Grief to Gratitude

Grief

By Sherrie Cassel

Artist, Giovanni Bragolin, 1911-1981

I lost the one person who meant more to me than life itself when I lost Rikki. So, I foolishly thought my heart could never be broken again as viscerally. Boy, was I wrong! Losing Momma last night really hurts. I haven’t cried as hard since Rikki died, and I cried buckets and buckets of tears. I wept in my husband’s arms last night when they pronounced that my momma had in fact passed away. I’m blessed that I have a husband, although short, he has shoulders as broad as the Universe; he carried me through.

The relationship I had with Momma was the longest relationship in my life, sixty-one years. I miss her being in the world. I miss her being in my world. We had a tempestuous relationship, but I know my mother loved me, and she loves me still from the infinite heaven, in whatever she envisioned that to be. She’s at peace now, no more pain, no more sickness, no more fear. All of those things are gone now. One of the last things Momma said to me was, “Mija, I’ve suffered so much.” And she had too, from cradle to coffin. She loved her LORD and Savior, and she had no doubt that God is real and living in her heart. She wasn’t afraid to die on her last day on earth. She was barely conscious.

I sang her favorite gospel songs. I talked to her and rubbed her forehead and held her hand, before they got cold. I didn’t stay in the room when my dad died. He had pneumonia and had that death rattle and his breathing was more like gasps. I said my goodbyes and slept in the car until my sister came and told me he had passed. I stayed with Momma until her very last breath. As soon as we found out that she had declined a surgery that quite potentially would have killed her on the operating table, I knew we needed to head down the mountain, and I stayed with her from 3 until she died around 11 p.m.

Mom said that her kids, grandson, and great grandson were the things that brought her the most joy. She loved us more than life itself. As a matter of fact, when she first entered the hospital, we were talking, and she said she was scared, she asked why she had to be so ill, and she told me she was glad I was there with her. I’m glad I was too. I miss her so much already. I called her, or she called me, every morning at 7 a.m. and we’d talk and talk and talk. This morning I felt the vacancy in my heart because I couldn’t call her to chat. As the GOMU would have it, my best friend called me at the time Momma and I would call each other, and I was comforted by our conversation.

We will be planning her Celebration of Life and we want it to be a celebration too. She taught me so much. We fought. We wouldn’t speak to each other sometimes because of foolishness, things that now, in retrospect, don’t matter at all. She did the best she could with what she had, and I did the best I could with what I had. I loved, love, her so much and my heart really hurts right now. I was her go to girl, even when I would get resentful because she always called on me for everything. I wish she was here to ask me for something now. I’d give her anything she wanted.

Unlike with Rikki, I have no regrets with Momma. I was there for her every time she needed me. I wouldn’t change a thing. She brought me into this world, and it was an honor to help her transition, and to make her laugh and feel loved. She was so concerned about her kids even on her deathbed. She was quite a woman. She had suffered a great deal in life and yet, she never lost her faith. I’m so jealous of that faith. I ride its coattails and pray for certainty, at least 95% certainty.

Momma always presented herself with grace and beauty. She wore makeup when she was younger. Her hair was always styled. She dressed in the most adorable, frilly, and feminine clothing. I may not be frilly, but she taught me to always put my best food forward, even if I was in pain. She didn’t try to hide her pain; she couldn’t. She had one of those beautiful faces that gave her opinions away, no hiding behind the mask because the mask was flesh and bone.

Recently, she was asking me if I had eaten yet, and she said, “Mija, did you eat shit yet?” I was like, WTH, and she said, “I mean did you eat yet?” We laughed so hard we were both crying. Every time I’d remind her about it, she’d laugh every bit as hard as if it just happened. Momma had a beautiful laugh; it’s where I get my laughing fits from. We had joy in our family on occasion, but that was all Momma bringing our awareness to the sunny side of the street. She always believed that things would get better, and they did, for her and for her kids too. She taught us it’s okay to not get things right the first time, or the second, or the third.

I’m trying to figure out how the world operates without a Momma. Those of you who’ve been through this, please tell me how you got through it. I lost Rikki and I navigated the grief process, and I know how to grieve a child, and I lost my father (very complicated relationship), but losing Momma is a whole different level of pain. I said to Ben last night, “How am I supposed to live without my Momma?” I know it was the grief talking, but it still hurts that she died and is never going to be in my life again, this side of heaven.

I’d like to honor Momma like I honor my Rikki, by living a life that is filled with joy and hope, even in the face of deep, deep grief. I miss you so much, Momma. I know you’re no longer in pain and I will accept that as the gift from losing you. I will never forget you and I will miss you until we meet again.

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By Sherrie Cassel

One of the purposes of Grief to Gratitude is to encourage and to even tease out the joy that still exists in the lives of those who grieve intensely and yet, those who are still able to find the joy in everyday occurrences, i.e., the sunrise, the sound of the wind, the mountains, the oceans, the desert, the sound of a baby’s cooing, the touch of a lover, ad infinitum. As those of you who have followed my blog know, grief has touched my life in more ways than I ever thought possible. Loss of a loved one is a lifetime grief process, certainly. As we begin to heal, however, grief loosens its hold on us and we switch to the control center of our grief where we manage it, consciously and intentionally.

I encourage you to find something to pour yourself into that gives you joy and purpose. I just started my first internship in the spiritually integrated psychotherapy program in seminary. I can’t discuss what we do there, but it is a training center for future psychotherapists. I’m sixty-one, and if I didn’t have something to pour myself into, a place to be, working with an amazing team, I’m sure I’d still be the mess I was directly following my son’s death. To be sure, I’m an older student, and I’m beyond wiped out, but so exhilarated.

My husband taught theatre arts for many years. One play his students performed under his direction was called, “One True Thing.” One of the skits in the larger play was called, “Paint What You Feel.” The person who played the life-artist gave a brilliant performance where she talked about getting your emotions out, each time she said “Paint what you feel” a different color would splash onto the stage walls, and she said the words forcefully, and she would move her hands as if she were the one throwing paint at the wall. The skit was powerful, especially, I would say, coming from a teenager. Teach them young, I say.

