Grieving a Friend – Coming Closer While Letting Go

I experienced a number of losses the year Marianne died — three friends and a brother. I felt her death more keenly because she was among my closest friends and because I accompanied her through the final months of her dying. Our friendship became more intimate at the very time I had to letting go her.

This paradox of closeness and release continued throughout my grieving process.

Marianne’s loss was not as intense as some of my losses. I did not need to rebuild my life nor was I full of regret and remorse nor did it require years to recover. Nevertheless, it did share some commonalities.

My grief needed acknowledgement and expression. I achieved this by exploring and sharing the stories of her life and by a few of acts of boldness in her honor.

These strategies and others are described more fully in my complimentary grief guide: Essentials for Grieving Well. (Get it HERE.)

Exploring Her Story:

The story of someone’s life is not a fixed thing. It evolves and shifts over time through thought, discovery and listening to the stories of others. Eventually one hopes to arrive at a place where pain recedes and poignant recollections accompanied by gratitude are the norm.

Because Marianne was barely fifty-four when she died, my healing involved making sense of her short but passionate life. Understanding came through sorting and distributing her possessions.

Going through personal possessions of the deceased can be a vital part of grieving.

It provides tangible evidence of who a person was, what they valued and how they lived. The hardest part is the constant letting go. Each item, made precious by association, can feel like an additional loss as it is given away. Thus it is often avoided and delayed.

Marianne’s life accumulations fit into a single-room cottage and four storage lockers. After we dismantled her home, her brother and his wife were ready to put the rest in a dumpster. They were devastated, of course, and not much good for it anyway.

I could not let Marianne’s things be thrown in the garbage. She was a shopper of exquisite taste and refinement and her lockers held the accumulations of a lifetime. I was grateful for the task. Like an archeologist at a dig, I gained a more vivid picture of who she was, what she cherished and what made up her world. Again it was that odd mixture of coming closer while letting go.

Perhaps most difficult for me was her collection of photographs, three cartons full. Marianne’s photos were more than the usual snap-shots. They revealed her artistry, her sensuality, her passion and her pain. I distilled them into one highly edited photo album that provided only glimpses of the complexity that was hers.

Sharing the Story:

Creating and completing the story of one who has died is best accomplished through a communal process. People come together to share their  stories and piece together a greater picture of the whole. In that paradoxical way, one discovers more of who the person was while saying goodbye

The first Saturday after Marianne died, my husband and I held a gathering for her brother, his wife and all the friends who helped in her passing. We laughed and cried, shared food, told stories and gave away bits and pieces of her life.

Although, Marianne had said she did not want a memorial, I believe she didn’t mind.

A gathering of this sort is really more for the survivors than the deceased.

A second party occurred about two months later to distribute Marianne’s clothes. As we tried on, negotiated and selected pieces of her wardrobe, it felt almost like a ritual, something sacred. By claiming her clothing, it seemed as though we were welcoming essential parts of her being into our lives.

Even now, I feel close to her whenever I put on one of her shirts. Having her things has changed the way I dress. I find I wear clothing that is just a little wilder, a little more sexy, a little more like her.

The last distribution took place at the spiritual retreat where I first met Marianne twenty-two years before. My husband and I drove from California to New Mexico with the last of her worldly things and a small bag of her ashes. As people came to my cabin to select some memento of her life — a piece of clothing, a bauble of jewelry — they told the story of her acquaintance, how they met and how she changed them. I became aware, in the process, of my possessiveness.

In grief, I had started to think of Marianne as mine. I was the keeper of her death!

But that was simply ego. I could see now that she belonged to all of us . . . and also to none.

Bold Action

Doing something special to honor the memory of the deceased is a powerful way of healing. It can pull a person out of painful preoccupations with what is lost and into action. The more the action pushes against the edges of comfort, the better.

In the face of death, one needs to do something bold — something that acknowledges the hugeness.

Shortly after Marianne died, I sang  Al Fatihah — a Sufi chant for opening, the first chant in the Arabic prayer. I felt self-conscious doing this because we were in a residential hospice and her conservative brother and sister-in-law were looking on. I was uncertain what they thought of Marianne’s Sufi practice or me. But when I remembered what Marianne had gone through — her pain, her vulnerability and her death, it was easy to find the courage.

My second bold move was to invite a group of friends to join me in spreading her ashes at the Sufi retreat. I am not sure our spiritual teacher approved. He certainly did not attend. Possibly he thought this sentimental display was a distraction from our spiritual work, a yielding to emotionality and ego. Although, I care what he thinks and value his approval, my commitment to Marianne was greater.

The Sufis were a significant part of her life. We were her other family and I needed to honor that.

In a field of sunflowers, as the sky turned red and the sun dipped toward the western mountains, we gathered to say our good byes, spread her ashes, and release her spirit to the wind.

Marianne is with me now. She is part of my life story. She lives on in the lines of this blog and the workshops I lead on grief. She is still impacting people. Although my grieving is over, Marianne continues.

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include this complete blurb with it: Grief Transformation Coach Michelle Peticolas, Ph.D. helps people transform their grief with a holistic approach to mind, body and spirit that heals trauma, reframes past attachments and releases limiting beliefs while uncovering a true life purpose and direction. If you’re ready to shift into a whole new way of being with death and loss, a new way of living your life, get Michelle’s complimentary guide, Essentials for Grieving Well at www.secretsoflifeanddeath.com