I keep thinking this morning about that last hug from Grant.  I remember the way his arms held me and how prominent his body was.   Well, not his body, but his presence.  His body was gone.  I remember feeling that hug. 

I remember where I was.  Where he was and how he held me and I pulled away.  I keep thinking about that moment I pulled away.  A moment then, I knew I’d regret later.  Like now, and now that it’s later I do. 

So I go back to it and it reminds me of more hard things that happened that day.  Really they were on days close to that one, but in my mind and heart they are all a continuation of one great story. This story changed me forever and at the time all of it was one event though day by day.

Now it is all more like a whole of the event that changed my life, which invited me to change myself.  I remember the moment my spirit opened and I felt called… called away myself.  Called from the life I had, though it was already gone.

I felt the calling to choose to step away from the previous life.  I didn’t understand it at the time but it was a call to leave all I thought I knew and become new.  I remember that moment so clearly.  I was at the celebration of Life party for Grant.

The party we had for Grant was epic.   I remember watching his energy flit around the park as we celebrated his life and he was still the life of the party.  I still remember his confusion as everyone was there FOR him, but didn’t interact with him.  The confusion around him being the observer. 

I remember thinking… Grant… this isn’t just a party, don’t you realize what this gathering means?  If you did, you wouldn't be having such a good time.  I was standing at the park and the hundreds of people there were all gathered under the pavilion to hear what I had to say.

This was that clarity for me. I said in that instant… I’d like to address everyone.  The words came out of my mouth and I had no idea what I’d say or why I said I wanted to speak.  But… when a girl becomes a widow at 36 with 4 little kids, people feel sorry for her and tend to appease a lot of what she asks for.

I looked at all the people gathered there and began a speech that was supposed to mostly be informational.  Please leave a memory of Grant here… fill a balloon there… take a card over there… and then, something came over me and opened my heart and mouth.  I remember sharing the 4 “secrets”  to Grant’s success. 

Ask

Listen

Write down

Do

Whenever Grant had a question or a problem or something he was working on.  That’s the formula he’d follow.  Because he’d had so much success in his life that was evident, I thought it would be something people would find credible. 

Ask a question.  The one thats weighing on you.  Let your mind go to work and your spirit connect to truth.  Then, listen for what comes.  That’s the easy part. Listen and once you get an answer, write it down. 

Whatever it is, the act of writing it down makes it real, it notes that you’ve received it and shows that you’ve acknowledged that information has been given.  Then… take action on it.  Get to work.  Do it.  Those are the steps that he followed and it inspired me.

I wanted to do that, so I shared it and when I followed that inspiration I had in me and shared it with all those around me; I felt something different in me. As Grant watched me speak in front of all those people, about him, I could feel his spirit beaming with pride. 

He loved me more than he ever had in that moment.  I could feel it.  That’s where the hug came from.  When he appeared in my bathroom after everyone had gone home. He stood there, I went to him and he wrapped his arms around me and said, “I’m so proud of you babe” his face beaming a smile.

I felt those words come into my mind in the sound of his voice as if he’d said them like he did just a few days before when he was in the body I could see.  Now I couldn’t see that body, but I felt it and I heard it without seeing it. 

 It was as if in that moment of love and pride he had for me that all he’d ever wanted me to be was what he could see and what I was.  But he was gone. He truly didn’t know it though and I certainly did.  I felt frustration with what I perceived as his ignorance to the situation.  That’s what hurt. 

I allowed him to embrace me and reveled in that hug.  It was different than any other time we’d embraced.  It was a level of closeness and understanding that was far deeper than we’d ever felt. With a separation between us that was so far there is not a distance far enough to comprehend or relate to the separation that was right between us in that closeness.

As much as I loved being held and wanted to stay forever, I began to feel the separation rather than the closeness and so I pulled away.  Not because I wanted to, but because I was thinking about all that was in total instead of what was in that moment. 

Yet, honoring the pain of it, I still made a choice to pull away.  I knew that I couldn’t keep this moment, so I wanted to push it away to get into what was real.  Even though that spirit hug was as real as when I hug my babies today in their precious little bodies.

Their bodies that I can see, so alive and vibrant.  When I hug them, I know I can hug them, then hug them again, then again, because it’s what I can see.  Yet, I do know how real those things we can’t see are, but in that moment, not being able to see hurt far more than being able to see. 

So I pulled away because I knew what was ahead and in the moment I needed to step into the newness of that rather than try to cling to what once was.  I became a new person, and I saw that my husband saw that.  I felt grateful, and sad for that moment.  

I was disappointed in myself that I had to pull back. Proud of myself for being able to and not trying too hard to hold onto what didn’t’ exist for me anymore in the way I once knew it.  The last thing I remember was Grant feeling the sadness of me pulling away. 

Why? He questioned.  I can’t. I said.  The sadness I felt emanating from him, the loss he felt, the moment now gone… his grief.  I felt it.  But I just didn’t feel that he could understand the grief I felt that compelled me to leave him in that moment.  But I knew.  It was that I was new.