How many of us did not have an emotionally well group of people to fill our audience who had the resources to be there for us as our colors painted sadness, anger, shame, desperation for the love of people who could be there for us? I sure didn’t. I learned through therapy and the conscious cultivation of a whole person that I could be there for myself, and I could also choose people who were emotionally safe and available.

When in grief, it’s essential we find people who can love us through the worst part of our grief, and there is a worse and a getting better, less intense, and less ever-present. I cannot emphasize enough that as soon as your grief is no longer as acute as in the first days following your loss, that you find a hobby, start a grief group, seek therapy, paint what you feel, dance your emotions, write your pain and your healing process. I read a meme recently that said that our grief process and its navigation would one day be someone’s roadmap to healing. I like that. Our experiences are not just for us to suffer through, but their successful navigation can, will, and do help others to see there is light at the end of the dark tunnel of grief.

Rituals are so important that when I didn’t think about them, I just ached from the loss of my precious Rikki. I started to light candles in his memory. “One if by land, two if by sea…” I thought maybe he would know in heaven that I thought about him every second of the day. I took his ashes and scattered them in every beautiful place I wanted to share with him. Those places are now sacred to me. Whenever I visit them now, I feel his presence. The rituals, taking some puffs off his favorite flavor of cigar on the angelversaries, lighting candles, painting what I feel in the medium in which I’ve been gifted, i.e., through the gift of language, are each important in how I’ve managed grief. Getting back into school after taking six years off to be available to my son and grandson during the eye of his storm, was one of the most important activities I engaged in toward the beginning of my healing. I sat in complicated grief for three and a half years after Rikki died. I wish I could have those years back to begin healing sooner, but healing takes as long as it takes. Those years were rife with emotional meltdowns at the drop of a hat.

When I returned to university work toward my B.S. in psychology, I was on fire for my son’s story. I wanted to conquer the addiction world and I was on a mission. A woman from one of the FB sites I follow told me that addiction had robbed me of enough time and to not let it rob me of one more second. She encouraged me to grab hold of life and to stay with the living. This is the same thing my psychiatrist told me when I was spending money on jewelry where I could put some of my son’s ashes and wear those ashes, a piece of him, and keep him close to my heart. When we are in deep grief, there is no rhyme or reason for the things that comfort us. Some people turn to religion. Some turn to other types of spiritual practices. Again, I cannot emphasize enough the importance of therapy, especially if you find yourself in complicated grief.

I recommend chaplains, social workers, and spiritually integrated psychotherapists who work with the grieving regularly. Many therapists have minimal training in working with those who grieve, especially in the acute stages. In my undergraduate program there were no classes on grief, and you can apply to a certificate program to specialize in grief, but it is not a requirement. As a matter of fact, I saw four therapists after my son died, and none of them were familiar how to work with a person in grief. I chose to start a grief blog on FB for people who had lost a child or grandchild to addiction, the most healing thing I’ve done for my benefit and the benefit of others. The parents/grandparents who frequent the site, have gained amazing strength, and shared their own wisdom they’ve gained throughout the years. I’m constantly humbled by the grace they share with our members, even with their own pain looming over them.

This morning my heart feels raw and unprotected. I know those of you who share this grief experience with me, understand what I mean. I’m listening to the Stones sing blues, a couple of gospel songs. I’ve read some texts that comfort me. Some days I miss my son so badly that it’s difficult to concentrate on anything but the hollowness in my heart and the ache in my soul. I know how to glean the joy that is still accessible now. I do rituals that bring me to the present. I pray to the God of my understanding. I meditate on something beautiful, a painting, a pretty song. I write. I share my experience, strength, and hope with others. I learn. I work toward the goal of having the credentials I need to help others at both the professional and the spiritual levels.

Finding something in which to pour yourself is very important. Some people I know have created the most amazing gardens for their loved ones. Some go on pilgrimages and find tremendous healing in them. Did you have a creative hobby before you lost your loved one? Is there something you always wanted to do but didn’t think you could? Grief shapes us into more compassionate people. Grief carved away the bitterness I had before Rikki got so sick and died. Grief molded me into a better version of myself. Of course, I had to go through hell before I stopped fighting against it. I think of how rushing water leaves its imprint on boulders. Something thought impenetrable is affected by the flow of the rushing waters. I was hardened by life, early life, and the life I desperately shared with a child who struggled with addiction. I have a heart for others now.

I want to encourage you this morning to get outside, smell the flowers, feel the wind on your face, summon a beautiful memory of your loved one(s), and let your eyes moisten with happy tears because of the gratitude you have for the time you got to have him or her with you. I feel better encouraging each of you this morning; in doing so, I have encouraged myself to have a good day, to grab hold of the joy that is explicit in most everything. If you find that the work is difficult, that is evidence that you are on a healing path. We had no choice about boarding the grief train, but here we are. Some of us are newly grieving. Some of us are veterans in the grief journey. Lean on each other.

When you get to the fork in the road that leads to healing or following the one where acute grief is recurrent, try to take the healing one, when you’re ready. You’ll get to a place where healing to reclaim your life is the only choice. Your family, friends, and you need you to be whole – again, or maybe for the first time.

I’m listening to Willie Nelson now singing “A Bloody Mary Morning,” and the music makes my heart sing. Rikki loved when I was joyful. I owe it to him to maintain that joy, to keep it close to my heart, to think of beautiful experiences I had with my son. I painted my feelings this morning with words, and I’m feeling less acutely in pain. Thank you for reading, and if you’re in a funk this morning, afternoon, evening, listen to some music that makes you happy…even through the tears.

Namaste.

By Sherrie Cassel

There is no rhyme or reason for how a person grieves the loss of a significant person in her life. Some light candles and leave them in their windows to let their loved one know they’re still thought about every second of every day. Some people sob for months and months. Some people are stoic, stiff upper-lipped, and sober. There’s no template for how one should grieve. We do. We just do. Here’s a weird effect of grief for me: I have loved the music group Bread since I was a kid. My son was into Korn and hard rock from the nineties and two thousands. After he died, I was sitting in my home office numb and deeply despaired. A song by Bread began to play, and it took only the first two notes to have me weeping inconsolably. My son would have hated Bread. He would have found it sappy and saccharine, and yet, there I was, a weeping mess over two notes of a song.

