Loss and betrayal are two of the most difficult experiences we encounter as humans. The four years I had with my husband Christer taught me many things about relationship — its joys and its challenges. But it was after he died I learned about the true nature of love and the illusion of loss and betrayal.
I say illusion because what I learned from him was neither really exists. Both are manufactured by the ego self that seeks to blame another for deeply uncomfortable emotions brought on by unexpected events. We can’t “lose” someone, in the true sense of the word because they were never ours to have.
After my husband died, 9 years ago on Monday, his ethereal presence stayed with me for about a year in a very tangible way. I felt him near me, nudging me in certain directions. He spoke to me — telling me things about unfinished work we had to do together before he could leave.
My experience with Christer — removing him from life support and creating a ceremony to help him cross over — was the most unconditionally loving thing I have ever done. It was extraordinarily beautiful. The days with him before in the ICU allowed me to enter what I call the “hyper present”, where love flowed abundantly through me, in me and around me. It was in the air I breathed, the food I ate and in the hearts of most everyone I encountered.
Had I not been in the present moment, wishing for a past or projected future that was no longer available to me, I would have missed those exceptional experiences. All that love would have floated by unseen and unfelt. Death doesn’t end a relationship, it transforms it. Death isn’t our enemy, it is our destiny. The sooner we make friends with it, the freer we will be to fully live and release with love the ones who go before us.
When we lose someone or something we can grieve the loss by giving thanks for having had them for a while and then let them go with grace. Mourning is a process of release which we can experience with gratitude, even though most often we don’t. This is not to say that suffering isn’t also part of the process. But if we can move through the suffering to reach the other side of it, then we can experience the loss as an opportunity for personal growth and expansion. To stay stuck in the suffering, wishing the loss hadn’t occurred, then we miss the chance it offers us in the present moment which is the only place where change is possible.
Christer did some things before he died that left me feeling betrayed. Because we didn’t get to work through them while he was alive, Christer stayed with me until I understood that betrayal, like loss, is an illusion of the ego. He showed me from the other side, how we each come into life with our own path to discover and unfold. We make choices having to do with that path, which affects others who cross our paths, but we don’t do things “to” another person. We do them for our own reasons – healthy or unhealthy – to teach us the lessons we need to learn or to take an opportunity which seems compelling. As this truth entered the deepest part of my being, I felt free and full of gratitude for everything Christer and I shared.
When we understand another cannot betray us — nor can we betray another– it frees us from the illusion life “happens” to us. We can’t always control the circumstances we find ourselves in but we can always choose how we want to respond to those circumstances. When we do what’s best for ourselves from a point of deep inner knowing, then the choice we make can also be an opportunity for the people who are affected by it, to grow and heal along with us, even if they may not think so as their first reaction.
Learning these profound truths about life, loss, death and betrayal, guided by Christer on the other side, deepened my understanding of love and forgiveness – firstly for myself and then naturally following, for all the lives my life has touched. In letting go of illusion, I gained much more than I lost.
June 25, 2020