Today marks my youngest son’s 23rd birthday. Cash came to me as a gift from the heavens. I was 5 weeks pregnant with him when Lucy died. I was on the pill and not planning to have any more children. At the time of Lucy’s death, I was unaware of my pregnancy. I had two unexpected life events occur within less than 2 months which made this an exceedingly challenging time in my life. All the excitement of a new baby, while grieving the loss of my daughter. So, it is appropriate I believe for this to be my first blog post as his gift of life was the beginning of a new me.
If you have visited my website, you have learned that I have a passion for teaching those who grieve the loss of a child, a parent, a spouse, a lover, a pet, the gifts of healing that nature can offer us.
If you have experienced the death of loved one, you have experienced trauma. A study at the University of California, Berkley, has shown that the awe we feel in nature can dramatically reduce symptoms of post-traumatic stress. Which I believe is what happens to our bodies and souls when we endure the death of a loved one. Reconnecting with nature is an essential component of reconnecting with ourselves and the purpose and meaning of life. Being connected with nature, engaging in outdoor activities, or even just viewing pictures of natural settings helps people to heal and get back what’s been lost through experiencing trauma.
FRIENDS THOUGHT I WAS STRONG, BUT I WAS FLOATING ON THE RIVER OF DENIAL.
I WAS FINE.
Outwardly I was working through the loss of my only daughter. However, inside the ability to mask what was happening to me was coming unwound. I began to do things to excess. Running, walking, riding my horses. Heck, I even fell headfirst into endurance racing. Endurance racing is a cross-country horseback race that covers a course of 25, 50, or 100 miles. It is possible that was the beginning of the connection with nature that I found to be so healing.
When I wasn’t riding, I was hiking. Over time, hiking became my go to pain reliever. Time in nature hiking or even just a walk around the neighborhood offered me time to cry alone. Something that I didn’t do. I felt crying was like letting water through a crack in a dike. If I did it, the whole thing might just come down. So I held it back…until one day I couldn’t. I hiked and cried, hiked and cried and hiked and cried.