Grieving

06/17/13

We are about 6 weeks away from the big move. It feels surreal. And we are starting to hit some real grief over here. Or at least I am. And some of our friends are. And some of my clients.

It’s amazing how when you are about to leave something, you start really appreciating it. I had several of those moments today. It started at work, when a client of mine, who I’ve been working with for 5 years, started processing what our relationship means to him. And the sense of loss and grief he feels at the thought of me leaving. And how I’ve been a healing agent in his life, and all those wonderful, meaningful things about my job. Then he shared the empathy he feels towards me as he imagines how hard it must be for me to leave and what a difficult decision that must have been… and that’s when I lost it. Tears rolled up in my eyes, and there was nothing I could do to stop them from rolling down. All my usual tricks failed. A few seconds later, I was the one with the tissue box, wiping my eyes and blowing my nose. So professional! Touche! Oh well, what can I say, I’m human. And he understood. I apologized for my tears and expressed appreciation for “going there”, processing that stuff with me. We had to end the session and said “to be continued”. And there will be many sessions like that, in the next few weeks, where I have to try and hold it together while my clients process their grief, loss, fears, disappointment, anger… and I will have to hold them in it, while trying to contain my own emotions about this move, this leaving I’m doing.

Then I drove home, feeling under the weather and exhausted from a full weekend filled with good bye parties and last dinners with friends, and there was my little African American neighbor, Helen, looking through our recycle bin in the driveway to see if she could find any bottles.

She was a little bent over, as skinny as ever, but looking pretty with pins in her hair and a smile on her face, so happy to see me and all worried that we had left already. I gave her a hug and told her I would never leave without saying good bye, I had just been real busy with this move. She told me stories about Bill, her 98 year old father-in-law whom she is taking care of (she is 80!) and how good the Lord has been to her, and how she talks to Him all the time, and how He led her to my house right when I was coming home so she could see me.

And there I go again, tearing up and just feeling the loss of what is so sweet and familiar, what has taken years to build and is irreplaceable, what makes my simple life more meaningful and brings sunshine into it. Helen always makes me smile. She’s always thankful, happy to see the kids, and though she is forgetting things and telling me the same stories over and over again, she is as spunky as ever and I love her dearly.

I said I would visit soon to see how Bill is doing.

Got inside, changed into comfy clothes and went to the rose bowl to pick up my raw milk from the coop I’m a part of. Sam was there, waiting for me, as I was running late, saying he was gonna take care of my milk for me if I didn’t show up, providing I would house him when he comes visit in Switzerland. I drove away feeling so blessed to have such a community, such connections, access to such great healthy food, and wondering, ironically, where the heck I was going to find raw milk and pastured eggs in Switzerland.

Then I had to go mail my taxes in and had another one of those moments. I entered the tiny post office on Lake and sighed a sigh of relief when I saw only 2 people in line. “I love Altadena”, I thought to myself. There is rarely a line at the Altadena post office. At the desk, two African American ladies. Mine was friendly, funny, casual… I loved it. It was “so Altadena”. And I just realized how I’ve come to love my routines, the things that feel familiar, how small this part of the world has become for me (considering there are 17 million inhabitants in LA!) and how I have come to understand the culture, the diversity, the pecularities and the uniqueness of this place (to an extent), while at the same time, there is always more to discover.

People are sad we are leaving. I can feel the fear in their sadness, that we may not come back. And yet the acceptance and understanding that we must do this. As my client said this morning, “if you don’t do it now, you will always regret it and wonder what it would have been like”. Yes, I know. I know that I know that I know. It doesn’t make the leaving any easier.