Grief. It’s a horrid bedfellow. Following you around, sitting where you sit, interrupting happy moments-tapping you on the shoulder to remind you it’s still around and must be acknowledged like a needy stray dog. I’d rather have the needy stray dog. It tries to rob you of your peace and any tranquil moment is almost instantly filled with it’s stench-if you allow it. If you give it breath. And you do. You have to. It’s here to stay. Day in and day out. Offering nothing it seems. Or is that true? What if it DOES offer something and you just can’t see it because Grief is so big and so consuming that it’s all you know for awhile.
Evan said “Jamie, you are going to have a great loss. You’ll be in a dark dark tunnel for awhile-and no one can walk through it with you. But I will be right beside you the whole way.” He said that to me. Just a few short months ago as we were picking out a salt lamp at Black Market Minerals in Old Town (Kissimmee, FL) for Brenna’s birthday. It’s crystalized in my mind because it was the last time he said it. He’d said it several times before-beginning in August 2013 just a few weeks after Talia had passed away.
I had asked Evan how does someone deal with that kind of grief? Losing a child. Or a spouse or in his case his Mother at a young age. How? “How do you get up the next day Evan? How do you function and not curl into a little ball and cease to be? I couldn’t do it. I just know I couldn’t do it. It’s my greatest fear.”
It was then that he said it for the first time and I felt a chill with his words over the phone. Loss? Huge loss? Crushing loss? Who? Who was I going to lose. Evan was a gifted psychic. I believed him. And I said, “As long as it isn’t you. I can get through almost anything. Just not you.”
“I can’t promise that baby.” Ugh. But I still didn’t let that thought become something I acknowledged or believed in. It lurked at the edge of my mind many times as I lay in the dark falling asleep or lay on his chest listening to his heart beat. Who was it going to be? I don’t think I was afraid really. Just a little cautious.
It was mid February when we sat on the couch and he said, “Hey. If anything ever happened to me would you make sure to….” And the list was given. Details. What was to go to whom, who to love, all of it. And I think that was the first time I began to realize that maybe he was preparing me. But even then I refused to believe it.
Over that same 8 month period, Evan also told me that he felt he wasn’t going to be here very long-that he kept feeling like he was supposed to be on the Other Side. When I asked him why he answered that we had work to do to help the world and part of it couldn’t be accomplished with him here. He had to be there. Evan and I threw a LOT of cool theories around in those months. So this just seemed like another one to me. Sure, if I’d had the guts to add it all up I would have known what he so obviously felt in his sub-conscious…or maybe in in his conscious mind. I’ll never know. But what I DO know is that on March 2, 2014 at 3:33pm Evan Whitney Moore left his earthly body and my world changed forever. Crashing down like a house of glass. No. It wasn’t a house of glass. Maybe it felt like it at first but then something began to happen.
I’ll have a hard time putting this feeling into words but I’m going to try. It’s not anything I’ve felt before. And as hard to describe as the color blue to a blind man. But I’m going to try.
See, with Evan’s passing the pain was intense. Fire. A hot poker searing my soul. I couldn’t run from it, escape it or turn it off. Day in and day out those first few weeks it was just a blur of emotional and even physical pain. But inside me. Deep deep inside me there was a new feeling. A new emotion I hadn’t ever felt before. And the only word in human language I feel begins to describe it is a sweetness. A tiny flicker that began a few days after he passed. And over the last 7 weeks it’s grown a teeny bit each day-like my amazing Bonsai tree that Evan’s brother and his wife bought me. So slowly I didn’t even notice it overly until this week.
What is it? Well, I think when you deal with the grief. And you are letting it hang out with you-accepting it’s horrid manners and letting it change you, the feeling I’m getting comes because it’s the byproduct of LOVE. Sheer unadulterated LOVE. And instead of shrinking and disappearing it’s getting bigger and brighter!
I was in love with Evan’s soul from the second we met and he with mine. Soul mates. None of the boy/girl stuff mattered with us. This was on a whole new level and it shows in our photos. And if you were around us you felt it. That love has changed now. Deepened. The man I was in love with is now pure energy. A gorgeous Soul that is my constant companion. He is infinite & wise, not in pain and my greatest supporter! I know this. Even when Grief pushes in the door and attacks me-he’s there. Loving me and supporting me. I can feel him. And the love I feel is so big it transcends human thinking and becomes Divine. And more than ever in my life I KNOW my path. I know why I’m here. For all of you. I accept that and I’m honored to be this vessel. Evan is with me now in a way he could never have been in human form. Always there and always a part of our work-still and ongoing. I know it’s just at the beginning of our work. It’s what my tattoo (I got it 4 days after he passed) means:
THAT is what you are seeing in my recent pictures-on my face. It’s Divine love shining through and coming to you-reaching out and loving you. It’s Evan and me and God….Source The Boys…Angels…whatever you want to call it. It’s there and it’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever felt.
Sure…Grief is a dickhead. And my new friend. And Evan is still my best friend and my butthead. He’s different now. He doesn’t eat the last piece of chocolate before I can grab it or fart into the fan just to piss me off or make me watch stupid Evan TV. Nope. These days I get the chocolate, I don’t have a fan and I watch my shows (ok I’ll admit I still watch some of his shows too-just so I can talk to him.)
And day by day I’m learning to live without his physical body. Without texts and his amazing hugs, without his Jersey boy attitude propelling me forward. Evan always loved me unconditionally and that hasn’t changed. It has taught me to love the people in my life that way. I’m grateful that I met him that day on Plenty Of Fish. I’m grateful I gave him my number and I’m grateful for just a moment we shared space on this rock. I can’t say I’m yet grateful for grief-but I’m learning to understand it-to allow it and I know that it’s here for a very important reason. One day Evan and I will hang out again in the same form. Until then, I’m accepting what is. I’m allowing all that is and I am willing to keep walking this path until it’s my turn. I’m not afraid of anything anymore. I’m allowing Grief to change me.
So bring it on. This is just the beginning… #EWM333
Jamie
You must be logged in to post a comment.