New Perspectives and Fresh Possibilities

When I began writing about losing Mom last August, I knew July was waiting on the other side. I knew that at the end of this journey I would be practicing gratitude, thankful for the gift of this year. There was an inner knowing, a need to sort out the words and feelings surrounding my mother’s death. When I saw an invitation to do so through these monthly writing prompts, I seized it.

Thank you, dear Red Tent Living editors and readers, for being with me, offering freedom and clarity to engage my true year of grieving. I am grateful for each of you. From those who have accepted and edited my pieces to those who have read and commented, I have felt deeply cared for and supported through this process.

Thank you for being with me as I finally laid to rest my mother and, with that, the roles we had in each other’s lives. It is time to say a final goodbye to her in your presence; to separate, to cut the cord, the ties, the bonds. I have said what I needed to say, worked out, and over, and through, and can release death’s grip on me.

I have made meaning, shown, and told in a place of safety and integrity, where eyes and hearts have been for me, relentlessly finding me in the midst of the noise. It is time to allow the curtain to fall, the lights to darken, to exit stage left and close the door on a life indistinguishable from hers.

I knew I was seeking something when I began writing. I saw in my mind a map leading somewhere that I needed to go, but it was blurry. I allowed each month’s prompt to take me to the next place, helping me find my words and working out the scenes. They brought me closer to what I knew and what I needed.

When an invitation to enter the desert and work with two brilliant women who have held my story well arrived in my Facebook feed this spring, I did not let it pass. Much like the writing prompts, I followed an inner prompt to claim my spot over dates that also included my birthday. This felt important. There was something new in me to birth. 

I spent three days in the presence of wise, kind women. Some of them had patiently borne witness to me for years, others had eyes on me for the first time. Their faces looked intently at me the final morning as I pondered the question, “And what do you know?”

What I knew was painful. Identity work is hard, and yet I felt deep gratitude to the one asking me, slowing down for me, making space for me, mothering me. There was deep gratitude to my young self who has not stopped searching for this while being it for so many others.

“I want a baby” was Mom’s statement nine months before I was born, not “I want to be a mother.”

What does a baby do with the need to be what her mother wants? She grows into a toddler who becomes a preschooler who enters school and then grows into a tween and a teen and young woman and older woman who continues to mirror what her mother wants instead of being mirrored by her mother as she learns who she is. She becomes an extension of her mother, an object in another’s life instead of the subject of her own.

She finds herself at age 53 lacking her own identity while making space for others to discover theirs. She practices gratitude for a good body, strong legs, and cold water to quench the thirst of running.

She has been running for so long, and this space of slowness brings clarity.

What I needed was to be born and belong to myself.

“I was just saying that you look like you’ve been exhausted for a long time,” a feisty truth-teller in the group tells me as I drop down in my spot on the couch. Her matter-of-factness combined with fierce protectiveness is endearing and brings tears. I feel seen.

I remember beginning my inner work over fifteen years ago. My youngest sibling had reached adulthood, and I finally felt that I could breathe a sigh of relief and begin looking at my own story. This feels like round two, a descent to a deeper layer, an inner core. My children are almost all grown. They are competent and capable humans, each belonging to himself or herself. It is time to step back and take a look at myself. Who am I really? Where am I from? Where do I want to go next?

A new layer of grief opens as I name what I know and hear what others know of me. It does not swallow or destroy me. It invites me to practice gratitude for new perspectives and fresh possibilities. I step back from the temptation to slide into shame’s abyss and instead marvel at the way this year unfolded. 

I continue to trust the process, the same one I trusted years ago when I chose differently and opened the door to my story. I allow myself to be new, small, fresh, and to look deeply into my own bright blue eyes. With gratitude.

---

Julie McClay lives in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley with her partner of 31 years, four of their eight children, and six fur and feather babies. Two precious grandchildren bring deep joy and delight. Julie is a lover of stories and words. She serves clients, both in person and virtually, through Heart Path Story Coaching, offering a creative space of kindness, curiosity, and Story Work. Writing and Art Journaling are key elements of her process.