Blossoming in the Face of Suffering

Life can only be understood backward but it must be lived forward.

--Kierkegaard

This week marks the anniversary of a painful and profoundly meaningful moment in my life. I lost my newborn baby, Catherine Rose, seventeen years ago. 

Blooming Rose Healing was named in her honor. 

Just days before her birth, I was sitting in a coffee shop writing a letter to myself. I was forty-one years old and about to have my first child. 

I wrote Dear Mary… addressing both the present-moment Mary and the Mary I was becoming. I knew I was ready for motherhood and that my heart was open, but a small part of me also knew I would never be the same, and with that came a sense of grief. 

When I look back, I wonder if the grief I felt was a premonition of the loss I was about to face. My husband had woken up three nights in a row crying after a bad dream that I lost the baby. But I didn’t have that worry. I calmly told him that’s not my story, and I believed it. 

But, of course, we can’t predict how our suffering will look until we are facing it. When Catherine Rose died, I wanted to have a temper tantrum with God. But would it have changed anything? I had to deal with reality. 

Today, we’re all dealing with a reality that we don’t want to face. We are living through a pandemic. Just like I wondered who the new Mary would be after the birth of my first child, how can each of us ask:

Who am I now and who do I want to become?

How do I want to show up in this new world?

As I honor the quiet time that the quarantine is gifting me, I’m constantly discovering new ways that the past works to teach me. Grief is tricky; it has layers. But the more time I spend meditating, journaling, taking quiet walks, and doing deep breathwork, the more meaning I find in Catherine Rose’s death and in this pandemic. 

Mother Earth sends us so many messages and sometimes we just don’t get it. We’re afraid to meet that powerful, wise, intuitive part of ourselves, to tap into our bodies and open ourselves to whatever we’re experiencing.

Catherine taught me to be in my feelings. She came to bless me and awaken me to being a teacher and an educator. Because of her brief time in my life, I’ve learned who I’m here to be. I’ve allowed myself to blossom. 

I never could have imagined we’d be here now, with the whole world facing the same challenge, and what a gift it would be.

How can you blossom in the face of suffering? 

Try this: Find a spot in nature and breathe for ten minutes. Set an intention to align with the earth and the planet. I like to look at the flowers, at their perfect unfoldment. I watch my dogs, how they embody unconditional love. And I think about the whales, who use their songs to balance themselves. 

Focus on whatever has meaning for you. 

Above all, know that everything in the past had led to this. And that one day, it will all make sense.