Grief to Gratitude

By Sherrie Ann Cassel nėe Gonzales

Dedicated to Daddy, Macedonio M. Gonzales, a Marine of Marines

Several lifetimes ago, I strove to de-combatisize my lexicon. I thought the combat genre could be relegated to the furthest reaches of the archives in our collective consciousness. Once again, I was proven to be incorrect in my assumption, or I was wrong, if I must.

The human condition has been fraught with wars since time immemorial. I think it is when we are at our most base, in light of the fact that we are in a post-pre-verbal world. The primitive draws his sword over even the slightest infraction; the self-aware wants cooperative camaraderie, e.g., to not be alone, peacefully, and hence, they will always find a way to achieve that goal.

Warring continues, however, through militarized combat with other countries about the noble effort du jour over which one may fight to the death to defend.

We are funny people.

As I’ve continued moving forward accompanied by a broken heart, I’ve had the opportunity to search deeply into the jagged pieces of the mirror of my soul, each sliver an emotion I can’t name.  Grief leaves us breathless and emotionally depleted. There are many landmines triggered (how’s that for a combat term?) along the way, especially right after the loss. Each time we step on a landmine, our balance is blown to bits, and we find ourselves picking up the pieces and putting them back in their places, misshapen and war torn.

I share the same shellshocked facial expression with my fellow grievers. The lines around our eyes are older than age. Perhaps we even peered into the face of God as we’ve intellectually and spiritually contemplated eternity or for some, annihilation. Death changes us; it reshapes our thought process; it corrects so much of our thinking, it’s difficult to explain to others how we battled with the darkness of grief toward victory: the reclamation of ourselves and the acquisition of a subset of new behaviors stemming from a deep and intimate introspection with ourselves.

I have never had a closer relationship with myself until I lost my son. A return to some semblance of who I was before the loss. I’ve always worked hard to be sane. My childhood was a battleground that took years to overcome. Thank God for therapy.

My husband and I erroneously took a wrong turn on a hiking trail in Joshua Tree National Park. We thought the trail was one mile; it ended up being five. We were not dressed for a five-mile hike. We had two bottles of water between us. By the time we realized we had taken the wrong trail, it was too late to turn back. There were hills that we climbed; some I had to slide down. I cried along the way because I wasn’t prepared physically for a five-mile hike. When we finally made it back to the car, we were beaten down, but not defeated. We survived.

Grief is comparable to inching our way to an unknown and unplanned for destination. Where will we find ourselves after the war? We battle with the person we long to be. We can’t ever go back to who we were before the war began. Our hearts hurt. Our bodies hurt. Our souls hurt.

Grief drags us through the mud and the barbed wire. We are traumatized after the death of a close loved one. We are battle fatigued. We will fight for the prize: healing toward joy. Five years have passed since I lost my son, and I have fought hard to not lose myself on the battlefield of grief. The war needed to be fought. I’m grateful from what I learned through it.

My father was a Marine, tough as nails. He fought in the Korean War and had PTSD for the rest of his life. He never fought for himself. He never tried to find his way back from the grief of having to reshape his personal worldview. He had been forever changed by the battle, but he was defeated and had no fight left in him.

I don’t mean to lessen the experience of our military, only to use the language of combat as a comparison of the gruel and the grit people who grieve exert in our own personal wars. I got tired of side-stepping landmines and dodging shrapnel from the missiles I shot at myself: missiles of guilt, blame, or resentment but I pushed on through the mud in the sweltering heat and through the bitter cold.

I hate to see the battlefield with the wounded and those whose lives died with their loved ones. There’s a way out of the chronic pain, but it will take the fight of your life. You deserve to find joy; it’s on the other side of the thornėd bramble. I know you can see it. Reach for it; it’s there.

By Sherrie Cassel

Life isn’t fair; I don’t know why I’ve thought all these years that life should be, that after all I’ve been through, life should be kinder to me, and that somehow, I was entitled to fairness (in lieu of justice, of course). Instead, I developed a hateful persona who hurt a lot of people. I asked my beloved if he thinks I am a nice person. He, of course, answered in the affirmative. He didn’t know me during my anger phase. He is a kind man. He possesses the type of kindness I want to emulate. Life finally provided me with a wonderful man, despite the socks I find on the floor by the side of the bed each day. Love makes you overlook some things about your partner. I’m sure he overlooks my many imperfections. Maybe life can be fair as, retrospectively, I consider all the paths we had to cross to find each other; we are perfect for one another. We are well-suited, after 15 years of living together, married for 11 years. Nothing good comes easy.

