Loss and Love
This blog is dedicated to my friends who have recently lost a loved one!
I began writing Whistling up the Southwind, Book 1 of the Women with Wisdom Series at a time when I experienced the death of 7 people who were very important to my life and well-being. The losses, none of them connected, were devastating, each occurring a few weeks or months apart.
Creating the main characters in the series, Anna Marie, Christa, and Granny Rose was therapeutic for me as it felt like adding people back into my life, not as substitutes but as part of rebuilding my life without my friends and family who I had lost. The strengths of humans to overcome loss and the capacity of women to help others adjust to life after great losses is the theme in Book 1 - Whistling Up the Southwind - and is continued on in Book 2 - Following the Cycles of the Moon and in Book 3 - Gazing at the Stars (coming in late 2023) of the series.
The loss of our parents, spouses, grandparents, and older mentors is, unfortunately, part of the cycle of life and inevitable, but never easy. Each time a loss occurs, there is an impact on our balance of relationships, routines in our life, and our role in our network of family and close friends. When the loss is an unanticipated loss of a younger person, the rhythm of our life is even more out of balance, and the grieving is often more intense.
Anna Marie, my main character, who purchases The Southwind Motor Home to build a new life after 3 years of grieving for her spouse, was also expected to support her adult children and grandchildren through their own grief. Her family becomes angry at least partly because their own needs for adjusting to the loss of their father/grandfather have been disrupted when their mother/grandmother chooses to rebuild her own life and energies. The expectation in her family was for Anna Marie to continue to play the role of grieving widow for the rest of her life, meaning to be well-intentioned.
Instead, Anna Marie feels she needs to leave the familiar behind before she can assume the new role she wants, considering she had little idea what she wanted for the rest of her life. She knows she wants to revive her energy and needs new experiences through adventures with new friends. She desires a return to laughter and joy without feeling she was not being loyal to her beloved deceased husband.
If the loss is the loss of a parent or a grandparent, the grieving may be as intense but may not mean a change in day-to-day routines as in the case of losing someone who shared the same living space. For middle-aged women, it is a reminder that the time to take on the matriarchal role of the family to support other family members may be now or coming soon. Assuming this new role may feel too much at the time of the death or may help fill in the gap of the lack of physical presence of your loved one.
Each loss, while different relationships, can mean a whole reshuffling of your community of support and the community of support for your family. It is important, especially for women, to allow time for crying, your own grieving, and crying with others. You may desire quiet time away from others or may want to immerse yourself with people who remind you of your lost loved one. Sometimes healing can mean a reshuffling of life priorities, new activities or friends, and creating new personal spaces for healing.
Take the time to honor your own grief. This may be a time to connect closer to your own religious or spiritual beliefs and traditions. The word religion comes from the Latin for ‘replication of beliefs, practices, and traditions, while spirituality comes from the Latin for ‘breath, breathing, which is the subsistence of life and being on earth.
Sending you waves of healing energies for peace and well-being during times of loss.
—Mary Kathleen McKenna