I’ve had the gift of healing from my son’s death. I’m grateful for the healing that came from the hardest work I’ve ever done in my entire sixty-one years. I miss my son more than there are words in the English language with which to describe just how much. Tonight, I’m aching in my heart. My mother is in a nursing home and not getting better. I started an exciting internship which will prepare me for working with people who are struggling with spirituality and tremendous grief. I don’t know when I’ve been so tired, exhausted really. When I’m tired, (HALT), I feel things viscerally. Tonight, I’m deep in thought about the ache that is at the center of my heart.

My mom’s name is Stella, and I’m listening to “Stella Blue” by the Grateful Dead. I’m keenly aware of how little time I have left with my mom. I have some time to love her this side of heaven. I had time to love my son on this side of heaven because a momma knows when she’s going to lose a child from addiction, and I had time to make amends, to let him know he was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Surely, there are victory from addiction stories; my son did not have one. If you’re a parent, you love your child to the ends of the earth. When one of them dies, or like us, an only child dies, grief is profound, a howling, cavernous pain. Some days I wonder how I’m still standing, how I’m still moving forward in my life, and how I’m having days filled with joy and laughter. How are those things possible when I’m constantly missing my son? His absence is felt deeply.

I’ve read so much about grief I could write several volumes on my experience, which although different from others, is relatable to so many who’ve also incurred significant losses. Some of us had time to prepare, as much as one can, ourselves for the long goodbye. Some of us had no notice and were shocked, had the rug pulled out from underneath us, and sucker punched by the loss. How is it possible that we could live in this world without a piece of our heart? In grief that is healthy, we learn to adjust, and it’s a lifetime of adjustment. The thing is, we can overcome, not get rid of, but we can get to a place where grief does not command our lives, but is an emotion that can be tamed, like fear, anger, etc.

I recommend a grief group, particularly one that addresses your specific grief, i.e., I reach out to those who’ve lost a child to addiction. Additionally, I reach out to anyone who grieves any type of loss, from any area of one’s life. Death will have an impact on every area of your life; it just will. How will you normalize your grief enough to stay with the living where joy can still be found? In the beginning, as you reclaim your life, the work is grueling, and despair will creep up on you when you least expect it. Despair keeps us from acceptance, and acceptance is the place where we begin to heal. I remember saying early in grief, that I would never accept my son’s death. How wrong I was to think I could heal without accepting the reality that my son had died. I’ve since accepted that I will not see my son again in this life, but I have confidence that I will see him in the next. At the very least, he is no longer in pain, and I find great comfort in this fact. He was so dreadfully sick from addiction in his last few months of life. He was lost and I could not save him.

I know many of you have watched your loved one(s) physical bodies degrade as they transition from this life to the next, whatever you believe this means. We find ways to comfort ourselves. Some of us turn to religion, therapy, deep grief work, and all manner of things. We must find a way to heal ourselves if we are to return to a life of purpose. To what end will our healing take us? Will we use our losses to infuse life with love, compassion, and purpose? I hope so. I know, for me, it took a bit of time to discover a new purpose in my life. Everything about me changed because of my son’s death. I was shattered, and then, I began to ask myself if darkness and despair were the things that would heal or hurt me. Did I want to stay stuck in the darkness and despair? Did I not want to heal and move forward in my life? If you’re asking yourself these questions, in my opinion, you’re at the precipice of healing and loosening your grip on constant sorrow. We can let go and think of the love that still exists for your loved one(s).

Rikki is gone. He will not return to me in this life. I miss him more than I can express in words. But life waits for no one to get his or her heart together. We love. We lose. We love still. Love is forever. I love my son in the present tense, not in the past. To love my son in the past tense will never happen. You love your person with all your heart, and when they die, you love them still. I remember after my son died; I bought all sorts of cremation jewelry to put some of his ashes in. I took some of his ashes to various places that were special to him and to us and sprinkled them in those places. I wanted to cling to him and never let him go, even in death. I wanted to see him in every beautiful place I visited. I slept in the sweatshirt he was wearing the day he died; I wore it for months. I have the last fork he used to eat with before he died. I have the last cup he drank from on the day he died. Is it ridiculous to have done these things? No. We each grieve and hold on to those things which are meaningful to us, and which were meaningful to our loved one(s).

I’ve learned so much from grieving people, parents, lovers, friends, siblings, strangers, ad infinitum. I hope I’m helping people who are currently navigating the grief process. Hopefully those of you who are healing in great leaps and bounds will help those who are not. Everyone grieves something or someone at some point in his or her life. As we grow in grace after our traumatic losses, we learn to be compassionate with ourselves and with others. I’m sorry for anyone who is hurting today because you’re grieving the loss of a loved one. I hope you have the support of people who will love you through it. Certainly, there are people from whom you will steer clear. Emotionally stunted people do not have the emotional resources to be there for anyone else; they may be in survival mode from their own traumatizing experiences. Gravitate to those who are emotionally well enough to be able to help you as you navigate your process. I know it’s easy to say, but difficult to do, but you can get through this; it just takes a lot of self-love and a lot of work toward healing. Healing is possible, and in some cases, it is inevitable.

I find my strength in the GOMU, in those members of my family who are emotionally resourceful enough to love me through it, in friends, in music, in writing, in seminary, etc. What are you finding helps you to heal? Leave a comment and share your experience, strength and hope with others who are grieving. I find that helping others helps me to heal. We all hurt from time to time after the loss of a person, place, or thing. But the goal is to live fully, and once you’re able to tame your grief to where you are in control of it, you can.

By Sherrie Cassel

So, here I am, working through my mom’s recent admission to a skilled nursing facility, for what I hope will be a short stay, just for physical therapy and physical rehabilitation. I’ve been staying in her apartment since Thursday, and I’m surrounded by all her things: pictures of family, many of my son, Rikki, her only grandchild. There are art projects my son made throughout the years that line her walls. I’m in the town where I raised him, and it is bittersweet. Hurricane Hilary has me homebound and I return home to my husband on Tuesday.

I recall storms, weather, and emotional ones, Rikki and I experienced together. We would put two chairs by our front door and sit and watch the lightning, and hoot and holler for the thunder, and appreciate the rain together. Mother Nature’s mothering of a single mother and her beautiful son. I miss him even more, if that is possible, in our hometown, with the art his little fingers made, art from the love of a grandchild who loved his grandparents and his family so much. I miss that love.

