by Dana Taylor

Several weeks ago, Spirit nudged me to create a meditation for people dealing with grief. At the time, I wondered if it was a portent for things to come. Of course, grief is part of the human experience. Loving deeply delivers greatest joy, but also greatest loss when a loved one dies. At this point in life, I am no stranger to grief. I’ve walked the path of the “Valley of the Shadow of Death,” as described in Psalm 23, most memorably when my mother died, and later, my husband. Both greatly loved, both greatly missed.

For me, grief is something to acknowledge and experience. It’s a time to slow down and allow feeling to bubble up and flow out, sometimes in tears, sometimes in closet cleaning or long, long walks. The relationship mourned is not really over, but transformed. With my mother, I ultimately came to feel how much of her lives on in me–my style, my voice pattern, my love for music and family, my ready smile. Gratitude replaced grief.

Grief for my husband took a different route, as it seems we maintain a relationship of sorts as he has simply gone from physical to non-physical. We aren’t in a day-to-day marriage any longer. No more, “what do you want to eat? What should we do tonight?” But rather, he is still around when I really need him, but most of the time now, we’re leading our post-marriage lives. Me, still on planet earth, he in another dimension. But when I am in a crisis, he makes his presence known, usually through music or the sudden appearance of coins.

Two weeks ago, grief came calling to my family as my older daughter, Sara lost her father-in-law, Gary. He’d gone into sudden decline, entered the hospital to hopefully get stronger, but instead, passed away. I’d been following the unfolding drama through long-distance communications with Sara. The afternoon Gary was breathing his last breaths, I found a shiny penny sitting on top of my car. How strange, I thought. How did that get there?

A couple hours later, I received the message that Gary had passed. Though not surprised, I still felt the reverberating shock wave of emotion of the family gathered around his bed. Gary had been a strong, much beloved center of his family. Greatly loved, now to be greatly missed.

When I returned to my car, a bright shiny dime sat in the passenger’s seat. The penny, the dime. Now I got it. My husband makes his presence known when I need him….Truly, love never dies.

The Relief from Grief Meditation is my humble offering for those dealing with the pangs of loss. Hopefully, those who listen will feel their spirits lifted and find their way ever so steadily to joy and appreciation for the love they have known.

The Relief from Grief Meditation is also available on my YouTube Channel and Healing Meditations page.

Bright blessings, Dana