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How to Grieve

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Time Zone: EST (New York, Toronto)
Messenger: JAH Child Sent: 3/4/2023 8:51:23 AM
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Me: I think I will start another thread about grieving and how to complete the grieving process, because that is another factor I think. Sometimes we're feeling down because of actual losses and huge traumas that we carry and it's both necessary to grieve these things but also to complete the grieving process and let them go. Just trying to sweep everything under the rug to feel happy or raise the vibration, this is not healthy either.

So, how to go about grieving?

Cultures have their own rituals. Jews sit shiva when they lose a loved one. Catholics light a candle in the church.

What rituals or actions can ones do to grieve and to complete the grieving process and move forward with life?




Messenger: IPXninja Sent: 3/9/2023 2:45:56 PM
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For me, loss is only possible for things you possess. And possession implies control. But we don't really have control. That's an illusion. There's no guarantee you will live to see tomorrow so no one else has such either.

What we suffer through is our attachment to the person. It's a mental and emotional connection; a bond that can be weak or strong. I agree with the bible when it recommends strong drink. While this doesn't seem healthy, neither often is our attachment.

When I lost my father I thought about all the times he was there and all the times in the future that I knew he wouldn't. And even now, ten years later, that's still painful.

It's the weight of those memories. It's the weight of who he was, a good and humble man. It's the way that he loved, provided for, and cared about his family- not just his wife and children... but all the relationships he built throughout his life and career. When he died it was a bit like T'Challa. I have never since seen such a large funeral. It makes me proud that so many people cared about him in return. I must not have been the only one who thought he was great. I fear my own funeral will be exponentially smaller. Although I do good deeds I am mostly words on a screen.

Dealing with his death was the first time I'd ever had alcohol or smoked. I was offered both. I took it. I wasn't ready. It just seemed far too soon for him to die.

Anyone who visits my facebook page will see him because my cover image is him, as a father, walking up the same mountain path he went up as a kid in St Thomas, Jamaica.

https://www.facebook.com/ZealotX/

Not quite walking into the light, but that memory is the one I associate with his passing. And in the end, at the end of my sorrow, not just for my own loss, but for him not being there to see all of life and legacy that came from him, it was the knowledge that maybe he had made me enough like him (and this is making me very emotional. I don't know why I thought I could reply without weeping) so that I can carry him with me and he is alive in my words and my deeds. And even my opportunities do things he couldn't do, go places he never went, and achieve goals he never got to tell me he was proud of.

So I think ultimately... life is a journey that other versions of ourselves started, that we continue, and that other versions of ourselves will continue after us. And we don't grieve to simply let our loved ones die. For that is simply when they transition into our memories... to be carried forever. The best thing I can do for him now is to not be so busy being myself that I neglect to be more like him. Sometimes when people see me I know they see a part of him because he is in me just like I was in him.

*DEEP exhale*


Messenger: Evison Matafale Skræling Sent: 3/9/2023 11:09:06 PM
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I give thankhs for sharing that w us IPXninja.


Messenger: Evison Matafale Skræling Sent: 3/10/2023 4:06:56 AM
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Greetings and Raspect JAH Child.



Messenger: JAH Child Sent: 3/13/2023 4:28:36 PM
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Greetings and Love brothers, Brother Matafale much love to the I and the I family, hope lil Simbamoyo is doing great and the I Empress as well.

Yes I agree give thankhs for opening up the I heart and sharing with us IPX. That's a beatiful picture on your facebook and I love the idea that it's him walking into the light - looks like my idea of heaven anyways, with all the green.
I think the emotions that came out while the I was writing that is also another way of grieving. Writing can be very theraputic. And I hope it was theraputic for the I to write all of that about the I father. It was beautiful to read and I really think your father was able to feel those feelings you had while writing it, I think our loved ones do watch over us and see us when we talk or tell people about them.

