Family Soul

Her willingness to let every bit of grief and sorrow fly out into the world remade us.

It’s a simple idea. We carry those who are closest to us in our hearts, and we are (hopefully) carried within theirs. We nest within each other. This is never more clear than when you’re raising kids. They surely live and grow in your heart-space, perhaps until they are ready to spread their wings. Of course they’re always there, even when they start their own lives, their own families. I think many of us parents don’t realize how much we live and grow within our kids heart-spaces. But we do. They nest within us, we nest within them, collectively we make up a family nest.

Our family soul.

It’s easy to miss how viscerally real this is until one of you is taken away from the nest, permanently, when they’re still supposed to be here. We become fully aware of the nest, perhaps for the first time in our lives, when a central part of it is torn away. It could be a parent or a child, or perhaps even both. The living who remain may drift apart if the nest is too damaged, if too much is lost. We don’t want that to happen, but it can if those who remain are unable to pick up the pieces and carefully knit them together again.

I took this reality more seriously than most when my wife Terry died. We first met during workshops on shamanism, learning the way our ancestors and some living tribes understand how the soul and life are woven together. In shamanism our wellness is derived from the wellness of our spirits. While our souls may be eternal, some aspect of soul is here, in life, and can be quite vulnerable to harm. It’s the shaman’s job to repair the wounded soul, bring it back to the world in its fullness, for as long as we are here.

Family soul is easy to perceive in some families. They have their own presence, their own energy. You might be brought in as part of the family for a time to feel held by it, but the soul of the family has its own path, its own integrity.

Our family soul was first born when our son came into our lives. We were a couple before that. He was our Corazon, the heart of our new family. Later our daughter came, weaving herself into the nest that was already there. She brought a new vitality and depth to everything we did. She made every moment a party that anyone - be they human, animal, or insect - could be a part of. Our family thrived until my wife’s cancer returned four years later.

It’s hard to imagine pulling such a central part of a family away and there being anything left remaining. To lose a Mother is to lose the foundation of your home, the tap root of your tree. How can anything survive a loss like that? Left with two children I had no choice but to show up with as much heart as I could.

Our broken nest found its way through my willingness to trust, my sons devotion to himself and each of us, and my very young daughters ability to grief fully, without any limits. Somehow the three of us, with our own unique hearts, made a family again. It was woven together out of many sessions with my son and I holding my daugher while she whaled over the loss of Momma. Her willingness to let every bit of grief and sorrow fly out into the world remade us all. My son and I would cry, but she was our teacher in grief.

The soul of a family is a vulnerable thing. It needs constant tending. I do my best as a single parent, but I often feel like I fall short. Because we have not held back from grief, all of our past together is still available to all of us. The early days of our four person family still flow like a wellspring into our lives. We frequently talk about Momma, about our homestead and the wonderful times we’ve all had together. She still nourishes us from the otherside, is still a part of our family soul, just not in the same way.

I hope you’ll take the time to think about the family souls you have been a part of, and perhaps are a part of now. If you’ve lost such a soul, have you grieved it well? If you are now a part of such a soul perhaps you’re more aware of it now, more aware of its value and its need to be tended. I wish you well in receiving all the gifts from the family souls you are a part of.