Some friends and I were chatting today, three single moms relating to one another how our kids worry about us. Two of them have daughters and they called on their mothers to see if they were okay in this now tropical storm. I remember when Rikki used to worry about me. Once I was volunteering at a youth center in San Diego. The groups were filled with angry teenagers, some gang members, who were court ordered to be in anger management sessions every Thursday. One Thursday evening a group of rival gang members were fighting in the street as I was trying to turn into the parking lot of the center, and they surrounded my car, and started fighting on the hood of my car!

When they proceeded to a safe distance, I turned around and drove home. This experience startled me very much. I spoke with my husband and son about the event, and they both suggested I quit, not because I couldn’t handle myself with this group, because I was loving working with the groups. I was being trained to have my own group of angry teenage girls. My son was most concerned. He was an adult already, married, with a child, and he was concerned because he said I didn’t consult the “family” when I decided to put myself in danger. He was so adorable being so concerned about his momma.

I suppose to comfort myself, when I’m in a good space, I think about good things; I pull up good memories from the annals of my brain, memories that are always bittersweet. When I used to think about my son early in my grief process, I would just sob until I couldn’t breathe, even with the really happy memories of our times together. I wish I could remember at what point things began to turn around for me, when I began to allow life to embrace me and imbue it with joy and purpose – again.

My purpose had been raising a son, good, bad, or very challenging. No matter, we loved each other fiercely. Our loved ones left us with amazing memories, and of course, no one escapes tough times, especially tough times as a family. I want to think about good times. The tough times are over, and we learned from them, best-case scenario. I want to think about the wisdom gained from being Rikki’s mom. He taught me so much. We learned about life and love and pain and tough times together.

Think about the good times, sometimes with tears in your eyes and a lump in your throat – forever and a day.

I often wonder how I survived the death of my precious son. I scarcely remember the really tough days anymore. They seem to have passed and seven and a half years seem to have flown by — on some days, days when I’m fulfilling my life’s goals, developing my gifts, even at sixty-one.

Once someone close to me told me that my son’s death gave me the opportunity to concentrate on myself and on my dreams. I was wounded to the very core by the statement; it was said insensitively but with good intentions.

But I have always been driven. I’m sure those of you who come here to read about how to rekindle joy in your lives are driven to heal because you reach out to others who grieve to learn how to grieve and still be okay. Isn’t it the way it always is, to strive for healing and a reclamation of your lives? Unless we are in complicated grief, striving toward emotional health is an inevitability. As I’ve said before, however, the ability to heal is proportionate to the emotional healing you did before your loss.

I think about Jaycee Dugard, the young woman who was kidnapped, raped, and who gave birth to the rapist pedophile’s children, and how she had been so loved by her mother. She would look out the window from her prison and talk to her mom when she looked at the moon; it was something they had done together until she was kidnapped. Her rescue from that nightmare brought her home to her family who had waited for her for eighteen years. However, during her formative years, until her kidnapping when she was eleven, she had been loved by doting parents who gave her the resources that kept her safe inside her mind where the love of a family basically kept her alive. See, she was emotionally healthy before the kidnapping. She survived until she and her children were rescued.

I lost my son, but I had spent years in therapy prior to his death. I was gifted with the resources I needed to survive the loss of my only child –through years of therapy. I worked hard for them. Further, I’ve been gifted with the desire to share those gifts with others who are grieving, including the person reading this post. My greatest desire is to bring comfort, and then hope to those who are hurting and need to reconnect to life, a life where the pain is no longer acute, but manageable; in essence, I want to help them normalize their pain, so they can grab hold of a life that is immeasurably joyful in between sad memories and wonderful ones, in between chaos and calmness, and in between your life and your death. Life is fleeting, and as cliched as that sounds, and it does, I realize that, but as quickly as life flew by for our loved ones who have passed, ours is fleeting too. I’m sixty-one years old now. My son was able to live for thirty-two. He left behind a six-year-old son who is now fourteen and in high school. Where did the time go? How did we get through it? How are we managing now?

Hemingway said, “The sun also rises.” I waited and worked through my complicated grief for three and a half years before I began to see the light. In the interim, I read everything I could get my hands on about grief. I worked very hard to find the spark to live far beyond my chronic pain and despair. I despaired because acceptance of my son’s death, irrationally so, was too much to ask of me in the early days of grief.

We grievers have kind of compassionate disagreement about the ability to heal after losing a child. After I began to heal and discovered my purpose when my son died, when being a mom had been my purpose and joy for thirty-two years, I began to feel a bit of excitement about life – again. Before my son got sick with substance use disorder (addiction), my life was amazing. I had met the man of my dreams. We got married. I began work on my bachelor’s degree in psychology. I was on cloud nine and the world was my oyster. Once my son got sick and the descent to his death began to drag him down a destructive spiral where he was irretrievable, he was lost, and I lost my ability to enjoy life because I was so busy trying to save his.

Once I began to heal, I thought maybe I could heal completely, but you see, maybe you can’t. Maybe you won’t heal completely. Best-case scenario, you learn to allow grief to walk alongside you, but you take the lead. You’re in control of your life and of your emotions. We really can walk through the storms during the rocky high tide of life, and then we learn to dance across the water, instead of drowning in it. Maybe you can heal completely, and I’m just not there yet, and maybe I’m wrong, and there are some people who do. I know I’ve experienced a transformation from chronic heartbreak to a place where I am whole, even though a bit of angst and pain arise from time to time.

The loss of a loved one bores a hole in our hearts, and it is up to us to fill that hole with purpose. I read a meme that said that our tough experiences will one day be a guide for others who are experiencing tough times. I concur. We are here to be servants (not in a way that keeps us enmeshed with others) to one another. Prehistorically, our species learned to work cooperatively in groups. We learned to live in a system of balanced reciprocity. I think balanced reciprocity is a good system. Things certainly have changed, but we still have pockets of those who want to live their lives in service to others, and that brings us tremendous joy.

