Tomorrow, August 6, at 3:15 p.m. is my son’s birthday. He would be 41. I’ve booked myself solid for tomorrow: clients all day, two groups to facilitate, four hours in traffic (round-trip). I’m cool. My heart will feel pangs, just as my body did 41 years ago. I went into labor on the fifth of August (my younger brother’s birthday). Rikki was born the next day – his own birthday — until his son was born on August 6, 2009. He shares a birthday with his dad. This is the 8th birthday without my son, and this is the first birthday in Louie’s entire life that I will not be with him on his birthday. It’s a weird feeling this birthday. I’ve always had Louie on his birthday to celebrate and to distract me from the sadness (until I went to bed) because it is also my beautiful boy’s birthday. Forty-one? He should be here to celebrate another year of life, another year as a father, another year…
I’ll be okay. I always am. I just need to tell someone that tomorrow is the day I became a mother to a tiny, infant son. He was beautiful. He was born with red hair, even though his biological father is native American with very dark hair, and my hair is almost black. He has some German ancestry. He would go bald in the months following until his hair grew like a weed…and then, as a young man, he would have tresses like Head from Korn, and then he decided shaving his head was easier and better, so he returned, full circle to a bald head. I miss him at every stage of his life – and I’ll miss him for the rest of mine.
I have work to do today and for the next two; life moves forward – even though we may not be ready for it. I’ve not been ready for it for eight years and eight months…but here I am, another birthday to celebrate without my son.
How do I console the inconsolable? the broken-hearted? Those who ache deep in their souls? How do I make their pain STOP! How do I do that? I’m in constant soul-pain From the most significant Loss a parent can endure. the loss of a child — I know pain at a level so deep. It’s as infinite as a black hole. How? You ask. How does one console the inconsolable? Don’t be afraid of our overwhelm. We sometimes need to purge from our souls.
We howl from the deepest part
of ourselves. Don’t be surprised when we tell you we’d sell our souls to bring our children
back and other fantasies. I cried for years. Today is going to be a day of remembrance…a day in which I revere my son with tears and laughter. How do I do it, you ask? Some days, I wonder. How does one console the inconsolable? You can’t. How does one go on after deep losses? You do. You just do.
“Will you still need me? Will you still feed me when I’m sixty-four?” said the Beatles a half-century ago. I’m not sixty-four – yet. I had my 62nd birthday in June. The clock seems to be ticking a lot faster than it used to, or maybe it is the fact that I now have fewer years ahead of me than behind me. I’m watching classmates die. I’m watching kids my son’s age die, and I watched my son die very young; or am I really that old? I feel like I’m ancient some days. I have chronic back pain, but I manage and I’m functional without any deficits in physical abilities, other than perhaps a Simone Biles routine or the shotput, et al.
Some of my heroes and heroines have died young: Elizabeth Wurtzel, Amy Winehouse, Jerry Garcia, Brent Mydland, Pigpen, ad nauseam. I went to see George Thorogood a couple of months ago, the epitome of the bad boy of rock and roll. Well, it was one-hundred degrees outside; the stage was facing the sun, and…well, George is almost eighty. I loved him even more for giving his fans a show even though there were a few more challenges for him than thirty years ago when he really did “make the young girls squeal.”
I see the signs of aging in my own life, in my own body, in my inability to recall ancient memories, and in my energy levels. In addition to my back’s chronic pain, I’m also in chronic emotional pain. I refuse to handle one more thing that would zap me of my energy when it takes everything I have to put my grief aside so I can function in the world on a daily basis.
Unless you’ve been leveled by a loss, it’s impossible to understand how it is a person can continue with his/her/their life. I believe I was in what is called now complicated grief. I spent nearly four years aching and wasting away. I really didn’t even leave the house much, and then we moved from the house we shared with my son and grandson, and since there was nothing familiar, I was able to clear my head and move forward with a life of purpose.
I’ve been eight years and seven months without my son. I wouldn’t say I’ve healed, but the grief can now be distributed proportionately to its impetus. My largest percentage of grief originated with the loss of my son and only child. There are other various losses I’ve had throughout the years. I had cancer in the nineties, and I lost my ability to have any more children. I grieved a minute for this loss. I’ve lost friends, lovers, and dreams in my lifetime. I’ve grieved many of them too.
