Twenty years old, smart business suit, high heeled shoes,
rattling along on the London tube train, going to my first
computer course. Feeling numb, baffled. Unable to understand
how all the blank faces on the train couldn’t see what
had happened to me. “My father just died. Can’t
you see?” For some reason I thought they should just
know. I don’t know what I expected them to do, even
if they had. I suppose I just wanted help from any quarter
but no obvious help was around in nineteen seventy-nine, before
counselling and healing became popular.
My father’s death shattered my family. My sister, a
year younger than me, went off to the south of France for
three years to fry chips in Juan Le Pins. My brother, who
was fifteen, stayed with my Mum and just seemed numb. I buried
myself in my work, taking my first career steps a few days
after it happened and just carried on up the escalator for
years afterwards, trying to put some distance in between,
somehow.
Another image: memory in slow-mo, looking through the large
shiny windows of the funeral car, black clothes, stockings,
shoes, my hands, bag on my knee, my family with me, pale skin
stretched papery, looking out. Bright, bright glittery November
day. Everything looking so sparkly and beautiful. More beautiful
even than usual. And faces of passers by seeming distorted,
peering in like gargoyles, staring at us in our grief.
We didn’t know what to say, didn’t know what
to do, suddenly like flotsam, blown out of the water, adrift.
Cutting off
It took me so long to recover from this! About fifteen years.
I was only ready to start looking at what happened about ten
years after, when I was thirty. And it took at least five
years more to heal. For a long time my relationships were
proxy in part for trying to heal my father, until I eventually
became conscious of that and started consciously working on
healing it in other ways.
My poor Mum, feeling so much blame. He killed himself, which
is awful – leaves a feeling of shame, also that somehow
we should have ‘done something’ to prevent it.
Us all feeling responsible, and helpless, not knowing what
to do at all.
So we did what most people do when something is painful –
cut off. Find a distraction (work, relationships, hobbies)
or a numbing remedy (alcohol, food, smoking) or just bury
the memory, the feelings, everything. Only trouble is, when
we cut off, we bury a lot of good things too. Somehow a lot
of live wood gets buried as well and we lose a lot of energy,
vitality, life.
Now that I have ‘experience’ of grief –
it has happened to me enough times – I am strangely
much better equipped to handle it. The best way seems to be
to simply ‘feel your way through it’. Try not
to cut off from the feelings, simply accept, allow, and express
them. It takes far much more energy to hide your tears than
it does to simply cry them. Let it out. Feelings, I have learned,
once expressed, dissipate as if by magic. So take courage,
feel, express, feel, express, and gradually one starts feeling
better, gaining new perspective, healing, coming through it.
Instead of cutting off, try to honour the process. It is a
truly valuable one.
Feeling alive
Grief always implies loss – a relationship breaks up,
someone we loved has left or died, a valued job is lost, any
change in life or location (even a positive one) – something
we valued has gone forever, and with it, we feel we have lost
a part of ourselves too. It hurts! We feel the pain of separation,
which is the pain of being alive. And it’s also a reminder
of just how fragile and special life is, and how precious
our loved ones are.
I’m moved to write about grief because something awful
just happened – we lost our unborn baby at six weeks.
Traumatic and shocking and some scenes played that I never
thought I’d experience. My husband taking our tiny unborn
child to the burial ground with his father in the middle of
the night. I can’t describe how terrible it was. We
cried, we looked at the beautiful orchids in the garden, cried
a bit more. Felt wretched, stayed quiet at home. Then eventually
picked ourselves up and started carrying on with our life.
It still hurts but it’s getting better. It’s perfectly
acceptable to use distraction (preferably by doing something
that you love, not getting drunk) when the pain becomes unbearable
as long as one remembers to go back to feeling feelings again
in between.
Though, it all adds to my experience. Not exactly wanted,
not pleasant, yet it adds to me somehow. I discovered how
common this is (happens to as many as five women in six, possibly
even more as it’s not always noticed if it happens early).
And I discovered a lot about the process of conception, growth,
creation. From my experience, I believe miscarriage has many
causes, mostly mental, karmic, and also physical. I think
it most often happens simply because the woman is not ready
at that time. I know I have a project that I really want to
do and it felt difficult to do that and grow a baby too. And
the journey of a soul into the woman’s body is quite
a journey. I find I can converse with the soul of the baby
when I’m pregnant and this was certainly a troubled
one. Somehow the connection between us didn’t work and
then it all came out. Oh God. My friend Jacqueline sent me
a weblink of a woman’s experience of miscarriage which
really helped – as it is such a common thing, here it
is, may help you: http://www.positivehealth.com/permit/Articles/Womens%20Health/nonde54.htm
Also it gives new compassion – every time we suffer
a loss we gain a new facet on compassion, which is certainly
a good thing. This article is part of my healing - I suppose,
another way of expressing my grief. I put off writing it,
didn’t want to, though the topic seemed right. Reluctant
to feel it all again, crying as I write. Ah me. If only...
The other thing which always helps, is art. Expressing our
feelings through writing, painting, clay, sewing, whatever,
is a wonderful healer, and reallly, what art is for. So here’s
a poem.
Under a skinny moon / you slid from me
tiny pocket of promise / holding a tiny bean.
A dream of a new life / New child for us, not to be
floating away so still, so silent / Your tiny translucent
balloon / Floating, floating, back to the moon
Carrying you back in the car from the hospital / So tiny
so silent
Forging a journey I never thought I’d make / Back home
to your sister Say goodbye / Come again soon.
The Balinese expression ‘ruwa bneda’ means something
like ‘light and dark’ – impossible to have
joy without sorrow, rich without poor, beauty without ugliness...
Somehow the orchids in the garden, and expecially our first
child, Cahya, seem impossibly sparkly and bright and beautiful.
Don’t forget to treasure what you have, will you?
NEXT ISSUE: Swords at the ready – for ‘Cutting
Through. Standing up for yourself safely – confrontation
without conflagration.’
Jeli Lala created the ‘Ashram of Spiritual Jewellery
and Art’ at no. 1, Sukma St., Tebesaya, Ubud, with her
husband, Putu S. She has studied yoga and many other spiritual
practices for more than ten years. She writes “As a
life-long artist, I’ve been exploring my inner world
since I was a child. In this column, I will share some of
my personal experiences and spiritual methods – hopefully,
you’ll find this interesting, and maybe it will give
some ideas for your own journey”.
Jeli welcomes comments and may be contacted on:
Email: jelila@jelila.com
Website: www.jelila.com or www.imagine-retreats.com
