In my mentor group, we went through a funeral process of ideals and the unfairness of consequences from others free agency.

I found this obituary I wrote while recently divorced and still sorting through new trauma.

I love knowing with my current perspective the growth I have made in my new life and in creating a bright future.

“This funeral is different than most because we are celebrating a death of a life that is also very similar to that of a caterpillar. Marni Bown was raised where she grew and developed into a happy and healthy young woman. She lived many exciting experiences, victories and opportunities until the time she was married. It was there she was slowly forced to put herself into a cocoon that would last for the next 21 years. During her marriage she lost the hope and innocence of being loved forever. Sadly we can’t say that she was tenderly watched over or cared for. And with each of the betrayals of her husband she lost a little bit of worth and identity. She had parts of her life stolen from her that she worked hard for. She lost an ability to trust others and herself. She felt her ability of being her best mom was taken from her as she was slowly dying inside and was lead to believe all problems in the family stemmed from her. She lost the ability to focus on her children and important things after the trauma discovery. She had years of her life torn away where she was loved conditionally and mostly not at all. She had relationships that had developed over decades vanish because of divorce. She was deprived of the gift for her boys of them knowing just how much their dad loved the mother of his children.

And although the undertaking of being in the cocoon was difficult, there was also a lot of hard work and learning to help develop the person she was meant to become.

And as she emerged as a fragile butterfly learning to flutter, when she reflects on her time in the cocoon, it’s a part of the process that has helped her become the even better version of herself that would have more possibilities than ever before. Having gone through that rigorous activity she is now preparing herself to learn to FLY!”