Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: grief

  • Retha’s Visit

    Sacred Stories

    It had been an intense retreat. She was grieving so many recent losses…

    Her best friend had passed with ALS. Her brother passed suddenly of a heart attack while climbing the stairs to visit their mother. Then her mother passed from the coronavirus — a virus that prevented her from being able to attend her mother’s funeral.

    And now, she was navigating this estrangement from her siblings.

    She had been sitting all week, doing Vipassana, being with the pain while wanting freedom from the suffering.

    She saw a small plastic picture frame, face-down on the chair. Picking it up, turning it over, she saw it was a drawing of a fish. A hand-made thank you card from a friend. The words read: Gratitude for all your compassionate support.



    The card was signed, “Vipassana love, Retha.”

    Carefully lettered up the right side of the card, “Emerald Isle 2019.” They had both attended the Emerald Isle retreat last year. Seeing Retha’s card was such a powerful gift!

    Retha’s visit was especially welcome as Retha had also passed….

    “Whatever has the nature to arise, has the nature to cease, and is not me nor mine.”

  • Faces

    “Being engaged in a struggle
    may give us a sense of security,
    so that at least we feel that
    we are doing something.”

    ~ The Heart of the Buddha, by Chögyam Trungpa

    It is another of those amplified times with a roller coaster of emotions. Several dynamics in my life account for the ride, but the whole is always greater than the sum of its parts.

    Yes, my friend’s beloved former husband passed in his sleep this week.

    Yes, my brother-in-law has a renal carcinoma and needs a procedure. (He lost a kidney to cancer a few years ago.)

    Yes, we are approaching the one-year mark of the pandemic pause.

    Yes, we are again preparing to travel back to Michigan without clear plans for an unencumbered visit with the kids in Tennessee.

    Yes, we are at that friction-point where I know how much will need to be done to pack, load, clean, depart, travel, arrive, unload, unpack. And did I say clean?

    And, yes, we are experiencing a stress so deeply personal I dare not speak of in this article. Grief has taken up residence in my mind.

    But grief has a twin sister: relief.

    What helps you come into balance and allows you to feel the relief, especially during stressful times?

    Yes, nature is one thing that helps a lot of people, including me!

    Yes, on our walk yesterday Deva, the dog, came running over to me for some petting. She dropped at my feet, rolled over, and would have been content to stay there if her human had not summoned her out of the middle of the road.

    Yes, we were able to watch two dolphins frolicking in the canal last evening. One shot right under the dock we were standing on!

    Yes, the adult eagles are now regular visitors as they leave the chicks alone for longer and longer periods, encouraging them to fly. The adults cannot teach the young to feed themselves until they are willing to fly.

    Yes, I think that is true about humans, too.

    Yes, angels and birds and bees (perhaps, everything with wings?) are always reaching out from what my friend Anna Marie called the perfume of the effulgent formlessness.

    Yes, life, with all its uncertainty, including this tree, is showing us a pretty face!




    LIFE IS FULL OF BEAUTY, NOTICE IT. ~ Ashley Smith

  • Sioux – The Great Contact

    Sacred Stories

    She saw a friend’s Facebook post about his dog, Bassie, passing.


    She has several favorite quotations about dog’s passing, and she most often shares a very special one from The Dharma of Dogs, but she sent this one:

      In the Lakota/Sioux tradition, a person who is grieving is considered most wakan, most holy. There’s a sense that when someone is struck by the sudden lightning of loss, he or she stands on the threshold of the spirit world. The prayers of those who grieve are considered especially strong, and it is proper to ask them for their help.

      You might recall what it’s like to be with someone who has grieved deeply. The person has no layer of protection, nothing left to defend. The mystery is looking out through that person’s eyes. For the time being, he or she has accepted the reality of loss and has stopped clinging to the past or grasping at the future. In the groundless openness of sorrow, there is a wholeness of presence and a deep natural wisdom.

      ~ Tara Brach, True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart

    Her friend responded:

    Thank you, this is how I experience it now. Very special things are happening in my life right now. The great contact is becoming more and more noticeable. It is a special time for me.

