05/05/2026
In morning altars we were asked to find something you know, you need to release, it brought into my awareness one of the spaces in my home.
The room where my last client lived and where she transitioned.
And if I’m honest, there’s a part of me that still hasn’t been able to go in there. Not fully. Not with intention. I haven’t gone through her things. I haven’t completed that ending.
It’s been four weeks.
And I can recognize this for what it is, my way of grieving. Not rushed, not forced, just held in a quiet pause. I haven’t felt the call to release her yet. So the space remains as it was, and even now, we still refer to it as Judyi`s room.
There’s something about that something tender and revealing.
Because here I am, sitting in a class about clearing, about release, about creating space, and at the same time, I’m living inside a space that hasn’t yet been cleared.
And I don’t think that’s a contradiction.
I think it’s an invitation.
What stands out to me even more is that I have walked this path before.
This space has held death for others. Sacredly. Intimately.
She is not the first to pass here.
I know this transition. I know what it looks like to close a chapter, to clear a space, to prepare it to hold the next life that will enter into my care and, one day, end here.
And I also notice this, when it came time to release her ashes, that part was easy. Honoring her last wishes to the water.
There was a flow to it. A readiness. A sense of peace in returning her, in honoring her in that way.
But this part, this physical space, her belongings, the room itself, this is where the grief has settled differently.
This is where I’ve paused.
And as I sat with that, I realized something else, Christmas was held so reverently for her.
There was something sacred about that time, something soft and honoring. And when the season passed, I didn’t take the lights down. I always used to teaser.Who made these rules?Why do we have to take down christmas lights? We left them, those quiet, flickering lights, almost like a continuation of that reverence. A gentle presence still holding the space. And here they are still twinkling.
So when I created my altar, I didn’t bring in anything new.
I simply allowed what was already there to become part of it.
At the center, I placed a piece of paper. And on it, I wrote one word,
TIME.
The time of holding.
The time of reverence.
The time of grieving.
And the releasing of that time, while still forever holding the memory.
And surrounding it, those same soft, flickering Christmas lights.
Not as decoration.
But as witness.
As a continuation of the love that filled that space.
As a reminder that even in endings, there is warmth. There is light. There is presence.
Because that’s what this really is.
Not an inability to let go, but an honoring of the time that was shared.
That room isn’t stuck.
It’s held.
Held in reverence.
Held in memory.
Held in the sacred pause between what has ended and what has not yet begun.
But I can feel it shifting.
Not because I should clear it.
Not because I’ve done this before.
But because something within me is beginning to say….. it’s time.
And when I walk into that space, I will do so with intention.
I will honor her.
I will thank her.
I will release her.
Not by erasing her presence, but by acknowledging that her time there is complete.
So that the next life that enters into my care has a clear, open place to land.
And in that way nothing is lost.
It simply softens into light, memory, and the quiet knowing that love never actually leaves, it just changes form.
AHO