Perhaps there are things I’m afraid to grieve. Perhaps I haven’t fully even grieved the loss of my son – even in my advanced age. Shouldn’t I be mature enough to handle my grief over the loss of my baby boy, my manchild, my son? I mean, it’s been eight years, right?
With age, best case scenario, comes wisdom, but not always. When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.
I grieve deep in my soul when I allow myself to, or when I’m in the presence of safe others…and then, I reel it in and soldier on, with a brave face and a smile. I guess as I begin to face my own mortality, I see the things that are important in life, for me. I believe in peace, lovingkindness, compassion, and a God who hears me when I cry out for joy or in pain. If we loved like the GOMU loves, would there be a need for exacting justice? Am I an old hippie who’s returning to “make love not war” mentality?
My grief is no longer my focal point. In the beginning of the grief process, every single breath was about laboring to breathe. Now, as a function of a more seasoned brain, I do have greater control of my ability to self-regulate through a pang of grief, and they can be hard-hitting. Is that a function of age, the ability to grieve more efficiently and for a shorter period of time?
I know people who never recovered from their losses before their own lives were required of them. My husband’s brother never recovered from the death of his young son. Maybe “recover” is the wrong word. Have I recovered from the loss of my son? No. I’ve learned to maintain. I’ve learned to check off the days on the calendar and I wonder when my own life will be required of me. I try not to think about my final days, but at sixty-two, close to retirement age, I do.
I’m grieving the loss of my youth today. Rikki is a constant ache, all day, every day, but I’ve been able to normalize the ache so I can live my life. There is nothing I can do about either situation; my son is gone – and I’m getting old. Such is life. I love the last monologue in the movie The Green Mile, when Tom Hanks’ older self says that we each “owe a date with death” – and so it is.
Losing my dear, sweet, complicated Momma last September really pulled what was left of my rug from underneath me; her death rocked my world. She and her loving Jesus carried me through for sixty-one years, give or take a few estrangements over the years. I grieve those lost years, just as I grieve the years we no longer have.
I’ve read about how people get introspective in their thirties; it’s a short distance to go back in time when you’re thirty. I feel more introspective now than I ever did in my thirties. I was whooping it up in my thirties (late bloomer).
Minutes pass, hair grays, skin wrinkles, and there is nothing new under the sun; seems I read that a time or two.
“When I get older, losing my hair, many years from now. Will you still be sending me a Valentine, birthday greetings, bottle of wine.” (The Beatles) I wonder if I’ll be a cute old lady or a crotchety one. I’m in constant physical and emotional pain and I’m still able to see the shimmering colors in a rainbow as they change hues in the sun’s light. I’m able to love each color as it presents itself in my color palette.
My husband hates, “When I’m Sixty-Four.” He made me promise I wouldn’t play it on his birthday, so I didn’t. I had to fight every urge to not tease him with the song; it was a monumental feat. He isn’t happy about the aging process; it makes him angry. I’m more accepting of it – now that I’ve lost my son. Life gets really long and lonesome without him. I’m not upset about getting old; it’s a privilege denied to so many, my young son, for example.
I’m looking forward to Medicare age. I’m looking forward to sitting under a tree on my porch reminiscing about how the world was when I was a young person, about how I was once a hot, young thing, and now I’m applying more and more anti-aging serum on my face and neck. It’s going to happen, I say as I dig my heels in, refusing to go into that well-moisturized night.
My mom, up until just a few days before her death bemoaned the fact that she was elderly. She said she didn’t want to sound or smell like an old person. She never did. She was youthful up until she had to surrender to death. Her voice never got old. Her mind never got old.
My son never got to be old … and so, I will, barring an early death, grow old for him. I know he would have taken care of me in my old age. He was such an overprotective son. I loved that about him. I will never see him get old. I never got to see him get any gray hair.
Grief is characterized as cyclical. I suppose I’m in a phase of disbelief. How did I get to be sixty-two? Where did all the time go? Where am I going? Where is my son?
Chapters close and while we still have breath in our lungs and cognition, new chapters will be written. I’m getting old, and I guess I’m moving toward the acceptance phase. It’s a weird place to be.
One last ramble…
“May you build a ladder to the sky And climb on every rung, and May you stay – forever young.”
Incorporating self-care into our lives may not be a benefit to everyone in our circle. For example, I recently diagnosed myself with burnout. I’m in the helping profession and sometimes life gets really heavy. I know about burnout. On one of my academic journeys, I was very much into Christine Maslach and her research on burnout. I knew the symptoms, just like I knew when my son was using heroin. Sometimes we ignore what we know with absolute certainty to be true; it’s called denial.
