Navigating Loss

Navigating Loss: Embracing the Grace in Letting Go

“Death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it.” — Haruki Murakami

As we age, it is inevitable that we face more death, including the gradual approach of our own. I share my experience here in the hope that what I’m practicing may support you in your process. We are not given nearly enough tools to navigate this certainty we all face.

Many traditions invite us to meditate on our own mortality, to uncover the true value of life.

I’m writing this from the depths of mourning for ‘my’ little black Panterita. It’s been 11 days since she left, and I’m still crying. I find solace in knowing that I have no regrets. She lived an extraordinary life, filled with adventure: hunting snakes, mice, birds, lizards, and bugs. She experienced the sea, the mountains, farmland, and most of all, love. I felt hers, and she felt mine.

We all know, at least in theory, that we’ll lose those we love, whether bit by bit or all at once. But I wasn’t ready. She was only four and a half, and I assumed we had so much more time.

While I ride waves of pain, loss, and longing, they come and go. In between, I adjust to this new sense of “without.” Yet I question: am I truly without her?

Panterita came into my life shortly after my grandmother passed at the start of the pandemic. She made me smile every single time I looked at her. Her soul and presence were enormous. She was bold, courageous, wild, funny, playful, smart, fast, and agile. Together, we created a little family. Moving from island to island, checking in with each other daily, every night she’d curl up on my pillow waiting for bedtime. I’d close the shutters and ask if she’d mind sharing the bed, carefully transferring her to the foot of the bed where she’d nestle against my feet as we fell asleep. I will miss her forever. The thought of never seeing, feeling, hearing, or smelling her again is devastating.

My grandmother’s death was traumatic; not being able to hug Dad after she passed due to the pandemic felt surreal. Yet it also gave me the time and space to fully surrender to the pain, loss, anger, and frustration. I went to the great mother tree, lying under her for hours a day, weeping into the earth, crying into the sky under her immense embrace. I opened myself to feel every emotion, allowing it all to be seen – messy, raw, like a storm. It passed, leaving its mark.

And here I am, once again, fully feeling, honoring, and refining this practice of letting go. I share this small refinement I’m practicing now because it’s helping and each day feels lighter.

A few years ago, I was visiting a friend in hospital in Palma. I sat with her, and across the hallway, a family was visiting their grandfather. He passed away suddenly, and the cries from that room echoed down the hall. It made me think about the energy surrounding our death. In Buddhism, the Bardo is the space between death and rebirth, a pause, a liminal suspense. It’s believed that the energy around our death defines our next rebirth, as if our purpose in this life is to arrive at death’s door with peace, freeing ourselves from repeating the same karma and lessons.

“As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well used brings happy death.” — Leonardo da Vinci

When my first dog, Nala, passed, I saw her bright blue eyes turn gray the instant she left her body. The light in her eyes – the life that breathed through her – was gone. Somehow, I understood that this light had returned to the source, like a ray returning to the sun.

So now, as I navigate loss again, I observe my inner language. When grief overtakes me, I ask myself, What am I believing right now? Often, I hear the voice saying, She’s gone; I’ll never see her again. I listen, and then I gently reply, She’s not gone; she’s everywhere now.

She has returned to the field, the source, the universe. She is not gone; she’s everywhere. And she will always be in my heart.

“To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.” — Thomas Campbell

My hope is that those I love and hold close will not be held back by my clinging. I don’t want to hinder a departed soul, keeping it from soaring freely and far. But of course, I feel the pain.

May we all learn to embrace death with more grace, finding awareness in every moment. And may we support each other in letting go, so that we can all fly in our freedom.

She was never ‘my’ cat. We shared our journey for which I am eternally filled with gratitude. Fly free and high Panterita!