PURPOSEFUL GRIEF

I have never felt so bereft. And I have never felt more purposeful.

I do not recall the last time I sat down to compose a blog post. It would be easy enough to check. I just do not feel compelled to do so.

For those new to me and to my work, I am bereft because my beloved husband, Donald, passed away on November 8, 2025. At 10:49 p.m. I was holding his hand as he released his final exhalation. While he had been progressively ill for nine years, his death came as a shock. It was a shock that I am still grappling to internalize. To believe. To realize.

Donald died from complications of Lewy body dementia. In the last few years of his life, I provided almost total care. In early April of last year, I physically could no longer care for him. I made the excruciating decision to move him to a skilled nursing facility. From April until November, I lived alone in the home that had been ours. I trekked to his facility and watched as he continued his decline. His care was excellent. I went and I micro-managed that care. I was his loving husband and his fierce advocate. I personally participated in his care, and when I traveled, I spoke with him and to his providers with frequency.

And now he is gone. I have never felt so bereft.

I also am experiencing a deeper level of purpose than I have ever felt.

After two months of bereavement leave, I returned to my full-time position as a senior minister. I could not fathom how I was going to make it through the first Sunday service. And yet I did. And the second and the third. When the impulse to write began to move within me, I decided to give way to that impulse. As I type these words, I am uncertain as to whether this will ever be distributed.

And yet I continue to type. I listen to the movement in my heart and allow the movement to become words. I am imbuing every word with feeling. Feeling that is seeking expression. Grief. Sadness. Love. Loss. Purpose.

Purpose.

There were thirty years to the month between the deaths of my two spouses. I am a man who has been supremely blessed to have had not one but two incredible loves. Amazing love. Transformative love.

And agonizing loss.

I am a person who deeply believes that everything that happens has purpose and has meaning. I also deeply believe that it is fundamental to our evolution to discover and to embrace the purpose in what happens and to assign a meaning that serves our Soul and all who are involved.

Our pain uses us until we decide to use our pain.

And so, I am feeling the enormous pain in my heart, and I am also feeling the enormity of the equivalent love. I am intoning that love into words. I am processing the pain into pictures that I seek to share with you. I want you to read my words and feel my heart. I want you to taste the saltiness of my tears. I want you to hear the cessation of his final breath, and how it became a guttural howl that instinctively sounded through me.

I shared not quite seventeen years with the most delectably quirky, wise, loving, delightful man that I have ever known. No one has ever loved me like Donald loved me. No one will ever love me as Donald loved me. I am inexplicably changed due to that level of love.

And so, the impact of that love and of that loss is now an urgency to fulfill the purpose that is clear and passionate inside of me. The purpose is not new. The intensity has increased. Having once again faced death in an up-close and personal way, I am stunningly aware of my own mortality. I have lived far more years than I will accumulate in the future.

My time is now.

My heart is bruised. The grief is still new, and as the shock subsides, the waves are of tidal proportion.

And yet I am crystal clear that there is purpose in my grief. My non-negotiable commitment to emotional fluency and spiritual dedication makes my grief available to be used in service of a world ill-versed in feeling its pain.

Donald is no longer embodied. And yet my communion with his spirit is clear and comprehensive. As such, he will be a part of my creative expression for the remainder of my days. He will be in every sermon. Every class. Every podcast. Every blog.

Every blog.

I embrace that I will grieve Donald until I rejoin Donald with my final exhale. In the meantime, I will channel my grief into purposeful expression. Passionate expression. Full and free connection. I will hold you in your grief because I do not fear it.

For those who are the survivors of great love, there is great grief. It is the price we pay for being incredibly blessed. The love will always remain, and so shall the grief.

I do not lament that fact. I do not attempt to deny, suppress, or outrun the pain. Instead, I use it. I allow the grief to flow freely through my tears, my words, my counsel, my expression.

For you see, I have never felt so bereft. Or more purposeful.

Or more purposeful.

WHAT IS LEFT?

Each of us will physically leave this realm, and yet something very real will be left behind.