I pushed myself too hard this year. I lost my mother, another year passed without my son. I got COVID, and I worked purposefully toward my passions — all the way to burnout. I love people – everyone. I haven’t found a person in whose face I have not seen Jesus or Buddha or his/her/their sacred image that brings them comfort and peace.
We each find what will heal us.
I’m sixty-two years old and even though I’m in far better shape than I was five years ago, this lady is exhausted, emotionally, and spiritually wiped out. Grief is heavy and I carry it with me every second of every day. When one says that grief is unbearable, he is in denial about his own inner strength and inner power. You can live through the worst possible experience and research bears out that there is, of course, posttraumatic stress disorder, and — there is posttraumatic growth.
Not everyone who is spiritually, emotionally, and physically maxed out has the luxury of taking time off. They have bills to pay, and three days of bereavement time is sorely insufficient. How long does one need to drown in her tears through several cycles until they begin to adjust to their new world – a world without the person, place, or thing they adored?
Sometimes we cannot afford to not take some time to regain our equilibrium…even if the starving student moniker begins to define your predicament. Peace is better than pennies.
In the year I’ve rejoined the living, I’ve had no time to grieve on significant days, i.e., Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, my son’s birthday. My brain is fried, and my heart is a bit raw right now – and my ego sometimes gets in the way of doing what is best for my whole self, what is best for my soul.
If I say no, as a consummate people pleaser, I relapse into Catholic guilt and Southern Baptist shame. Silly, I know…now — at this point in my life. I know what I need better than anyone else does; we all know what is best for us. In grief from the loss of a loved one, or any kind of loss which impales our hearts, we are our own rescuers. No one else can save us from the kind of grief that never lets go – its grasp can be a stranglehold, especially if you’ve got burnout to contend with too.
In Al Anon (a support group for family members of those who struggle with addiction – Twelve Step) I learned that if I can think for myself and figure out my own issues, then what makes me think others can’t do the same for themselves. Ahhh, herein lies the rub: we want to deflect from our own issues and project all the ways someone else needs to fix herself because our own challenges require that we work on ourselves. I know when I start bombarding someone with unsolicited advice, or even solicited advice and I go overboard with that advice, I need to check in with my sponsor or a good and trusted friend – and, I need to check in with myself.
It’s been eight years and seven months since my son died. I don’t think one ever gets over the loss. Every day for the rest of our lives is an adjustment. My son and I loved nature, and often we would marvel at God’s amazing and majestic gifts. There are many moments – throughout the day, every day, when I’m alone in an experience that I had shared with him for thirty-two years. I’ve had to find ways to enjoy those moments privately as I call Rikki’s beautiful spirit into the moment, just the two of us, Momma, and son.
I’ve learned to open space to share those moments with my husband now. Grief, for me, in the deepest part of myself, is a solo act. How does one share that level of darkness with someone else? I finally found solace in the grief sites I created. Finding a common experience in grief can provide comfort to a grieving heart. Finding empathy as part of group dynamics helps you to self-regulate and unburdens you from the heavy weight of grief for moments at a time.
Tonight, grief feels like a millstone around the neck, but that is only because I’m burned out and in much need of a short break. I love the acronym HALT; it stands for hungry, angry, lonely, and tired. In the Twelve Step program it is easy to remember this mnemonic to remind us to not make important decisions when we are in any of those states, and sometimes we experience all of those states in rapid succession. Some days we do.
I put on some Marvin Gaye and the AC is on for a bit during the 111-degree weather in my desert. I’m already starting to feel better. I purged from a space that needs replenishment. Naming the issues that prevent us from living wholly in a space of balance and self-love is a giant step toward self-actualization. What is best for YOU? Will others be mad at you if you take yourself out of the things you love – because they burn you out? It is a monumental feat to hang in there and soldier on when exhaustion temporarily blocks our ability to grieve constructively or to navigate the world in peace.
When I was in grief, in the early days and months of grief, everyone who loved me through it understood there was nothing they could do to help me through it. They did practical things which were among the kindest, most loving things ever. They brought us food for many days. They came and sat with me, or they left me alone – if space alone with my tears was what I needed.
