I am on my reclining chair by the fire, drinking my morning coffee, meditating, reading, and waiting for my possible morning substitute teaching call. Since it’s the first Monday after the break, it seems I may not be getting a job today, which is fine by me. I’ve got cleaning and organizing and writing to do, not to mention seeing off my Charlotte who has been with us for a whole two weeks filled with joy and ease.

To have your children become adults and people you want to spend time with – your friends, in fact – is a miracle I have watched with some (not all) families, and it always filled me with hope. And it has come to fruition with our Charlotte. If you asked me who in the world I would most want to spend time with, she is at the top of my list. What a gift!

That we will not know this adult friendship with our Emily is heart rending, but I am concluding that I will come to know her in a deeper, more profound way than I could have on earth. I have become a firm believer in not just an after life, but a continuum of communication that goes beyond physical presence. It is something I continue to explore and learn about, more through my own experience than from reading or trying to find proof. I am just finding my own truth and moving forward with a knowing that she is a part of all that is beautiful around me, that I can talk to her, and she can respond in ways that she sees fit, when I am open to receiving.

I want to share this hope. I want to write about this, and I want others to share their experiences with me, too. More and more, I believe that death need not be the end of a relationship, and this gives me hope for all of my future. Quantum physics and clairsentience and religion aside, I just feel that a universal consciousness is deeply at play, and mostly we are not tuned into it. Perhaps this is my life’s work, not to understand it, necessarily, but to let myself live it. It seems to be the way I will be able to move forward with purpose and optimism.

My last blog was full of so much despair, and it is most undeniably present in my life, though less frequently as time passes. Time does not heal wounds, but our scar tissue grows, our capacity for grief expands as our love and our willingness to stare down the truth that grief is love incarnate does: that it lives and vibrates within us always, but need not take us down.

“Oh, there you are again, Grief. Hello. Thank you for coming. Thank you for reminding me of my love for Emily.”

And then speaking to my Emily: “Hi there, Sweetie. Be with me. Show me goodness, protect me, bring me beauty and serendipity and serenity today. Remind me that you are here with me.”

These are the kinds of conversations I have with both myself and with her. Well, some of them. They are endless. When I feel hopeless, when I am silently screaming and banging my head on the door, I am not talking to Emily; I am lost in the humanness of loss, not the perpetuity of love.

To recognize that and to step forward again and again, that’s my calling. To be brave, only in so much as I choose to carry on and wash the dishes or go for a walk, or teach some high school kids or make a pot of nourishing soup. And to keep talking. To Emily. To you. To myself.