Dear Grief Guide, I Can't Feel My Person With Me

Hello and welcome to Dear Grief Guide,

A podcast where each week I answer one anonymous letter from a listener feeling lost,

Stuck,

Heartbroken,

Or overwhelmed in the midst of grief.

My name is Shelby Forsythia.

I'm a grief coach and author,

And I'm here to help you create a life you love from the life loss forced you to live.

Let's get to today's letter.

Dear Grief Guide,

So my best friend is gone.

She lost her battle with cancer after a year and a half of being in and out of the hospital.

Shit hurts,

And I miss her all the time.

It's like this void,

This emptiness,

That feels never-ending.

When I lost my grandmother as a kid,

I got these signs,

White feathers,

Dandelions,

Songs playing on the radio,

Like little nods from the universe.

But now,

Dealing with my friend's death at 25,

It's just silence.

No feathers,

No flowers,

No songs playing out of nowhere.

I can't feel her with me.

I tried seeing a medium,

Hoping for a clearer connection.

It helped a bit.

During the session,

I felt her presence,

And I had a moment where her death didn't hurt as much.

But on a daily basis,

The yearning for some sort of consistent sign is still there.

I just want to feel her,

Without needing someone else to make it happen.

Do you know what I mean?

How on earth do I get through this loss when those signs that I just thought would appear like magic aren't showing up?

I want to know she's with me,

Like those little reminders that she's still around.

I'm hoping you can help.

Sitting in silence.

Hi sitting in silence.

I resonate with this one.

Because so many of my clients,

Their biggest pain point,

Their biggest hard thing in the aftermath of loss is I cannot feel my person with me.

I don't know where they are,

I don't know where they went.

I went from seeing them every day,

Every week,

A couple of times a year,

Knowing that they were still here,

To poof,

As if by magic,

As if by an awful witch's curse,

They are suddenly gone,

Vanished into the ether.

Were they even here at all?

There's this sense that they've gone missing,

And they may never appear again.

And there's this sense too,

On like a soul or spiritual level,

That the connection that you had with them is permanently severed,

That the line has gone dead,

For lack of better phrasing,

And you will never hear from them or receive any other sort of transmission ever again.

I'm placing so much breath here and acknowledgement of how hard that story is.

If that's the story that's playing in your head right now,

How hard that is to live with and to sit with.

And I want to offer you a couple of things today.

I have a hunch,

And thank you so much for sharing this story about your grandmother's death.

I have a hunch that in your childhood,

Perhaps like many of us,

You had more time,

More free space in the day with which to listen,

To receive signs and symbols.

I wonder if as a first step,

You might be willing to give yourself or create for yourself more of that space now,

As an adult at 25,

Whether that looks like silence or space in your calendar,

Space in the day,

Sitting in stillness or engaging in idle play.

There's a wonderful book by the author Celeste Henley called Do Nothing,

And it speaks to the merits of,

You know,

Cloud spotting,

Lying on the floor in your room and listening to an album front to back,

Sitting on public transit without any sort of stimulus like a podcast or an audio book,

Even though thank you for listening to this one,

In your ears,

Just being,

Just being a human being.

It's a wonderful book.

If you feel compelled to pick it up,

By all means do so.

If not,

The gist of it is that it's beneficial on so many levels for our brains,

Our bodies,

Our nervous systems,

Even our spirits to engage in a practice of nothingness,

To do nothing.

Because we open ourselves up then to the possibility of being inspired,

Finding rest.

And in your case,

My hope is being communicated with.

Oftentimes as kids,

We have so much time in the day,

We have so much less to worry about and I'm speaking very broadly here because I don't know what your childhood was like,

But oftentimes there's just so much more room to receive because there's so much more room in general.

Your life is full,

It is rich,

It is meaningful,

But it is not chaos,

It is not busyness,

It is not,

It is not the structure that we have in adulthood.

So I wonder if there's a way you can cultivate more of that in your life.

The reason I say this,

Or what's coming forward for me as I say this,

Is I remember as a kid going outside during recess at school,

I used to have this belief that I was connected to the wind.

And I wouldn't ever say this out loud,

Except now that I've talked to so many more people who had the same thing,

I know I'm not,

I know I'm not crazy for feeling this way,

But I would stand still and I would imagine,

I would ask the wind to blow,

I would ask the leaves and the trees to shake,

And when it would,

I would listen.

And I would smile because I would feel connected to this natural force,

Wind,

That just exists on the planet.

I don't know if I necessarily thought I was in charge of it,

Or I could control it,

Or I was connected to a universe that could.

I don't know what my dial-up connection was with wind,

But it was one of my favorite things to do,

And I can tell you,

I have not done it once as an adult.

But that's the kind of free space and time and imagination that I'm talking about,

Is when we offer ourselves more of that time and space,

Often what comes rushing in to fill it is these connections,

Is that imagination,

Is that sort of magic that we felt was present when we were kids.

And a perfect segue from that is the next thing I want to offer you,

And that is asking.

Asking your friend to show up,

Just like I asked the wind to show up when I was a kid.

