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Allison Deraney's avatar

Isabel, as I was reading your words here I found myself sitting up taller. My antenna peaked because in my head I heard, “holy shit. She’s speaking my language - just a lot more eloquently.”

I am so sorry for your loss. And I know exactly what you mean about the sadness delivering us joy, eventually and sometimes simultaneously. This has been my experience. At times it feels like a betrayal to the pain that truly is here to teach us (not torture us).

Thank you for writing this. I am perpetually worried my wintering won’t leave. Your words help so much. Sometimes I feel like the only one who insists on tap dancing in her unprocessed grief. Wanting/needing to stay there.

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Isabel Cowles Murphy's avatar

Oh gosh this comment means so much to me, Allison. Thank you. I definitely feel like staying here a while--but I'm also glad to know grief is an experience with many emotions held inside it. I go up, I go down, I go sideways a little and then upright again. I think the most impactful insight I had is that joy is not disallowed. It definitely helps with how much I judge myself, and more importantly... other people. Because what's the point of grieving if not to be tenderized to others' experiences?

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Allison Deraney's avatar

Yes, grief is so multilayered. Joy is not disallowed. I love that. I do find myself surprised when joy comes snapping on sorrow's heels.

Tenderness is so necessary. Thanks for writing about all of this.

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Alexandra Youmans's avatar

You’ve reminded me of a quote from To the Lighthouse: “We must light matches against the darkness… even though we are bound to be worsted.”

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Isabel Cowles Murphy's avatar

And wow how much light a single match can make!

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Donna McArthur's avatar

From your heart to ours.

Relatable is quite a lame-ass word and yet most of us can crawl into the words of this fine essay to firmly, sanctimoniously, declare "me too".

May your grief and sadness settle be gentle on your heart and may your boys be done vomiting for the season.

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Isabel Cowles Murphy's avatar

Donna, I am so grateful for you. Someday I'll look at the vomiting as a distracting hilarity... But only when the nationwide norovirus flare subsides!

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Sarah Kovatch's avatar

me too!

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Mary Ellen Hale's avatar

BTW, I am sorry for your loss💔

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Mary Ellen Hale's avatar

Excellent observation/evaluation... I am desperate to find a way through this winter w/out killing my neighbors; seriously tribal, white, old people. I am an old white person, but I think in another life I was not😂. I want to like my neighbors rather than tolerate them in a condescending way, but their constant self absorbed interests only fuel my anger and intolerance. I have isolated & hibernated way past the Covid date in an almost dangerous way. I needed this kind of read, thank you, Isabel💞

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Isabel Cowles Murphy's avatar

It is so hard to rise above people who dwell in pettiness and self-absorption... especially if they live beside us and are in our face every day. We had a conflict with some neighbors in an apartment and I went to sleep every night with my skin on fire because they were so close. Courage!

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Mary Ellen Hale's avatar

Thank you for the camradery... I detest selfishness and greed and our country has cheerfully & unapologetically chosen both. It pains me to see what these poorly made decisions will do to the people who deserve it the least. I worked in the central city for over 30 years by choice because the people were the hardest working, kindest, most hopeful humans I could/would ever meet. Now, they are suffering while others could care less. What we have become as a country, I am ashamed of & I am too old (& unhealthy) to fight like I did for so many years in the past. It's more than pettiness, it is the lowest form of human kindness and caring... I always hoped & thought we were better than that, but I guess I was very wrong on so many levels. 🤬💔😢

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Lily Yee's avatar

This is exactly what I needed today. My feelings all summed up by your fluent words that bring such comfort and hope. Thank you, Isabel. I’m going to follow your example and go for a walk. There’s such restorative power from being outside. Sending healing energy your way as you navigate the waves of grief. I’m so sorry for your loss. 🤍

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Isabel Cowles Murphy's avatar

Lily, yes! A walk never fails me. It might not cure everything, but it can shift a lot. Even better if it's alongside a friend.

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Francine Benites's avatar

I’m sorry for your loss 🫂💕

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Isabel Cowles Murphy's avatar

Thank you, friend.

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Dave Van Manen's avatar

So many of your sentences are so well put and speak to me. I so relate to your reference to the “in-between.” I’m always feeling like I am living in the in-between and all its ups and downs - between learning about climate change and experiencing its catastrophic impacts; between middle age and old age; more recently, between democracy and autocracy; between having grandchildren and great-grandchildren; between one good meal and the next good meal; between the winter solstice and the summer solstice; between joy and sadness. I suppose it is all the in-between, between birth and death. Thank you for your thought-provoking writing.

