My Story…
My Story of Healing – part 3
It’s been just over a year since I wrote about how I commenced my healing journey since firstly my late mother, Nuala Clarke’s death in January 2020, aged 92, and subsequently my late daughter Ruth Seavers’ death in September 2021, aged 29. Some losses you simply never recover from, you somehow learn to integrate them into your life as you move forward. It takes as long as it takes.
Since I wrote my last post in May 2023, my West Cork love and I parted ways. It was a very painful ending and highly Uranian in how fast it actually finally happened. It was early September 2023 when we eventually went our separate ways. We had been at very different places in our lives for some months and I was no longer prepared to play 12th fiddle to an ex-partner, two adult children, three grandchildren, and a never ending plethora of cousins a-visiting.
It was yet another loss to integrate into my life, and the ending, when it did come, was horrendously drawn out. My love turned out to be able to commit to a family holiday in Spain with his ex-partner of over 16 years and their combined extended family several weeks in advance, but would not commit to as much as a cup of coffee with me on Ruth’s second anniversary. I watched a man who had always been full of integrity and truth become a shell of his former self before my very eyes.
But that was no longer my journey. Within less than a week of finally going our separate ways, I found myself back in the gym, hosting fun filled dinner parties at home, losing weight, my finances improving, and planning a long postponed return trip to Italy.
From then on, I threw myself back into the work I love so much, re-painted and re-carpeted my house throughout, and reconfigured the three upstairs bedrooms. I turned conventional Feng Shui on it’s head, and converted the largest front bedroom with its beautiful sea view into an artists studio. With the help of a wonderfully unexpected gift of a large hand made easel from a “newbie” friend just before Christmas 2023, I however then found that within four weeks I was starting to outgrow the studio!!
I joined several local writing groups and art groups but due to endless last minute cancellations and rearranging of dates of these groups I subsequently found myself spending yet another incredibly difficult winter in West Cork. Horrendous weather, plus the skyrocketing costs of living led me to pack my bags and head back to the Algarve in Portugal for a two week trip in mid March 2024.
Which not unexpectedly, turned into a blissfully invigorating six weeks!
Once I landed back in Faro airport, I could literally feel my Venus line singing to me as I got off the plane.
Within three days of being back on the Algarve, I found myself once again loving the feeling of being really seen with my relocated Sun in my first house. I started eventually realising that I needed to seriously consider a full time long term move here, something I had subconsciously resisted earlier in the year.
I had a full day private mentoring with my business coach Sarah Leather back in West Cork during which it emerged that retreats, writing and painting are now part of my new “Season of purpose”. A phrase I now love. Her words of “Do the math this time when you move!” resonated in my ears daily as I languished blissfully in the ease of my new life there.
And so I did the math.
And I did them again.
And again.
And it started to really add up. I could simply no longer justify the cost of leaving my house vacant in Ireland, nor a car sitting idle outside my front door, running up additional bills. The car repairs alone over the last year had been far more than I expected. I did a total overhaul of the back end expenses in my business, and another overhaul of my combined outgoings. House, car, personal and business.
Nope, they still did not add up!
But when I started doing the figures around how easy it could be to live almost full time in Portugal, (with Italy still a strong second possibility)it really started coming together. In Portugal, I wouldn’t need a car, which cut five large yearly bills out straight away!
I rented out a room in my house in West Cork long term and put the word out that a second room was available, possibly also a third room. That income would go a long way towards covering long term renting in Portugal. The car stayed put for a while, as the bills were paid for the next few months. “Back end” business payments were radically overhauled. However, the rental did not work out and in July 2024, I put my house in Courtmacsherry up for sale. The relief was enormous.
And healing, I hear you ask? What of it?
Coming up to what would have been Ruth’s 32nd birthday on 2nd November 2023 was also once again, almost unbearable. I found myself reaching out to Pieta House, the Irish suicide prevention charity, to give them another go. Turned out that those bereaved by suicide can have up to 30 therapy sessions, not the 6 or so I had originally been told of. I continued working with my spiritual mentor in Australia on a regular basis, along with having IST bodywork online.
I started learning the hard way that living with such a loss (I had also lost two dear West Cork friends to suicide during Covid 19) on an going basis meant accepting that I would in fact never know when I would be triggered. In social situations with new people, it was like always waiting for the second shoe to drop; waiting for the inevitable “and how many kids do you have?” question.