I have done this so many times with clients,

And I'm thinking of one right now who also lost a best friend to cancer,

So no,

You are not alone in that sense.

And she felt disconnected from her friend,

And the only time she felt connected to her was when she was working in her best friend's garden,

Which she tended after her death.

But she said,

I want her to show up in so many more ways,

And I said,

I hear you.

A lot of people do.

It makes sense that you would want this connection to continue,

So why don't you ask her to show up?

Ask your best friend to send you signs and symbols.

You could do this through journaling,

You could do this through praying,

You could write a song about it.

You could use your time in the shower or the bath or tending to yourself each day to talk to her as if she is in the room with you,

But oftentimes even just setting out some sort of intention,

Kind of like setting out a plate of cookies for Santa.

I'm bringing in a lot of magical childhood figures on this response today,

But even setting out these invitations can often help your brain and your heart be more receptive to recognizing when responses come.

And the last thing that I want to offer you is another thing that I did with a client who desperately wanted to see signs and symbols from someone they very dearly loved but felt disconnected from,

And that is to make a list of things that remind you of your friend.

I did this after my best friend died in 2022,

And some of the things on the list I'll just give you five.

Corgis,

Hello Kitty,

Being by the lakefront or anywhere with water,

Iced coffee,

And hearts.

And this list of five things,

Corgis,

Hello Kitty,

Being by the lakefront,

Iced coffee,

And hearts,

Every time I see them now,

I say hello to her.

Whether they feel as if they have been magically brought into my life,

A stranger walks by with a Corgi and an iced coffee,

On the sidewalks of Chicago,

Magical,

Or if I'm inventing it for myself,

It's Valentine's Day at the flower shop where I spend some of my days,

I have a part-time job there,

And the decor is covered in hearts.

That's definitely something I strung up myself.

That's definitely something I brought into my own life.

That's definitely something that is coincidentally here because of the time of year.

And still,

Every time I see heart decorations,

I say hello to my friend.

You could turn this into a bingo card and make a game of it.

You could invite other people to spot these signs and symbols with you and sort of play a game of grief I spy,

Which is really fun,

Especially if you have children or a partner or people who knew your best friend,

Like a community as well,

That you'd like to play this game with.

My mother,

I believe,

Shows up through coins.

And so every time I find a coin,

I send a picture to my sister or to my wife.

And then sometimes when friends and family members find coins,

They send pictures to me and it's like this giant cosmic game of see a penny,

Pick it up,

All day long you'll have good luck that we play now in her memory,

In her honor.

And so we feel in a larger,

More connected way as if she is communicating with and surrounding us all.

And there's a gift in that.

And something I want to say right now,

Whether it's invented,

I invented my own bingo card.

I've made my list of five symbols and that's how I'm seeing her.

Or it's magical.

It feels like it crosses your path by accident.

You did not ask it to be here,

But oh my God,

There it is.

Does it matter?

This is a question I get so often from grieving people.

It's like,

I want it to be magical.

I want it to feel like I put in no effort.

I want it to feel like it was just given to me from the universe.

Maybe like these signs from your grandmother were,

I get that.

And also part of continuing a relationship after loss,

It's called the theory of continuing bonds is taking intentional steps to remember the person that you lost and remind yourself of the love that you shared with them and the positive memories that you shared with them.

That's all a part of keeping the relationship alive.

You do things that are intentional.

And then if you are lucky,

And so many of us are lucky,

And I know you will be too sitting in silence,

Some of these things will come to you because you are already out there in the world looking for them.

You have made a list,

You have enlisted your friends,

You have opened up space in your day.

You've done all the things to make that possible.

And I can't see any other outcome than her somehow magically finding her way to you.

Whether through one of your things in the I Spy game,

A sign and symbol that you have flagged with her in mind,

Or something that you would have never guessed would cross your path at all,

But you recognize without a doubt is her.

I know that will come your way when you put this effort in.

Know that you are not alone.

It may be an instance too,

And I spoke about this with a client a little bit ago,

Of,

It takes us a while to get used to life without our people here,

But oftentimes we don't consider maybe they're getting used to being in a place where we're not there either.

And they're trying to figure out how to best communicate when they're not here in person.

A lot of people believe this happens through signs and symbols,

It's their way of figuring out how to communicate with us.

A lot of people think it happens through things like electricity,

Or songs on the radio,

Or some sort of technology playing a part.

A lot of horror movies are based on that,

Which I don't super love.

But yeah,

I wonder if maybe your best friend is still trying to figure out how best to communicate with you,

And you can say when you ask her,

Hey,

This is how I'll know it's you.

I'll make it easy for you.

Here's how I know it's you.

Can you please show up this way?

And here's my five signs and symbols for you.

Feel free to invent your own.

Feel free to come disguised as something else,

But show me it's you.

I'm ready.

I'm ready to receive these things from you.

I'm ready to receive your gifts.

And I trust that they're coming.

These are all things you can let her know.

And I trust that they will happen for you too.

May a sign,

A symbol,

A blessing,

A song,

A feather,

Something that reminds you of her,

Come your way very,

Very soon.

I am holding such a good thought for you.