A creative friend has started a class on grief journalling. When she said she wanted to start this in honor of her daughter and to help others channel their grief, I was totally on board. Sign me up! I had no idea what to expect and, now halfway through the course, I must say that it has been therapeutic. It is a small group of women, some who have lost a child, others a husband, a parent, or a special relative. A mosaic of pain and understanding. A safe circle where we are encouraged to share stories and celebrate the lives of those we lost.
One of our recent assignments was to write a “I Wish” letter to our loved one. When I told my daughter she gasped, saying that ask would send her over the edge. I sat to write out my letter and found that she was quite right. This exercise brought up all the what if’s and the if only and brought me to tears many times before I could finally complete it.
Dear Zane,
I wish I could have given you more. I wish you had taken a semester off to travel to Spain to enrich your love of the language as you had wanted to do. I wish we travelled to Montana, Vancouver, and Ireland. Those were always ‘one year’ plans we shared.
I wish I had taken a photo walk with you and spent more time learning about the camera we bought you, your prized possession. I wish you could have enjoyed the birthday gift I planned for you, shooting the cave and basins in Banff with a professional photographer guide! I wish you could have published one of your short stories or sold your photos. I wish the world could have seen the artistic side of you.
I wish you could be at your sister’s wedding, and I wish that a wedding would have been part of your plan. I wish you could be at the wedding of your friends who hold this same wish. You were to be the best man for many of them.
I wish you could have enjoyed your own home. A place that held your energy and that you found comfort in after a long day. We had such ideas of where this place would be, along the river, close to the night life you adored.
I wish that your soul plan had been different for you. And yet, I am learning that there is a reason for everything, including me having to live without you on earth. More than ever, I wish I could somehow be here, and you there and still be able to hold you.
I noticed as I wrote my letter that I was wishing for things for me; spending more time with him seemed to be an underlying theme. The letter was to be about what you wish they obtained or experienced before they departed, a written collection of what they missed out on. Writing what I wished for Zane, the answer to what he and all of us missed out on was simple. A lifetime of new memories. I wish for a lifetime of new memories we will never get.
Hello Janica –
I am not sure if you will see this reply….or even if I am doing this correctly. I never answered anyone before on a blog. (But I do not know your email address.) So, hope this message gets to you.
Pierre and I think of you and John often. Thank you so much for your New Year’s letter (The Best is yet to come) and pictures. Thank you for sending your blog. While reading it, I am with you in spirit. No one can truly understand someone’s grief. It is so personal and different for everyone. All I know is….never suppress any of your natural feelings as you go through this. I have found that there is such a deep cut into your soul when you lose someone. In time, a scab forms like a temporary healing but the sore is still beneath it, and it does not take much for it to break open.
I must say, it was funny though that after reading about Zane, my beliefs are the same as his. I do believe we are all energy. I do not believe we die but just move on from this level by going through another door. We are all spirits having a human experience. In my past I have had experiences of two of my best friends who are no longer here speak to me through dreams. It had also happened to me when my Mum and Dad passed on. Anyway, must go now. I will give you my email address. corinne2@eastlink.ca if you wish to touch base. Bye for now. Corinne (Corrie)
Hello Corinne, thank you for your kind words. I will save your email and keep connected to you!
So we’ll said – as usual! It brought me to tears. And now I want to re-write my I Wish letter. Hugs! And thanks for supporting my class