Embracing Ends

12/25/2023

Will you remember
to way back before
I whispered “I love you”
as I closed your door?

And I wonder if maybe,
you will remember
the way the house smelt
in the month of December

The racing to bed
and stroking your head,
the songs that we sung,
and the books that we read

I wonder if maybe
you’ll remember on Sunday,
the pancakes, then school bags
all ready for Monday

That mother spelt love,
the way I held you
And when I messed up
I apologised too

I wonder if maybe
you’ll remember the way
his keys made music
at the end of the day

How I held you forever
when our eyes first met
How you’ll never remember
what I can’t forget

One day you’ll be older
maybe a child of your own
and I’ll sit there and watch you
and that’s when I’ll know

It was more than just holding you in my arms
And more than just conversations with the stars.
It was more than the nights that called for my bed,
the ones I stayed up and held you instead.
It was more than the milestones, or the places we’d been.
It was the little moments too, the ones in between.
And some days were hard, sometimes a lot.
And we muddled through often.
More often than not.
But the love and the smiles would find us each morning.
The glue to our days of this childhood forming.

And maybe one night
after the longest of days
when you’re singing about
happiness when skies are grey

There were Sunday pancakes
and it’s now time for bed
as you yawn at the stars
while you’re stroking their head

Maybe you’ll ask me,
“Will they remember this mum?”
Your face will be tired
Your hair in a bun.

And that’s when I’ll smile
because now I am sure.
As you whisper “I love you”,
and close their door.

From my book Beautiful Chaos:
Pre order here: www.jessicaurlichs.com/shop
Jess Urlichs
Art: angelica.ch.r

12/20/2023

❤️
🖊️Intuitive Drawings

10/07/2023

Unfortunately I didn’t see this on my brother’s birthday but a friend posted it for her brother. I’m copying it in hopes others know they are not alone in their grief .

09/19/2023

Adding value and happiness to someone’s life!

How awesome to have support in making her wish come true!!!

08/11/2023

Credit to respective artists...

07/30/2023

When I was young, I remember reading Winnie the Pooh. Though I don’t remember disliking it, I don’t remember loving it either.

As an adult, Pooh amazes me. Everything he says is so simple, almost like I should be responding DUH! Instead I’m amazed at his perfect, understandable, relatable, compassionate words.

07/28/2023

I can only hope this is true.

07/21/2023

07/14/2023

IF YOU THINK GRIEF HAS A TIME LIMIT,
you have likely never lost a piece of your heart.

If you think that the days, months and years will somehow erase the extent of the loss, then you have never been unlucky enough to lose a love.
You are blessed, my friend.

For life without that piece of you, is a new life indeed.
It is a new world when the person you miss is no longer here.
Everything looks different and will never look the same again.
Every day is a mountain to climb, battling the waves of emotion, when a song plays, a smell reminds or a memory rears.

And that never lessens, we only become accustomed to handling it.
To hiding it.

You may think time is healing the hurt, then you enter a new phase of your life; a relationship, a child, a grandchild, a new opportunity, and you realise you cannot share that with your missing part.
The waves bear down fresh, as they were on the very the first day.

If you think grief has a time limit, my friend, you have never lost a piece of your heart.
And for that, you should be truly grateful.

Let the grieving grieve for as long as they must, and if you want to help, just love them more.

Love is the only way.
—
Written by Donna Ashworth

07/09/2023

This is just one more service death doulas offer. Being a non judgmental presence at the end of life.

It’s easy to fault the family but we just don’t know the story, nor do we need to. There are many scenarios that come to mind but I will only address one right now.

Often the family doesn’t show up because they don’t know what will happen, they are scare and don’t want to be alone with death. It’s not for a lack of love but because they love so much. A death doula can support the family member as well as the dying. By being there too, explaining what to expect, by giving them options of how to deal with their fears and what they can do to comfort their loved one. To make it a beautiful memory.

If they are truly against being present, no judgement, we understand and will take your place.

06/24/2023

I am one of the searchers. There are, I believe, millions of us.
We are not unhappy, but neither are we really content.
We continue to explore life, hoping to uncover its ultimate secret.
We continue to explore ourselves, hoping to understand.
We like to walk along the beach, we are drawn by the ocean, taken by its power, its unceasing motion, its mystery and unspeakable beauty.
We like forests and mountains, deserts and hidden rivers, and the lonely cities as well.
Our sadness is as much a part of our lives as is our laughter.
To share our sadness with one we love is perhaps as great a joy as we can know - unless it be to share our laughter.
We searchers are ambitious only for life itself, for everything beautiful it can provide.
Most of all we love and want to be loved.
We want to live in a relationship that will not impede our wandering, nor prevent our search, nor lock us in prison walls...
We do not want to prove ourselves to another or compete for love.
For wanderers, dreamers, and lovers, for lonely men and women who dare to ask of life everything good and beautiful.
It is for those who are too gentle to live among wolves.
― James Kavanaugh

Archaeology for the Woman's Soul

Photo: Art by Susan Seddon Boulet