Welcome back to White Rose of Avalon, my Darlings.   For today’s post, I will be sharing a meditative reflection on the process of Mourning Lost Loved Ones!   

As you might expect from the topic, I have recently lost someone.   I have lost my great uncle.   While I will not be going into much detail about my relationship with him, as I want to keep that private, I will say that he was a wonderful man who was much more like a grandfather to me than a great uncle!    He was in his late eighties and had been in increasingly poor health over the last couple of years, but the actual call from my Dad informing me of his passing was still very startling.   I was overcome with a myriad of emotions, not uncommon or too unlike other times I have lost loved ones.   I was distraught, I was shocked, I was deeply saddened, I was overwhelmed, and my head was spinning.   I also felt waves of emotion that would ebb and flow, from a numbness of confusion to a torrent of sorrow that had tears falling.   However, I also felt comforted, and even glad, that he was no longer suffering, he was fully released from pain, and moreover, he would be reunited with his wife, my great aunt, after many years separated after her death!   I felt assured that she had stuck around waiting for him to join her and that they were at peace together.

The knowledge that he is so much better off than struggling with decreasing health, truly is a balm to my soul.   It also reminds me of an innate truth.   Mourning, funerals, and memorials: all of these are for the living.   It is our way of honoring our beloved dead, and of paying respect, of saying our goodbyes.   It is part of our intrinsic desire to ensure that those we have loved will never be forgotten.   Yet, they could never be forgotten anyway, for they live in our hearts and in our memories!   Mourning is tough, and it hits differently for everyone, and the degree to which we feel the loss will differ with each person’s passing.   For me, while the emotions are similar to other times I have lost people, the loss of my great uncle has hit me harder than any lost loved one since I lost my favorite aunt when I was not even ten years old!   This is likely due to how close I was to my great uncle.   At least now, unlike other times I have suffered a loss of great magnitude, I have my wonderful husband by my side.   It really does make grief easier, knowing that we have others with us through the mourning process.   My husband was also quite close with my great uncle, and that means we can share in our feelings of sorrow that he is no longer with us, and our feelings of comfort and joy for my great uncle’s soul being released from the pain he was in!

So, no, there is no right or wrong way to mourn.   There is no rulebook on how you must process your emotions.   There is no timeline to which you must conform relating to how quickly your grieving will end.   There is only you, your memories, your love, and time spent in quiet (or not so quiet) reflection.    I am also deeply comforted by the knowledge that I can honor his memory in my spiritual practices, and I know he will now factor into my Samhain celebrations from now on.   I will hold him in my heart, and I will cherish the memories we have together.   I will also cry tears of joy, along with my own tears of sorrow, that he is now with the love of his life in the afterlife.   While it is never easy to lose those we love, the fact that they were loved makes them immortal in our hearts and in our memories.   Remembrance is truly a great gift!

I hope you have gotten something out of reading my reflections on the process of mourning loved ones.   What are some of your favorite ways to honor your beloved dead?   Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!

Note on Image: The image at the top of the post is a Peace Dove artwork by Renee Noel.   I found the art on https://renee-noel.pixels.com/featured/peace-dove-renee-noel.html?product=greeting-card.

LINK TO AVALONIAN ROSE FAERY MYSTERIES PATREON: patreon.com/AvalonianRoseFaeryMysteries