I’ve just finished reviewing my last set of proofs for my new book, Catch Me When I Fall, which goes to press in a couple of weeks. My brother-in-law was kind enough to do a read-through to suggest any final edits I might have missed. He sent me an email earlier this week with his comments, “It is such a gift to walk the road of your grief and growth with you,” he said. “For me, the emotional spiral traced by the book mirrored the widening gyres of the goshawk.”

His metaphor was a great example of the process of grieving and how we emerge from it in ever-widening spirals. As I read his words, I reflected on the numerous examples of the lessons hawks have taught me as I’ve navigated my grief since my mother left us. I thought about how, just like the hawk, when we allow ourselves to grieve our losses, it can accelerate our growth and enable us to learn how to traverse the world in ever-widening circles.

When we lose someone we love, we are first called to travel through the deeply inward spiral of grief in order to make meaning of our loss. If we are lucky, there are people around to witness our grief and support us, but how we navigate the losses we experience are as unique to each person as are the ways that we respond. What is universal is that most of us spiral through five stages of grief that Dr. Elizabeth Kubler Ross and David Kessler outline in their book, On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss [Amazon.com]. These stages include denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, though not always in that order. At times, we are called to revisit one or all of them, time and time again.

Then with the healing balm of time, grace, and others’ support, we are able to move back out into the world, in a widening circle of knowing, just as the fledgling hawk who has finally learned how to fly. Since hawks were such a prevalent part of my healing journey through my grief after losing my mother, in one of our “chats” a few months after she died, I asked her, “Does your spirit become the hawk, or do you send one to help me?”

Mama whispered in my ear, “Whatever you need at the time.”

During the depths of what I came to learn from my bereavement counselor was situational depression as I grieved for the loss of my mother, one day, when I didn’t feel like living anymore, after I awakened from a nap, I opened the blinds, and a gorgeous red-tailed hawk flew by. I knew it was Mama’s spirit sweeping by to cheer me up. These encounters with hawks have happened more times than I can count over the past five years, and to this day, when a hawk flies past our deck, I know it’s Mama’s spirit stopping by to ensure I’m okay.

What I’ve learned during my journey of loss is that as long as I remain open and don’t allow myself to listen to the critical voices in my head, is that the veil is very thin between this world and the next, and her spirit is always accessible. If I keep my eyes and my heart open, the hawk (or whatever sign or symbol that has meaning that day) will make an appearance whenever I need to know that mama is still with me, guiding me and accompanying me on my journey, even when though I can’t hug her anymore. I know this is true because the power of love is a force that’s big enough to conquer distance, time, and space—even life and death.