6 Months of Grief Project: Day 115

Seeing Through the Veils

This is Day 115 of my #6MonthsOfGrief Project. To learn more about this practice, feel free to visit Day One, where I explain this project in more detail.

I have been talking with a lot of people about the afterlife. It's fascinating to hear people's ideas about what it is, how it works and whether or not the dead can "communicate" with the living. More and more I am realizing that I am extremely skeptical about these theories, and yet hopeful that some of them could be true. I was also told by a friend that the dead actually enjoy being asked for things — like having an Afterlife To Do List.

I was startled by this concept and immediately felt badly, asking for the dead to do anything for me. How selfish! But my friend said that the way she understands it, they WANT things to do. They don't have bodies anymore, so it's fun to help make good things happen for their loved ones still embodied. So I started experimenting with that. Usually on my commute, I talk to my late husband. I tell him about my day, how I'm feeling, things I'm thinking about. But one day I tried asking him for something. I was really apologetic and nervous about asking and as far as I know, nothing came of my request.

So I decided to ask clearly and forcefully for what I wanted and then let go of the outcome. This is how I manifest things for myself on the spiritual, witchy level, so I was curious to see if that would work with my late husband. Not 24-hours later, I received the experience I was asking for. It happened that quickly. And my late husband's fingerprints are ALL OVER this outcome. So I am a cautious believer. And I promise to be careful for what I wish for!

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I am very aware that this project can bring up a lot around yours or other's grief and loss, I will always follow every post with some online grief support resources that have helped me. Please feel free to let me know of online support that you have found healing in your grief, as well:

Art with Grief:

• Filmmaker Gemma Green Hope made a short animation in memory of her grandmother 
• Photographer Sarah Treanor Takes Moving Self-Portraits to Cope with Her Fiance's Death
• When the Fall Comes, a film about Grief by Adriana Marchione
• Self-Portraits: Expressing Emotion Through Art on What's Your Grief?
• The Hard Romance of Grief by Mark Liebenow
• The poetry of John O’Donohue

Resources for Widows:

• Open to Hope: Finding Hope After Loss
• Widowed Village
• Camp Widow

• Soaring Spirits International

Living with Grief Resources:

• The Grief Geek
• Modern Loss's excellent resource list
• The writings of Tim Lawrence
• The Rules of Grief are for Other People by Shawn Doyle on The Good Men Project
• Grief Bibliography on Grief Healing
• Teresa “TL” Bruce's What to Say When Someone Dies
• They Brought Cookies: For A New Widow, Empathy Eases Death's Pain by Ann Finkbeiner on NPR
• A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit
• Megan Devine’s Refuge in Grief
• The Geography of Sorrow: Francis Weller on Navigating Our Losses, interviewed by Tim McKee in Sun Magazine
• How to Be a Friend in Deed by Bruce Feiler in the New York Times
• 12 Things to Know About the First Year of Grieving Someone You Can’t Live Without by Laurie Costanza in Elephant Magazine

And remember, I am sharing this project on a variety of platforms, including my Instagram, Twitter, & Facebook feeds, as well as my Pinterest page on Grief. I use the hashtag #6MonthsOfGrief, so it can easily be found on any platform. Please share this project with anyone you think might need it.

Thank you, and see you tomorrow.