If you’re in a good space, write, draw, paint, sing, do your healing dance and invite others to join you. I miss my son. I feel his presence in all the places that were special for us. He was a remarkable and marvelous human being, just like the person(s) you all have lost. I’m looking at a butterfly he made for my mom when he was in kindergarten, and below his butterfly my mother has placed his son’s butterfly he made in kindergarten. Life insists on its continuance, and we see this in nature, the first cry of a baby robin, the sun rising, a newly born baby, a person who struggles with addiction entering rehab with all the hope of healing and kicking his or her compulsion to use, or a grieving parent who transcends grief and allows for its transformational power to change his or her life from one of despair to one of hope, to one that compels you to live fully.

You can. You must. My hope is for your healing, as far as you can take it.

Namaste.

By Sherrie Cassel

Grieving [g]od? What does that even mean? Does grief applied to a god mean that god is dead in the Nietzschean sense? Does my perception of the [G]od of my understanding mirror your own walk of faith, or does my title shock you? I’ve been a Christian, one whose theology holds faithful to a god with a capital G, for most of my sixty-one years. The rules of Christian engagement with the world were laid out in no uncertain terms. There was very little mercy between the god I was indoctrinated to believe in and myself. I no longer feel duped by the “Man”, the conservative, white male, earthly representation of the god of my former understanding. Did [G]od die to me? Or am I letting go of a worldview that was life-limiting, and finding a relationship with a [G]od of mercy, compassion, love, and unbelievable understanding of the human condition? I like to think the latter, even though letting go has been several decades in the making. I had to live and learn and ache and be in darkness for three decades before my eyes were opened to a God it felt right to allow into my consciousness. I had decades of religious trauma to shed and with each thing reason peeled from my clenched fists, there was the fear of being like a tightrope walker without a net. What would hold me up when the god I’d always known was shown to be a cruel amalgam born of two millennia of misinformation based on misinterpretation? An amalgam that crosses all cultures. How many wars? How many?

This was on a church sign at a Baptist Church.

I clung to my Southern Baptist/Roman Catholic faith traditions with a fervor and for a very long time. I learned to judge others very young, and I had the golden ticket for a ride up the spiritual hierarchy as one of god’s chosen. So many wars in the name of which is the “one true god” –…so many. I’ve been angry with the god of my childhood who was transmitted to me from the pulpit and in Sunday school, whose chief form of discipline was smiting people, entire villages, entire armies, entire countries. I’d toe the line too! And I did … or I tried. You see, my old-time religion enforced a perfection that even the church leaders cannot live up to. Seems I read that somewhere else too.

I’ve walked away from god a half-dozen or more times throughout the years. Raise a child in the way she should go, and when she is old she will not depart from it. (Proverbs 22:6) My mom’s consciousness was steeped deeply in Southern Baptist dogma and my father was a lapsed Roman Catholic. Both religions are punitive at their core. I learned all about hell and eternal damnation and how the tenants of hell will never acclimate to the flaming carnage at the hands of a loving god. I went to church because I was afraid not to, not just to prevent my parents assaults; I got used to those, but I went to church because my nightmares of a fiery end to my sin-laden life were seared into my little soul. There’s a scene in the movie, American Beauty, in which Annette Benning is unsuccessful at making a real estate sale, and she takes off her dress and goes into the closet and begins slapping herself across the face. One does not need to be a spiritual or psychological advisor to flesh out the parallels between Ms. Benning’s award-winning performance of modern-day self-flagellation, and two-thousand years of a doctrine that is the root, I would argue, of a plethora of phobias from an inability to achieve perfection, knowing what awaited you if you could not manage the straight path toward eternal reward.

Is god dead? The god I grew up with, the one I inculcated from the pulpit and from well-intentioned Sunday school teachers, is most assuredly dead. How could a seminarian reach such a controversial conclusion? I cut my teeth on the Hebrew and Christian Bibles, the King James’ Version, and I have loved the text my entire life. I’ve gone through several relationships with scripture. I have argued with it. I have let it sit on shelves for decades at a time. I have used it against people. I have loved its literary value, and I believe it still has purpose in our world today, not the ways in which it was taught to me and my contemporaries and those who came before me, but in the true sense that “God is love” (1 John 4:8).

Before seminary I was still floundering in my beliefs. I signed up for the Christian track of a liberal seminary in Southern California. The five major religions are represented in this seminary. I chose the Christian track because I’m all about new wine in new wine skins. We can stay relevant. I believe in God, with a capital G without enhancements and without imposing my faith on you or others. I can’t explain why I’m a theist, but I am. Carrie Doehring said something to the effect that in some models of God, God can be seen as a transitional object, initially, like a teddy bear, then later, something else that offers a sense of security to a person. Is God a transitional object? Does God comfort me like my teddy bear, Pohleeta, did when I was a child? I admit, my early environment needed some type of relief, and Pohleeta offered me that tender comfort in my scary world. If I take a good look at the times I “clung to the LORD” – they were during dark nights of the soul. Psalm 34:18. The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and the crushed in spirit.

I went to a very conservative white church in Fallbrook California. My family, mom, and my siblings were the only people of color in the congregation for a very long time. No matter, except for a few cultural faux pas, we were treated very well. I attended a Church of God because it provided some cultural familiarity to my mother’s Southern Baptist roots. We were conservative fundamentalist Christians, very insular, very isolated, unstained by the world… (James 1:27).

I’m not spitting out scripture because I’m trying to convince or convert you to come to the world of agnostics, theists, or full on lovers of Jesus. I find the scriptures of the Judeo-Christian people to be awe-inspiring. No, I don’t advocate beating your children to keep them in line, and, no, I don’t think a woman should walk twenty paces behind her man. Nor do I think it is a sin for a woman to teach. I’ve had female Sunday school teachers, of both the conservative and the liberal bents who were far better teachers than many of the male pastors whose churches I have had either the pleasure or displeasure to sit in their pews.

No one is perfect and there are times when something, some cultural artifact stands the test of time, even when it is disadvantageous to our species, and yet, the human animal persists to make the impossible possible, and because of this bullheadedness our species has survived – for now.

How do you go from the fiery, angry, punishing god to the God of love, and how do you recondition your heart to not race when you think about walking away from a worldview that kept you safe in its bubble of isolation, in the world, not of it. I heard a pastor say, at a Southern Baptist service, no less, that some Christians are so heaven-bound that they’re no earthly good. Is that how people see us? We spend our time cherry picking our Bibles to support our sense of superiority, and that does not mean “white” – it means that as God’s chosen people through the blood of Jesus Christ, Christians elevate themselves to positions as judges and juries of those who do not believe as they do. Some, not all, lest I be sent off to the executioner!