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Isabel Cowles Murphy's avatar

Wow, YES. It's all an in between and we're always in transition. I feel the climate change example with particular poignancy. We knew it would come, but what will its effects really be? It's easy to get defensive and sanctimonious when you're scared as well as sad. The verb that comes to mind is "allowing" even though I also want to fight! A season for everything, I suppose.

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appleton king's avatar

"I’m bitter when I forget to sustain the depth with uplift." This such a crucially observed (and truthful) necessity as without comparative balance our emotions exist in a vacuum trapped in frozen earth and even as your loss pains me Isabel it wasn't for nothing if you can refashion, harness, share its meaning with such tender helpful feel of its contours gentle probing fingers against a wound in a specific place but aware of the readiness of other sentient areas free of pain to fill the void... this accretion of challenges the void we face in the end may be just another winter where old strategies merge with newer ones and the permission to isolate (for me anyways) is something to cherish. xo

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Isabel Cowles Murphy's avatar

It's true, I can feel the sweetness of this time. I guess maybe I'm old enough to appreciate the impermanence of every experience. This season isn't exactly FUN, but it sure is rich. And all the moods are bearable when I feel understood, so thank you. 🧡

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Catherine Shannon's avatar

I'm so sorry, Isabel <3

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Isabel Cowles Murphy's avatar

grateful to have you here 🧡

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Valerie Monroe's avatar

Sending solace to you, dear Isabel. xo

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Isabel Cowles Murphy's avatar

Thank you, Val I appreciate you so!

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Owl Green's avatar

I'm sorry for your loss and grief, Isabel. I'm awash in an inchoate sadness, plus everything else you described. I'm there. We're there with you. Thank you for reaching out in this way. 🩶

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Isabel Cowles Murphy's avatar

The times are very strange, indeed. It's inside and it's outside and I think maybe the sages are in some kind of grief all the time, even when they sing and dance.

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Anna Schott's avatar

So goddamn relatable. Thank you!

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Isabel Cowles Murphy's avatar

Means so much from you, Anna. Thanks.

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Jenovia 🕸️'s avatar

“It’s one thing to ask your mother to wash saltine-colored barf, but CHERRY MANGO? Fuck all of y’all.” 😭😂 Also, anyone who uses the word harrumphed has my heart.

I’m so sorry for your loss, Isabel. I’ve always found loss in the winter months feels extra magnified. The silence makes the incessant throbbing of grief deafening to our senses. Proud of you for getting out for that walk!!!!

My winter joy is right now. Overcast, bitterly cold, quiet, DARK. Aquarius season too…oooph, I’m in my elements! Give me your woes and your joys, I adore all of it. 🫂💕

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Isabel Cowles Murphy's avatar

Now that I've turned the corner I must say, I am relishing the clarity of these cold, quiet days. I can tell how generative the hunkering is. I feel myself grounding and aligning... So much can spring from that rootedness and I'm learning to love the elegance of waiting.

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Emily Henderson's avatar

"I felt disgusting and therefore withdrawn and therefore disgusting." ... Like a snake eating its tail, the dark can be so comforting in its predictability. And I totally agree that we are "in awash of unprocessed grief." I was telling a friend the other day that we are trying in vein to erase the pandemic, a million people died, education suffered, we will be studying the effects and decisions made for decades, but we also "want to go back" to a time that just isn't available. I'm sending you so much love while you winter... while we all winter.

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Isabel Cowles Murphy's avatar

I so agree... there's comfort in that predictability, at a point, the thrust to get out of the rut feels so overwhelming. Like so many, I watch us careen from one crisis to another and I wonder--how will we ever stop moving headlong into these dramas without reflecting on what they have to teach us and integrating the lessons? It feels like we need a collective ritual for grieving and release. Thank you so much for being here ❤️

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Emily Henderson's avatar

Collective ritual for grieving and release!! Yes please! This is our work! I’m so very grateful to have found you here 💗

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Teresa Scott's avatar

Oh Isabel - beautifully written and thought provoking. I'm very sorry for your loss. Please know I share your sentiments entirely and appreciate the reminder to hold the tension and rest in the center whatever may befall us. I will miss seeing you tonight but appreciate reading this as I recuperate! xo

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Isabel Cowles Murphy's avatar

Teresa, thank you! Your readership delights me and I hope you're back to normal this morning. You were missed.

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