2021: a year of Loss, deep grief, & reckoning (Part 1)

Introductory note: In mid-January 2022, as I was starting to create this website and open space for my work to be shared again, I felt the need and calling to sit down and write my 2021 story. I had no choice but to journey into the deep throws and upheaval of loss and grief in 2021, a process that, for me at the time, demanded pulling back from much of life as I had known it. As I prepared to step forward and share again, something felt missing – so much had changed within me. I had contracted on all levels and then exponentially expanded and taken new form over and over again, and I continue to; it felt weird and disconnecting to share EllieFlow without also sharing the pain and process that opened me to this creation, and the many creations that are to come.

So I sat down to build you a bridge through my words, a bridge that would carry you from who I was when you perhaps last knew me as the founder of Deeply Nourished for Life, to who I am now. As I began to write, the following poured out:

I am opening to 2022 after a year I will never forget. 

I welcomed 2021 with a panic attack on New Year’s Eve. I had never had a panic attack before, but after watching a movie at home with my husband and then heading to bed before midnight, my body began to tremble and my breath shortened. I was brushing my teeth when a cold-to-the-bone feeling washed over me. 

I told my husband I was feeling anxious and he asked, “What changed in the last 10 minutes? We were just laughing at the movie and you were ok.” I felt irritated by the question, partly because it was true – I had been contently watching the movie moments ago, so what had happened? I distracted perhaps, or just…disconnected from myself?

I crawled into bed and the moment I tried to lay down it got worse, feeling frigid and shaking uncontrollably no matter how hard I tried to hold still and get warm. 

Ironically I was simultaneously running the most aligned program I had ever run before, sharing daily videos, meditations, writing prompts and teachings with 14 amazing humans on how to connect with their own authentic energy and selves as we walked into 2021.

During the day, as I prepared, guided, and taught each day through the program, I felt so alive and excited to open to what wanted to be birthed. My passion for exploring the depths of our beingness and holding space to feel into all of it freely poured out of me. And yet here I was that night, sitting on the edge of my bed on New Years Eve at 11pm, unable to even lie down. 

As I clenched my husbands hand, I tapped into one of my favorite teachings of the program, a teaching on creating and understanding safety within ourselves to create a basis for healing and connection. As I tapped in, I knew on a deep level that I was physically safe and spiritually safe, despite my body’s intense physical response. However, on an emotional level a deep fear had overcome me and I didn’t even know where it stemmed from. 

At the time, I chalked it up to fear that I had given my family COVID over Christmas, even though no one was feeling ill and I hadn’t been sick. Now I look back and I believe that my panic was brought on by a soul knowing that my mind at the time couldn’t comprehend. On some level I knew that all was not well as an enormous wave of fear and anticipatory grief crashed through my body. 

In my depths, so much was stirring…

What was happening? What would happen? Was Mom going to be ok? Would we make it to our month-long California getaway in a few weeks like we had planned?

Would I ever find the courage to tell her some of the things that were on my heart, some of the ways I felt pain and desire for more in our relationship?

Would I get to see her have fun and laugh many more times like I dreamed? Would she still be spunky and vibrant in daily life, as I believed she was at her core? Would I get to be her silly daughter again, or convince her to dance with me like I dreamed? Would we ever get to be free together, totally us and totally free of the weight of the cancer again?

As the shaking progressed, I miraculously found a homeopathic remedy (categorized as a remedy for fear of death and dying even though in that moment I believe I was most afraid of my mom’s death, not my own) to help move me out of my panic state that night.  I fell asleep and January began. I continued with my program, but once it ended I felt restless in my being.

I had all of these dreams for my business and yet everything felt so off inside. I had spent years in exploration of who I really was and what I was called here to do, and I KNEW (and that knowing is still there) that there was so much that wanted (and wants) to be shared through me. 

I often became irritated with myself, feeling myself holding back for reasons I couldn’t comprehend. Some days I was able to tap into the river of life and Spirit flowing through me, other days I was unable to move. I felt stuck in a fog of lethargy and depression.

And then more scary little moments started to unfold, as if they had popped out of my worst nightmares. Notes from my mom’s best friend saying how hard it was that my mom didn’t feel well enough to go to Chemo that week. Texts from my sister saying, “Are you planning on coming to Mom and Dad’s anytime soon? I think you should plan to come next week.”

Just like there had been at Christmas time last year, there would be hours where my mom was alive and attentive. She baked cakes from new recipes that intrigued her to take people with new babies or friends that had birthdays. She did Qi-Gong for hours a day, and went for walks in the cold Minnesota winters. And we’d talk on the phone – I can still hear her attentive “hmm mm”s, and “oh yea”s on the other end as I updated her about things in Milwaukee. Or she’d call to ask me to order her some more supplements or to discuss nutrition or fertility resources for one of her homeopathic clients. 

But there were also many moments everyday when she was in pain, when nothing tasted good and it became hard for her to eat and sustain her weight. There were weeks when her chemo side effects caused so much water retention in her belly and legs that finding clothes and shoes that were comfortable was nearly impossible. 

Around January 20th, after a very scary night of pain, my dad took my mom to the hospital where she stayed for a week due to an infection in her abdominal fluid. My sister had been texting me and asking me to pray, and updating me as they called her doctors and made the decision.