I grew up steeped in fundamentalism. Roman Catholicism is such a small part of my spiritual journey. A sexual assault by clergy changes the relationship one has with a church or faith tradition. However, the rituals of the Catholic church still are very beautiful, mystifying, and evocative of the Holy Spirit for me. There are no rituals in the many, many fundamentalist churches I attended, save the ecstasy one feels during a worship song whose repetition is meant to awaken the passion for the LORD, and the eyes close, and hands go up and you get lost in the moment, the same way my husband felt at a Grateful Dead concert, the same way I feel when I hear an old gospel song, and I feel each note as the story is told again and again throughout the years, decades, centuries, millennia.

Doehring talks about how trauma changes ones perception of the god of his or her understanding, not just trauma from clergy, but trauma of any sort, but in particular, sexual assault. Did God die for me the days of my assaults? Not really. God has always existed, even when I said I didn’t believe in God. Everyone has a theology, because everyone has a thought about the concept of what or who God is.

Before seminary, I didn’t know, fully, and maybe I still won’t fully know until I meet my Maker, but I had no idea how I was still holding on to a god who abandoned me, who required that I judge my brothers and sisters, who held people over a fiery pit that never cools for even a second of relief. I’ve taken several classes now at my theological school, and each one has provided me with healing through understanding, and by helping me to answer the burning theodicy question: If the god of my indoctrination is so powerful, why is there suffering in the world? That is a question we must each answer for ourselves, those who choose to live theistically, anyhow.

I turn to other cultural artifacts for analogies, storytelling material, and I find fault with some of their stories too, but I’ve learned to do the legwork it takes to be intimate with a sacred text. I’ve learned to do research and put things in cultural context. I want a deeper and deeper understanding of one of the building blocks of my spiritual formation. So, is God dead to me? As Paul said, “May it never be!” There is a god being peddled out there. That god is a multi-billion-dollar industry. Be wary of those asking for money at the end of every show, or at least ask for an accounting of how the networks spend their money, what charities do they assist, do they assist any, etc.?

God is not dead to me. God is very much alive to me in between moments of darkness and doubt, and sometimes God is neglected when I’m on cloud nine and darkness cannot be seen for miles and miles. Gratitude and the admonition to be grateful are frequent reminders that we should be thankful for where we are, for what we have, for where we’ve been, and for where we’re headed. For every thing there is a season and a purpose under heaven (Ecclesiastes 3:1).

We were blessed and cursed with consciousness. We are sentient beings. Post-industrialization, our lives in America, have been getting easier and easier, and with ease and comfort – can emerge boredom. I believe that existential malaise is the offspring of boredom and boredom is a curse of consciousness. Perhaps curse is a bit too superstitious, and I really just mean it to be hyperbole, but boredom is pent up energy with no where to take it. Find your purpose. Find what you believe in and nurture that belief into a benefit in your life and in the lives of others.

Not everyone needs an anchor, perhaps. I do. I hitch my measure of faith (Romans 12:3) on to the God I understand today, as I and that God have pared away the traumatic god so I could discover God for myself.

I have grieved the god of my youth. The Nicene Creed has tied Christians hands behind their backs, much like our sacred Constitution has done in some cases. My husband is atheist (with a small a) – and he has followed false doctrines for research material his entire life. He likes to argue with the opposition. He listens to Christian news and reads Christian magazines. He is not interested in their doctrines. He is interested in seeing whether they are genuine in following Jesus’ two most important commandments. Do you remember what they are? If you’re a Christian who is reading this, do you know what they are? Matthew 22: 37-40. Is your heart overflowing with love for your fellow human being? The citizen? The foreigner? Those who can’t ever repay you? Are you God’s hands and feet to those who will always be on the margins? Are you a good representative of the love of God?

I hope this apologetic of my measure of faith does not chase you away from my blog. Faith is very important to me. Faith in what, you may ask? Romans (there she goes again) – says it best for me, “For we do not know how we ought to pray, but the Holy Spirit intercedes for us in groans too deep for words.” (8:26) I don’t have the words that can accurately define my relationship with my Creator God to my or anyone else’s satisfaction.

I celebrate the God I know today, and so, It is well , it is well– with my soul (Spafford and Bliss).

Namaste.

by Sherrie Cassel

Know your limits. Don’t overextend yourself to the point of exhaustion, ad nauseam. There is a meme floating around on Facebook that asks the question: “What was the thing that made you realize you’re old?” My friend commented: “The mirror.” True enough. Know your limits. I look in the mirror and realize I’ll never be thirty again. I’d like to do my thirties over with the knowledge and emotional wellness I have now. Hindsight is twenty-twenty. I’d do better next time. I’d learn from the first go-around. But, alas, I venture into unreality, something that will never be. As I look in the mirror, I say aloud to myself, “I will never be young again,” and subsequently, my bikini days are over. I’ve gotten a tad more modest in my sixties than I was in my thirties. I grieve that person, wild and carefree, manic beyond belief, and spinning out of control. She kept me safe while my brain did what chemically effected brains do: it tried to make sense of the world with unfocused energy. I’ve learned to love that person, the emotional wreck that she (I) was.

I got a lot accomplished in my thirties. I went hog wild, engaged in high-risk behavior, and was otherwise self-destructive, but I did a lot, including finally getting through algebra with a saint of a professor, Professor David Lowenkron, and my stats professor, Dr. Vernoy. I grieve the energy I had in my thirties, fueled by bipolar mania, which was not always unwelcome. I miss the productivity the mania brought with it. I miss that woman who physically could juggle one-hundred different things at once and have it not produce high levels of stress hormones that research has shown is detrimental to the biopsychosocial system(s) of the human organism, you and me. I find this research to be credible and remarkable. I find the biopsychosocial system(s) to be fascinating, and even comforting.

