Honouring Endings

My best friend died when we were 21. He had Leukemia. I, a very anxious, shy, and insecure human was about to embark on my first solo trip to Thailand and Europe for 6 months. I’d been sitting by his bedside during treatments talking about all the things we would do when he was better. The last thing I said to him was.

“Next time I see you, you’re going to be all better.”

In a way I was right, two weeks later I returned from riding elephants, something I am now morally opposed to, to find a barrage of missed calls and a text. “Pete died last night.”

I didn’t believe it; it must have been a prank. We had a plan, we had life to live.

As I heard all the details, I laid on the floor of my hotel frozen. I refused to come home. My parents booked me a ticket and like an ice block, I somehow made my way home to say goodbye. But the thing is I didn’t say goodbye at all. I was that frozen ice block for the whole week I was home, attended the funeral, and got on the plane headed for Europe. Every night I thought of him in the moments between the last shots and the bar and stumbling onto my camping mat. I didn’t acknowledge this ending for many many years. When I returned home and sat in the reality that he wasn’t there, the pain enveloped me. I found no one really had any guidance to offer and we just pretended everything was normal, because he died 7 months prior, but it was everything but. This was my first introduction to grief and loss, and since then the human experience has delivered a bucket load of them.

This experience changed me and my life significantly. I realised life was short and not guaranteed, that I was not the person I wanted to be and that never really saying goodbye froze parts of me for almost a decade.

The last two years in particular has been a surrender to endings. The end of careers, the end of my first great love, the end family, the end of friendships and life as we know it as we navigate a global pandemic. There has been a common thread between being stuck and feeling alive. The space these endings create is expansive, it means new things can enter and one can explore different ways of being. But, I can’t help but shake the void that for many of these endings the is no pause of acknowledgement other than my silent moments on the mediation cushion with tears down my face. The endings that have cracked me open the most are the ones that I have held space to honour fully.

I recently bought a new car. I received more celebratory “CONGRATULATIONS” that at any of these endings.

I mean I bought a car because I needed one, but buying a car became the symbol of success #conumerism #capitalism and doing life well. Where I think having the bravery to peel away layers of my life to be true to how I want to live it is more cause for celebration that a ton of metal. Yet- silence. Awkward moments of people wanting to talk about the new shiny addition rather than the internal transformations that occur from a life turned upside down. It has reminded me that every time I have not respectfully honoured an ending, I feel haunted by it, never able to live presently as my mind whispers. This isn’t complete.

I want us humans to create more space to honour endings. For people to be brave to say goodbye to friendships they have grown apart from with love and celebration. For the end of romantic relationships to be celebrated with such a symbol of success at a wedding. For saying goodbye to a career/ a job to be not about the next “better job” but a celebration of truth of creation. Just moving on and moving forward with life freeze parts of our being and stifles our ability to integrate the experiences and how they shift our lives and trajectory.

Let’s get a little braver, have conversations, stop, thank, hold and step forward into whatever is next with a heart full of gratitude. We don’t have to do anything a certain way, we can consciously craft how we navigate this space. Here are important steps to navigate that process:

1. Acknowledge. Sit in the feelings and acknowledge whatever it is, a relationship, a life, a journey has come to an end and the status quo has changed.
2. Honour. Get clear on what it means/ meant to you. Talk with a counsellor, friend or in meditation.
3. Communicate. Speak to those involved, write letters even if you never send them. Speak your truth and don’t be afraid of that.
4. Allow. We can’t control the things that happen outside of us, we call allow things to be as they are. Be open to what this change can create and use the learning to grow who you are and line it up with the life you want to create.
5. Gratitude. Label what you are grateful for, what you learned, was offered and experienced. No one can take this away from you and you should hold that close to your heart.
6. Close. This might be clearing your work desk, a funeral, a ceremony, sageing a room, getting rid of all of their stuff or deleting phone number. — you’ll know what feels right. My only advice is do it from love and not fear.