As I snuggle into my favorite chair in our living room, a soft blanket wrapped around my shoulders, the flickering flames in the fireplace take the edge off the chill of the previous night’s unexpected spring snowstorm. The house is quiet–too quiet. This quiet allows the sadness inside me to announce its presence with more insistence: Pay attention, something is here that needs care.
I set down my laptop and bring a hand to my heart, an instinctual practice I’ve developed to signal a turning toward.
“I’m here.”
As I let myself connect to the emotions welling up inside me, I am reminded again of the ambivalence with which I hold the reality of being a deeply feeling, empathic person. My body holds the weight of conversations with dear friends who are in varying stages of unimaginable grief tied to the death of a spouse. In my husband’s absence, I feel a familiar fear inviting me to anxious rumination about all the potential catastrophes that could keep him from returning home, as if worry will somehow protect me. I keep my hand on my heart, determined to stay connected, knowing that connection will allow me to stay available for those I love.
“I am here, I am not alone, and I can bring care to the parts of me that are grieving with and for people I love.”
Several events over the past year have invited me to keep returning to the reality of endings. Just the word “ending” brings up a visceral response in me, and, I’m guessing, in many of you as well. In his book To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings, John O’Donohue describes how endings often take us by surprise:
“Perhaps there is an instinctive survival mechanism in us that distracts us from the inevitability of ending, thus enabling us to live in the present with an innocence and wholeheartedness. Were we to be haunted by the prospect of ending, we could not give ourselves with freedom and passion.”
Haunted. There it is again, a reminder of darkness that hinders my desire to stay connected and open. And yet, he goes on to offer another picture of endings as markers in the constantly unfolding rhythm of life, a sign of completion and integration. And with each completion, space is also created for a new beginning, one that “engages forgotten parts of the heart.”
Last spring I approached with dread the ending of work with my counselor of several years. I couldn’t imagine leaving this safe space where I had felt nurtured, empowered, seen, and known like never before. Endings have always felt particularly painful for me, some part of me protesting that I hadn’t had “enough” yet.
I wasn’t enough yet.
After several conversations that danced around the possibility, he named the reality that “ending” was already present in the room. He described the avoidance that was typical in endings, as every ending is a reminder of our “death anxiety,” which no one wants to acknowledge. Despite the angst I felt inside, there was also relief in settling into the reality he had named. As we wondered together about what it would look like to end well, he invited me to play: to co-create a process that would honor the work we’d done, an invitation that captured how well I had been witnessed and known in that space.
Play invites us to engage with uncertainty, to tap into imagination and possibility, and let ourselves be more captivated by the process than the outcome. Play isn’t all fun–the ending still came, with all the heartache, loss, and tears. The difference for me was in the in-between, where we got to savor and delight, where release from an imposed set of expectations about what endings “should” entail opened some of those forgotten spaces in my heart.
Three weeks later, we sat with our dearest friends as they shared stories from the final days leading up to their beloved mom’s death. The four of us stayed there for hours, laughing and crying as we told stories of how we’d all been influenced by this remarkable woman who epitomized play. It felt holy, and I began to see ending as a kind of sacred ritual.
What if “ending well” is an ongoing, sacred invitation into the present moment, with the awareness that we are already standing in the space in-between? We’re being invited to play, to savor and delight, to tell stories with laughter and tears, stories of how we’ve changed each other, stories that bear witness to the imprints of every significant other, stories that remind us we are loved and whole and inexplicably linked to one another in the constantly unfolding rhythm of life.
Janet Stark is a deeply feeling introvert who has learned the value of creating nurturing, restful space in a loud world. She loves the connection that is possible when we slow down and listen to each other with intention. A few of her favorite things include the smell of freshly baked bread, soft blankets, good books, and the warmth of her puppy, Oliver, snuggled up close. Janet and her husband Chris love traveling, especially to spend time with their three adult children.
“What if…?” this question reframes the now of the present moment with such a beautiful invitation to play, savor and delight. Thank you, Janet – & I am so sorry to hear of your friend’s death. She was a dear friend to this one for a season & will be missed.