Why Bali? Place and Space/ Belonging and Being With

For me, Bali is a place of memory. A place of sweetness. A place I love dearly. A place of wonder and beauty.

It is a wonder to me that I continue to live without my son, no longer here in his physical body. 

Since my beloved son, Austin’s death, I live each day with the memory and connection of the beautiful soul that my son still is, though his form now formless, his spirit shines through and encourages me to carry him with me and carry on.  But oh, how I long to hold him, smell him, hear his voice and his laugh, watch his sweet smile emerge and see his eyes laughing or surprised. Missing his morning and evening texts, missing our communications of our familiar ways. Missing our walks and talks. I miss everything about him.

Memories are everyday occurrences, like an ongoing conversation of support, anchoring my mama heart into presence: remembering Aus as my beautiful baby, toddler, child, teenager, young man, young adult that he was while he was here with me in the world for a little while, during his short life. Merging what was and with what is. Loving him always. Somehow finding ways to accept the unbearable reality that he is gone and my complete and total powerlessness to change reality.

I first visited Bali in 2014 and you could say it was like love at first sight. Since that first visit, I have returned to the island many times, both as a solo traveler and group facilitator. Bali is an incredible place of beauty, a lush,verdant volcanic island imbued with steady daily rhythms of ritualized offering that soothes and caresses my spirit. It's the offerings that are believed to keep balance and harmony between the worlds of gods, nature, and humans. When visiting the island, you will see them everywhere. Colorful, beautiful, artful. The incense that burns from them releases a fragrance that opens the heart. Every single day, every single day, every single day. It (Bali) does something to you that cannot be described, only felt. I traveled there with Austin a few years ago during a time when he was happy and hopeful. I think he felt a great freedom there. I now find solace there and the pain/grief I feel, softer, more bearable.

Bali can be a crowded place too. The island has changed a lot over the years since my first visit. There is more traffic, more commercialism but I feel like this is true of most places in these times we are living in. And of course, we are always changing too. What remains the same, unchanged are the variety of so many wonderful places to experience the nature and unique culture of Bali and its people.

The place in Bali I love most is a small village, not so far from Ubud, where my dear friends live their lives with their family, community, full Balinese calendars as well as village calendars of ceremony, ritual and responsibility, in addition to continually welcoming a seemingly neverending flow of visitors. It’s a  place where friendships have deepened over time and become like family to me. A place of green, lush and lovely, landscape of  rice fields and waterfalls, bamboo forests, sunlight, drenching rains, coco palms, motorbikes, geckos, frogs, and calls of chickens in perfect synchronicity every morning with the rising sun. In the early morning you might hear the faint sound of a priest reciting prayers or musicians playing the gamelan. 

It is The Place where I feel most safe and held in my grief, a place where I don’t feel like my grief is too much or burdensome to other people. I can’t completely explain it, maybe it is also my escape. Relationship to death in Bali is part of life too. It’s the daily rhythm of offering and unique kindheartedness of the Balinese people that holds my deepest respect and highest regard. And, yes,yes, yes  it is truly beautiful.

About me: My son Austin died unexpectedly on October 5, 2022. He was 26 years old. He was a boy raised in the mountains of North Carolina, and died a young man, his life ended in Brooklyn, NY. He loved mountains and cities. He loved life and traveling. He was artistic, musical and creative. He was funny and had the warmest smile. He loved animals. He enjoyed  rich conversations. Making things. He enjoyed dancing and seeing live music. He loved family and had many friends. 

Grief moves in its own way, and though I have somehow-not sure how, lived and survived through acute stages of shock, denial, shattering and devastation, I still experience days when I am brought to my knees howling/wailing for my lost child, wondering where he is, wondering if he can hear me, wondering how he is. I don’t care to pretend that isn’t happening, I don’t care to sugarcoat or gloss over or bypass what is now my life, living without him and also with him always, cherishing the grief and love of my beloved Austin.

It’s unnatural to be a mother without a living child to mother and out of the “natural order” of life when a child dies. What do we do with all this love, all this grief? Where do we put it? 

Who was I without Austin in this world? I had no idea. Questions of identity overwhelmed my days. I have searched high and low for spaces and places to be able to live with my grief and find a way to live with the physical absence of my only child. 

Pilgrimage is a word I like to use to describe the way I have found most supports me. It seems I will forever be seeking spaces and places that connect me with Austin’s spirit, whether it be at home or out in the wide world. This is my life now. And Austin was always my most favorite travel partner, so we will continue on in our travels through life and death. 

Life now is living with and without Austin.

…My friend’s supporting me in a releasing a portion of Austin’s ashes that now flow in the Campuhan River or Tjampuan River, a word that means convergence. Bali is a place of ritual, so many rituals daily, weekly, seasonally, etc Rituals have been an integral part of being in communion with Austin’s spirit. My beautiful boy and his shining, steady, gentle spirit.

So it is with my broken mama heart, I invite you (we invite you) along with Prema to join us in creating something sacred, meaningful, and sustaining? lasting?. May our time together be supportive and affirming, that, though grief is incredibly lonely we can also cocreate experiences to sustain what we cannot change. Breathing into what we can only do alone, the personal grief  and pain that is truly your own and being together as witness to each other’s pain, loneliness, yearning and eternal love for our children. 

Most of all, may our time together celebrate the light and honor the spirit of our children and cherish the legacy of their precious lives.