I’m grieving today over a few things, always my son, and the fact that I’m having to admit I’m not superwoman and sometimes, like in algebra, you must keep working at it until you get the right collection of numbers and x and y and all that stuff that I hold right up there in difficulty as when I had cancer (I’m not kidding), begins to make sense.
I‘m taking this summer to heal, to regroup, to grow and to live passionately out loud, with more breaks in between being fabulous 😉— before I reach critical mass — again. If I don’t take time to resurrect myself, I will most assuredly burn out to the point of a difficult return to healthy grieving and meaningful living. I’m tired, very, very tired on this peaceful evening.
But — I won’t be making any decisions tonight.
Dedicated to Rage Against the Machine; I am, indeed, sleeping through the fire.
Memories fascinate me, and how we evoke them based on where and how we are at any given moment. A song, a breeze, a scent, etc., can bring a memory wafting in like a feather, or crashing in like a wrecking ball – with intense force. This morning was the latter, but first it was the former. Memories over losses of great magnitude bring with them knee-jerk reactions in rapid succession: joy for the moment being remembered and then immediately, angst for the tremendous loss of a person with whom you had a profound relationship. We are interesting in our reactions to life-altering moments. We are an immensely creative species, for good, or – for ill.
I was speaking with my brother this morning. In two months, one year will have passed since our mother (my sweet and spicy Momma) died. I had a memory of her making tortillas and flipping them on the comal (the cast iron skillet – a family heirloom). I got the family molcajete, in which I learned to make super-hot salsa. Funny, the things we want from our deceased loved ones. There was a wooden spoon she would spank us with. I have it, mixed in our insanely disorganized large utensil drawer. I guess it’s my purple heart.
I told my brother that Mom used to make tiny tortillas for mine and my sister’s dolls. And once – she made ice cream out of snow. We didn’t know about acid rain back then, during the Peloponnesian War. I stole that analogy from my husband, who says he’s older than dirt. He’ll be seventy in November. Our clocks are ticking; no, seriously our hearts are still ticking away. Grateful to be alive. My son will never be sixty-two. I grieve this – so deeply, in a place where only the Holy Spirit, as I understand it, knows the depths of my pain. Saying I miss Rikki will never be an adequate description for the howling ache that I feel every single day – as I force functionality and work exhaustively to invite joy into my life.
I’m reading a book by James Hollis, Swamplands of the Soul, in which he says that the goal is not happiness, but rather it is meaning, making meaning, learning from meaning, assimilating the lessons and applying meaning to make the world a better place by effecting change in wherever your passions lie. For example, my goal is to offer hope to those who feel hopeless. My journey is compelling, and my warrior’s journey continues as I brave war and peace – in a complicated world.
My memories used to whip and bloody my back, and I crashed and burned many times during the most intense part of my grief process before I learned to carry grief, to shape into something manageable, to hold space for it, but to gain the resources I needed to begin to heal. I learned to navigate grief – and then, I learned to tame it. Does that mean I’m healed? I know there will always be an open wound; I don’t kid myself that there will come a day when I leap from bed and it doesn’t hurt when I’m once again hit with the reality that my son has died and I’m not to see him again in the flesh, to hear his laugh, to hug him, to say, “I love you, my precious and beautiful son.”
As I thought of how we used to savor our mother’s tortillas and her making us Easter baskets out of strawberry baskets, and then the memories of her manic depression and how she rapid cycled throughout my childhood, I flipped my memory to the other side, and directed my brain to remember the tiny tortillas, damn it! Don’t go down that road, which is so easy to do when we are not self-aware. Grief hurts like a Samuel L. Jackson word; trust me, I know. Sometimes you need a strong word, and a nice one won’t always do the trick.
How do you navigate grief from a loss that is attached to a complicated relationship? You will find ways. Again, we’re a creative species. Art often comes from a place of angst, and the deepest feelings, yet somehow, we each find there is a loss of some sort within us, and like leaves in the fall, there are seasons in which we blossom and there are seasons in which we die – to ego, or like grief, we learn to tame it.
Eight years and seven months ago, my world was shattered. I was at the mercy of intense grief; it would arise in my body, and I had no control over the deep, convulsive sobbing. The pain in my chest came on like a tsunami and I wept until my tear ducts were dry. I know the intensity of grief. I know that in the first few months, it takes every bit of strength you have to get through the day without searing pangs of grief surging through your being. Healing takes a lifetime. I used to think I was healed, and maybe I am because I now function really well in life. I experience moments of intense joy – and sometimes joy elicits sadness, a bittersweet memory. Does that mean I’m not healed?
