A Heart shatters and everything changes

At the age of 55 1/2 Sydney found herself with a shattered heart immersed in a world she barely recognized. Her life went from being as balanced and full of promise as she had ever experienced to a hellacious nightmare she could barely conceive possible. Mother of 4, grandmother of two, successful entrepreneur, business owner, holistic practitioner and life transformation expert, in the best shape and experience of her life was suddenly faced with one of the greatest challenges she could conceive of. Her 3rd born child, precious son Zachary was diagnosed with an extremely rare, aggressive and terminal cancer, a cancer so new and aggressive that there were no known survivors at the time of his diagnosis and a prognosis of 6 to 9 months. Together the family began a journey of faith, trust and belief like no other, which ended with Zachary’s passing on August 19th, 2016.

The nuclear explosion of grief which ensued, combined with residual circumstances of a terminal journey with cancer, left the experience of life for Sydney more like living in a witness protection program than the amazing experience of life she had created with her loving family.  It has been said that the experience of grief for a parent in the passing of a child is the most challenging, overwhelming, dark place that a human can experience and Sydney surprisingly found herself with thoughts of wishing she could just leave this world with her son.

Grief over her son was not the only circumstance, she was suddenly in the midst of other significant  challenges in the wake of her son’s passing.  Her oldest daughter, dealing with her own experience of grief, chose to isolate herself and her family, so in addition to the grief of her son, Sydney was now grieving the separation of another child and her little loves, her grandchildren.   Her oldest son slipped back into the grips of addiction and was involved in serious car accident crushing 4 of his vertebrae and fracturing 3 ribs.  Her youngest daughter needed space to grieve on her own shifting the way they had previously stayed connected with each other. Her youngest also ending a two year relationship with her boyfriend sending another shock-wave into Sydney’s heart.  The family business was barely surviving the financial burdens placed upon it during Zachary’s illness and Zach’s Dad was struggling himself with his own grief while still doing his best to support all those dependent on him and care for his patients as well.  Just a month after Zachary passed Sydney found that what she thought was a loan modification in progress on her home had turned into a foreclosure with a court date less than a month away.  Her life barely resembled the life she loved just 9 months eralier and it seemed that as time progressed the challenges grew worse.

Although she was committed to staying focused on her own journey and not letting the experiences of others have influence on her, a couple things she had been told kept creeping into her mind: “some people never get over this experience” and “ the second year is worse”.  As the first year of her grief journey came to an end and the first couple months of year 2 were behind her, Sydney knew that if those statements were true, she just didn’t want to continue to exist like this. Though she was putting into practice everything she  possibly could for herself, she was beginning to grow weary of the burden of the journey.  If year two was to be worse than one, then game over, she didn’t want to play anymore.  Unfortunately, not playing in life essentially means not living and  since ending her life wasn’t an option for her she knew she had to make a choice.

Her experience and story has been shared in private settings and groups but as the second year of her grief journey came to a close, Sydney wanted to be completely open and vulnerable in sharing her experience to create the possibility of Enlightened Grief for others as well.  With the extensive writing she has done on her experiences through this challenging journey, she plans to utilize this web site as a space to share the intimate details of her experience.  She has used her tools as a life transformation expert to transform her own experience of grief and also light the way for many other parents in this most challenging experience of their life.  She wants you to know, that there is possibility for you! Possibility in honoring your own experience of grief, honoring and loving your child or loved one in a new and even deeper way,  and experiencing the possibility of hope and joy and love in the continued journey of life here in the physical.  It’s all possible.

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