This is a book for anyone that has lost their person.
(Or for people supporting those who have lost their person.)
In this book, Dr Linda Shanti McCabe shares with you the paintings she made the first year after her husband died, as an invitation for you to see how you can create new meaning while traveling with loss. Tackling such difficult topics such as anger, grief waves, the nonlinear experience of grief, and the things your person leaves behind, Dr. Linda provides a compassionate hand to hold while traveling the journey of grief. She invites you to build a new home inside yourself, develop new capacities, find meaning, and live your life as if it were a series of questions. She encourages you to become a phoenix. She shows you what it could look like to carry grief with grace.
After your person dies you may experience numbness, anger, overwhelming sadness, or regret. You may have the experience of not being in your body or as if the world is continuing and you are an observer, watching it go on without you. You may feel like you "should" be an inspirational sunflower or look strong in your grief. You might try to put on a bright face, so that others aren't uncomfortable. We don't live in a grief literate culture.
You may feel angry at stupid things people say to you. You may feel angry at people trying you console you. You may feel that it is unfair that your loved one died.
Anger is a normal part of grief.
You may say
"I don't know who I am now, without my person.
My person was with me for so long! My person was with me forever. I don't know how to be a person, separate from my person." If that is the case, now is the time for you to discover, and uncover, who You are. This is the opportunity now staring you in the face, every day.
When monarch caterpillars are getting ready to turn into cocoons, they find a place to attach themselves and become still. Then they split their old skin open and wriggle into a cocoon. They literally build a new home for themselves from the inside out. Do that with your grief. Make a safe space for it, so you can transform.
From there, you will be able to ask yourself, what do I want to do and who do I want to become, with the time I have? Please ask this question with fierce kindness, without regret, and with a vast amount of compassion.
*15% of all proceeds from this book go to Dreams From Drake (supporting children's grief), Soaring Spirits International (widow support), and Pancreatic Cancer Action Network.