This morning, I was listening to my pop-py seventies music and feeling wonderful, having recently taken a giant step in self-care, and the song, “I Can See Clearly Now”, by Johnny Nash began to play on my iTunes; this song was played at his Celebration of Life; there is both a happy and a sad memory attached to the song now burned into my psyche. Memories – are not always “misty” or “water-colored.” When the sadness was darkening my morning, “Louie, Louie” began to play directly following — and I smiled. Our grandson, Rikki’s son’s, name is Louie. The full range of emotions, from joy to angst to homeostasis, in one fell swoop can cause emotional whiplash, for sure.
But like some arm themselves with their sacred scriptures, one can also be armed with the implements that will protect us from the perpetual and profound pain we feel in the early months of grief. Some people lapse into deep and what is called complicated grief – and some never are able to function well in life again. We each grieve differently, and one way is not better than another, more or less functional, maybe, but not better. I was tired of hurting, and when I realized the power to calm the raging waters of grief was within reach, I just had to grab hold of it and ride its dangerous crests – until I made my way to the shore, where I was finally able to catch my breath and begin to heal.
I’m not the same person I was before my son died. I’m not the same person I was before seminary. I’m not the same person I was yesterday, and tomorrow, I won’t be same person I was the day before. We change every day. Our perceptions change our perspectives and our perspectives are the lenses through which we see the world – dynamic, not stagnant. I flip the memories back to those which bring a smile to my face – and I, with herculean effort, hold on tightly to the goodness of the memory – and I rest, for just a moment, in the part of my psyche where pleasance lies, a place that doesn’t lead to dysregulation.
There are days when Emerald City is preferable to the Tell-Tale Heart.
I’m typically very open about myself, my heart, my soul, the good, the bad, and the ugly. I’ve shared while my wounds were gaping, and I’ve shared each stage of my healing process. I continue to grow as a human being, and I owe the deepest debt to doctors of the mind, healers of the heart, and soul retrievers, if you will. A grand unified theory of my psyche has yielded self-awareness and with it, the ability to realign myself with the present moment, even in times of stress, to self-soothe, as it were, or to regulate my hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal system (HPA-axis) and calm myself to homeostasis. That’s just a fancy way of saying, I know how to chill the hell out. It’s a learnable skill – and an asset.
My amazing professor had us read a book on a modality called “mentalizing”. To be honest, I was not thrilled with the book, but I did find some things in the process useful. For example, there’s an entire chapter on attachment theory which is one of my favorite things to research; for me, it says so much that I find grueling as well as comforting. The process of mentalizing requires self-awareness, and in my opinion, without self-awareness, one’s subjective reality is lived in an isolated bubble of single-mindedness, in most cases, with a mild form of narcissism, in a rare few, full-blown psychopathic narcissism.
We live in the southern California desert; it’s beautiful. It’s peaceful. I’ve been able to heal from the loss of my son in the blistering heat among ancient geology where countless generations travailed, survived, and adapted. By the sweat of my brow and with herculean effort, I have worked the grief process and domesticated the beast, until it purrs on my command. I’m no longer singly focused on grief; it’s not my destiny; it never was.
Our grandson has been with us due to a tragic death in his nuclear hetero family. He is safe with us. His heart is safe with us. We can be here for him when he’s ready to purge. He may or may not – with us. I’m learning to let go of things. Losing Rikki provided more teachable moments than I bargained for in this “thing called life.” I’ve found a way to pare away things that are hurtful, harmful, or a waste of my time, which is always fleeting and always scarce.
Time. Never. Enough.
I love the analogies and similes we use to describe life at various stages, a trainwreck, for example, or the “carousel” of life – a rollercoaster, the rat race, the age of Aquarius, compassionate or cruel. There’s a simile for everything in this awful and wonderful world, and even more there are burgeoning words to name the parts of the universe we know are there, but which are unattainable to the vast majority, unless you’re Buzz Aldrin (one of the liveliest nearly one-hundred-year-olds around).
I’m a huge fan of Buzz Aldrin. In his nineties he still has spunk, joie de vivre. I’m inspired by people, every single person I meet, from the most destitute to the Pollyannas with whom I rub elbows from time to time: my clan. I marvel daily at the drive to live everything has – from the smallest to the largest organism –. I pause for a moment of silence for those who’ve lost their drive to survive, for those who have not or may never self-actualize, or find self-awareness that directs them to navigate a single piece of reality successfully, come hell or high water, and ride it out to its conclusion: shit happens, and sometimes, it’s even good shit that happens.
