Chrysalis Healing Center

By: Trisha Kingsbury

Five years ago I lost a friend. His name is George and we met studying abroad in Australia. At twenty years old we knew nothing of what was to come. Marriage, houses, kids, heartache, joy. As we traveled down the path of adulthood we remained friends but didn’t see each other that much. Our babies met each other and played together. Our houses got progressively more put together (and also messier because…kids). Then one day in February he went downstairs to ride his stationary bike and we lost him to a heart attack.

To say that this was shocking hardly begins to describe the pain we felt. He was young. About to turn thirty-nine. A baby girl on the way. And now we were grieving him. We grieve the life he didn’t get to live. The father who would never get to hold his baby girl in his arms. The husband and friend and son and brother we would have to live without.

At the time we had to keep going. We had to build the support his wife (now widow) needed. We had to welcome his daughter into this world.

But as the years have gone on I have had to keep grieving him. Every experience he is missing. His smiles and silliness, now gone. On the other side of the veil. I feel his presence here and there. Because after all, what is grief if not love persevering? His love and our love for him remain here with us.

Grief happens in so many forms. It occurs whenever our lives are changed. When we say goodbye to anything or anyone we must grieve. But in our culture grief is hardly acknowledged. Especially the grief that comes from regular old life happenings. Moving to a new house in a new town. Your kids graduating elementary school. Middle school. High school. Ending a job and starting a new one. On and on it goes. We grieve divorce even though sometimes we know it is the right path forward.

But we don’t talk about it much.

Could we talk about it more? Could we process our grief together in nourishing ways? So that it doesn’t eat us alive?

In collaboration with The Grief House, Chrysalis Healing Center invites you to hold space for grief in all its forms. We will examine our personal and collectively held grief and ways to reach out from deep friendship with our loss to tend loss and grief in others. Developed by Grief House co-founders Sascha & Laura and led by Trisha Kingsbury and Grief House collaborator Kelly Sklare, we will join in conversation and friendship. And let our grief take center stage for just a couple hours.

I hope you will join us on Saturday, October 10 from 10am-12pm at Chrysalis Healing Center. Please send us a message if you are interested in attending.