Día de los Vivos

Yesterday a friend left the planet, suddenly and unexpectedly, leaving a new, loving relationship, a large, loving family and a lot of bewildered friends and acquaintances who cared about her. What do you do when someone just ups and leaves without saying goodbye or giving any notice of their departure? No illness, no accident to account for their abrupt departure, no note of intention. Just gone.

My friend, who would actually fall into the category of fond acquaintances, was found yesterday morning sitting in her chair, gone. Perhaps a heart attack. She was a lovely, caring and kind woman. If she had known she was going, she would have left a note or reached out to tell someone what was happening. She must have “died peacefully,” but we don’t know. Her loving partner was sleeping and the rest of us were in our own worlds, unaware of what there was no way to be aware of.

What do you do when someone goes away and you know they won’t be back, that you won’t have a chance to say anything that was left unsaid. What do you do with the hole that their going leaves? How do you avoid feeling like swiss cheese in this time of life when more and more people are leaving? 

Somehow, because I’m in a foreign country connected to the rest of my life by only a thin, electronic string, I am feeling lost and alone. I am too far away to huddle with the people who also cared for this woman. While I am staying in a lovely home with kind, caring people, I don’t really know them and they don’t know me. We can’t gather in this hour of loss.

Here in Mexico, preparations are beginning for one of the biggest events of the year: the Day of the Dead which begins this year on Saturday, November 1 and ends on Sunday, November 2. Traditions connected with this holiday (holy day) include building private altars called ofrendas, honoring the deceased using sugar skulls, marigolds, and the favorite foods and beverages of the departed, and visiting graves with these as gifts. 

I believe it is important to remember and honor the dead and every year, the number of people to be honored grows larger. However, I wonder if the additional purpose of this celebration is to honor the living, to reflect on our own lives to make sure that we are living it to the fullest, to make sure we have said what we wanted to say to everyone who is important in our lives?

Perhaps we need to remember and honor the dead but call it the day of the living, a day for righting old wrongs, telling those we love or those who are important to us how we feel. Perhaps it is a day to honor our own lives and the endless connections to others that make up the web of our lives. Perhaps that would be the best way to honor those we’ve lost.

Today, I remember my friend and all her goodness. I grieve the loss for her family and the large circle of friends that held her dear and for myself and the acquaintanceship that never had the opportunity to flourish into friendship. I also give thanks for all the love and friendships that makes my life rich and provides the foundation of my being.

Bloggers! Free Review Book Available

If you are a blogger and have an iPad, I would like to offer you a free review copy of my book Joy after the Fire, when grief, loss and despair are the seeds of new joy and growth.  If you are interested in writing a review of this book, please send me an email at jwycoff at me.com with your blog url.  There is also a downloadable pdf of the book available for your readers.


Here's an overview:


Sometimes you can do everything wrong and still have things turn out right.  The common wisdom after a major loss is to not make any major decisions in the first year.  I not only broke that rule, I tore it into tiny pieces and tossed my entire life to the wind.  


While it's not an action I would recommend, it's the path I chose and it was a bumpy ride. This is a story of death and loss but it is also a story of miracles and growth.  At the end of the introduction, I write

Miracles await us.

Miracles wait for each one of us who makes the journey into the darkness, whether we go willingly or are tossed there by the vagaries of life. Regardless of what brought you here, whether death, divorce, disease or disaster, I hope you will join me on this journey and find for yourself the multicolored gifts and miracles of joy waiting for you in the deeply beautiful country of your authentic self, your very own Wonderland.

Rainer Maria Rilke, German poet and visionary, captures the essence of this book in two short sentences:

"Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses 

who are only waiting to see us act, just once, 

with beauty and courage. 

Perhaps everything that frightens us is, 

in its deepest essence, 

something helpless that wants our love." 

Joy after the Fire was written to help others navigate the new territory that comes with loss.  At the end of each chapter, there is a series of questions that lead readers on their journey back to joy.

Joy after the Fire: It's a book!

It's a book!!

The past five years have been an amazing journey, even though it was not one I would have chosen.  The story of this journey is now available in my book "Joy after the Fire, when grief, despair and loss become the seeds of new joy and growth" available for iPads from iBookstore and as a downloadable pdf by clicking the BUY NOW button on the right.

Loss comes to each of us, and, in the beginning, it just feels like pain, grief and despair.  Gradually, however, the pain begins to lift and we can choose once again to live.  For me, there was no way to live my old life so I wound up in what felt like a free fall ... which landed me in an art workshop in Mexico that changed everything.

The purpose for telling this extremely personal story is to help others who may be experiencing loss.  I want people to know that there is definitely joy after the fire ... but it's not always easy.  The path to that new joy winds through a forest of self-reflection ... finding what brings you joy, stepping onto that path regardless of what the world thinks you should be doing, learning to be grateful for even the smallest things that gladden your heart.  At the end of each chapter and "interlude," there are questions to help you look at your life and your choices in new ways.

There is more about the book on the Joy after the Fire menu bar above and I would love to have you post your comments on that page.  Feel free to tell your story and tell us what has helped you.  What you say has the power to help others.

May your path to joy be filled with great friends and new insights about your own magnificence.