Life and Death, Interruptions, Presumptions, and Always Hope

by Robert Wilkinson

If you’ve visited this site for over a year, then you know my Soul experience changed forever on January 9, 1988. In the span of 12 hours I had to say goodbye to the life I had known while sliding into hell. It was breathtaking in its intensity and speed, but then life has a way of interrupting our expectations and assumptions, throwing us down unknown pathways where we confront the mystery of why our lives have changed, irrevocably, for the rest of our days. Today we complete the zone which began for me at the Day of the Dead.

Today would have been her 35th birthday. While the experience of her life and death is now a distant memory, as is the blinding grief which changed me forever after seven years in hell, some of what I learned has never left me. While there were countless realizations which have taken my life in directions I never imagined before her coming and going, there are some things which became so clear that it changed my world view forever.

One of those which radically affected me was the realization that we live lives of expectations and assumptions that certain things are or will be a certain way if we just do our part. Then life happens, and our assumptions are interrupted by forces beyond our control. Things pass away as the times change, with new needs, new things to learn, and new work to do, whether we want to learn or do those things or not.

We presume a lot. We hope a lot, we assume a lot, we pray for a lot, we affirm a lot, and we are forever walking into the unknown. During the strange void in space and time around her death, it was a surreal dream, where all my prayers and assumptions became distant ideas which didn’t seem real at all.

Trying to have a child is like no other experience. We have faith in the physical assumptions. We have faith in the medical assumptions. We have faith in the nutritional assumptions. We have faith in the natural biological process which seems to work just fine, given the 8 billion Beings currently alive.

And yet, despite all our assumptions, there are millions of miscarriages, millions of stillbirths, and millions of infant deaths every year. Beyond these, there are millions more who die from all kinds of causes. Given that everyone who dies is someone’s child, every single parent, every single one of us, is left in the aftermath of a devastation beyond description.

I had no guide when I spent my time in the underworld. My life, my mind, my feelings were chaotic, and I had no idea how to deal with the chaos. Words were meaningless and empty. Nothing seemed worth the effort. How to deal with dealing with others? Dealing with self? How to live with the never ending agony of the nightmare?

That nightmare of losing loved ones is happening everywhere as you read this. It’s why there’s so much despair in the atmosphere. Death is all around us, and if you feel at all, you feel what humans are feeling around the world, even if you don’t know how you are feeling what you are feeling. Death interrupts a lot of presumptions about how things are expected to be. Much that we take for granted is seen in a far different light when death preempts the playing field.

After all these years, I have come to see that life on Earth is short, unfair, and sometimes challenging in ways which test us to the limit of our endurance, courage, persistence, and willingness to walk on rather than sit on a floor numb to the world. And yet, we still have the power to love, regardless of the devastation of our lives.

Life on Earth is about persistence. Perseverance. Hope. Necessity. Life is about learning to say hello, as well as goodbye. Goodbye to people. Goodbye to our self-image. Goodbye to the hopes and dreams of childhood. Goodbye to everything we’ve ever assumed. Each of these changes gives us something to grieve. The problem is that we are not taught how to grieve in a healthy way.

Grief is natural. Grief is organic. Nature’s changes are universal, and all living things die at some point. The grief we feel at what passes from our lives is normal, and reveals the love we had for that person, place, or thing. However, healthy grief involves more than just feeling badly; it means being willing to do whatever it takes to get to the next minute, hour or day, fully feeling the pain while breaking the link between pain and suffering. Life is painful, but we do not need to suffer.

Here I’ll offer that because I chose to make this journey with an open heart, each day of my healing process opened new levels of compassion for myself, for others, and for the entire world. As I released my pain I created the space to feel peace and the love which persists beyond the pain. This let me know over time that if I simply persisted in loving the best I was able, forgiving the best I was able, being as compassionate as I was able, I was left with a very strong instinct to love, to forgive, and to be compassionate.

In Love Dad: Healing the Grief of Losing A Stillborn, I titled one of the chapters “Whatever it Takes.” What follows is a small piece from that chapter:

There is much I now realize I have no control over and never will. I can accept life’s contradictions and frustrations with more love and acceptance than before, and can give others and myself strokes of encouragement more easily. I believe that we all need to be praised for how well we are doing despite our various tragedies. I have learned to honor myself and others for whatever healing we have accomplished.

Living in the present has made my life more fulfilling. When good things occur, I feel and enjoy them much more than I ever did in the past….

It has been said there are really only two pivotal events in a human life: birth and death. These are basic facts of existence, and matter deeply to each of us in a primal way. Everything else in between is transitory. As we learn to honor birth and death, we learn to honor children, elders, and everyone in between, including ourselves and our higher potential.

