Lucy, I’m Home

https://nicolegvb.podbean.com/e/lucy-i-m-home/

Dear Readers,

Lucy, you’ve got some explaining to do!  My name may not be Lucy, but I feel I owe you, my amazing friends, an explanation.

Wintering

As you all are aware, Mitch died February 26, 2022.  And, I have not posted any new letters to him.  I’ve taken this time to go into a wintering stage of my life to grieve.  What do I mean by wintering?  Basically, I took the time, I knew I needed to disconnect from social media, squirrel away in places safe to me.  I took the time to cry, cry, cry and grieve my loss.

The deepness, intensity of this grief is nothing I have ever experienced before.  I felt lost, unmoored, just… empty!  I felt a tremendous number of emotions.  It did not mean I didn’t have things I wanted to say, believe me I do, I just didn’t have the capacity to get more than a thought here or there written down.

Many times, I would start writing…

what was busy going ‘round in my head and by mid-sentence, I did not have the strength to write the rest or it would just poof, vanish.  I would have to pick up the writing the next time the thought swirled around again.  My house was full of used tissues and scribbled notes of all these unfinished thoughts.

Now, I am going back, feeling like a squirrel who has their “stash” in all kinds of places trying to remember what is where, and piecing all the disjointed writings back together.  Kinda like Hansel and Gretel trying to find a place to shelter but put the bread crumbs along the path so they could find their way back if they needed to.

Before I let you all go on with your lives, I do think I need to write a disclaimer…

The letters I will start posting from now on are about my deep grief.  This is my grief story.  You are my grief witnesses.  Even though those of us who are or have been or will be in deep grief will have your own way of grieving; there will be similarities.  Just as we all have fingerprints but each fingerprint is unique to just you, so is grief to each person.  Some of my experiences may be like yours, some not at all.  That’s what makes us human.

As you read the next set of letters to Mitch, understand I am going back in time; writing about my deep grief.  Though I will always grieve Mitch’s death, I am at a point in my grief where I can look back at where I was without as much pain.  I still, and always will, have grief ambushes that stop me in my tracks.  Now, however, I don’t stay in the deep sadness as long.  The sadness is not quite so sharp.

Thank you to all of you!

I could feel the support, love, and tenderness you sent my way while I wintered.  I have had some of you ask where my letters were as you had not seen them for some time.  You do not realize how that brightened my day because I realized they really were being read (haha) and appreciated.  There are no words that can describe my gratitude.

If you know of someone who is in deep grief, send them my letters so they know they are NOT alone.

With so much love,

Nicole

P.S. By the way, if you are interested in diving deeper into what wintering is, something all of us do some time or other in our life (or should), this book is a great reference and was a gem of a find for me at a time I needed it.  This book confirmed that what I was doing was not so bizarre.  The book is called Wintering:  The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May.