Today is five years to the date since Kenny died. It’s also been two years since I wrote anything on my blog. A lot has happened in that time. As I look back on the last two years since I’ve written anything, I see how much I’ve grown.
I moved from the last house Kenny and I lived at together. I welcomed a new granddaughter. I bought a car by myself for the first time ever. I showed some of my artwork in two art shows. I got certified in past life regression hypnosis. I moved through and processed a lot more of the grief I was unknowingly still holding onto. I finally found peace with Kenny’s death. I think the finding of that peace was probably the most important growth I had.
Peace can be elusive. Sometimes it slips quietly out the back door when you think you’ve finally found it. There’s a lot of “Oh, you almost had it!” involved in your search for it. Peace is also slow and silent, so much so that when it does finally settle in you kind of don’t even realize it’s arrived. When it does finally show up you feel a sense of relief and you’re more than happy to move over and make room for it.
The finding of my peace with Kenny’s death started a little over a year ago. I met a man named Robert at a party who was a friend of one of my friend’s. He was very unassuming and was one of those people who are more interested in hearing about you than talking about themselves. When he asked what I did I told him how I was recovering in all ways from my husband’s unexpected death four years earlier and that I’d turned my grief into something constructive to help others heal. When I asked him what he did his casual reply was “Oh, I don’t do anything”. When my friend came and sat at the table with us, she asked if Robert had told me what he did. Robert repeated the same thing he said minutes before with a small smile. My friend then told us that Robert had written the B-52’s song Roam.
In a quiet and humble way, Robert finally said yes, he had written that song. He then went on to say that while everyone loves the happy, upbeat lyrics, the meaning behind the song was much different. It was actually written in remembrance of one of the band members who had died. This surprised me as there was never any indication from the music or lyrics that this was what the song was really about.
Robert said that everyone thought the song was about love and traveling all over the world when it was really about the liberation and release your spirit has after you leave this earthly plane. This revelation about the true meaning behind the song made me pause and think. As Robert continued, I realized something; when you leave here and move on to the next existence, you can roam anywhere you want to go to, unencumbered by the limitations of the body you lived in while you were alive. There’s no pain, no sickness, no sadness, no despair…..just pure blissful joy and happiness because you’re untethered from all the suffering you experienced while you were alive. It’s the true definition of freedom.
Roam has been one of my favorite songs since it came out in 1989. I sing along to it every time it comes on the radio. But since meeting Robert last year and hearing him tell the real story behind the song I hear it differently than I did before. It hits a different part of me and has a deeper meaning. Now when I hear it, I think of Kenny flying through the universe like Superman with a big smile across his face, looking down at everything below with the same sense of wonder children have.
He can visit the beaches of Australia and Hawaii, catching the best waves on a surfboard like he always wanted to do when he was alive. He can snowboard down the mountains of Colorado with his son which he had hoped to do one day. He can 4-wheel drive down the sand covered beaches of the Outer Banks in North Carolina in his new Toyota. He can tinker in his master carpenter’s workshop filled with the best wood craftsman tools he didn’t get to buy before he died. He can play all the rounds of golf on the greenest of courses.
He can visit his family anytime he wants and watch them live their lives. He can be right by their sides for every second of it, even if they aren’t aware he’s there.
He can watch his wife rise like a Phoenix from the fire and ashes of the dark pit of grief she was in after his death and be reborn into a completely different woman than she was when he was alive.
He can see his daughter step into her strength and forge a way forward on a path she couldn’t see before her father died.
He can see his son command his own worth and carry on his father’s legacy with the things he learned from him so long ago.
He can see his grandson grow from the 4-year-old he was when Kenny left us to the 9-year-old 3rd grader he is now.
He can see his 9-month-old granddaughter who he never got to meet down here learn to crawl and speak her first words.
He can wait with us in anticipation for the birth of his third grandchild this coming winter.
He can go anywhere, do anything, anytime he wants because his spirit is completely free to do so. His existence where he’s at now has absolutely no limitations because limits don’t exist there.
Part of finding peace with Kenny’s death is me being able to energetically release him. I’ve held onto him for so long and it’s time to let him go. I have to make space in my life for who and what’s next for me. Kenny has important things to go and do where he’s at and so do I, down here where I am. I have a lot of years left here with many things to do, many things to see, and many more things to accomplish.
This energetic release doesn’t mean I’m forgetting about him. That can never happen because he and I shared a whole lifetime together. He is woven into every part of my life and the lives of our children and grandchildren. His existence ripples out like rings in the water when a stone is thrown in, reaching out and touching everyone and everything. Kenny’s existence reaches out across time too and will impact the lives of those that never had the chance to know him.
So, this energetic release is important. It’s the next step for both of us, to where we’re not wholly bound to each other as we were before. It’s time for Kenny and I both to go roam where we want to, without anything but the love we feel. And that love? Well, that’s something that will never die because it exists here, there, and in every time and place there is or ever will be.