A dear friend passed away this week. I’m devastated, reflective and humbled, all at the same time. Her illness was unexpected, her decline precipitous, and her death sudden. Given the gift of sharing my love for her over the phone by her family and friends, I said goodbye. And then I was just there, standing in the kitchen with my grief.

One of my friend’s favorite sayings was “good grief!” which she often exclaimed when I shared something she found dismaying or alarming. Given the adventures I’ve lived and shared, she said it more frequently than perhaps she or I would have liked! The term always felt somehow quaint and old fashioned, and was classically her.

Curious about its origins and meaning, I looked up the definition–”used to express surprise or annoyance” (Merriam Webster)–and then came across this organization–goodgrief.org, which is “a free informational resource to assist individuals and families in finding the wellsprings of renewal in the grieving process.”

This post was born because of both: the memory of her words and the resource that found me because of them. I dedicate this to my dear friend, Robin, who loved my writing and joked that she read my posts in search of punctuation errors, which she claimed she never found. May she be reading this now and find one or two. In my grieving has come that glimpse of renewal (and a brief smile as I write this).

In reflecting on her death, I came to the realization just how much I would miss her, the uniqueness of her. We had worked together for just one year, eight years ago, and had become “fast friends.” After I left the organization, we stayed close, saw each other a few times a year, and due to our schedules, filled the gaps with long, deep telephone conversations, a rarity in this day and age.

I could share anything with her because of the love and trust we had for one another. My increasingly unconventional life was an unending source of amusement and fascination for her, and while she may not have always understood or agreed with it, she accepted me and it unconditionally; and I her with her ordered closets, martini dinners, and wicked sense of humor. We made each other laugh and we cried together too. She even indulged me by allowing me to share a private cacao ceremony with her, which she, rather surprisingly to us both, loved.

To allow myself to feel fully and grieve, I found myself at the beach, where I often go to release my pain. There, I built a tiny altar of stones and shells in honor of her. As the tide rose, I wept, said goodbye and watched the waves envelop and wash away the altar. I kept one shell, a perfect spiral of a shell, as a beautiful memory of the ritual and of her. I have been carrying it (and her) in my pocket everywhere I go and it gives me such solace. I know she is with me always.

In reflecting on my grief, I came across this wonderful passage, which so eloquently expresses my experience of loss and healing:

“[W]e don’t get past the pain. We must go through it. We can’t go around it or over it or under it either. The path to healing through loss, which means the path to wholeness, requires that we incorporate our pain. To incorporate means to literally take the pain into our body (corps). We get to that place where joy and grief can live together by becoming whole. The process of healing, whether from a physical illness or from a catastrophic life disturbance is a transformational journey. We are changed in the process. The goal is not to be the ‘way we were’ once again, the goal is to be more than we were before, to include more of life. Ultimately the goal is to include loss in our love and trust of life.” – goodgrief.org

Good grief, Robin, I will miss you so, my darling friend! You will always and forever have a special place in my heart and soul. You are my soul sister.

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