I used to thrive on self-help books based on positive thinking – retch. I know it does absolutely no good to brood about things over which we have no control. Yes, intellectually, I know this, but when bad things happen, my first learned response is to hold my breath, close my eyes, pull my body inward, and wait for the waves to come crashing down on me – unmercifully hard….then, like a new Swiftie, I “shake it off” – and crawl up on the rocks and feel the new sun on my face – and I face the day.
I don’t want to stay in one place too long, and so, when Pollyannaism becomes a bit too much, I listen to Leonard Cohen. When Leonard Cohen becomes a bit too much, I listen to music that frolics, with lifts and trills, and daffodils. Sorry, I’m going on no sleep.
My first line of defense in crisis though, as a parting gift from my family of origin, is freaking out while waiting for the other shoe to drop, so to speak. Decades of this coping strategy have wreaked havoc on my psyche and my physiology. Stress is a natural phenomenon in the human species, some countries are more stressed out than others, and certainly, we are stressed in America, in hustling and bustling metropolis’’, in particular.
Since moving to the high desert, I have grown to love the silence, the rhythm of the desert lifestyle, the sunrises, the sunsets, and the people. Except for the two days a week I have to drive out to Los Angeles County, life lived at a slower pace is just what the doctor, clergy, shrink, my soul has ordered. The heat can be blistering, but in the six years since my husband retired, we’ve acclimated to the summers. The springtime is amazing, and we have fall for a short time and then for us (San Diegans), we brave the bitter cold. I know. I’d die in Buffalo!
Anyhow, life is short, a single exhalation that spans our time here, and it is not infinite.
Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow [our lives] may be required of us. Live for today. Stay in that present moment. Do your best. And – celebrate – often.
I wonder sometimes if the fetal position is just a human created nautilus, curling inward to where infinity meets our deepest longing. I think it is in this space where I found the God of my understanding. I lean on that G_d when I’m in a dark night of the soul, or when I’m celebrating another milestone, met a goal, or when I’m on the brink of another transformation. I’m on the event horizon of transcendence, or what Maslow called self-actualization — again. The first time I experienced this was in an anthropology class; a religious experience was new to me. I’d been spiritually dead for some time. My son was in a couple classes with me at a community college we attended in the nineties. We got in trouble in those classes from time to time because he made me laugh in class. Good times.
I’ve been figuratively in the fetal position intermittently — as I continue navigating the grief process; it’s truly a bitch on some days. I close myself off and I stay inward even as I engage with the world in a functional way. I worked this week. I enjoyed time with my husband and my cats. I tried to learn a new job and then quit because it was not life affirming, and I’m too old to be miserable for even one minute. I set myself free in a few ways this week, and I missed my son terribly; the loss and the longing really hurt this week.
I tend to intellectualize away my heart’s expressions. I mean, this isn’t a routine coping mechanism, and it’s certainly not ideal, but it is how I navigate an overwhelm. My human nautilus, the fetal position, a protective position, for an ache so intense that inward is the only space where I feel held, perhaps by the God of my understanding, or … the universe, or where I engage in a dialogue with myself and emerge with a victory story.
I have always been drawn to nautili. They are beautiful and mysterious. What is my attraction to them? Perhaps they are visual representations of neurons in my brain. I don’t know. I love fractals and the Fibonacci sequence, too. The spiraling inward and outward comforts me — like my mother’s heartbeat.
In the days following Rikki’s death, I was a wreck, needless to say. My face was puffy for weeks on end, until I was able to normalize my excruciating inner pain. Just as I don’t know what draws me to nautili, it’s taken me eight years and five months to understand my reaction to every Bread song I heard in the months following my son’s death.
He was not even aware of Bread’s music; it was from the late 60s, early 70s. In fact, it was the kind of music for which he made fun of me – often. I love my 70s tunes; idyllic years. I did have a few.
Every single time, the first note of a Bread song would play, it would have me in the fetal position sobbing from the deepest part of my soul. I think it’s because whenever I see, hear, touch, something beautiful, or taste, or get a whiff of my favorite scent and flavor: strawberries, or I experience something tremendously beautiful, I find myself curled up in my self-healing nautilus – yowling because I can no longer share those moments with my son.