Whether we are intentional or not, we each leave behind us a legacy. That legacy is comprised of the energy that we have emitted while here interacting on earth. The energy is formed into thoughts, feelings, words, and actions. As energy can neither be created or destroyed, we are conduits of an Infinite energy that is constantly being molded and exchanged within the Field in which we dwell.

Energy comes into us, is informed either consciously or unconsciously, and goes forth from us. We are holographic beings, and so technically the energy doesn’t come or go anywhere. We seem to be separate distinct beings in this realm, yet we forever remain atone. We are granted access to the Infinite energy to have a free experience of it. We choose what to do with this energy. We ether enhance or detract from the Universal Field based on what we do with the energy given.

Enough of the foundational theory.

Let’s get personal.

My friend Pat was killed in a car accident last week up in Georgia where she had a second home. I am still in the process of coming to terms with her sudden passing. While I termed her my friend that may not be the best moniker for her. We were not friends in a traditional, though we were extremely friendly. We did not socialize or engage in chit chat. I was never in her home not she in mine.

We were spiritual comrades. Spirit-companions.

That does not minimize the sadness I feel relative to her sudden passing. I grieve and I miss her already. I know my life experience was enhanced by her place in it. I sense a dimming now that she has left.

And yet…

The reason that I began this tribute with a mini lesson in quantum physics Is while Pat is no longer with me and us in a physical way the energy that she left behind is vital, tangible, and unmistakable. I can feel her as I type these words. As I fumble to capture her energy in form I am uplifted and amped up by my direct experience of the wondrous woman she was and somehow is.

When I think of Pat I immediately think of prayer.

Pat loved to pray. Loved to pray! She loved praying and sharing prayers so much that she did not just pray, she was a prayer. A living prayer. A lilting prayer. A dynamic prayer. A somehow musical prayer. It had a feel like no one I have ever known. It was impactful in a most beautiful way.

As I reflect on a world without Pat in it I also know with certainty that every impactful, beautiful, living, lilting, musical, vital prayer that Pat ever offered is still here as an imprint upon the Field. Her praying transformed energy that is here with us, though she no longer is. In fact, what was most essential of Pat still remains. Still lives. Still vibrates. Still prays on in this realm. Her body is gone, and her spirit prays on.

The world is better because Pat prayed.

Pat was also very funny. Very kind, compassionate. Pat was passionate and relentless in her emotional and spiritual inner work. She owned her “stuff” like few people I have known. She took responsibility.

Pat was also intensely human. She could drop an f-bomb with the best of them. She spoke honestly of what was real for her. She called out the inconsistencies of others, while also being accountable to her own. She occasionally danced about. She quipped and joked and uplifted a room. She was awesome and ornery. Jokeful and joyous. She was real. She was very, very real.

And mostly what I will remember about Pat is how she prayed.

Pat served in many capacities in our Unity congregation. She served and she gave generously and lavishly. She showed up. Repeatedly. Consistently. She applied the Principles and acted upon Truth.

She did it all with a prayer.

And now Pat has left this realm, and she indeed has left something very real behind.

Pat has left an ocean of transformed energy that benefits all living beings. She has left traces, a trail of prayer energy that remains though her physicality no longer is. Prayer for me is Pat’s greatest legacy. Her living, vibrational memorial. I am better because Pat prayed. And so is the world.

And so, I honor Pat by typing these words, imbuing them with as much Pat energy as possible. I double down on my own commitment to being a living, vital prayer. I pray Pat forward. I will celebrate her by streaming prayer energy every time I think of her. While I could never lilt in the same way, I can vibe at my frequency to make my own unique contribution. Pat and I were indeed spiritual comrades who deeply knew the unparalleled power of prayer. It united us. It magnified us. It will always live as us.

Prayer is what is left now that Pat has gone.

That vital truth invites me again into my own personal inquiry as to what will remain when I am gone? And what, dear reader, will remain when you yourself have left this realm?

Thank you, Pat, for making me and this world better because you lived.

And because you prayed.