How do I handle my lover's ashes request?

Post your own question to Dear Gabby
Post Reply
redbrunette

How do I handle my lover's ashes request?

Post by redbrunette » Mon Apr 11, 2005 11:03 am

I killed my companion by witholdong my love from him and carrying on a two year affair that I knew would go nowhere. Where do I go from here?

I feel so horrible that I think I should die in order to balance the scales. What do I do to make up for this horrible thing I did that contributed to Patrick's death? His sister-in-law gave me his ashes and told me to call them when I was ready to scatter them. I am experiencing so much remorse and grief over his death. I cannot get into any real communication with them regarding when to do it. All communication between us has shut down and I believe I know why. But I don't know how to complete this relationship and come to terms with his family. It is very serious and I don't know what to do. Patrick gave me very clear instructions on what to do with his ashes and where to take them and even told me he didn't want his brothers there. But my intuiton tells me that they don't want me there and I do not know how to broach the subject so that we can all come to peace with each other and lay Patrick to rest as he wanted.

redbrunette

Gabby
Site Admin
Posts: 455
Joined: Sat Mar 26, 2005 11:24 am

Post by Gabby » Mon Apr 11, 2005 11:07 am

Hi Redbrunette:

I get your upset and your confusion. I do not get that you killed Patrick. That statement is a dramatization. What I do get is that you now feel guilty for communicating abusively with him. However, this is not the source of your grief. There’s more that you need to be acknowledged for. Use The Clearing Process for five days in a row.

Re: "Where do I go from here?" Nowhere. Choose to experience what you have created. Choose the sadness, choose the doubt, choose the guilt—else, you become what you resist. Resisting being confused results in being confused. How do you choose? Pretend that you're an actress assigned the role of playing a severely damaged person who is stuck in confusion, sadness, grief and guilt. Your role is to really get into it. This means you've got to walk around looking like an extremely confused grieving person. This means adding ten times more grief to your face and body. You've got to add ten times more remorse and guilt to your countenance. Dramatize it with all that you've got. Choose to recreate the emotions consciously.

Re: "What do I do to make up for this horrible thing I did that contributed to Patrick's death?" If you make yourself wrong for your creation, you’ll have to set up life to do it all over again with another. There’s a pony here somewhere. The trick is to find what the genius in you has been, and is, up too. There are wonderful realizations to come from this. While at one level it can be said that by abusing him (lies and deceit and withholding your love) you contributed to his death, on the other hand, what’s also true is, no matter what you believe or have been told, up to now you’ve had absolutely no choice. You were programmed to relate as you have been. You now have a better understanding of responsibility than the majority of people on the planet, however, what you know and believe to be responsibility ain’t it. Not at all. Once you are clear about responsibility, this and all other incidents are a what’s so. They don’t mean anything at all. Such things only mean something to someone who resists being cause; they’ll argue for life that they didn’t cause this and that. Callous though it may sound, so what that you caused soldiers to die today and your friend to die and kids to starve all over the world. That’s what’s so. So What? You also caused all the great and beautiful stuff, including bringing Patrick into your life.

I support you in honoring your agreement with Patrick. There is no correct time requirement to scatter them. You’ll do it when you’ve processed what’s there for you to process now. In this way you will be able to do it from choice, experientially, not as part of someone else’s ritual.

I’m clear that Patrick would not want his brothers abusing you, shunning you. If they can’t rise above their considerations, then don’t submit yourself to such treatment. A letter to each asking if they can support you attending to the ashes with them present. “…if not, I’ll take care of them according to Patrick’s wishes.”

Re "I cannot get into any real communication with them regarding when to do it." Withholds (unacknowledged perpetrations and acknowledgments) serve as barriers to the experience of communication. I’d support you in writing letters to each, communicating all that comes to mind. In the space you create by emptying your mind will come the appropriate communications.

Re: "All communication between us has shut down and I believe I know why." Nope, that belief will serve as a barrier to you being clear as to what it’s about. It’s about so much more than what you, or any of them, believe it to be.

Thank you for reaching out, Gabby

Post Reply