The vulnerability of loving and living so fiercely.

Yesterday one of my Soul Sisters died.  She was lying in a park in San Francisco with her 11 month old daughter and their dog.  A parks and recreation truck (the ones that pick rubbish up etc) ran her over and she died shortly after from head injuries.  She was 35 years old and living a fiercely loving life.  She was parenting her little one so closely and so intimately and she was so happy to be a Mum.  Work had begun again after maternity leave and she was finding her feet between being a working person, a Mum, a Wife, a friend, teacher, learner and coach to so many.

I call her a Soul Sister because there are people who I meet along the way who are deeply aligned with how I want to live, who I want to be. These people are willing to have the conversations that I experience as life affirming, curiosity sparking, nourishing and which are also brave, bold and courageous because many times they are not easy.  I call her a Soul Sister because of how fiercely she loved her daughter, her husband, her dog and so many many people around the world that she taught, coached and learned with.  I call her a Soul Sister because of her courage to live in vulnerability, to love so deeply and in such connection.

The essence of my friend is still here and I can feel it.  The essence of her is a bright, funny, real, humorous, generous, friendly, curious, open, dedicated and truthful spirit.  I know that the people she has left behind will have this deep imprint of her soul on theirs.  And may this be some kind of balm for the pain, grief and letting go. 

And this blog is a blog of gratitude, a gratitude that's arising in this moment out of a raw, grief filled heart where not much of life feels real.  The gratitude is for those of us who are willing to live the vulnerable life, to be in life in a way that feels frighteningly risky.  My heart feels filled with all the mothers out there who love their children with all of their being.  It feels full of all the fathers who hold their families so deeply in their hearts.  Full of all the brothers and sisters, wives and husbands, friends and colleagues who wear their hearts on their sleeves and risk it all to be in relationship with those important to them, and also those beyond our immediate family and friends.  It's filled with all the grandparents who enjoy their grandchildren and love them so much that they become different people to when they parented their own children.

It feels so filled with risk to be in relationship in this way - to fully bear our selves to another, to be honest, to be kind, to be undefended.  To truly love and throw ourselves into relationship and admit how we really feel - how natural it is for us humans - and how frightening to think we may lose it.  And let's not allow this to stop us.  Let this give us permission to jump even more fully in, to enjoy what we have, every second, every encounter, every lesson, every heartache - and see it all as life - the fullness of live arising for us.

And then if we die one day, we'll die in the knowledge that we've gone for it, we've accepted life in all it's pain and glory, all it's happiness and upset, all its difficulty and generosity.    We'll die surrounded by the relationships we have bathed in, grown from, given to.

This blog is for me really.  Processing this day of my own pain, my own aching heart.  Allowing the waves of grief which have a life of their own, to be in my body and to go with the flow and learn what I can learn from how I am experiencing the passing on of someone in the world who was making a difference, who was taking a stand, who was changing things for the better.  I'm so so sad.  And I'm so grateful for her presence, her kindness, the way she has affected my life by who she is and how she was.