    And my dog, who is my soulmate, is called Sioux.

  • Grief and Relief: RIP Aunt Sharon

    Tender emotions here…. Some of the emotions are frustration. I have spent the past two weeks without resolution to my WiFi/Domain not speaking to one another. Twenty three hours on hold with Comcast, Comcast, Comcast, and Bluehost.

    Monday evening, Aunt Sharon Basham passed. I met with her family on Thursday evening, went to visitation Friday evening, and I had the honor of officiating her Celebration of Life today. Everything about that service touches other places deep in my heart. Aunt Sharon lived with her daughter, Tracey, and son-in-love, Bo. The family supported Sharon in her wishes to be able to live her life out in the home they all moved into together on her birthday in 2008.

    A powerfully relevant poem, “Two Mothers Remembered” by Joann Snow Duncanson, speaks of this unique bond when a daughter is a caregiver to her mother:

    I had two Mothers – two Mothers I claim
    Two different people, yet with the same name.
    Two separate women, diverse by design,
    But I loved them both because they were mine.

    The first was the Mother who carried me here,
    Gave birth and nurtured and launched my career.
    She was the one whose features I bear,
    Complete with the facial expressions I wear.

    She gave me her love, which follows me yet,
    Along with the examples in life that she set.

    As I got older, she somehow younger grew,
    And we’d laugh as just Mothers and daughters should do.

    But then came the time that her mind clouded so,
    And I sensed that the Mother I knew would soon go.

    So quickly she changed and turned into the other,
    A stranger who dressed in the clothes of my Mother.

    Oh, she looked the same, at least at arm’s length,
    But now she was the child and I was her strength.

    We’d come full circle, we women three,
    My Mother the first, the second and me.
    And if my own children should come to a day,
    When a new Mother comes and the old goes away,
    I’d ask of them nothing that I didn’t do.
    Love both of your Mothers as both have loved you.

    They chose some wonderful music. In the Garden, by Alan Jackson. And Supermarket Flowers, sung by Ed Sheeran.”You were an angel in the shape of my mum….Spread your wing….And I know that when God took you back he said Hallelujah, You’re home….”

    The Basham family is an amazing family. I married in to it over fifty years ago and I am so grateful….

    Tonight Stacey sent a text message: “Please hold energy for Doug. He’s frustrated with stuff breaking, weather, etc. I just want to be supportive of him. This is his dream that I’m along for the ride.” (See FaceBook Sailing Lady Gail or Adventure of Doug and Stacey.)

    We had opportunity for a voice-to-voice and I shared some from my journal this morning:

    D: Last night I was kind to the person at Comcast (8:30-9:30 pm) and Bluehost (9:30-11:00 pm) while still being honest about the frustration.

    D: What would you have me know?

    V: Ask Jesus for help. Remember the Sacred Story you published that there is an angel for everything?

    D: I am willing. I do see how my not planning to go to Indy for the Welcome Baby Party for Brian and Tegan was part of that greater awareness.

    V: That is ALWAYS happening. Even the challenging situation with your domain is kind. You can do everything you need to do—just not the way you want to do it. Yes?

    D: Yes.

    V: Do you remember this is part of the Sacred Darkness? Watch the one who wants to control. As Barbara heard when she was trying to save her neighbor from drowning,”Stop trying. Relax. Let LOVE do this.”

    D: Helplessness; confusion; grief. As I embrace that in myself I do it for all sentient beings.

    I reminded Aunt Sharon’s family of the importance of celebrating little acts of love and enjoyment and remembrance.

    It is OK to feel grief and relief.

    In closing, these words to Sharon, and to each of you, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Well done….”



    As I was hanging up with Bluehost I asked the guy what time it was where he was at. He said it was 8:00 pm and I responded, “It is 11:00 pm here.”

    We are not actually all having the same experience, even when we are having the same experience.

  • Ambiguous Loss

    Last week was a week with loss. Good Friday, the husband of a client/friend/colleague passed. Holy Saturday, the father of a business acquaintance passed. Easter Sunday, a loyal member of Saint Joseph Buddhist Sangha passed. A Buddhist teacher invited me to use the 49 day ceremony.

