Shalom friends and extended Wailing Wall Prayer Family,
It has been over 8 months since Greg, of blessed memory, passed away. From before Passover until now feels like 5 months in and of itself. Passover is truly the holiday of transformation. I feel like our family and especially me personally, have traveled many oceans and lands since then and have arrived on a temporary island called ‘here’. It is quiet. Serene. Uncomplicated. Focused. Different plants grow here and the waters are a strange but pleasant color. We are getting used to the closeness yet alien feeling of being ‘here’.
As I look back I remember some of the things that got me ‘here’. Before this all happened, I had the need to go in search of myself this summer. I realized that I needed to come closer to who I really was. In order to do that I needed to start writing and talking. I had no idea about what; I just realized that my higher purpose was to inspire people. I started a blog, I had plans to start an online radio advice line and I started putting the word out that I was available for speaking engagements. I had no idea what I was going to talk about I just knew that I felt alive when I helped others to reach higher places.
And then ‘IT’ happened. The IT that pummeled my world as I knew it. The IT that couldn’t have thrown me farther off guard.
And I started speaking. I spoke during the 7 day mourning period for hours and hours on end. There were barely any other immediate family members present, so I had the stage ironically. And I kept speaking. I spoke until 3 am the last day and asked for more time. Then I started writing. The blog was right here in front of me waiting. The stage had been set, the mike already prepped, the audience just waiting for a word.
The bitter irony. I found out what I was going to be speaking about.
Someone special told me that I was Greg’s midwife to the afterlife. I was there for his soul to be born into the world of souls. Likewise, he too helped me to be born into my new world ahead – whatever that may be.
So far it is a world where I have fallen deeper in love with my kids, where I have expanded far beyond my comfort and imagined-possible zones to take up the emptied space, and where I have learned that the act of giving especially applies to oneself.
With love from Jerusalem,
Lisa