Sacred Grieving: Walking Between Worlds

In honor of 10 years since my daughter's passing, I am sharing an excerpt from a book in progress:

Dyllan 5 years old 2 months before her passing

Grief wasn’t a wave that washed over me. It was a burning ground — everything familiar reduced to ash, and me standing barefoot in the smoldering ruins. And walking through it was not optional.  I had to rise each day and place my feet onto that scorched earth — tender, wincing, and still moving forward, step by painful step.

There is nothing tidy about sacred grieving. It is holy only because it cracks you open so wide that the light — and the darkness — have no choice but to pour in. I was cracked open in every way.

My mind felt foggy, (grief brain is real) and holding onto daily thoughts and details felt difficult.  Small talk was painful, and please do not ever ask a grieving person how they are doing! Sleep was difficult, and I longed for it.  I did start taking different sleep remedies and sometimes a prescription to knock me out on purpose.  I suppose in part to make the world go away, but also I knew that I desperately needed rest.  

I find it interesting that my connection with the Spirit world and my relationships with the Holy Ones was the most comforting to me.  It was the only thing that made sense.  I had access to this liminal space, and could hear their voices and feel them around me, and yet I felt scorched and burned beyond repair from the last 5 years.  I was overwhelmed with the grief and the healing of the trauma that needed to happen.  

Amongst many Indigenous Ways, when a close loved one passes, the grieving person is considered a Holy Person for four seasons — an entire year.It is understood that for that year, one foot stands in this world, and one foot walks with the spirit of the beloved who has crossed over.

During this sacred time, the grieving one is given space. They are not expected to carry on as if nothing has happened. They are allowed — even encouraged — to be messy, to let their grief howl and tear through them however it needs to. Community gathers around, tending to them, bringing food, holding up the structures of daily life so that the mourner can fully be with their grief.

In some traditional ways, there were even grieving huts — spaces set apart where the bereaved could go to simply be, free from the demands of daily chores and responsibilities. They would be tended, nourished, and protected as they walked through their burning ground.

And then, at the one-year mark — after four full seasons had turned — a ceremony would be held. This ritual marked two things: the letting go of the loved one to go further into the Spirit world, and the beginning of a new life here on earth without them. It was not an erasure of grief, but a sacred transition — a recognition that something profound had changed.

I did not have a grieving hut. But as I look back, I see how my body, my spirit, and my heart were crying out for just such a space. Our modern world has lost so much of this sacred understanding. Death is hidden away. Grief is expected to be private, quick, and tidy.But I know now — and I knew in my bones then — that grief is holy. Messy, raw, untamed — and holy.

Even with the knowledge and deep resonance with grief as sacred ground, it was difficult to let myself live this way.  Grief does not live as Holy Ground in our society.  

I remember the mornings in those early days after Dyllan’s death.The numbness would lift just enough for the pain to rush in like wildfire.I would wake up in the morning, and for a split second, forget. And then the remembering would come crashing down: she’s gone. The weight of that truth would pin me to the bed.

But even in that paralysis, life demanded things from me. Aliya needed breakfast. She needed a mom. And so, I would rise, scorched but still breathing, and somehow tend to her while my insides screamed.  Luckily, we lived just 2 blocks from her elementary school and I would walk her there in the morning and then come back home and crawl back into bed for as long as I could.

The trauma lived in my body like a raw, open wire — buzzing and jolting through me without warning.  I had 3 states: anxiety, numbness and deep grief. My nervous system was fried — five years of crisis mode followed by the trauma of holding my child as she died.I didn’t know how to calm it. I didn’t know how to come back to my body. 

Even though I have been a practitioner specializing in trauma and grief for over a decade at that point.  It was humbling.  But I knew this: I could not stay in this place of raw survival forever.Not for myself. And not for Aliya.

I started small.Tiny acts of self-care that, on the surface, seemed insignificant but were actually acts of defiance against the destruction that grief wanted to make of me.  I was reminded of that moment 5 years ago holding Dyllan’s little pinky while I was not sure if she was going to live another day, and vowing to myself that someway and somehow I would make “good medicine” out of this.  

