The Vast Ocean of Grief Revealed

On October 26, 2001, I unexpectedly lost my mom to a brain aneurysm. She was 44 years old, and in otherwise good health. She was beautiful and creative, quiet and sensitive, compassionate and selfless. She was a mother, a sister, a daughter, a friend. She was the kind of mom who would listen and support you unconditionally.

Some people say you can't be a parent and a friend, but she was always both to me. Even after all these years, after all the reading novels and writing poetry, after studying language and literature, after getting a degree in English, I still can't formulate sentences that come close to articulating the severity and depth of pain that washed over me with her passing.

She was in the hospital, unconscious, for 8 days before we decided to take her off of life support. Even though people have been dying as long as they've been living, nothing really prepares you for the heaviness of grief that suffocates you in these moments of unexpected, unexplained and down-right unfair losses.

I was just 22 years old, a young, single mother myself, in college, just trying to figure out my own existence. I didn't have time, space or energy for grieving. I didn't have the skills or maturity to make decisions about life support and organ donation and funeral plans and gravestones. I'll forever be grateful to my aunts for sorting through the details in the midst of their own grief, which I was too selfish to recognize or share at the time.

Over the years, I've woven my heart and soul in, out and around all the stages of grief. Denial comes in dreams. I sometimes dream she's alive, and that her death was a dream. As I've explored my own spiritual path, I've bargained with God, I've prayed and meditated, and begged whatever guides are present to keep me connected to her as the memories fade. The sadness and despair come in waves. Sometimes, it's a gentle splash and I get a glimpse of acceptance. Other times, it can drown me without notice when I hear a song she loved, or think I smell her perfume. Anger comes up in the form of resentment and guilt, unfinished conversations, un-hugged hugs, unspoken truths.

A Cosmic Perspective on Grief

This path of energy work that I've been called to follow has helped me finally begin to make sense of the whole grieving process. Grief is more than an emotion. It’s an energetic frequency, a vibration that moves through every cell of our being. It has texture, weight and resonance. When we lose someone, it’s not just our hearts that ache. Our entire energetic field shifts. The vibration of grief hums low and deep, calling us inward to sit with the raw truths of impermanence, suffering and love.

Grief Comes in Waves

Grief often moves slowly, heavily, like thick waves rolling through your body. Its vibration may feel heavy, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong or negative. It’s simply one part of the full spectrum of human energy, experience and emotion. It's the natural counterbalance to the high, expansive frequencies of joy and love. Grief reminds us that love and loss are inseparable frequencies. After all, this human realm is dualistic, and that's what makes it wonderful and beautiful and terrifying and painful at the same time.

In the beginning, it's like a hurricane. It's the firsts that get you. The first Christmas without her, remembering how perfectly she used to wrap presents, how specifically she arranged ornaments, and how she always made it special and memorable, even though growing up - a family of 6, we didn't have much. I think the first Mother's Day hit the hardest. I felt personally betrayed by everyone celebrating their own living mothers. I felt truly offended that such a holiday could even exist in the same world where mothers die young, without warning.

I remember reading the sympathy cards, and having complete rage over people saying, I know how you feel, or I know what you're going through. I thought no one could have possibly felt the loss I felt at the time. That feeling of separation was so indescribably real in the moment, even though I now believe we all are connected in our grief and other human emotions.

The Universal Frequency of Grief

There’s a well-known Buddhist story that captures this truth. A woman named Kisa Gotami lost her only child and was consumed by grief. Desperate to bring her baby back to life, she went to the Buddha for help. He told her he could create a medicine, but only if she could find a single mustard seed from a household that had never known death or loss.

Kisa went from door to door, but every home she visited had experienced grief of its own - a parent, a spouse, a child, a friend. Eventually, she realized that loss was universal. Grief wasn’t hers alone to carry. It was a vibration shared by all beings.

In that moment of understanding, her grief shifted. It didn’t disappear, but it transformed. It softened into compassion, a higher frequency born from the same energy that had once been pain. Everything is vibration, and grief is one of the universal frequencies connecting us all. This low hum of sorrow resonates through the collective field of humanity. It is how we remember our shared impermanence, and how we remember love.

The sadness and anger will ride the waves in and out of my life perpetually, but I've found that movement, meditation and energy work can support this shift in vibration by helping retune to harmony and balance. Just like a singing bowl resonates to bring energy into alignment, our hearts can also re-harmonize when we allow grief’s vibration to move freely.

The Alchemy of Grief

I realize that for years, I was resisting healing. When my dad passed in November of 2018, all of the unprocessed grief from my mom came swirling to the surface of what I thought were somewhat calm waters. I still don't know whose tears I cried in the moment of his passing, and maybe it doesn't matter. Although his death was expected, you still can't predict what the tide will bring in.