    49 Day Ceremony

    When someone passes away, in addition to a funeral service that usually occurs three or seven days after the death, we have a ceremony on the 49th day. Traditionally, the period of 49 days after someone dies is seen as a time for that person to check their consciousness and digest their karma. According to Buddhist teaching the bodhisattva Ji Jang Bosal helps the deceased during these 49 days to perceive their karma so when they return they are reborn to help this world, rather than continue in the cycle of birth and death. Buddhism teaches that there is a life in this body, then a time of investigation or consideration, and then a new life …

    Loss is such a raw part of human life.

    Listening to a TED talk by Nora McInerny, I was moved to laughter and to tears. McInerny is the author of The Hot Young Widows Club: Lessons on Survival from the Front Lines of Grief.

    McInerny said something members of our Grief Journey Group have said to one another over and over for over twenty years: We don’t move on from grief, we move forward with it.

    The next day, opening the May 2019 Guideposts, I see, ‘A Different Kind of Grief’ by B’ette Schalk. Schalk felt she lost her husband to anxiety and depression, writing, “Gone was the vibrant man I’d fallen in love with 24 years earlier, the man who liked going to parties and playing cards.” The article closes with a single page with 5 headings of great wisdom for caregivers: How to Cope With Ambiguous Loss.

      How to Cope With Ambiguous Loss

      Put a name to it.
      Use “both…and” thinking.
      Accept that good enough is enough.
      Manage your mixed emotions.
      Imagine new hopes and dreams.

    Ambiguous loss is what my friend is living as her husband is in a facility for those with Alzheimer’s disease.

    Ambiguous loss is felt by students afraid to be at school for fear of a mass shooting.

    Ambiguous loss is felt in the aging and staging of life.

    On the light side of 40, she recently shared with me she had read on a website about cancer that having cancer was like living with a loaded gun pointed at your head. You did not know when it would go off, but you knew it would.

    Ah, ambiguous loss….

    Whether it is our youth, our goals, our jobs, our homes, our health, our strength, our courage, or our loved ones, or our memories, we all navigate the waters of ambigious loss.

    The best way I can think to close this post is with this Deep Spring Center Thought for Today:

    “Your loved one is not dead, only he has left his human form. He is now expressing himself through you, through your growing open heart that can allow itself the experience of grief and allow that grief to become a catalyst for compassion. He is expressing himself through you in all the ways he spoke to you in your life, the joys and the sorrows. He is expressing himself through every human that he touched in this lifetime. And he is in the soil and the stars and the rain and the sun. You cannot lose him.” ~ Aaron

    Whatever has the nature to arise has the nature to cease and is not me nor mine.

  • From Grief to Serenity

    Sacred Stories

    On Thursday, she had to put down her beloved dog.

    Half-heartedly, on Friday she went to a conference previously committed to that she had missed the first day of.

    The first panel she attended was titled, “From Grief to Serenity”!

    On Joy and Sorrow
    Kahlil Gibran
    Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
    And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
    And how else can it be?
    The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.

    These are sacred stories. Pay attention to happenings in your life. Do you have a story to share? Send email to debra@scs-matters.com.

  • Pass it on!

    Putting over 40 years of journals into the bottom cupboard of the new library closet we had installed this winter I was suddenly overwhelmed by the sacredness of reflection.

    It has been too long since I wrote in my paper journal. The past few weeks have been a whirlwind of preparations, travel, arrival, clearing the chaos and construction dust so I’ve also not drawn a divination card or had much pondering time.

    I’ve missed myself.

    April 7, 2018 was Linda B’s wedding day. As she and Larry openly reflected upon their continued love for their previous spouses (Dan for Linda, and Joyce for Larry), something profound stirred within me and likely within all those who attended, and also possibly in you as you are reading this post now.