Taking her to the hospital terrified us all, especially after 9-months of a world-wide pandemic. But as they treated the infection and as the pain subsided we found hope. If you knew my mom, you know she was a fighter that found purpose and energy for life over and over again, even in the toughest mental and physical times of cancer treatment and life.  My Dad’s voice rings in my ears as I write: “We think if she can just get home to rest, and we can get a lot of good food in her, she can recover from this.”

She returned home, and we were all relieved.  Yet the daunting uncertainty of her recovery loomed over us. We postponed our trip to California, and my sister and I started to rotate being at my parents’ house to support to be with our mom, and support Dad in the care taking.

There were days when she stomached her meds and vitamins and ate full bowls of soup, for which we cheered and celebrated. There were also many days where we all felt hopeless and helpless trying to keep her comfortable, vibrant, and healing. 

She never stopped chiming in with her intelligent thoughts and mental attentiveness. In early February I remember her saying, “Your Dad is hovering again. I hate when he does that!” I am chuckling now remembering her exact position and annoyed expression as she stated this to me. But the truth was it was so hard not to hover – it came from a deep place of love and concern.

The first week I was with her, after she made it clear she hated the hovering, I perched over a table a few feet away from her recliner while I dove into the hardest puzzle we had ever attempted. The puzzle had been sitting on that table since Christmas when we deemed it impossible, but this time I was determined to make her proud and give her something she loved to focus on.

It was hard to know what to say in many moments, really just wanting to be present and connected without wasting the energy she needed to heal, so I’d ask if I should put on music. She would surprisingly say OK. I will never forget those nights, looking over my left shoulder at her as she half slept while I hummed and sang along to my favorite Beautiful Chorus albums simultaneously in search of the next perfect puzzle piece. 

The intimacy and sacredness of her last few weeks of life feel unmatchable. A beingness, a togetherness, a lovingness seemed powerfully present in our family as we journeyed through the hardest days of our lives.

A few weeks in we sat on the couch together. Knowing that she wasn’t getting better she said “I’m so sorry sweetie”. And I replied, “I’m so sorry too, Mom.” Then between sobs, “But when I look at you or think of you, all I feel is love. So much love.” 

Our hands were clasped together and I rested my head against hers. After a few minutes of sweet silence I felt her drifting off, so I asked if she had fallen asleep. She didn’t respond right away, and when she did it came from some connected and peaceful place, “I’m just soaking in the love.” 

So there we sat, soaking each other in. I left a few hours later, and  sobbed the whole 3.5 hour drive home. 

The next day I recalled the moment while speaking with her older sister, my Aunt Mary, and she reflected back to me something like, “That is probably how she has felt for 32 years, just soaking in the love since the day you were born.”

Many of the other most impactful moments from her last weeks of life still feel too sacred and intimate to describe fully in words, like when I gave her a bath that turned into a deeply healing moment of grace and love for us both 6 days before she died.

Or when my sister and I braved a traumatic night trying to keep her comfortable with the help of the hair dryer (she liked feeling the hot air blown on her weak legs) and alternating doses of Morphine and Lorazepam.  That night was also the last night we heard her laugh and say, “Love you, El. Love you, Syl” despite the state of delusion she was in. It was the hardest night of my life to date.

Maybe someday I’ll be able to share them more in writing, but for now words just can’t communicate the depth of pain, love, fear, peace, connection, rage and despair that were all bundled into one moment.

She died on Friday morning, February 19th, 2021 around 9:10am, surrounded by my Dad, my sister and myself. We were only 50 days into 2021 and our world had been turned upside down. 

In ways there were moments of weird relief that followed, and feelings of aliveness I struggled to connect with again months later. Moments where my sensitivity and creativity dial was turned way up and I’d write beautiful poems or channel new business plans.

I even somehow found the energy to do a miraculous packing job before her funeral, fitting enough clothes for her funeral, Shiva, and 3 weeks in California into a carry-on. Two weeks after she died my Dad and I drove from Minnesota to California with his dog to finish out whatever we could of our Airbnb reservation from the family trip we had planned with Mom. We got to the Pacific in 2.5 days and I’m still not sure how we did it.

My sister and husband met us there, and that trip was such a blessing (I now highly recommend a bereavement trip after someone passes at home, if that is a possibility financially and otherwise). In that Oxnard, California Airbnb I could feel my mom everywhere - it felt so right and refreshing to be there, yet heartbreaking she didn’t join us physically. It was also where I collapsed for the first time a few days into the trip, no longer being able to hold it all together.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but it wasn’t until I returned home in late March that the shock began to wear off, and the darkness of grief started to set in.

As I slowed down and tried to return to work and other day-to-day responsibilities, I started to feel like I was living in a dream (some days felt more like a fog).

What had just happened? Who was I now? How was I supposed to pick up life and keep moving after watching my beloved mother wither away as she transitioned out of this world? What was even the point of everything I had witnessed and lived in the past two months if I was just supposed to pick up where I had left off?

It felt like a cruel joke. 

Pieces of me felt like they had died with my Mom. In other ways I felt like I was coming to life more than ever before. Yet it all felt heartbreaking.

Part 2 will be posted soon.