Memory plays such an important role in my healing loss. I needed to touch those memories in a real and tangible way.
I would drive to special places that held those memories. I would visit them often to replay the preciousness of the place we spent a moment of laughter, a photograph, a kiss, a glance. From a place we sat on the beach to tourist traps we visited on our honeymoon, I returned and turned again to a memory.
It’s funny what I remember most are the casual moments that at the time were just like any other moment. In my world of the Afterloss, those fleeting ordinary moments touch something far greater as they enter the expanse from moment to Moment.
My understanding of Moment is where Spirit intertwines past, present and future. This Moment I fall into is where I touch what happened and it shapes what is and draws me to what will be. It is where Moment spreads all across the landscape of my Afterloss and I sit in the expansiveness of my relationship with my loved one, deeper in love.
It is healing for me to go back to those places of memory. If I can get to them physically, all the better. If I have to visit them through a photograph, I can still find my way into Moment. I have entered Moment through a song, a smell, a taste… a touch of a velvet rose petal.
The past takes me deeper into the present tense. This is a crucial component of my healing. What is happening is I am reintegrating the part of them that they left as a gift I get to keep into a new way of relating to them, myself and the world around me.
In the early days after Matt died, I sat on a bench outside a glass window of a burger joint he really liked. Inside were a father and a son around Matt’s age sitting at the counter. I watched them eat their hamburgers, laughing and kidding around. He hugged his son in one of those beautiful spontaneous acts of love.
The memory of Matt and I laughing, kidding around and having one of those hugs dropped me into Moment. It was there that I was filled with an overwhelming gratitude. I was grateful that I was given the opportunity to have such experiences with Matt. I was also grateful for another father and another son to share such a priceless moment. I do not know if either of them knew just how precious that lunch was, but I did.
That Moment intertwined memory, present tense and future as I sat on the bench outside that burger joint. I was grateful for what Matt and I had, grateful for seeing another getting to have what I know to be a very special experience in an ordinary moment, and grateful that I my endless love for Matt will draw me into an embrace once again.
Memory heals me. I still touch those places and I still find that it shapes me into a state of connection with what is truly important.
I do not take ordinary moments in my life for granted. I know the true value of a hug or a kind word or a simple gesture. I know what a simple walk on a path behind our house with Rachel really means. I know the sacred place of memory in my Afterloss and the loving nature of Moment. The ones I’ve loved and lost taught me what every moment means.
Memory heals: I make them and touch them as often as I can.