Maybe it comes with age. I was older. He was older - 70 versus my mom's 44. Maybe it comes with expectations. He was sick. He had advanced liver disease, which although an ugly and painful process, was different than a hidden brain aneurysm that no one knew was lurking. Expecting death doesn't make it any easier, but perhaps we start grieving sooner, dipping our toes in the shallow water rather than being pushed off a bridge.

Perhaps the severity of the storm can be manipulated with spiritual practice, whether that's prayer, meditation, movement or ritual. Because of the inner work and practice I had done on my mind, body and energy since my mom's passing, I could let the waves wash over me without pulling me under. I could resonate more in the vibration of the love I had for my father, rather than the suffering of the loss.

Being with someone at the moment their soul leaves their body is also surprisingly comforting, beautiful and healing. When we stop resisting grief and instead listen to its vibration, it becomes an alchemist. When we allow the energy of grief to move through tears, sound, stillness, breath, or ritual, it begins to vibrate differently. In witnessing that last breath transcend into stillness, the energy transforms, rising slowly toward frequencies of peace, and maybe (someday) even acceptance. The heaviness begins to reveal spaciousness. The ache reveals love. The silence reveals connection, and that connection is what we all really crave as humans.

Like most people, I'm not a stranger to loss. Although it sometimes feels like a curse, maybe it's a gift bringing me closer to the Divine. These waves of death have taken aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, friends, pets. They've rolled in as slow illnesses, and crashed into the rocky shoreline as accidents and even suicides. I'm currently trying to navigate the dark seas of sorrow in losing a long-time friend to breast cancer just 6 months ago. With each loss, I try to strengthen my connection to spirit and all that is, rather than disconnect, the way I did at 22, when my mom passed away.

In embracing our connections with the meaningful people in our lives, we can start to discover the oneness in all that is. We can begin to realize that grief is not isolation; it’s unity. Every person, every being, every soul that has ever loved has also known loss. Grief is the sound of that love echoing through the universe, asking to be felt and transformed.

In that way, grief is not a sign of something broken or removed, but of something deeply alive. It is love, changing form, a cosmic vibration that reminds us we are part of something vast, eternal and beautifully human.

Honoring the Vibration of Love and Loss

Every year in autumn, I never know how the upcoming anniversaries of my parents' deaths will impact me. As the days grow shorter, the energy of the season naturally turns inward, and I take that as a sign to have gratitude for the connection I share with everyone who has loved and lost, which at some point is everyone.

Many cultures believe this is the time when the veil between worlds grows thin, when the living and the departed can sense one another more easily. Across time and continents, humans have honored this sacred threshold through rituals of remembrance, gratitude and love. Perhaps, rather than being overpowered by the riptide of grief, we take this opportunity to celebrate the beautiful beings that have transitioned from this life.

In reflecting on the spiritual traditions of different cultures throughout history, I remember the truths of impermanence and interconnection that are relevant to all humans. Many traditions invite us to honor those who have passed. Halloween, or All Hallows' Eve, (October 31) was originally a night to acknowledge the spirts and ancestors who walk beside us unseen. This year, maybe I'll remove the everything-is-ok mask for just a moment, and allow myself to feel whatever storm clouds (or rainbows) move through me. I'll pay closer attention to the subtle signs reminding me of the presence of those I've lost.

All Saints' Day (November 1) and All Souls' Day (November 2) continue that remembrance with lighting candles and saying prayers, allowing us to feel the energy of connection that transcends time. These days of remembrance remind us of the Divine within us, the nobility from which we were created, and the sacred spirit to where we all return. There is peace in realizing this interconnection and maybe even something resembling closure or acceptance.

Does grief get easier with time? It's complicated. It's like sitting on the shore with your eyes closed, and there are moments of extreme peace and comfort in the sound of the waves rolling in. Yet, in the background of your mind, there's a sliver of fear that the next wave will be a tsunami. But, I guess you could say that about life, in general, so I choose peace - even if it's just in knowing that my parents would be happy with the woman I've become, and feeling them smirking while I clumsily fumble through the horrifying (and beautiful) screenplay of raising teenage daughters.

However recent or distant your losses are, I hope you find the strength to choose peace, and remember that grief doesn't end, it evolves. The love we feel for those who have passed still vibrates within and around us, part of the greater cosmic field of energy and memory.

This season, you might create your own moment of remembrance: light a candle, set out a photograph, write a letter to someone you miss, or sit in quiet reflection. Feel their presence in the stillness. Be aware. Listen. Notice. Receive.

Grief and love are two frequencies of the same vibration. When we honor our departed, we tune into the eternal rhythm that binds us all, the vibration of love that never truly leaves, only changes form. You are not alone in your grief.