My father's passing was very hard for me too because of how sudden it was and also there was guilt involved because he passed while he was doing a favor for me. Even though truly there was so fault involved I had all these feelings like if I had not allowed him to do that for me, etc. But I think his memorial service with my siblings was very cathartic, we just spoke of him and shared memories and I spoke to him as well and said goodbye. Now I keep a photo of him on a shelf and my grandfather's photo is there also, my ancestors who have passed over, and I keep them close to me by keeping their photos in view. Grieving my father's passing took me some time but I feel now that I am okay, I'm sorry too for the things we have missed out on, as the I said IPX, for those things we have not been able to share, yet I do feel him here with me and I have dreams of him also. And I think your father sees all of your accomplishments as well brother IPX Ninja.

I think also because I only have one father it is like easier to grieve over losing him because it only happened once and I know it will never happen again. My grief at this time is over losing so many pregnancies and this IVF process and how difficult it is, how up and down it is, how hopeful and then disappointing it's been. So it's a bit different from losing a loved one because these are babies who were only ideas for me, they were never even real humans, they only ever really existed in my heart and wishes. And at the same time it's been like repeated loss of the same thing. Whereas the loss of my father was one event, this loss has been like over and over and over and then at some point the feeling of loss started to be accompanied by a fear that I would only ever have loss and never actually have a child.

"For me, loss is only possible for things you possess. And possession implies control. But we don't really have control."

That is very true we don't have control especially when it comes to having children. Even once they are born we can't control our children. And we certainly don't own or possess our children. They are their own humans and they make their own choices. Just as we have done sometimes to the dismay of our own parents.

Yet it has been quite a loss, to carry life, to lose that baby, to go through it over and over again, to have surgeries which made it impossible to ever naturally concieve - it's been losses of dreams and hopes, losses of plans and wishes, losses of actual lives.

I wrote quite a lot and then I erased it, I think the catharsis of writing it was more beneficial for myself than it would have been for anyone else to read it. I guess that is one of the things that I have learned through this thread, that just writing could be one of the ways we can grieve.

I guess in some cases strong drink could be a way? Or cannabis as well. Yet ultimately we all have to face those feelings that we try to shun when self medicating with substances. And anyways for myself as I'm going through this process of trying to have a baby, definitely not an option for me right now. Yet coping mechanisms like that can be okay, I think it's okay to avoid the grief for some time and put it off until a later date when we can deal with it better.

Itinual Love Iyahs




Messenger: IPXninja Sent: 3/14/2023 2:43:23 PM
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exactly. I think the bible recommended strong drinks as a numbing agent; perhaps not so much about not feeling as it is to pacing ourselves with how much we feel at once. Alcohol itself is also used in cleaning physical wounds so that bacteria doesn't grow there. The last thing you want is an infection. That creates its own pain.

Writing exercises a lot of demons. Especially when you purposefully write about yourself because unless one is a narcissist a lot of our writing is about others. But it takes you back. It takes your mind back, reconnecting with the same thoughts and feelings. It's still healthy. We don't live in sadness but we can still have a moment of sadness due to a memory of what was or could have been.

I sympathize greatly because my father also passed suddenly. He had passed out helping a fellow church member with yardwork before. But this time he was mowing his lawn in the backyard, and in my mind, he must have laid down and simply went to sleep. All I could think of then were the things I didn't get a chance to say to him and maybe things he did't get a chance to say to me, etc. There are simply so many ways in which we are not invincible and so many ways that life can be short and shorter than even that which isn't promised. I believe our immortality is in our children and the people we leave behind.

Forgive me if this is out of line but I imagine your father died happier than he would have otherwise, knowing that his last memories would be of doing something to help take care of his daughter; acting in that role that I'm sure he loved. So while we think about what could have prevented the loss, I don't think their last moments could have possibly been filled with the contemplation of fault but rather of service. Dying, while doing something for one of my girls? That sounds to me like a good way to go out. It's rare to get that kind of chance.