I remember in one of my academic iterations, reading in an anthropology class with the world-renowned Dr. Philip Debarros at Palomar College in San Marcos, California, the line: it is the duty of every living organism to survive. As a veteran survivor, I’ve learned to push myself to be a thriver. But I’m grateful for the veteran survivor who made sure I wasn’t destroyed by the harsh environment I was born into. There are other aspects of my dysfunctional coping mechanisms I really had a hard time letting go. When safety is not a norm for you, you will fight to keep safe, and if you can’t keep your body safe, then you keep your mind and your soul locked away until you get to a place in your life where you feel safe.

I also had walls I deluded myself into believing were invisible; the healed and insightful safe people could see the terrified mess I was. There was one who saw me during my crazy thirties, and then I married the second sage and the kindest, most compassionate, wonderful man. My second husband and a lot of therapy have given me grace, not just to forgive others, but also to forgive myself for mistakes made in ignorance and dysfunction. Know your limits. I’ve been in fight mode for so long, and I lived a life of fear and scarcity, that I missed out on a lot of the wonders of the universe, and I’ve let go of people who are amazing because I was afraid I’d get hurt. And so, some seasons have passed never to return.

There are big holes in my wall now where I’ve let people in, those who helped me to chip away at the concretized heart and help me know my tender heart is safe with them. I couldn’t give that spiritual intimacy to anyone until I could embrace it for myself. There are times when I am frightened, and sometimes irrationally, sometimes, not. I put another brick in the wall when I’m feeling threatened, or if I’m about to have some kind of emotional or physical pain, and I can sense it coming. Insane? I don’t know. I like the Shakespearean quote from Hamlet that says something to the effect that there are more things that are dreamt than in Horatio’s (a container for humanity) philosophies.

Those philosophies, ideologies, theologies, etc., are what keep us safe in an uncertain world. They keep us safe by providing us with the tools to make meaning in our lives. The ability to reframe from the survivor system to the thriver system takes time and practice to acquire. It took me decades to build resiliency in an atrophied muscle. I need to be tough enough to defend myself, but still hold compassion for the wounded child in every human being.

I grieved when I let go of the toughness. I began to surround myself with people who were fine individuals, and one by one, the friends who spent a season in my life began to drop out of my life, and I grieve their loss from my life. So many reasons to grieve. At what season are you? I love the fall, just before it gets too cold for this San Diego girl. The winds of change are blowing, and the time of contemplative hibernation promises productivity. I do my best work when the skies are gray and sedentation feels right – for a bit.

I have an imaginary friend/mentor, Dr. B.G., who told me that I “give a lot to my readers.” Yes, I suppose some might not have the emotional resources to share so vulnerably. Years ago, at the Metropolitan Community Church of San Diego, the church where I found God, I co-facilitated with J.L., using Brene Brown’s POWER OF VULNERABILITY audio presentation. There was a time when I was too terrified to be known, but through therapy, through the grace of the God of my understanding, through self-insight, and through self-actualization, I’ve managed to pull through to the other side of conditioned dysfunction, self-loathing, and self-destruction and find joy, compassion, the ability to be vulnerable and known by people who are worthy of my time and my love. I keep those people close by and I’m now in a place where I can help others find their way to a place of emotional peace and self-love that will extend into every relationship from here on end.

I’ve lived one hundred different lives in one hundred different worlds, and I can be only grateful for where the celebrations and the tragedies have brought me. Life will never be perfect, but I have my grandson, my adoring husband, my younger brother, my two cats, and my family of choice. I’m in a program that fulfills my heart and feeds my soul. I’ve never felt more alive academically and spiritually – at the same time. The fusion of knowledge and wisdom is a mind-blowing experience. I love the story in Acts where Saul of Tarsus, after participating in the stoning of Stephen heads off down the road to Damascus and is struck blind while he hears God’s voice asking Saul why he is persecuting God. Saul spent three days and nights in blindness and then his eyes were opened as what were like scales fell from his eyes. He became a new person with a new vision and a new mission — a new worldview. Seminary has been my salvation. I thought I’d die after my son died. I looked forward to every single day when my son would call me to tell me about his life and something cute our grandson said. I miss his voice. I miss his hugs. I miss his laughter and his hunger for knowledge. He was my best friend, my only child, my first love. I’m blessed to have found my husband, Ben. He has walked with me through hell and high water. He married into a Mexican American family, and we have several times housed various family members throughout our eighteen years together.

I grieve the old times, the good and the bad, not so much the addiction years when his life was spiraling out of control, faster than I could reasonably hold on to him. I held on until my fingers bled, to no avail. I’m grateful for the thirty-two years I got to have him in my life. The bad times were such a short time in proportion to the rest of his life. We had a lot of joy and oh so much laughter. I grieve those times. I grieve the parts of me that kept me safe for my early pre-therapy days, and the parts I had to let go to grow toward self- and inclusive love and internal peace that will take us to the top of the pyramid of self-actualization, whatever that means to you.

We must grieve our losses before we can move forward, and some of those things we grieve are losses that may not be significant to anyone but you; that’s okay. You matter. Grieve. Share with a safe and significant other in your life. Process. Find your purpose. Share your experience, strength, and hope with those who are where you were five or ten years ago, or even if you’re new at grieving. We still contribute to the discussion. What you have to say in your deepest angst or at the apex of the parabola where everything works is important to move the discussion along.

People are afraid of grief. We must normalize grief in the public perception. Sadness over the loss of a significant person in our lives is absolutely normal. So, why then do we race to get to a place where it doesn’t hurt anymore? I’ve learned grief is a necessary process throughout life. I’m beginning to grieve a childhood rife with domestic violence. I’m grieving the fact that I will never have a childhood in which love, encouragement, safe limits (Know your limits – and by extension, set them for others too), or compassion for self and others.

It’s time to remove the veil of mystery from grief. Grief is an emotion like love or sadness; it is nothing to fear. Every experience we have ever had or will ever have changes us. Change can be good. Navigating painful experiences gives us greater perspective.

My son’s birthday was on Monday; it was a difficult day. His son’s birthday is on the same day, and our grandson went to an amusement park with his mother for a mom and son date. This is the first time I didn’t have Louie on his birthday, but we met up later that evening. I grieved for my son and all the lost potential in his death’s wake. I grieve that he did not get to start over and have a victory story. My strong warrior was here with me for a season. I’ve been here for myself in many manifestations, the bipolar spaz, the bitter woman, the terrified child in a woman’s body, and the hand reaching upward for another through the rubble of my rough beginnings. I both grieve and celebrate each person I was required to be to get through those rough beginnings.