I sipped many cups of tea while sitting on my deck looking at the ocean and mountains.  A walk outside on the trail, feeling the earth solid beneath my feet even when everything inside me felt like rubble.

I cried every day.  It was not by choice. And I let those tears be my prayer.  I did this alone, because I found out early on that these deep guttural cries made those around me very uncomfortable.  I guess my tears are supposed to sound neat and tidy so people are not made uncomfortable by hearing or feeling the pain?  I let my tears flow on a phone call one day within the first 2 months of her passing.  The family member I was talking with told me that she thought I ought to try some anti-depressants to get through this!  What?!  Chemically numb this inside of me to face at a later time.  No thank you.  

My poor Mother had no idea what to do with my grief except pray hard to Jesus that it would go away.  She had lost a grandchild, and she had just walked through all of this with us.  She was also hurting, and did not know what to do with it.  She is famous for her statements:  “Focus on the positive, move forward, and be happy!”.  I had no idea how that applied to my situation.  When she called or messaged me, I would say that I am ok and doing my best.  I really just said whatever I could in the moment to stop her questions and appease her worry.  She knew that.

It was not until a year and a half later when my Dad passed, that she had a different relationship with grief.  She could not avoid going deep into the pain and loss and would ask me questions and apologize for not understanding or being there for me like she could have.  

Sometimes I raged — at the universe, at the unfairness, at the doctors, even at God. That too was part of my sacred grieving.

There were days I could barely function. But there were also moments — small and flickering at first — when I felt something else stir beneath the grief. A whisper of resilience. A remembering that I was still alive.

It is the people who show up in the weeks and months after the funeral flowers have wilted, and the cards have stopped coming that are the ones to lean into.Their presence becomes a thread that helps stitch together the torn fabric of your world.

My dear friend Yasmin understood this. In those early weeks, she would come and sit with me on the deck with a cup of tea. We didn’t need to say anything. The silence didn’t need to be filled — and she had the rare wisdom and the strength to hold that silence with me. Her quiet presence was a balm, a comfort that asked nothing of me.

Before leaving, she would always give me the same gentle instruction:"Go get into the bath and float before you have to pick up Aliya from school." And so I did.Because grief is so heavy, and floating — even for a little while — helped me remember what it felt like to be held, weightless.

Another dear friend would show up at my door unannounced. He knew better than to call ahead — I might have said no. Instead, he would simply say, “Put your shoes on. We’re going for a walk.”This friend, usually a talker, let his words fall away during those walks. His silence was an act of deep respect. He knew he was walking on holy ground.

About a month after Dyllan’s passing, another friend took me out on the trails near my home. When we reached a lookout spot, she pulled a little backpack off her shoulders and opened it. Out came a tiny bottle of champagne, a small bottle of orange juice, and some cups. She poured us mimosas and looked me in the eyes."You made it one month," she said.

It is these small, sacred acts of kindness that became my medicine.These were the people who honored my grief as holy ground, who helped me remember that I was still alive, still here, even as part of me walked with my daughter on the other side.

I leaned into the rituals that had always connected me to Creation. Lighting candles for Dyllan. Speaking to her spirit as if she were still just in the next room. Watching for the red tail hawks that had always been our sign — and feeling a little spark in my chest when I spotted one soaring overhead.  White butterflies.  Looking for hearts out in nature, and everywhere I went. 

They were also a direct sign that she was there, loving me, and encouraging me to keep walking.  Each step also made me stronger in a way I didn’t yet understand.

This wasn’t about “moving on.”It was about learning to walk differently. It was about learning to turn the grief into medicine that would nourish me and others in the days and years ahead.  I began to see that this was a path.A sacred one. A path that no mother should ever have to walk — and yet, it happens and I was walking it. And I would keep walking. For myself. For Aliya. And for Dyllan, whose light was now woven into every sunset, every hawk, every heart I saw.