My wife lost a pregnancy. From the way she talks about him, you wouldn't know how old he was when he died. While I cannot fully appreciate the loss of a child you never got to know, I can appreciate the feeling of loss over never being able to know that child because they weren't here. At least not physically. They exist in your mind and the same potential that a new pregnancy has to make parents happy can only be a mirror and proof of validity for the sadness that comes from their passing. It's all about how we connect with them and how we continue to breathe life into their memories. It's a beautiful thing.

I am thankful for the opportunity to talk about our fathers. Two weeks from now is about when my father was born so it's especially nice. I think he would be happy knowing he was still thought of and his life mattered. I could only be so privileged.






Messenger: JAH Child Sent: 3/22/2023 12:11:42 PM
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Happy earthstrong to your dad IPX Ninja. I hope the I can pour some libations and maybe burn some sage or some herb in front of his picture. Anyway that's how I "feed" my ancestors, I don't know if the I do the same, or maybe have a different way?

I wonder if the I or if anyone in your family had any dreams about your dad after he passed? I mean immediately after? Or any dreams that felt especially important or true or more like a visitation than a dream?

My mom had a dream about my dad (they had already been divorced for some 15 years or so) that he came to her in a big sunny field, he ran up to her so energetically and he hugged her and he apologized for everything he had done (my dad was admittedly an angry man, their marriage was hard, he was often violent and he suffered from ptsd after vietnam war). My mom felt that he truly came to her in spirit, and that this was a real event, not simply a dream. In her mind this meant he was in heaven.

My grandmother also dreamed about my grandfather (both of them of the reformed jewish faith) after his death, that he was in the shower and he said "I just had to do it before I passed." And she took that to mean he was baptised. As my mother had been trying to convert them to christianity for years, she thought maybe my grandfather had accepted christianity before he passed. Of course the christian side of the family is sure that's what it meant.

Interesting the way people interpret these dreams from their own religious lens. I never saw the dreams as religious, more essentially spiritual. That my grandfather was cleansed from his experiences on earth. That my father was in a happy place and saw the wrongs of his actions and now truly was repentant for them.

I do think that the I is right about my father's passing and how it happened, and give thankhs for sharing the I own feelings about that too. It's a great persepctive. I too think that, once I have children, and hopefully once they are grown and I meet my own grandchildren, way later in the future, I would see no better way to go than in an act of service for my child. And I know my father was trying to make up for things, in the end, he was trying to mend bridges and repair the relationship we had missed out on when I was little and my parents were divorced. And I'm happy that he did make that effort and I know his soul was pleased too that he got to really make his best effort to be a dad to me. Through all his faults he truly loved nothing in life more than his children.

I think we can learn a lot from thinking about those who have already passed over and even from these dreams and everything. We can apply those lessons to our own lives. I think our ancestors are probably happy to know that we learn from their passing too. Whether we learn about how we need to take advantage of every moment because life is fleeting and the end could come anytime, or we learn about how their afterlife perspective is different, these are valuable lessons.

My love goes out to your wife, I know it can't be any easier now than it was when it first happened, but it's good that she still talks about him. He was real, her love for him is real, and he deserves to be talked about. I think the days of women suffering in silence when they lost pregnancies, those days have to be over. It's not a shameful thing and it doesn't need to be a secret. Everyone has their own level of comfort sharing and opening up of course but I think people who want to talk about it definitely need to talk about it and that it opens up the conversation too for people who might be holding all of that inside.

Holding everything bottled up inside, that's Not the way to grieve, can't possibly be a healthy way to grieve.

Interesting to be discussing this topic in a Rastafari forum when Rasta have typically been anti-funeral, death is for the dead and life is for the living, etc. How much of that is healthy, I don't know.

Seeing videos of Bob Marley's funeral and the grief of a whole country over his passing, that had to have been a way to process feelings for those who were close to him, for Rita, for his children.

I guess the point I'm making is that grief is a difficult thing to traverse and we all have to do it in our own ways, and not have judgement for the ways others process their own grief. Not have expectations of how long that grieving period should be, for others or even for ourselves.


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