive that to mean that I’m stuck in the grief, not moving on, not living joyfully, dwelling on the past. And it’s perceptions like that, that made me feel like a lecherous Grim Reaper Girl for years.

What these people don’t understand is that these 20+ tragic deaths & 4 years of inconceivable loss were my gift.

Half-Dead Or Alive

Tragedy can turn you into stone – it can make you fold up your wings and hide within their warm embrace.

It’s a choice, and one that requires more courage than can possibly be put into words, to unfold your wings again, when they’ve been clipped, wounded, torched and tormented, time after time.

It has been my life’s challenge to unfold.

A year ago, I was pregnant with my third child – a walking dead, half-alive corpse of myself. 4 years of tragedy, 20 deaths, and the loss of everything ten times over, had singed and scarred my wings so acutely, I simply wanted to crawl into a shallow grave and stay there where no one could see me.

I wasn’t even trying to avoid life, I had just kind of shut myself off without meaning to, like I’d gone into auto-pilot. I was looking around me at other people celebrating birthdays and vacations, just enjoying life, and thinking to myself, “Why don’t I want that?” Everything had become so hard, it just didn’t seem worth it to even try to create joy anymore.

You Are Now Entering the “Spring” of Your Life

This morning, I was watering my rose bushes that have been a little neglected the last few weeks. They were starting to look a little brown and dingy, so I had to pay attention to them.

As I was hosing them down, I started aiming the spray at the dead leaves to help them fall off, and encourage growth and renewal.

As nature always speaks to me, I had a little ah-ha moment.

The rains and winds of our life are not to be cursed. 

Like a storm on a dying vine, they simply rid us of the parts of ourselves that are dead, unnecessary, broken, or browning.

Then, the parts of us that are alive and green can soak up more of the water to nourish and feed our souls, speeding our growth and renewal.

Nature does not curse the cycle of life playing out in the Arizona monsoons each summer. In fact, nature welcomes this renewal. Trees green more deeply into more poignant hues after a storm. Rainbows bow and arch over majestic landscapes in the slant of sun and storm. Thirsty flowers unfold and open in the light following a heavy rain, welcoming the energy of the light. 

If you have been through a difficult time in your life, and felt the pummeling of rain, wind, sand and sleet on your shoulders, wondering how you would make it through your own perfect storm, remember this:

The greenest parts of your soul have just been watered, and I promise you, now, you are entering the Spring of your life. All you have to do, is choose to open up, and unfold.*

She Could Never Go Back…

Terri St. Cloud/www.BoneSighArts.com

I read this on the first page of a chapter titled, “Cultivating a Resilient Spirit: Letting Go of Numbing and Powerlessness” in the book, “The Gifts of Imperfection” by Dr. Brene Brown this morning, and I cried. I cried, and then I cried some more.

Lean In, Baby, Just Lean In

I used to believe that bad things happening to me meant I was a bad person somehow. The truth is, the reason so much “bad” stuff has happened around me is simply because I love so many people so deeply and because, well, that’s life.

I used to be afraid to tell you more bad stuff was happening in my life because I don’t want pity, and because I thought for sure I was doing something to “deserve” all this bad stuff. On some level, I think I believed I had not become enlightened/empowered/aura-fied/chakra-fied/fully present/fearless/brave/spiritual/positive thinking enough to transcend suffering.

I wanted so badly in my journeys these last 4 years to find a way to transcend suffering.