The holidays are fast approaching and many of us will face them without the ones we love, be it spouses, parents, siblings, our children, our grandchildren, or our best friends. I remember the first time I lost someone very close to me, and the very difficult challenge of living daily without them. I felt and still feel with some of the losses, that I relive the pain of their leaving everyday.
There are so many who have faced greater loss than I have, and it almost makes me feel guilty to share mine, but to not share is to turn away from my heart, and I have never been one to be able to do that. I am a believer of a heart directed life, knowing that it is truly the center of all things.
Love is the most powerful force on earth and is a living thing born of our hearts and has no end. Love is a continuum and never ever dies, not real love, not true love, it just keeps going and going and going. Anything less would not be authentic. How we meet it, how we care for it, matters greatly.
I have loved big and much in my life, and I have lived through losing the object of my love many times, and not once has the love ceased to continue, and I think therein lies the struggle. Where do we put all the love we have when what we love is gone from our lives?
I know for me shutting it down does not work, as I would have to close off pieces of my heart for that to happen, and my current stance on life and our ability to not just survive it, but to thrive in it, is to live with our hearts wide open.
Love is associated with the element air, and when we love, and when we are in love, we feel like we are walking on air, it is a state of nirvana, pure bliss. Nothing on earth feels as good as love does. When we lose the object of our love, we struggle with where to put all the love. Sometimes we try to drink it away, eat it away, smoke it away, run it away, work it away, but the results are poor.
For those who have lost their loved ones to death, it feels so final, so helpless. Those who lose their loved ones to another or to other circumstances have a different battle. They live with the inability to share their love with that person knowing that that person is still here, and they are held in a different kind of struggle.
I have watched people and myself try to place that love into projects, to keep that love alive in some way. And I think it helps place our energy in a better place, but the void remains, a big gaping hole in our heart where they use to exist.
I understand that love never dies, and I don’t have an answer to my question, but I do have a strong belief in the existence of a higher power who is the great and grand orchestrator of life. I also know that my acceptance of what is, is crucial to living more fully and peacefully, regardless of my sometimes failing attempts.
I send prayers of light and love to all who are facing life without their loved ones. May we reach out to one another with all the accumulated love that we have been holding onto and try to heal the wounds that be.
Copyright 2017 Melody White. All Rights Reserved.
Learning to Live with Your Heart Wide Open 
You are such a beautiful person inside and out. Something that I have learned in the loss of my son is that where there is great love there is great grief . Grief is the price that we pay when we love so deeply . Even though loss hurts so badly i would not want to trade that For the immense love I feel every day for my son Jeremy
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Dear Kelly, thank you so much for your very kind words and for sharing your feelings with me, I so appreciate them both and you. I agree with you that great love leaves great grief when the one you love is gone from your life, and like you I wouldn’t trade having experienced that love just to end the pain. I am working on living with it daily and counting my many blessings when I feel myself going down the rabbit hole of grief. Gratitude seems to be helping, but there are days I fall short of the mark and I struggle not to run away from the pain. I am hopeful that time does heal all wounds or at the very least allows one to sit with the pain with less resistance to what is. I am grateful for the example you are to me and many about getting through it, and keeping your heart wide open in the process. Much love and light my dear beautiful friend.
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It takes a lot of courage, strength, and boldness to go through the grief as you are doing. I admire that. A character in the movie “Christy” tells her former husband, “Every person you lost took a piece out of you. I was always afraid there wouldn’t be any left for me.” One day when I was especially sad, naming all the people I have lost, I thought of that quote and wondered if there was anything left in my heart. Then I had a turnaround in my thoughts and realized a better way to think of those people who are no longer with me. They all enriched my life and placed a piece of themselves within my heart where they will always be. Love remains.
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My Dear Beautiful Friend, thank you for your love and support, your enlightened perspective and your ability to turn all things to good. You are a tremendous blessing to so many of us, and I seek to walk the trek to the car with gratefulness and counted blessings as you so wonderfully shared in training. Love and Light always.
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