Whether relatives or strangers, “enemies” or friends, not-yet-born or any age whatsoever, all deaths are the sacred passage of a Soul from this world and should be honored as such. We usually acknowledge and often honor those who live to an advanced age; we do not as often acknowledge those who die in pregnancy or infancy. The dead must be honored somehow, in a meaningful way. They are not honored by being ignored.

Every human interaction is a sacred ritual and we should attempt to honor it as such. This is especially true for every committed loving relationship, whether parent to child, parent to parent, or friend to friend. Every moment is sacred in how it reveals the potential to love. Inner and outer love. Love beyond conditions. Every moment calls us to our greatest good, which is love. Love can express itself in many ways, from actions to qualities of wisdom or intelligence. Your ability to allow love to express itself in its many forms is tested by any loss.

Sometimes I still wonder what the road not traveled would have been like. This is common to every parent I’ve met who was bereaved at one point. We wonder about what could have been, would have been, might have been, but never was. And we know the transitoriness of life in ways most never consider.

* * * * * * * * *

My book, Love Dad: Healing the Grief of Losing A Stillborn, details my journey from life to death and back to life. Last year I published a second edition with additions. In it I share my experience of what I went through in healing the worst pain of my lifetime. It is a “grief manual” for anyone dealing with the loss of their child, and a record of what I experienced, what I learned, and how I healed.

Here’s a piece from the introduction of the second edition which is not in the first edition:

It takes courage to grieve the loss of our loved one in healthy ways, because we must keep our hearts open while not knowing when it will end. In our courage to face our fear, our anger, and our desire to avoid feeling the pain, we purify our hearts and minds, and become stronger human beings.

After thirty four years walking this path, I know we each have to get through the night as best we can. I also know that as we heal our pain, at some point we no longer suffer because we come to realize our pain is the pain of countless others and part of the human experience. As we learn to break the link between pain and suffering in ourselves, we demonstrate the redemptive healing power of Love.

As we persist in love, we become stronger in Love. As we become stronger in our Love, we become the Love we seek, and are able to offer that Love to others we meet. We are the Loving, Wise Understanding they seek in their grief, and are living witnesses to the power of Love to heal all wounds over time.

I have found a constant joy in the dimensions of growth my daughter opened for me. Though she left this world over three decades ago, she opened me to a never-ending sense of her eternal presence, and I am certainly a more loving and compassionate man than I ever was before she came and left so quickly so long ago. I can certainly affirm I was blessed beyond description for the experience.

I will close with something I have offered others who know the sting of losing a loved one and struggle with their grief:

May all of you who have lost a loved one find comfort and healing in the courage, compassion, and unconditional love you were offered from that death. Death is a fact of life. And love is stronger than death

Thank you, Blyth. You've changed my life and countless other lives forever. Thank you for making me a better man. Love, Dad.

****************************************

If you want to order a paperback copy of Love Dad, please go to the Amazon page Love, Dad - Healing the Grief of Losing A Stillborn. (Just make sure the subtitle says “stillborn” rather than “child,” since this second edition clarifies this work was written as a result of a full term birth loss and updates all the global numbers related to pregnancy and infant loss. There’s also an ebook if you’d prefer.)

Though it was written as a result of the death of a stillborn child, what is explored in the work are ways to move through grieving any loss of any loved one, whether child, parent, sibling, pet, friend, or any other. It can also help you understand what the bereaved are going through, and perhaps help you to be a more compassionate caregiver, if that's your privilege.

If you want to explore more about the grieving and healing process, please visit my previous articles. Each one covers different elements and approaches to healing our grief. These articles cover different things than are offered in the book, while elaborating on some of the core concepts and related issues. And of course, give yourself some space and time, since they will bring up some very deep feelings.

From 2006: Love, Dad - Bereavement, Grief, and Healing After A Significant Death

From 2007: Coping With Loss and the Grief That Honors A Love

From 2008: For Those Who Grieve the Loss of A Child

From 2009: Death, Loss, Grief and Bereavement - Honoring the Sacred Moment

From 2010: To Those Who Grieve the Death of A Loved One

From 2011: Death is A Fact of Life, And Love is Stronger Than Death

From 2012: Letting Go Of Emotional Heaviness

From 2013: Losing Loved Ones – Grief in the 21st Century

From 2014: Overcoming Fear of Death

From 2015: Healthy Grief Leads To A Healthy Life

From 2016: Remembering Blyth and the Road Not Traveled

From 2017: The Reality of Death, the Reality of Life, the Reality of Love