We are not human beings on a spiritual journey but spiritual beings on a human journey — mortal in body and mind but not in spirit — inhabiting these vehicles as a tool of ascension, up to that point that we have either completed the current work or our bodies no longer have the capacity to carry us.

And just like we cannot get over anything (transcend) but have to rather get through (ascend), so too do we have to travel the passage of grief.But we are not taught to grieve well. We are instead taught to be polite with our mourning, to be strong, to remember the happy times … whilst that energy that moves through us at the time of loss finds all the spaces and places it can crack wide open, ripping into us until we want to wail and weep and howl and rage.

I am no stranger to loss and grief but a novice at losing a parent. Although inevitable — although even anticipated — it is like the connection of one’s spirit to the spirit of the one that’s leaving has to perforate and separate in order to allow their full departure.

Death pays no heed to manners and the force of grief needs to be freed to move … and shake … and break one’s heart … so wide open that it is impossible not to learn that loss is simply an invitation to love more.