Filling Grief’s Void

Today, February 3, 2023, would have been Farletta’s 20th earthly birthday.

February 3, 2003

It has been just over six months since Farletta passed. They say the first year of special dates after a loved one passes is the hardest as you experience each one for the first time without the loved one you lost.

I’ve been through the emotional wringer. At times feeling Farletta’s loss so deeply, the vacancy in my heart and soul so gaping, I couldn’t figure out how to be without her. I didn’t know who I was without her. She had been such a significant part of my life, the focus of so much of my energy, and a mirror into my own soul. Farletta became a sort of barometer of my own internal struggles, helping me to be aware when my mind wandered into dark waters, or I focused too much of my energy on external signals instead of trusting my own heart.

When I stood with Farletta, I felt a connection, I felt her energy, the essence of her spirit, and what made her, her. It was the absence of that feeling, her grounding energy, that left me feeling like I couldn’t find my footing, like I was groping in the dark for something to fill that void she left in my heart.

Near the end of last year, I had a dream where Farletta spoke to me.

“You have to stop putting me in the past, stop thinking of me as gone.” she said. “When you put me in the past, it is harder for me to reach you. You must stop, stop, stop. Stop this now.”

In the days that followed, I ruminated on the words Farletta had spoken. I thought about how deeply I felt her loss, the emptiness where she’d once been, and how I longed to feel that energy of connection I used to feel when I stood next to her. She had said to stop putting her in the past, to stop thinking of her as gone. I decided in that moment to embrace her words, I would no longer think of her as gone.

Farletta a few weeks before her 9th birthday. January 2012.

I imagined the hole in my heart filled with the love I still had for Farletta, and the love she had for me. Love like a swirl of light that constantly flows between us. I opened myself to the belief that her spirit, the essence of her goes on. Each time I thought of Farletta as part of my past, I stopped and reminded myself to not think of her that way. Instead, bringing her forward in my mind, into the present.

After a few days of mindfully turning my thoughts of Farletta from past to present, something amazing happened. The void filled, and the connection was restored. I don’t know how else to describe it except the way I felt when I stood with Farletta in life, I feel this all the time now. She is only a heartbeat away.

Happy Birthday, my sweet girl.

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Click HERE to learn more about Cheryl and Farletta’s story