    As fate would have it, April 7 was also the day Linda’s clergy “Insights” article was published in the local newspaper. Here is a quotation from her article shared as part of the story of our coming together in their ceremony:

    Jamie Anderson said this about grief and it helps to explain what Larry and I have experienced. “Grief, I’ve learned, is really just love. It’s all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go.” Larry and I found a place for our grief – our love – to go.

    The ceremony was rich with music: Elfie is a gifted pianist who also happens to be blind so unable to see sheet music. She learned the songs at the rehearsal by hearing them. Pamela is a singer and songwriter and our soul sister. Dave is brother of the bride. In fact, all of Linda’s siblings closed the wedding ceremony with a benediction sung to the tune of Edelweiss from the Sound of Music.

    Ritual was meticulously matched to message and gratitude was the theme.

    Many expressed having experienced Linda’s and Larry’s wedding as a vehicle for memories and massive amounts of hugs. Circles of caring, including our local “Caring Circle” Hospice (of which Linda previously served as President and CEO) overlapped over and over, wrapping us all securely in love beyond loss.

    We witnessed wonder. We were moved. We felt and many of us wept.

    As I left the church, basking in the palpable warmth of divine love, turning my minivan north on Washington Avenue, a single vehicle was in front of me at the 4-way stop. The license plated caught my attention and took away my breath. D-A-N were the first three letters, followed by three numbers. I cannot tell you the numbers. I was not granted time enough to fish my iPhone from deep within my purse and snap a picture. While I may always wonder what the numbers were, I think you will agree there is no question about the evidence of that message from/of Dan. It is as though he was thanking me for being part of Linda’s spiritual journey.

    Congratulations are definitely in order….

    Enjoy reading the unedited version of Linda’s article:

    Herald Palladium
    Insights Column
    Rev. Linda Beushausen
    April 7, 2018

    Today is my wedding day! I knew this was to be the theme of my Insights column this time. I have been a widow for over 16 years and although I secretly (and sometimes not so secretly) hoped to find a special partner with whom to share the rest of my life, I wondered if it would ever happen. I mightily rejected the thought of another partner for the first 8 or 9 years after my husband, Dan, died, because I couldn’t imagine loving anyone else. I couldn’t imagine letting go of the love I still had for him, and I couldn’t imagine that someone else could take his place. And, if truth be told, I was still grieving and knew that grief would always be a part of my journey, so how could I think about another relationship? I knew my journey of grief was sacred and it was a huge part of my spiritual journey, and I wasn’t sure someone else would understand that. Amidst all of my questions and contemplations, I clung to the words from the end of 1st Corinthians 13 (The Message) that I had paraphrased and brought to mind over and over again since 2001: “When I can’t understand what’s happening, don’t know where things are headed, or I’m not sure what to do next, there are three things I CAN do: I can trust steadily, I can hope unswervingly, and I can love extravagantly.” These words have carried me through so many times the last 16+ years; Trust, Hope, and LOVE! The whispers of Spirit in my heart and soul told me that over and over again that there was someone special I would meet and I needed to be open, patient, and trusting. I poured myself into my work and my family, both of which gave my life richness and meaning, and I trusted the still small voice within that said someday a man would come into my life that would love and accept me, just as I am now and who I will become as I follow my conscious spiritual journey.

    It happened, seemingly “out of the blue”, last April and immediately I knew he was very special. His name is Larry and he was also widowed and had some of the same concerns I did about how he could continue to have such strong love for his late wife, Joyce, and whether a new partner could be present with him in his own journey of grief. We both sensed immediately that there was a Divine purpose growing within us individually and as a couple. We each had a sense of hope and an even deeper sense of gratitude and awe. We had a knowing, deep within our souls, that Joyce and Dan were also a part of bringing us together. Before each of them died, they had poured out their hearts to us as they had each asked us to be open to loving another person and allowing another person to love us. At that time for each of us separately, neither Larry nor I could think about that, but their prayers and desires for us to find another loving partner, did not die with them. How awe-inspiring that amidst the season of Easter a year ago, we met and immediately knew there was something special happening. Love was beginning to bloom again and we didn’t have to stop loving Dan and Joyce! But how was this possible? How was it possible for me to love Dan deeply and Larry to love Joyce deeply, and still have such deep stirrings of love within us for each other? As we nurtured our relationship, we began to understand that we were not called to stop loving Dan and Joyce and we were not called to deny our grief, but rather that we WERE called to let our journey of grief continue as we allowed ourselves to love again.

