How we can be inspired by and guided by our loved ones

Following on from last week’s post about continuing bonds I wanted to write about two further ways in which I carry Bethany with me as I go about my life. If you haven’t read last week’s post, you can read it below. 

In the Grief Works App by psychotherapist Julia Samuel, one of the exercises asks grievers to answer three questions.

1)      What have you learnt from them?

2)      How did they inspire you?

3)      When might you draw from them to guide you in the future?

I do recommend this as something to think about if you have lost loved ones.  Just the process of writing these things down helps you to remember those special qualities that made them them in a really day to day way.  I saved my answers and often relook at them.  I won’t share them all here, but here are a couple of examples.

In the same way that Catholics have St Anthony to pray to, as the Patron Saint of lost things, I find myself often thinking of Beth and asking for her guidance if I’m travelling somewhere new by myself or think I’m getting lost.  I’m hopeless at knowing where I am, and she had a rational and logical mind with an innate sense of direction that meant she was far better than I was at reading maps, following directions or remembering where I’d parked the car in a multistorey car park!    

I frequently find myself being inspired to “Be more Bethany” when I’m anxious or being indecisive as she had an inner self confidence that meant she never worried about anything.  She was fearless in a way that I aspire to be and didn’t worry what others thought of her.  I have become more determined to be fully me, without compromise or caring too much what other think of me, as a way of honouring her.        

She lives within me, and in all who knew and loved her, in our hearts, our memories, and how we decide to continue to live our lives without her.  As Amanda Held Opelt writes in A hole in the world: finding hope in rituals of grief and healing;

Even the most attentive, ardent stewardship of her memory will never bring her back. But I am here. We are here. We are the living stones that testify to her life and impact. Our lives are her memorial. By honoring ourselves, we honor her.

The second way is through my writing.  We have some lovely poems that Bethany wrote when she was little and she even had a poem about snow published in a collection of poetry from various school children, but in her later years English wasn’t exactly her favourite subject.  To be honest, it wasn’t exactly mine either and my school friends have all been very surprised by my sudden passion for writing.  I started writing poetry in the week that she died, the words flowed easily and I found it a therapeutic way of expressing my thoughts and sorting through the muddle in my mind.  Since then, I have joined a weekly writing group, attended a short story writing course at my local library, and applied to start an MA in Creative Writing at my local university this September. 

I realise it sounds a bit odd, but it really does feel like writing is a gift that Bethany has given me.  Every time I write I therefore feel connected to her, and sometimes the coincidences really do seem to send me a message that she is right there alongside me on my writing journey.

On Tuesday, which would have been her 18^th birthday, I’m off to the first ever Women’s Prize for Fiction Writers event in London, which felt like exactly where I should be on that day.  Then, later this month, my writing group are off to Brighton for our first in person writing retreat weekend.  I didn’t choose the date, and it turns out to be exactly two years after the last time I was in Brighton, supervising Bethany and her friends on a trip to celebrate them finishing their GCSE’s.  (You may remember this was the trip I mentioned last week where she made them all watch England play in the Euro’s!) 

However rational and logical Bethany was, taking the mickey out of me for some of my more woo woo ways, I can’t help but think she’s having a bit of fun with me, knowing that I’m open to these signs and signals, and sending me messages anyway she can.   More on that next week!