I grieve the necessary losses; I let go of them so I can grow and self-actualize into the woman the Creator God of my Understanding created me to be. When you begin to let go of survival traits that no longer serve you, make sure to give them a proper burial. They kept you alive all these years, like they kept me alive. Namaste.

By Sherrie Kolb-Cassel

Dedicated to Timmy Craddock

There are few times in life when total self-absorption is understood; grief provides us with such an opportunity, for the most part, by compassionate friends, family, clergy, and those who are in the mental health professions. There are some people who won’t get it, but at the end of the day, grief is a very unique, unpredictable, and often times, lengthy process. Seven years and seven months have passed since I lost my son, and in the early days of grief I didn’t even know there was a world outside of my grief. I mourned heavily, and for a painfully long time. I get it.

I sometimes go off track on this page, and grief is put aside for something that I just must get off my chest, but I try to keep this page about grief, and about issues surrounding the grief process, including my own emotional topography. I pray that I reach some and am able to offer comfort and hope. I’m going to be completely selfish this morning as I begin grieving for one of my son’s childhood friends: Timmy. He and my son were best friends from the time they were seven-years-old, and as life would have it, they didn’t see much of each other once they married and had children.

Timmy died on Friday. In my heart, and because I need to, I believe that Rikki and Timmy have found each other again. I find some comfort in that. I know Timmy’s mom might not feel that comfort for a while, but one day, she may find comfort through some other belief she may hold. I don’t know. There were four to whom I referred as the Fab Four: Rikki, Timmy, RJ, and Bobby V. They were little boys together, and now there are only two of them. I think my son was the only one who would be forty this summer, in a few days, actually. I don’t think the other boys (men) are going to be forty until next year. Timmy, like my Rikki, didn’t make it to forty, and they both left children, Tim, an adorable little girl, and my Rikki, left us a beautiful grandson.

I have learned in seven years and seven months that life is neither fair nor unfair; it is neutral. Certainly, there are causes of death, for example, my son struggled with addiction, and congestive heart failure from years of substance use disorder was his cause of death. Addiction was just minutiae. Many people struggle with addiction, and some make it alive, and some don’t. My son was one of those who did not, as the outcome of random chance. As an optimist, I try to find things for which to be grateful in every circumstance, and in the beginning, I was just one giant ball of misery, and there was nothing that would bring me comfort, and so my ability to be grateful didn’t happen until much, much later in my grief process. I’m talking three and a half years of despair over the loss of my son.

I come from a Christian/Roman Catholic background and have always tried to gain my strength from my faith tradition. Sometimes I manage, and sometimes I flail because I forget I have an anchor. I was drowning in grief, and I just didn’t think I’d make it one more day; losing Rikki was more than I could bear at the time. I froze during that time, and I stopped growing; I stopped living. I know what a parent goes through when he or she loses a child. I don’t, gratefully, know what it’s like to lose a spouse. I don’t know, again, gratefully, what it’s like to lose a sibling. I’ve lost friends. I lost my father nearly twenty years ago. I don’t know if grief is grief is accurate and we cannot truly compare one type of grief against another. I’ve learned that too.

My heart is heavy over losing a kid I’ve known since he was just a little tyke. I have so many fond memories of Timmy and Rikki. They were a pair. Timmy loved my sopa de fideo (a Mexican soup) – and he loved to come over when he knew I was making it. We started having sopa parties just for Timmy. He loved comic books and loved to spend ALL of his money at Bubba’s Comic Store in Fallbrook.

No one made my son laugh harder when they were kids, only Timmy and I. Timmy spent a lot of time in our home, and I missed their friendship when their lives changed so much they no longer spent time together, and when Rikki’s addiction spiraled out of control, they lost touch with each other completely. Timmy went to Rikki’s celebration of life, and he was just distraught. How do you lose a childhood friend with whom you were as close as brothers?

I’m really hurting this morning. My heart grieves with Timmy’s family, especially his mother. There is no elegant way to enter the grief process; it is the ugly cry, the snotty nose from sobbing, the guttural moans when the sobs get as heavy as they can without you losing your mind. It’s not pretty. The only people I’ve ever seen escape the initial despair are stoic in their psychological composition. I’ve also seen them lose it years later because death creates an absence that is felt so deeply the pain will rise to be recognized and worked through. I wanted to race through the grief process, but I kept stumbling and crawling around on bloodied knees from begging God to take my pain away. Well, I carry it still. The intensity has lessened, but I will always feel a pang of pain when the realization that, even after seven years and seven months, Rikki is not here, and he’s not coming back to me in this lifetime.

Timmy’s death brings back all the early days of grief for me. I want to hug Timmy’s mom and assure her that one day, she will find her way out of the darkness of hardcore grief, but those of us who grieve know there are no words that will comfort one into peace in the beginning. I’m conflicted by my heartbreak over Timmy, and the memories of when I was a newly bereaved parent. Triggers arise from time to time, but they no longer level me; Timmy’s death has. I remember Louie, at six-years-old, losing his daddy, and the confusion and utter pain he experienced. I know Timmy’s daughter will miss her doting father. He was so proud of her.

I didn’t get to know his wife, but they were together for a very long time, and I pray for her heart too. I am grieving alongside his family. He was a wonderful friend to my son. I have missed him for years, but there was always the possibility we might plan a gathering to which he would come; there is no longer a possibility for that to happen.

Life is so short, and sometimes things happen that level us for a time, but we can’t stay there. Life insists on its continuance, through the promise of new life, babies being born, buds on flowers, seeds falling to the ground and growing in the uncanniest places. Yes, life insists on being lived. Tim’s family will carry on his legacy. I understand he suffered for a couple years with his diagnosis. I hate knowing that he suffered. I thank you for letting me begin processing the loss of another loved one.

Pieces of my son’s childhood passing on into the mystic are difficult for me; the losses take me back to the most significant loss of my life. I just read that Peewee Herman died, Paul Rubens. He was a part of Rikki and Timmy’s childhood. Life speeds ahead whether we participate or not.

Please participate in your life; it’s so short.