    Jamie Anderson said this about grief and it helps to explain what Larry and I have experienced. “Grief, I’ve learned, is really just love. It’s all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go.” Larry and I found a place for our grief – our love – to go.

    Our deep love, and the sense that we knew immediately we were to be together in marriage, was hard to explain to our family and friends at first but we KNEW we were brought together as a loving, committed, couple for reasons we would understand more fully over time. We understood that it all happened faster than some could understand according to societal norms, and we also knew that our love would be an example for others. Amidst it all, we trusted, we hoped, and we loved. God brought us through the challenges of this last year and now today is our wedding day!

      This is what is written in our wedding bulletin today:

      We are blessed by so many amazing people in our lives and each of you here is among them. There were so many more people we wish we could have invited but we trust they understand and are loving and supporting us from afar. We could have slipped away quietly and gotten married but our lives are so rich with family and friends that we knew we wanted to share this time with others.

      Both of us have known times of highs and lows in our lives and as we remember them, we are aware that we have been immensely blessed by both the highs and the lows. Our lowest times were when we each faced the death of our beloved spouses – Dan for Linda and Joyce for Larry. Grief was, and continues to be, a sacred journey for each of us in our own ways and it was the sacred journey of grief that brought us here today. Our hearts and souls have ached with sadness and despair and through love and trust we found healing. Although we both doubted we would ever find the kind of deep love we shared before, this is exactly what has happened! Our love for each other is profound, and yet does not diminish the deep love we each have for Dan and Joyce. Both Dan and Joyce wanted this for us and we believe that their prayers were answered when we were brought together. We have found, beyond question that love NEVER ends. It continues on as long as we open our hearts to love and in a special way when we open ourselves to loving each other completely – heart and soul – in marriage. This is why marriage is so important to us. We have found, beyond question, that when we don’t know what else to do, we are called to trust, hope, and love.

      We have been given the gift of Love again and it is our promise to the God of Love, to each other, to our family, and to each of you, to show our gratitude every day by loving each other in a way that is contagious! We want to pass it on!!

      I invite all of you to think about how you express love in your life. Express that love extravagantly and with trust and hope, in everything you do, and in the way that only you can. And then……pass it on!

  • Seven Years

    Sacred Stories

    They had seemed very right together. She thought this was a forever thing. Sure, they had gotten together so quickly after his wife died, but they had all known one another. It was not like they started out as strangers and they weren’t kids.

    He had been restless for several years, but what had made him decide he could not be with her any longer? Now settling in to the new community without him—moving alone into the winter home he had picked out for them—her heart still had so many questions.

    The stories of life began to bubble up as she met her new neighbors. One particular couple had come together after he had been on the wild side for seven years following the death of his wife. He said it was like he had so much grief he could not deal with it in a conventional way. His wife had died with pancreatic cancer.

    Her heart did not miss the deeply meaningful coincidences: Her former partner’s wife had also died with pancreatic cancer, and that had been seven years ago.

    It was as though the Universe was helping her know she had not done anything wrong: This was his grief journey….

    “Sometimes you learn more about someone at the end of a relationship than at the beginning.” ~ Anonymous

  • Poker Table

    Her mother had recently transitioned and so she went for a healing session to support her through the grief process. The image of a poker table popped into the healer’s mind immediately.

    “I get the image of a game table, you know the kind people play poker at, and my sense is that your mom is doing well. I would say she is letting you know she is enjoying herself. Your dad’s energy pops in, too. That all sounds promising to me.”

    They went on with the session and at the end she said, “The dining table in our home when I was growing up was a poker table. It came out of a saloon. In fact, after my dad died, when my mom sold the family home, I got that table. It is still in my house now.”

    You can appreciate when information comes that you know you could not have gotten through your intellect. You are being guided!


    poker table