Parallels Between the Intimacy of Loss, and the Intimacy of Pleasure
For most of my 44 years, I thought sex and grief existed separate from the rest of life — behind closed doors and in hushed conversations. I now realize that in separating them, I missed the opportunity for the most beautiful intimacy I could have ever imagined.
Over the past 3 years, me and my children have experienced 3 tragic losses and at first, I had little ability to navigate them through what felt like unimaginable pain. Untimely, tragic deaths of children wasn’t something I’d dealt with beyond a clinical understanding in Counseling training, and I oscillated between fear that I would also lose my children, and gratitude for a deepening connection to them through our grief. Looking back on this time I can’t help but notice the parallels with my experiences in the intimacy of loss, and the intimacy of pleasure. There have been moments during this time where I felt I was experiencing the deepest intimacy of my life — Intimacy that is available when I move beyond my own fears and insecurities — and stay present in the seemingly insignificant details of the moment.
Seeing my 17 year old son hold the hand of his 16 year old sister as she cried in fear for the life of her friend. Hearing him teach her to breathe in the way he had learned to calm himself down when he had lost his friend the year before, and directing his other sisters to put a wet cloth on her forehead. I watched this scene in front of me, noticing the tv still on and half eaten food on the desk of the hotel room we were staying in. We’d come to celebrate my youngest’s birthday and all of that changed in a moment with one text message.
Fast forward a year and I’m standing in my friends’ doorway, holding her crying in my arms after losing her son. I feel her shoulder blades under my fingers, smell the shampoo in her hair, see his jacket on the hook behind her and his shoes casually sitting on the door mat under her collapsing legs — as if he’d just casually kicked them off and walked upstairs.
Interwoven with tragedy and grief is the unmistakable normalcy of everyday life.
After eating a bowl of homemade soup together in my dining room, surrounded by folded clothes and children’s books, we move to my bedroom. The woman, who’s come to me for orgasm coaching, lies down naked on my bed and I watch the color rising up her chest as her pleasure builds. Sitting on my chair I notice her seemingly oscillate between the push and pull of control and surrender — not knowing exactly how things will turn out if she just lets go. Increasing the sound of my steady breath to support her, we breathe together and she lets go; tears and laughter follow as her flush lessens and tears flow. “I’m not broken” she says. After she leaves, my children come home and we eat dinner at the same table.
Arriving at a hotel jacuzzi suite for a weekend of pleasure with my lover to discover my bleeding has come early. He takes off his red plaid shirt for me to bleed on — as if it’s the most normal thing to do in the world — and the rest of the weekend is spent naked, in pleasure, eating good food, discussing life and refolding the red shirt under me to find new squares to catch the blood.
Interwoven with pleasure and sex is the unmistakable normalcy of everyday life.
In January, we once again experienced the untimely loss of a close friends’ mother and, while supporting her through it, I couldn’t help but feel once again, this deep sense of intimacy. Intimacy in being alongside a person you love while they grieve. Intimacy in sharing stories about her life and legacy and the intimacy of asking myself what my own legacy will be. Intimacy in my daughter recognizing that her friend doesn’t “just want to talk about losing her mom, she also wants to talk about clothes and movies.”
Interwoven with tragedy and grief, pleasure and sex is the unmistakable normalcy of everyday life……….
* This is my experience only and I recognize that grief and loss are different for everyone. I’m not suggesting my experience should be anyone else’s
