I think, for me, the last year was about connectedness, which is ironic because I felt so alienated from so many of the people in my life. But I felt a deep deep sense of connectedness with suffering and grief in people around me. It was a beautiful, sad, overwhelming feeling of having a very human experience of loss shared by many in so many different ways. At some point, for the immediate weeks after Lucia died, I would see people as their suffering. I think it helped open my eyes to how vulnerable we all are. But when that lessened (I think it was part of the numb stage), I felt like I also lost another layer in my life--religion. Of course, it came back, not as strongly or as rawly as before, but it came through compassion meditation, reading, painting and talking to others. The ways in which I have stretched are simply that I no longer recoil from someone's pain, or loss, or suffering in my real life, I move towards it, sit with it quietly, and try to be present with them. I paint people's griefs and their hopes for them, and that is like taking on another layer of grief, and letting it go. Hope that made sense.
loss of "religion" and then recovery of "religion" through new practices. Part of recovery was connecting to others and expressing compassion for them.