She's Gone Now
It seems crazy it's been almost three months since She suddenly passed to spirit. It feels like so much terrain has been crossed, yet it also still feels like it’s not true.
I reach for my phone to call her often. As I start my morning walks, in the afternoon, or when I get in my car just after being somewhere; the impulse is almost immediate when something good, sweet, or inspiring has happened. It is my Mom I want to call every time. At 53 years of age, she is still the one I want to call and share my good news with.
She is still the first one and I think she always will be.
I arrived at her home in Pennsylvania from Los Angeles less than 24 hours after she left us, and that first day on the ground with my brother felt like a week. It’s like time stopped, it warped, and no matter the time that’s passed until now, it doesn’t seem to quell the disbelief or heartache that she is no longer here.
I went dark for a while my dear reader, and this is why. My heartfelt apologies.
Before her passing, I was struggling a bit to keep my writing rhythm here. I have been writing my first book, “The Beauty of Our Soul,” and I have also been building a new business. My new business involved a lot of writing as well. When I started this Substack it was intended to be my main space and commitment to weekly writing. Soon thereafter that seemed to change.
About a year ago to the month, creating a business became a viable and inspired new opportunity. It has been my heartfelt intention to work for myself for a very long time. I made some earlier attempts about ten years ago but I was not able to get the lift necessary to stay the course. It was pretty rough back then. Some setbacks like a random IRS audit and my car being broken into which included laptops, an iPad, and a hard drive being stolen. Don’t ask. Their being in the car for those 45 minutes was a total fluke. Or was it?!?
It wasn’t my time, at that time. The humility eventually came after the anger, disappointment, and shame subsided.
Although I have decades of experience building and leading all kinds of businesses and teams, it is a whole new ball game when it’s yours. I didn’t have the belief in myself that I wanted to believe I held back then. My dreams and mission for my life have stayed pretty consistent. However, just because we know why we are here doesn’t necessarily mean we are ready to take it all the way.
Today I have clarity, confidence, and a sense of inner peace that holds me steady and with deep faith. This is the result of more years on the planet, and a lot more inner work and healing. I still got my work cut out for me but I am sourced from an entirely new operating system. My mom’s death is at once challenging and fortifying what’s ahead for me. I can’t tell you the details, because I don’t know them.
I do know the only way through is forward.
In early 2022 my mom’s health started to take a turn. Because she lived on the other side of the country from me I didn’t, and couldn’t quite grock the state she was in. We hadn’t traveled that road until then. It was the beginning of many new “firsts.”
My mom had spent about 15 months in California from 2020-2021. She had contemplated moving back to Cali for years but always had many reasons why it couldn’t work. She was raised by parents who came through the Depression era and money held a special kind of power over her. Her “practical” mind blocked a lot of her dreams.
When she came in May of 2020, it was later than she had planned but we all know what happened earlier that year. In December 2020, she got Covid for the first time and I don’t think her health was ever the same. She decided to go back to Pittsburgh in 2021 and stayed until my 50th birthday, departing the following day, on September 22. The details from there bring up such sadness and disappointment for me.
I wish I could have done more for her.
I wish I could have been the soft place for her to land.
I just wasn’t.
I have lived a very non-linear life compared to most people from my generation. I didn’t have the 2.5 kids, with the mortgage, the second marriage, living the “American” dream. I thought I wanted that for years and wondered what was wrong with me when everyone around me seemed to have this but not me. That storyline convinced me I was defective, “too much,” too intense, emotional, independent, intimidating, and a slew of other adjectives I had been fed over the years.
But, I have always been on a different path, including that of my family. It was March of this year when my mom confirmed this to me. It was one of the most affirming things she ever said to me. (I don’t think we ever stop needing our parent’s affirmations, even if the need is unconscious.)
Part of my differing path included a knowing from early, early days I was destined for something more, different. From where I focused my attention, my unrelenting curiosity about self-development and human evolution, and my education in Spiritual Psychology, all were paving a unique path, especially in the 80s and 90s.
These days, I see my full self. These days, I own my path, my choices, my strengths, and my wounds.
And these days, right now, I miss her.
Deeply.
So….my delay in writing here is because I’ve known for several weeks this Substack would hold the space for my letters to my mom. I just wasn’t ready to write them.
It’s time now.
I know this because choosing not to write would be silently agreeing to remain tethered to a version of myself whose self-esteem and self-worth no longer reflect who I've become. These letters are a demonstration of my unwavering commitment to my healing and to honoring my life - which is, after all, the very essence of 'Honoring Your Life.’
I hope that you will find value in them and perhaps they will lend a soft hand in your healing too.
More soon.
❤️