But — I am proud of the woman who climbed out of that pit of despair and fought, clawed, and bloodied her knees, to remain among the living, where hope and possibility are within reach.
I’ve come to the realization that my reactions came about because there is such beauty in a Bread song, or a visual experience, or the taste and scent of a strawberry, or a hug, or petting my cats, or hearing a song of great beauty and meaning for me. I feel deeply when I experience those things. I felt deeply with my son. He and I were together for thirty-two years. We lived together for nineteen years, and then again, a couple of times during his struggle with addiction. We knew each other, single mom and a son, my only child.
We shared beauty wherever we saw it, and I taught my boy to find the valuable lessons while in the emotional fetal position (or the actual one). When we miss our loved one the most, is when the curious reactions occur. During the early days of grief, I felt everything – and there were days when I thought it best to feel nothing. In the beginning of the grief process, we are as raw as we can get, road rash to the heart, deep, hemorrhaging cardiac wounds – and the soul keeps us afloat until such a time as the sun begins to shine on our days again; if you’re willing to do the work, the sun will shine again. Trust me on this.
The journey requires the courage to feel deeply, to fall, to rise, to feel deeply, to fall, to rise – again and again – for the remainder of your life. Life experience brought me to a place this week where I wish he had been here to help me go through the decision-making process. We were close as two bugs in a rug. He didn’t just share my physical DNA; he shared the stuff of my soul. We were fused for life.
Now that he’s gone, he comes back to me through a Bread song, a beautiful sunset, a cream puff, a riveting piece of literature, and in the nautilus I create where I summon my own healing power in that space where there are infinite resources to carry me through anything – even the loss of my only child.
The nautilus goes both ways, deep in the interior of our souls, and – it spirals outward into the universe as it expands and contracts transforming us every day – toward greater self-awareness. Self-awareness is a victory. I found it the first time in a cultural anthropology class over thirty years ago, and then I lost it for a very long time – until I entered seminary – where I found the GOMU – in both a spiritual and an intellectual way.
“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
― Anais Nin
Epiphanies, revelations, enlightenment, the pronouncement of a hypothesis that makes it all the way to become a respected theory, or a mind blown experience are the products of self-healing. I miss my son more than there are words in the English language in which to express my longing; the GOMU knows I do. All of you know I do. But life had to go on for me. The nautilus is a beautiful symbol for me; it shows that one can go inward or outward for the ride of a lifetime, back and forth, in cycles that make sense. I got tired of being in pain all the time. I had to accept that my son is gone – regardless of how depressed I got for a spell – and I did get depressed – for so long, I missed a lot of monumental moments I wish I’d been there for – and relationships I let dissolve or become distant.
I began to blossom in my third year of the grief process. I believe now I had complicated grief. I just stopped growing and I stayed in my pain for longer than was healthy – for me. Like Ms. Nin’s quote above, when I said, “I can still love life – even without my son” – I began to heal – exponentially. I rediscovered the beauty in the world and on the faces of each and every person. My nautilus is expanding.
And – sometimes it contracts. Sometimes I feel social and sometimes I retreat. The same can be said about the grief experience. There will be times when inward is the only safe space I can find, because nothing external is providing relief. I curl up intellectually. I tap into the spirit part of me, the part where my soul resides, the part of me that knows well, Physician, heal thyself. And …
I heal myself.
Sometimes I have long dialogues, sometimes monologues with the GOMU – in my tightly wound bud. I’m grateful for the safe places internally and externally where I find solace. My husband provides great support or distance if that’s what I need on a day where I curl inward.
I’d like to think that I’ll find my son again inwardly and outwardly – heaven – or acceptance that renders me closer to wholeness with each emotional, intellectual, and spiritual experience. Where does your hope lie? Is it animal, vegetable, or mineral? Is it available to you in your darkest days and nights? Does it get you charged and ready to reenter the land of the living?
I hope you each find your safe spaces – internally – where I fan the flame that will elucidate the beauty in my world — and not just the seedy underbelly of current life in America.
There is a brilliant ruby (for me) – red, reflecting the lifeblood that courses through my veins – enlivening me and welcoming me to a brave new heart. The journey cannot be characterized as a joy ride, to be sure; but it certainly has been a ride … my topo map is punctuated by tragedy and growth.
Grief to Gratitude 