In a random pool, in a random pueblo in Costa Rica… I broke into tears. 

It wasn’t what my partner

said, per se, it was the feeling…

My mom is dead.

I remember writing these words over and over in a journal I started the day after her death. 

Processing what had just happened wasn’t an option. She was my best friend. We talked every day, even if it was just for 5 minutes. 

My mom is dead. I wrote it again and again and again. 

She was just 69… far too young. She was still a teenager at heart. 

At the same time my mom died, unexpectedly, I was in the middle of a tumultuous relationship turned divorce with my now ex. 

She begged me for weeks to share my journal with her.

To “let her in”.

When I did… she immediately shared my journal… some 5000 words… with every..single..person.. she knew. Friends. Family. Husbands. Boyfriends……… Everyone.

Why? Why did she want these most delicate of thoughts and emotions in her possession?

To embarrass me… to prove I’m crazy of course. To prove that the stream of consciousness I put into words…in a feeble attempt to make sense of the loss I was experiencing… somehow made me less than…

These weren’t just my inner most thoughts. They were every word that crossed the screen of my mind starting the day after my mother.. my best friend.. had died. 

When I confronted her about it she simply, and abruptly said, “well you didn’t tell me not to share it”…. Sigh..

But I digress. This isn’t about her. She has her own cross to bear in this life… 

What this is about is randomly breaking down, even for a moment, in a beautiful place, with a beautiful soul by my side.

What I’ve learned in the following year… is that grief comes in waves… unexpected…messy…beautiful waves. 

That was stolen from me. The space. The time to reflect. The few fleeting moments after someones death when the world is on your side…the first waves… forever lost. 

Stronger for it? Sure. 

Better? Probably. 

Able to forgive… not yet…. 

See you on the journey….