I believed that growing old meant losing eyesight, hormones, collagen, memory, and ultimately friends and loved ones. But I have learned that what comes from loss and old age is the ancient privilege of being an elder, someone who shows others the way.
My “elder” story quietly took root on the terrifying morning of my eldest son’s funeral. So I sat in the front seat and listened to family and friends talk about Tommy, the 12-year-old boy who had gone to sleep that night earlier that week. We didn’t know why, and we still don’t. Doctors believe it was his heart. When it was my turn to speak, I stood in front of everyone and tried to piece together the last days and hours of Tommy’s life. Somehow I thought we all needed help and that if we acted together we would find it sooner.
So for at least a year after that day, I invited Tommy’s friends over to my house so we could process the loss together. Sometimes they came in large groups. Otherwise, one at a time. They sought comfort in his room. They found a connection in our backyard. And they became a big family as they wrapped my second son in the love he needed to endure. The parents of Tommy’s friends often came, and my family and I experienced the power of community in the darkness of tragedy. A few weeks after Tommy’s funeral, one of the mothers told me that her mother had also lost a child in her 20s.
“My mother is in her early 80s now,” she said. My heart sank as I realized something. How did she overcome this pain for nearly 60 years? I studied the woman in front of her and thought I would do for her youngest son what her mother did for her. I understand that you would do it for. I want to live to the fullest, even if I can’t imagine how. “I’d like to meet your mother,” I said, surprised at my conviction when it meant so little. But the friend revealed that her family had kept the loss private. “My mother rarely talks about it.”
I felt embarrassed. Why on earth would her mother want to reopen her deepest wounds? What I didn’t know at the time was that my intuition was right and it was too early.
Over the next five years, I embarked on an alternative healing journey, searching for a way to mend my broken heart. Then suddenly my friend told me that she wanted to meet her mother. She had heard about my healing efforts and she wanted to know more. “Tell me everything,” she said the first time we sat next to each other on the couch. Her tears streamed down my face, her left knee touched her right knee, and I looked into her warm brown eyes.
“My great-grandparents lost their son unexpectedly at age 12, just like me,” I said. I was afraid that people would think “weird” or “hmm”, but I kept going anyway. “I think that’s the cycle in my family. I’m doing everything in my power to heal and make sure no one in my family loses a child again.”
She held my hand. “My family also goes through a terrible cycle of loss. We have too many children across generations.”
While our hands were still intertwined, I explained that I knew early on in my grief that talk therapy would not work quickly or deeply enough for me. Prescription drugs were too expensive, too numbing, and too permanent. Instead, I turned to healing avenues that piqued my curiosity and resonated with my soul. Everything from meditation to mushrooms, breathing techniques to acupuncture, and all kinds of energy healing practices, both ancient and modern. The things that made me feel lighter, even if only for a few minutes, will someday live fully and ultimately serve not only for me, but also for the benefit of my lineage, both front and back. It also gave me hope that I could be healed once and for all. all.
I described my practice as “ancestral healing,” and when I said that, I felt the true elder within her begin to stir. She is the one who faced her biggest wound in life and it tore her apart.
she smiled. “I want to keep it clean for my family.” And at that moment, a friendship that transcended generations was born, and it felt like destiny for both of us.
It turns out that loss has given us a common language. We both believed that everything is made up of energy, as quantum physics teaches. We both understood that according to the first law of thermodynamics, energy cannot be created or destroyed. You can only change its shape. So our discussion proceeded on the premise that the human spirit is energy and therefore cannot be created or destroyed when a loved one dies. It can only change form, so it remains with us in some form.
I explained what I had learned about other cultures, from the ancient Egyptians to indigenous peoples around the world, who have traditions of performing special rituals to cleanse the souls of deceased family members. Its purpose is to help spirits heal and transition out of this world, and to flush out negative, unresolved energies before they can be passed on to others. I told her about Sherman in Los Angeles. His shaman works with a group of West African elders. She has been helping me sort out my family tree this past year.
“These elders have the ability to connect with the spirits of our ancestors,” I said. I learned so much about her family working with her and couldn’t deny how much better I felt doing so.
“Sorry if I sound like a lunatic,” I added, stepping back.
But she cut me off. “I would do anything for my family, past, present and future,” she said. She was giving it her all.
Over the next few months, we prepared for her first ancestral cleansing ritual. I connected her with the shaman over the phone, making sure her trust was established, and making sure she had the necessary information for her role in the four-day ritual that takes place between worlds while she sleeps. I helped gather the tools. I brought her new white sheets to sleep on. I gave her her healing stone that the shaman wanted to put under her pillow. He then made ashes for the bath she needed to take before going to bed to protect herself during the ritual. None of that fazed her. In fact, her eyes lit up when I explained how her dreams changed during the ceremony and began to tell the story of her ancestors. When her rituals with the shamans finally began, I contacted her daily to ask about them.
Every night before 11pm, she had to take a hot bath and splash water on herself in a specific order. She also had to make daily offerings to her favorite tree (first milk to honor her maternal lineage, then water to purify, and on the last day vodka to celebrate). All this was done at the same time as a certain secular prayer to Adam. her ancestral interests; And she had to report her own dream to the shaman. The shaman will pass it on to the African elders and help decipher its meaning. Then her elders taught her how to prepare for her next evening.
Throughout the ceremony, she graciously smiled, laughed heartily, and shared maternal wisdom through her life stories. Sometimes she would chat in person for hours. Or through her text messages or quick phone calls. Even as she grew older and went through different experiences, including losing her child, becoming a single mother, and getting divorced, she still remained curious. She is still growing. And it is still in the process of transformation. No matter how many surprises befell her in her life, she felt happy that she was able to overcome it.
A few weeks after her ceremony, I heard her recount the entire experience. I quickly realized that we had both changed. There was an indescribable peace of mind for both of us, knowing that we had done everything possible for our family, far beyond the limits of the human heart.
If my friend, at age 85, can still explore her deepest wounds from within, I’m sure anyone can. And just imagine. How many cycles can be broken? How many families are positively affected over multiple lifetimes? Not just because we choose to heal. But we’re not just getting older. We have grown into elders.
The author of Nicky Mark is Tommy’s Field: Love, Loss, and Lifelong Goals Available now. She is also the founder and president of. TM23 Foundation, opening the first Tommy’s Field in 2021, the second Tommy’s Field in 2023, and a third field in the planning stages. Her weekly articles, alternative healing toolkits, and free gifts can be found at: nikkimark.com.
Tommy’s Field: Love, Loss, and Lifelong Goals
Tommy’s Field: Love, Loss, and Lifelong Goals
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