Reenie Marx

We see the world not as IT IS, but as WE ARE.  That summer the garden became my mirror, my friend, and teacher. I discovered that life and death are not separate; everything is living and dying all at the same time. For every hibiscus flower that shrivelled at night, a new one opened the…

Slowly, as the shock and intensity of grief began to moderate, I discovered a new found freedom. Gone was the cage that had kept me confined to the tight schedules and heavy responsibilities of caregiving. Suddenly, I had the space and time to fill the living room with music, eat what I wanted, and stay…

He died in early June and by the end of July the beans and tomatoes in his final garden were alive and thriving. Looking after them was both a way of honouring him and staying connected. There was also a wild patch that would one day become my perennial flower garden, but then was just…

Poetry is the language of emotion and often a simple poem written with exactly the right choice of words and metaphors can help point lost souls in the right direction. In the early months of grieving this poem by David Whyte was like a lighthouse beacon, reminding me of what was possible if I just…

Initially it feels comfortable and secure to cocoon; to wrap yourself in a blanket and just let yourself drift.  Without energy, direction, or motivation there is nothing to do but allow the tears and thoughts to flow, and rest.  But then, without doing anything, one feels the first stirrings of new life; an inner sensation as…

I read a lot in those early months….Rilke, John O Donahue, Suzuki, Mary Oliver and others. Two of them became my daily guides: Adyashanti and Frank Ostaseski. In Ostaseski’s book, “The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully” he offers this advice: “Welcome Everything, Push Away Nothing.” When I lost my…

When you lose the person with whom you’ve spent many decades a part of you dies with them. Never again will you be able to share those special memories or do the unique dance that every couple creates. When that version of “you” dissolves there is a deep sense of drifting, becalmed on a featureless…

In the land-of-grief clocks tick very slowly. Sometimes you move around as if it were still yesterday and nothing had changed. Other times all you can see is what’s missing. One minute you imagine hearing his voice calling you from another room, the next there is only the booming silence of an empty house. In…

Grieving is a universal experience that everyone goes through in their own unique way. There are no right-ways or wrong-ways, only our way. It’s a journey we wittingly or unwittingly agreed to take the moment we gave our hearts to another. In the immediate aftermath of loss we rely on the love of family and…

At last death came. It was merciful and beautiful; without pain, at home, surrounded by his loved ones, conscious, at peace, and ready. He told us he loved us, turned to his doctor and said, “I’m ready, ” and one minute later he was gone–“into the mystic.” This epitaph by Meritt Malloy was read at…