A Norse Witch’s Grief: Letting Go Without Letting Go

This is the seventh in a series of guest blog posts by up-and-coming author, Suzanne Hersey. Her first book, Faith, Food, Family, will be available from Iaconagraphy Press in Spring of 2018!

It has been a week of pain, grief, joy, and awakening. The cost was more than I would have wanted to pay. In college, I had a wonderful eclectic group of friends. We were the epitome of the term “Rag Tag Band of Rebels”. We were nerds and metalheads, of all faiths, and of different upbringings. It was the late 80’s, and we were, some of us, diving into Witchcraft during the Satanic Panic. No matter what any of us went through, we were there to love and support each other. We went through break-ups, failures, successes, drunken evenings and hung over mornings, and, yes, death. This bunch of outcasts saw me through the darkest moment in my life back then. When my love died, I was a wreck, suicidal, inconsolable, and they all stayed with me and got me through. It was years later, at the birth of my son, that I finally released that grief. Last weekend, as many of us as were able to be there walked into that grief again. Standing for one of our own, gone too soon. Steve was a good man, a good friend, a good husband, a good dad; a good teacher. As we all messaged back and forth on Facebook coming up to the day we would see his earthly form one more time, we connected again on a level we had not before. We had all kept in touch in one way or another in that weird cyber hangout, but we had not really seen each other. I share who I am with very few.

In those moments, I had to step up and be the Norse Witch, the Volva, that Freyja has called me to be. I had to set aside my pain and help them to step into grief. Those moments led me to really look at death and how we, as witches, pagans or what have you, really see death. I had to talk to them about talking to him. I had to tell them that yes, these human practices of wakes and funerals and memorials are for us to work through our grief, but that the dead, in their own way, grieve as well. Steve was a man whose family was his everything and he left behind a small boy and a beautiful wife. He grieved too. I spoke to them about how the dead hear us, that we speak to them, we find a place in our homes and lives to place a photo, a candle, some things that they loved, and we honor them. We stand for and with their family, not just in the next few weeks, but over the years. When his son turns 21, I will bring us all together, and we are taking him out for a pint and telling him about all the crazy things his Daddy did, back when we were wild college kids.

As witches, we know there is another: a place beyond us, where the spirit flies free. We know that we all, in this meaty human form, carry within us the magick. We know that we take that form and that magick and we travel a mountain, hiking up always to the destination that is Death and Life. Maybe you call it heaven, maybe you call it Helheim, or Valhalla, or Vanaheim, or any number of things. It is all the place beyond the living Veil, and we, as witches, know that place; its road map, and its residents. So for us, at least for me, grief is a moment that I know I will not feel the comfort of Steve’s big bear hugs around my human form, but I see him and I hear him. He came to me the night before we went together, that rag tag band of rebels, and he gave me messages. I did not outright walk up to each person and say “Steve is with me, he said this”, because, honestly, even with witches, that never goes well for me. Sometimes muggles just don’t get it. They don’t get that death is not peace and joy and harps and painlessness. The dead watch over us and they miss us. They speak to those that can hear them. I delivered those messages in subtle ways: hugs, and requests to connect with the spouses of my friends on Facebook, shared memories I knew would get his message across, and a three hour long conversation with a fellow rebel who needed to hear he was loved and that we all want him to come home. Steve spoke through his little witch that night over and over, and through it all, I pushed my tears and pain away to give service. That is a witch’s grief. We know what is on the other side, and there is so much comfort in knowing that we can continue that relationship, but with that comes a responsibility to help the ones who cannot hear receive the message. We grieve through magic, veneration, and memory. Walking into the funeral home, my band of rebels behind me, as they will be again in a few weeks’ time, when we come together for a memorial, I told them that they only had to say what they needed in their own way; that Steve knew that we were together, and that he would be so pleased that, in the pain of his loss, we had done the one thing he had wanted for so long. We got the band back together. Walking into that funeral home, I spoke out loud what my rebels thought were my words but in fact they were his, whispered in my ear with a lilting Irish brogue: “Look at my little witch leading the rebel band of Christians and Atheists to say good-bye. Atta witch!”