Or worst still, far far worse, having friends simply act like Ruth had never existed. Or cherished new friends regularly telling me how they envied me my carefree lifestyle, whilst I silently craved their loving relationship with their adult children.
Moving on after suicide is for sure, a journey like no other.
You don’t move on.
You just don’t.
Period.
It is like learning how to walk across grenade laden minefields for the rest of your life. Going to my local gym only to be greeted by a female changing room awash with toddlers and babies. Literally falling over prams, buggies and fold up cots the minute I walked in. Days, and even weeks, on end would pass like I was suspended in a dream. Having plenty of money in my bank account meant nothing. Owning my first house in over 20 years meant nothing. Try as I did, for two long years in West Cork, nothing much worked.
Nothing meant anything much at all. Yes, really.
Throwing myself with all my heart into local art and writing classes did not mean much either, as there was no commitment to those classes by other attendees. They would get cancelled at the drop of a hat. Going for the occasional lunch after class meant the world, but the cafe would invariably be cold with poor service and overpriced. I didn’t want to face that attending these classes did not mean that I wrote more because I knew I didn’t!
I wrote more in six weeks in Vilamoura in March and April 2024 than I had written in the previous 18 months. The poems flowed from me. I found most of my deeper healing came from writing and painting.
I found myself being increasingly resentful of the fact that the people who helped me the most were all people I paid to do so. Increasingly large amounts of money, as time went on. My choice yes, but on each of those occasions I genuinely felt there were no other alternatives available to me.
Back in Vilamoura in March 2024, I felt alive again. Really alive. I did not just feel seen, I was seen! I was no longer floundering or surviving. I was invited to give several talks and arranged some small astrology events. My days flowed. My day to day practical needs were all just down the road and round the corner. With my wonderful Vilamoura based marketing assistant, I ploughed through months of content writing and recording reels in less than a week, all of which were great fun.
An afternoon spent with a newbie friend shortly after returning to West Cork in early April 2024 moved mountains however, in a very different way. Here for the first time since Ruth’s death, I felt heard, seen and quietly supported by someone whose listening ear I was not paying for. My oh my!
I was oh, ever so gently, told I could just drop the story of the tragedy around Ruth’s death. It was then, ever so gently, suggested I did not have to continue keeping Ruth’s art. I was gently probed around having all this stuff I had actually never wanted or asked for. Despite having cleared over 95% of Ruth’s possessions, I realised I was in fact, holding to the items which had the most emotional pain attached to them.
Ruth’s GSCE art portfolio, her school copybooks from when she was five, her English stories – many of which were 20 handwritten pages long, her 10 page family newsletters which she handwrote wrote at 11 years old.
Family photos going back several generations, many of which were duplicated. My late mother’s cookbooks. My late mother’s handwritten recipes.
It could all go.
It actually could.
And so it did.
Along with old outdated paintings of mine too. The gift of the hand made easel just before Christmas meant I was now painting from a totally different place. I did not need to keep going to painting classes or fight with writing groups who did not give a s….t as to whether I was there or not! I could just quietly leave.
I could let it all go. I could leave WhatsApp groups. I could cull my Facebook page. I could delete over 80% of the contacts in my mobile phone.
So I did all that too!
It took three weeks, and was worth every frustrating moment.
I will never be healed. I see that now. But I have a life to live, and in Calabria, Italy where I now live, I can find a purpose and meaning to my life which just was not there in West Cork. The outdoor holistic lifestyle, the spirit of collaboration, the beaches, the rowdy passionate Italians who all have hearts of pure gold, the outdoor cafes, all those things so vital to my soul and well being – it’s all here.
I read many years ago that you can’t heal in the place you became ill.
There is so much truth to that.
Ruth could never heal in Cavan or Dublin. The odds were stacked totally against her. She lived a better life in Wales, that’s for sure – where she had so much more access to all that was so important to her – her art, her journalistic career, her graphic design, her writing.
Her happiest times in Wales as a 14 and 15 year old were when she trailed in the kitchen door carrying her art portfolio, saying with bemusement “I almost got locked into the art room overnight again today, Mam!” To which I would reply “Sure you’d have loved that, wouldn’t you Ruthie?! Or in later years, her weeks’ writing residency in Ty Newydd, the Welsh National Writing Centre. She was so proud.
