How do I cope with the death of a loved one?

Although I may not know you, I hope there is someone beside you to give you a warm hug or a warm squeeze on the hands to let you know – you’re not alone. 🍀

For me, I dragged myself back to the meditation center. I had started meditation a few months prior to her death. Going back to the center was the only thing I knew to do.

I took the last available slot at night to avoid people and I sat right at the back of meditation class so that whoever that was there could not hear or see me cry.

It was tough to face people and talk about it.

It was equally tough to just sit there in class and try to discard the accumulated grief one by one.

Yet, I knew I did not want the memories of a loved one to be scarred by the trauma of a disease that I can’t even pronounce, that rapidly took her life away in a matter of days.

The first few weeks, I was just mainly crying and not really discarding as per the meditation guide’s guidance. But even that space to finally not suppress and cry was helpful. I missed her so much.

Eventually, I could follow the meditation method and discarded some of the painful feelings for a few short minutes. With time, the few short minutes grew and became a few longer minutes and I managed to discard a lot more of the pain and sadness.

I supplemented the meditation class by writing to the universe. All the questions that I had, all the things I did not understand, all the details of her hospitalization and death, and all feelings, emotions and my slack meditation efforts, I wrote it all down to the universe.

Weeks became months and months became years. The frequent random crying did stop. There were so many realizations. I realized I was not alone. I realized that grief is like intense physical pain, I only saw it and nothing else. And it was this viewpoint that made me trapped in this bubble of profound sadness.

I also realized my pride of not wanting to cry so much in front of others and the notion that I needed to be strong for my dad made me suppress a lot of the feelings which made it worse. Then there was guilt and a lot of what if I did this or that, would we have a different and happier outcome?

By discarding the above one by one through the meditation, my emotions became a lot more stable. I could function properly in life. Everything seemed to be ok until February last year. A friend went through a similar painful experience of losing her mom. It triggered a profound sadness that was familiar to me.

Through some odd chance by the universe though, within the next day, the meditation guides chose to discard the topic of burden in the meditation class.

And as I discarded the notions and feelings that were familiar from losing a loved one, there was intense crying again. I cried for another 4 hours or so after the meditation class. And then a deeper realization kicked in. Even in grief, it was all about me. My feelings, my thoughts, my loss, my pain, my self-pity, my self-centered viewpoint. But I have never stopped to see from the perspective of the person I lost. She was no longer suffering and struggling with her body. She is actually at peace right now. I was the one who was not at peace for not being able to accept the situation.

From that realization onwards, the profound sadness truly went away. When a colleague’s dad passed away and shared her story recently, I could empathize without being sucked into a bubble of sadness. I’m happy that I can talk about our loved one happily today and am grateful for the chance to know her. I think – this is how she would have liked to be remembered.

The person that I lost was my stepmom of 10 years. My bridge between my dad and I, who knew us better than we knew ourselves or each other. Our anchor, our rock who was always there for us no matter what. Thank you for being a part of our lives. We love you. ❤️

Till this day, I remain very grateful to the meditation, this universe and to everyone that this universe has sent. They always have my back and I’m not quite sure where I would be without them.

I hope this can help you. I’m also leaving a video below and a simple message that the meditation guide said to me that helped me. He simply said, you can do it. 💛