It's Mother's Day. A difficult day for everyone -- moms, kids, and Those Who Should Do Something for a Particular Mom -- because of the over the top social pressure to "honor mom" or someone who "is like a mom" or is your significant other's mom, or the mom of a mom -- you get the point. Expectations aren't just big on this day, but enormous. Thus florists, chocolate purveyors (including those who sell dipped strawberries), garden centers and Hallmark win the day.
You would think that Mother's Day for someone who has lost a child would be unbearable. Or that those whose mom died recently would just rather not acknowledge the day. Ignore the day, it will go away, and so will the pain.
But life is like the white pearl contrasted on the black velvet. We only see the pearl's true beauty due to the contrast. And so it is that without death, we cannot fully see the beauty that is life.
When we lose someone that a great friend of mine referred to as a "core person" -- be it child, spouse, parent, sibling or friend -- our life just isn't the same. It will never be the same. Impossible. The fabric of our being and soul has been ripped. We can try our best to repair it, but you can always see the stitching, and maybe the rip was too big to ever be fully repaired.
When our soul has been ripped by a grievous loss, we can chose to: 1) ignore the loss; 2) wallow in the loss; 3) be vanquished by the loss or 4) find a way to move forward and embrace the loss as part of a different life.
I used to criticize those who just couldn't move on from someone's death. What's wrong with them that they can't be strong enough or self reliant enough to get back to their life?
I no longer judge. We take the path that fits us at that moment. Each grief journey is our own and no one can tell us how far to go, where to go or how to get there. We can see guideposts, or mile markers, offered by those who care about us, but how we make our grief journey is strictly up to each of us. No one, even if your loss has been of the same core category, can fully know how another's soul has been damaged by the loss. We can only be company on the journey, but the one with the loss must make their own way.
Gratitude defines me now. I am beyond grateful that I am in category 4 -- I found a way to move forward and embrace my multiple losses as part of what is now my different life. But don't misunderstand -- I remain sad, and feel deep grief, and so many times feel utterly alone and abandoned by the universe. But there is something, which others have called resilience, that has allowed me to experience that aloneness and embrace it but concurrently embrace joy and peace and contentment. It is indeed a new life for me, and I have come to realize it is a good life.
Gratitude overwhelms me -- for the life and experiences and most of all the love and joy I had at various times over so many years with my son, my husband and my best friend. It is gratitude that saved my spirit and continues to do so.
I first learned the power of gratitude when I attended various 12 step meetings -- open AA , Al-Anon, and even Cocaine Anonymous. To experience people struggling with the Siren call of addiction, and those crushed by their loved one's addiction, is to know that life inevitably is unfair and uneven. But I saw -- indeed, I felt -- not just pain and struggle, but hope and happiness and redemption, all of which was rooted in gratitude.
Every day -- every single day -- I find something to be grateful for. Did I find a penny in an unexpected fold of my briefbag? Did I have a butterfly land at my feet? Was there a feather on my seat when I opened the car door? [All of which happened to me in the week leading up to Mother's Day.] Or bigger -- grateful for the day, for my daughter, for those who have come to be my new BFFs, for my family, for success in my business despite the relentless kicks in the butt that life kept giving me during those very dark years. I have embraced the concept that only gratitude puts everything in perspective, and transforms what might otherwise be a shitshow into a well lived life.
And today, Mother's Day, I have more to be grateful for. First, I was able to become a mother. So many have not, or chose not to only to later realize they should have. Both of my children were and are special beings who were placed in my care by whatever force or power or being that exists, and who received more love and nurturing than I ever thought I was capable of. Without my children, and the love and challenges each of them brought, I would not have been able to expand my heart and my spirit and be who I am now.
Today I have another point of gratitude. I have stayed away from the blog for a long time, between computer issues, press (crush?) of work, and a vague sense of not having anything more to say. But my sister in law -- truly a "core person" in my life [and the one who was my son's favorite] returned to the blog and realized it had been taken down. Had she not done that, and more importantly reached out to me to find out why, I would not have realized the domain had expired and all my postings would have been lost forever. I averted yet another loss. She gets special thanks for alerting me to this.
Grateful -- for causing me to return, and to realize that this blog, and writing, is important to this revised new life, as a way to repair the tears in the fabric of my soul from the death of those so vital to me. Grateful that I am reminded that my new life is different, but not separate from the me who used to be. Grateful for those who continue to join me in my journey.
copyright 2018