But Ruth did however invoke deep healing in Courtmacsherry. All the way back in 2013, with the help of polarity therapy, cranio sacral therapy and IST Clairvision bodywork – some of which I did on my body on Ruth’s behalf – she healed. Indeed she did. Highly radical, but yes – it worked. Courtmacsherry then, in turn, became the place where I returned to heal as best I could after her death.
On some cellular level I realised I also needed to stop being so hard on myself and acknowledge that in fact, I had really really needed those months of lethargy, of sleeping too much. My nervous system, after years of travelling and moving from place to place, needed to rest and heal.
In other words, a total reset. Beyond all others.
So I am finishing this longer than usual blog post with a list of resources and books which helped me through the darkest of times these last four and a half years. In the sincere hope that it helps some of you reading today. I’m thanking many of you also.
“Done with the Crying” by Sheri McGregor – adult children estrangement
A harrowing account of how common parental vs adult children entrangement is in the western world today; how to cope and move on.
“The Grief Recovery Handbook” – John W James and Russell Friedman
Essential reading. Turns all the myths around moving on from grief on its head with a practical programme to work through. Far more effective if done with someone trained in the method than if attempted alone.
FengShuiDesign.ie – Edel Cleary
Who Feng Shui’d and Space Cleared my new home in Courtmacsherry from top to bottom. Even though I know this stuff (!!)- having studied Feng Shui to an advanced level some years ago, there’s always more!! I also highly recommend Her book “A Place to call home”. Generously offers an initial free consultation.
Claire Devereux – IST practitioner and psychotherapist
Irish based. Works online and in person. Claire has gently guided me since 2010 and in particular before, during and after Ruth’s crossing over through the lens of IST. Bless you forever.
Annette Kurtz
Who spaced cleared both Ruth’s house in Cavan and my rented house in Kenmare, plus my rented one in Courtmacsherry. Profound shifts in consciousness after. I also highly recommend her book “Harmonize your home”. Generously offers an initial free consultation.
Stephanie Kakris
Spiritual intuitive mentor, based in Melbourne. Cuts through all the stories we tell ourselves to find our most authentic self. I have been working with Steph since 2016, before moving to the USA, and she continues to astound me with her insight and wisdom.
Anthony Burchill
Whose deeply intentional, non judgemental listening moved ginormous boulders off my weary shoulders. Especially the artistic boulders. And of course, “that” easel!!!
Eithne Griffin, homeopath
Eithne is an outstanding homeopath who I have worked with since 2012 who was on emergency standby for remedies for both myself and Ruth prior to Ruth’s death, and has been ever since. Bless you too. Available for phone consults via What’s App 00353 86 6066865
Sarah Leather
I’m still doing the maths!
Alison Boardman Louise Hay coach
Offering different insights. You too.
Sarah Ulhaas, Brian Clark, Eric Meyers
My astrology tribe – bless you, all of you – especially Brian Clark with whom I had worked with for several months before Ruth’s death. To make sense of the heartbreaking estrangement. And we did. I continue to work regularly with Brian Clark who, almost four years after Ruth’s death, continues to regularly help me make sense of the higher spiritual purpose in all this.
Set up by Fiona Twomey after the death of her daughter, to help those bereaved by suicide. In person meetings throughout Ireland, but also online. Lots of helpful articles on their website.
Samaritans
Ireland and the UK. 24 hour helpline. They listen, they don’t advise. A godsend to me on many a dark day.
Sometimes all we need is a kind listening ear over a cup of coffee and we’re right as rain, or if not, at least much better than we were an hour ago. (Especially if you have your Moon in an air sign like I do!) But in an Ireland of increasingly high prices and ongoing coffee shop and restaurant closures, that option frequently isn’t there any more.
I sincerely hope the above resources help those of you who may know someone struggling right now. I spent Ruth’s 30th birthday on 2nd November 2021 and then her first anniversary on 6th September 2022 totally alone.
Yes, really.
So I went to Vilamoura for Ruth’s 31st birthday. After several return trips to the Algarve, I was sure I was going to settle there and tried valiantly to create a new life there. However the gOd’s had even bigger plans for me and I have since sold up altogether in Ireland and now live in Calabria, Southern Italy, where I am in the process of obtaining long term dual residency between Ireland and Italy.
If you know someone who has lost someone to suicide, say their name. Say their name. Ask gently about them. They existed. Say their name. Then say it again. Ask about them again. It only takes a few minutes and will mean the world.
Thank you all so much for reading My Story of Healing. To those of you who stayed with me, bless you even more.
You can read the previous blog posts about my healing journey…