First and foremost, thank you for sharing your journey with me and allowing me to honor your grief alongside you. In doing so, I have been able to honor mine as well, and that is something I hold with immense gratitude.

The Bloom Letter is a collective of grief healing. Our journeys and our innate need to feel wholeness after something so precious is stripped away from us. This letter is my perception, my experience, and my collective contribution. The following letters will be from others, their stories, their perspectives, and their contributions. Please feel free to subscribe below - it’s a healing collective.

As I enter the year anniversary of the loss of my Mother, I find myself in deep reflection as the mark inches closer. Partially for preparation, but mostly I go over the events that unfolded this last year. I pay attention to where my mind shifts, where those shifts resonate in my body, and I search for my truth based on what I feel and what I’ve learned vs. the mind chatter that attempts to pull me towards a self-imposed idea of where I “should” be.

I’m surely not alone here, but once I was able to (somewhat) plant my feet on the ground, after the initial shock of the loss of my Mother settled, it was grief everywhere. My mind. My interactions. My algorithm. My music. My day-to-day existence. Everything. Grief. Darkness. Pain. Dreary. Blah. Gulp.

I’m a naturally (and overly at times) “rose-colored glasses” kind of soul. Dark humor, my go to in discomfort. Laughing through the pain, why not? Saying, “I’m fine…”, a badge of honor… or so I thought. But that wasn’t sufficient enough in this chapter. I was drowning. Quite literally unable to breathe at times, flailing throughout my day-to-day existence, grasping for anything to pull me out of the depth of discomfort, the numbing cold. Do you know why people usually drown? Because they fight in panic, wasting precious energy and oxygen that forces the body deeper into water. So I quit. I quit fighting. I became buoyant, which felt to me like an act of defeat, but in retrospect, changed the trajectory of my journey through grief and became an essential anchor for the state of my well-being. My Motherhood. My recovery. My mind. Myself.

I asserted boundaries, *deep breath* (an ongoing personal struggle), and no doubt the title of my life memoir. I quit apologizing. I quit taking on the task of gauging other’s emotions towards my experience, hoping I wasn’t making them too uncomfortable. I released any and all expectations of myself, my ability to shift, and my capacity to “normally” function. I quit googling grief, searching for some imaginary step by step guide to soften the blow. I got off of the “stages of grief” hamster wheel. I existed in my authentic space, no more “I’m fine”, more, “I’m crumbling on the inside. How are you?” I existed in grief. I respected it. I accepted it. I leaned into it. What a truly remarkable emotion on the human psyche.

Checking in with my body as I type this, I do not feel grief. I feel calm. I feel grounded. I feel free. I am buoyant. Thanksgiving… I was crying into a pie. Christmas… major Ebenezer Scrooge vibes. I didn’t fight it, I remained buoyant. Buoyancy. That is what carries me in grief. I realized grief is inevitable in life, fighting it, is a choice. I hold gratitude when the water is calm - it’s a comforting familiar back float, basking in the bright, warm glow of sunshine. When the storm comes and the water becomes dangerously choppy, I remain the same, knowing fighting only puts my peace, my well-being, and my perseverance at risk. So I hang on, letting grief pull me where it needs to until it releases its powerful grip.

The late Rabbi Earl Grollman, author and pioneer in the study of death and dying said “Grief is not a disorder, a disease, or a sign of weakness. It is an emotional, physical, and spiritual necessity - the price you pay for love. The only cure for grief is to grieve.” Reading those words, his literature, shifted my whole perspective. I was able to reframe my thoughts. I made friends with the scary monster that had been stalking me in the shadows. Grief is medicine. Grief is attachment. Grief, in its entirety, is our buoyancy through loss. Grief is something to hold gratitude for, without it, what do we have to carry in its place? Lack of love, lack of attachment, lack of the fondest memories we hold deeply in our hearts that make life worth living.

I have a memory etched so deeply of my Mother, that the feeling of being transported to that exact place in time is surreal. I remember every detail, the sounds, the temperature outside, the landmarks of our surroundings. It’s not one of grand adventure, it’s simply us driving when I was ten. I looked at her, windows down, hair amuck, Fleetwood Mac blaring, the sun beating down, reflecting off of her coral lipgloss, and she turned to me and smiled. My heart was overflowing while I admired her in her element. She was so free and beautiful, the brightest spirit I’ve ever known, even when life got complicated. I reflect on this memory often because in hindsight throughout the grueling year after her loss I realized this, I would float through a hurricane just to keep that feeling imprinted in my soul. I welcome grief now, I hold gratitude for its power in healing, what a small price to pay for what you trade it for in life. Stay buoyant, always.

With love,

Lexi