From Here to the Great Unknown

by Lisa Marie Presley

He was respectful, though—he wasn’t rude to people, he wasn’t an angry person, he didn’t live there. Some people full-on live in destruction, others buy some real estate and walk around in anger for a little while. My dad would just visit.

That afternoon, once they took him away—and this is something I’ve been upset about my whole life—it turned into a free-for-all. Everybody went to town. Everything was swiped, wiped clean—jewelry, artifacts, personal items—before he was even pronounced dead. You can still find things from that day coming up at auction.

I was in the most pain I’ve ever been in in my life, but I also had the deeply transformative experience of surrendering to that avalanche of pain and not trying to avoid the grief. This was a huge lesson for me—the only way out is through. You must allow pain in to free yourself from it.