Grief, longing, and unlearning
And an invitation to join me Monday on Zoom
Dear beloved readers,
How is your 2025 starting?
When I returned to Costa Rica, it felt like I stepped back into a fast-moving river, sweeping me up and knocking me off my feet. Meanwhile, the actual river at the bottom of the canyon had transitioned from its rainy season roar to a calmer dry season pace. We took a holiday break, but the river of life flowed on, and opening the inbox and grading tabs felt like opening floodgates. I got knocked over by the deluge. Many people I have spoken to have started the year in a similar state of overwhelm, struggling to find their flow. If you are feeling any of this, know you are not alone.
Grief
At this time of year for me, grief is always close, though I never quite know how it’s going to show up. January 16th marks the 4th year of my mother’s passing. As we enter this time of year, every day of the calendar is a memory. Today is the day she didn’t wake up. Today was the day we traveled to California in pre-vaccine COVID times, rushing to be there, running through DFW with Daphne on my bip, missing our flight. Today the insurrection was on the TV in the background while we received no news from the hospital, no change in condition. Today we were finally allowed to visit her and we made the decision to extubate. Today she went to hospice. Hospice. Hospice. Breathing, coughing. Coughing, breathing, writhing, then quiet. Stillness. Peace.
Today was the day she died.
The start to this year has had mefeeling this sneaking need to cry, an underlying current of tears flowing beneath the surface. Is it the LA fires? Gaza? The Cancer full moon? Everything? So many reasons to grieve, to weep, but I know she is one that is always close in early January.
Longing
The past few months, I’ve felt a longing for what she’s missing out on. Taking Daphne to the mall (I really wish she were around for that - not my favorite activity but absolutely would have been hers). Our family New Year’s visit in Boise. Visiting us in Costa Rica, which she would have loved.
Over the holidays, I was lamenting about how Daphne was missing her energy. My mom had this incredibly vibrant, colorful, joyful energy that she would have poured into Daphne - as much as she loved life, she loved being a grandma, her grandma, most of all. She loved Christmas, and our family Christmases during my childhood were epic - filled with gifts and a house full of nearly 30 people all talking over each other from the kitchen to the basement. Groups of cousins tucked in various rooms plotting and scheming and making secret handshakes. My mom, truly the hostess with the mostess spinning around the kitchen and laughing, making sure everyone was fed and entertained.
But Daphne is not missing her energy. I know she knows and I know she feels it. I wish she was here but I also know she is here, still. Daphne, after all, is a living embodied continuation of her energy.
Another way her energy continues is in the form of the Jill Knox Peace Through Humor Fellowship in the Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor. The fellowship, dreamed up my dad and I in a grief-stricken state over the kitchen island on one of those late January days of 2021, has gone far beyond what we could have imagined four years ago. Every time I gather with the fellows, I am stunned - stunned by each of their individual amazingness, their commitment to their beautiful work in the world, stunned by how they are carrying forward this work at the intersection of humor and peace that my mom dedicated her life to. Stunned by their continuation of her heart in a very real, tangible way.
You can join us at the AATH conference in May in Charlotte, NC. See you there? :)
Unlearning
The main reason for my missive today, however, is to invite you to join me online on Monday. I will be hosting a conversation with our friends at Pachaysana, who I have written about here before (in my post In and beyond the ruins, as well as in my dissertation). The conversation will be about unlearning and how Pachaysana does this through their educational initiatives, including unlearning retreats. The session is free to join, and you can register here! We would love to see you there.
What do grief, longing, and unlearning have to do with each other?
Maybe that grief is love persevering1, love is eternal, yet when we lose someone, the longing for that love in the physical realm, in its previous form, remains.
Maybe that although modern society (specifically the US) is a death cult that does not value life, it is simultaneously death-phobic and does not make space for grief. And as such, unlearning a fear of death and relearning to grieve and death as part of the cycle of regeneration are some of the most important tasks of our time, for healing and reclamation, towards other possible worlds.
Or maybe they’re just the feeling-tone of my January (what’s yours?).
Hope to see you on Monday :)
Sending you infinite love and care across canyon rainbow beams,
Stephanie
P.S. Are you listening to The Telepathy Tapes? So good. More on that in a future post!
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