When the Protective Layer Above Us Is Gone
Some losses change our memories others quietly change our place in the timeline of life.
March 8 marked twelve years since my dad passed away.
Anniversaries of loss have their own rhythm. Some years arrive heavy with memory. Other years come more quietly, carrying reflection rather than sharp grief. This year, I found myself thinking about something I’ve come to understand slowly over time that is the way losing a parent shifts our sense of where we see ourselves in the world.
Life unfolds in layers of generations. When our parents are alive even when we are fully grown adults there is often an unconscious sense that someone still stands ahead of us in the timeline of life. They carry a certain authority simply by having lived longer. Their presence creates a subtle kind of shelter.
Then one day that layer changes as when our parents die the protective generation above us is gone. For a long time after my dad died I felt like his princess who had lost her crown. That was the feeling that stayed with me a quiet sense that something essential had been taken away.
But this year something felt different. On Saturday March 8, I went about my day with a new kind of knowing. Not the feeling of a crown lost, but something steadier…………..I am still Len’s daughter and I wore that crown with a smile. Some days it is crocked but it is always there.
Can you read what my apron says?
“It’s not easy being an Irish Princess”
We were in my apartment in Mountain View about to head to San Francisco and one item on the agenda was to have afternoon tea. For 35 years my Dad worked for Lyons tea one of the biggest tea companies in Ireland so we went to celebrate his retirement by having tea. We also walked to the playground in Golden Gate Park and we rode the carousel. I love carousels and Dad humored me and came on with me. We finished up the day with a long walk at Ocean beach. It was a perfect day.
It also wasn’t lost on me that March 8 is International Women’s Day. My dad never once made me feel less than because I was a girl. One of my favorite memories of him captures that perfectly. I remember going car shopping with him shortly after I started my first high-tech job in Lotus in Dublin. I was home to Cork for the weekend and was excited to buy my first car. The salesperson kept directing every question to my dad, barely acknowledging me. Finally my dad stopped him and said, very matter-of-factly:
“You know you’re talking to the wrong person. Leona is the one with the money.”
That was my dad. Encouraging. Proud. He made me feel that I was certain that I belonged in whatever room I walked into.
Losing him changed many things in my life. Like many people who lose a parent gradually we realize that grief was not only about missing him. It was also about recognizing that the generational order had shifted as in the protective layer above us is now gone. That awareness didn’t come all at once but it unfolded slowly over the years.
And yet the connection remains. In memory, in the values he passed on and sometimes in the quiet practices that help us stay in relationship with the people we love……………even after they are gone.
Below are two gentle practices I sometimes return to in my own grief work.
Practice: Breathing with their Name
(about five minutes — approach gently)
Bring to mind the name of the person, or the thing, you are grieving.
You do not need to say it aloud.
Let the name simply arise in your awareness.
On the inhale, breathe in their name.
Let it exist in the space inside you.
On the exhale, breathe out love.
Let it move from you into the world.
There is no need to force emotion or meaning. Simply allow the rhythm of the breath to carry the name and the love back and forth.
This is not saying goodbye.
It is continuing the conversation in the only language available now:
the breath,
the body,
the invisible thread.
Stay here for several breaths. Remember the feeling of love as you breath their name.
Practice: Tree Roots
You can do this practice seated or standing.
Gently close your eyes. Feel your feet on the floor.
Imagine that from the soles of your feet roots begin to grow slowly and unhurriedly, the way old oaks grow their roots. They move down through the floor, through whatever lies beneath it, into the cool dark earth.
They do not rush. They find their way around stone and rock.
They move deeper. And deeper still.
Now begin to sense the earth pushing back a gentle upward energy, like warmth rising through the ground.
You are not holding yourself up through effort. You are held.
Stay here for several breaths. Let the roots carry the weight you have been holding.
When you are ready, let the roots remain……… quietly and invisibly as you open your eyes and return to the room.
Grief changes many things. It changes our memories and i changes our daily rhythms.And sometimes it quietly changes our place in the unfolding of generations. But even when the protective layer above us is gone, we are not standing alone.
We carry them forward in the way we live, the courage they nurtured in us, and the quiet crowns we learn, over time, to wear again.
Is there someone you miss and love whose presence still lives in your heart? I’d love for you to share their name in the comments.