Sandt Litchfield Guest Contributor
I sometimes question my humanity.
Am I alive? Am I feeling? Am I too detached? Am I OK? Am I even human?
I was inspired to write about the topic of “the power of grieving“ in relation to my dear Uncle Jacques, a man who was my friend for so many years, even teammate, a man who taught me so much as a mentor, an man who died in 2017 with me by his bedside.
He passed due to multiple organ failure at the age of 90.
I look back and I don’t think I really grieved that much at all. Was I too detached? Was I avoiding something?
I believed the reason for my lack of grieving was because I was relieved for him. He was in so much pain and discomfort in his body, that I was happy for his release on some very real level.
As long as I’ve known Jacques, because of his spinal stenosis and other issues, he’s been in pain for most hours of the day. So when he died, it was a relief for both of us.
Also, both of us believed that after you die, you have time with your spirit guides, before moving forward into future plans and future planes. We also believed, from books like “Journey of Souls” that you plan the next life following a period of rest.
It would be a lie for me to say that after his death I wasn’t grateful to have more time to myself, following so many years as Jacques’ caretaker. I was spending a lot of time driving him around and driving him to doctors and bathing him and everything. I do enjoy my extra time now.
Even so, even with this sense of relief, even with very little grief, even with all this belief in the afterlife … I do still miss him.
And perhaps it is this missing that does connect me, that keeps me aligned with my dear friend. Perhaps it is this that makes me his forever friend, and makes me human after all.