I think of the lifetimes I’ve had, different seasons, transformation as I continue morphing until I lose my faculties or die. What a somber proposal. We die and, wisdom, I think, should be doled out at the beginning of our lives, not the inevitable end. But then again, life isn’t fair.

One of the greatest books I read after my son died was, “When Bad Things Happen to Good People”, by the Rabbi Harold Kushner. He also lost a son, to progeria. His son was only 14 years old. Rabbi Kushner blamed no one for the death of his son. He said it was the luck of the draw. Of all the people in the world, a certain number will die from complications of progeria; a certain number will die from alcoholism and heroin use. Some die in accidents. But we all will die.

Where we live is in between our birth and our death. I have lived fully for some time now. If you knew my “story”, you’d understand a few of my personal epochs, but in the keeping with the topic of life isn’t fair, it’s not and I’ve stopped wishing for it to be so. I handle catastrophes differently than I used to. I have better tools and more prosocial behavior. Best-case scenario, we take our life experiences as they come, both painful and painless, and allow them to shape us into better people than we had to be when we were in a performance mode, and when we were in survival mode.

Life isn’t fair, but we still have mystical and magical, dare I say, supernatural experiences that move us and that inspire us to be greater than we thought we could be, and to create from the wellspring of awe.

Where are you in your life right now? Are you high on life or are you deep in grief? The errant belief that we should never suffer does nothing to help us grow; we only get stuck in resentment stemming from the belief that our *entitlement* wasn’t quite forthcoming. Sometimes we become mired in resentment, so much so that pro-social personal development is deterred, sometimes for years sometimes for a lifetime.

Think of your happiest memory; feel it; immerse yourself in it, and let it inform how you approach life. I’m not saying that we get to *choose* to be happy when our world is crashing down around us. We will have hard times; there’s just no two ways about it. “On everyone a little rain must fall” (Allan Roberts (lyrics) and Doris Fisher (melody). There’s also no way to *prepare* yourself for chance’s random hits.

The best we can do is work on our personal development, so that when we are torpedoed by chaotic and painful moments, we’re strong enough to handle them with grace and courage. I’ve said it myself, that the length of time for grief is indefinite. I thought so early in my grief process, and I believe I took longer than was healthy. Now that I can siphon all the love from a happy memory, my days are more joy-filled than when I was deep in the throes of chronic emotional pain. Certainly, I have had days when I need a good cry because I do so miss my son.

I’ve learned that while life’s random offerings are inevitable, I can handle whatever comes hurtling out of the cosmos. With an acceptance of our loved ones deaths comes the liberation from hurtful ruminations over which we never, if we ever did, have control. With acceptance of the unfairness of life, there is liberation from guilt, resentment, and self-destruction; it also shortens the amount of time you will grieve to the pits of your souls.

I wrote a paper in college, when I was very young, in which I demanded that change was not a good thing for me; I came from chaos, so order was very important to me. The kind of controlled order that presupposes I had the power to stop the world from spinning. I didn’t then and I don’t now. Facing my 60s, the ability to let go of blame when life doesn’t give me roses, forces me to tend to my nasturtiums, morning glories, or some other living entity I can pour my love into, and I move on to the next step that will lead to a life of as much joy as I (we) can glean from life experience.

I went through hell to get here, for no rhyme nor reason; it’s just the way life played out for me. I accept responsibility for how I’ve handled myself through the catastrophic moments in my life. I accept responsibility for my emotions and for their duration. I accept that joy is flighty, and so we must grab it when it flies overhead. Joyful moments are just as unpredictable as catastrophic ones. We will know joy and we will know sorrow, and the entire spectrum of emotions, as we currently understand them.

No, life isn’t fair and once we let down our guard enough to let others back into our lives, we become vulnerable again to loving others and making new memories even as we hold on to our old ones — and we also open ourselves up to further loss followed by temporary emotional pain. But if we are truly a hedonistic species, then it would make sense that we strive toward pleasure, and happy memories feel so much better than bad ones.

When I first began this blog, I was a hot mess. I spilled my guts, grief in every entrail. Sorry to be so graphic, but those of us who have ever lost someone to whom we were intensely and emotionally tied, know that it hurts more than there are words with which to describe all the phenomena that grief brings to our lives.

I remember it all so well, and there are times, albeit very few and far between now, when I get choked up. It’s been quite a while since I sobbed all day. I’ve been fortunate to have had a long spell of really wonderful days. I used to fear when I had such a long spell that the other shoe would drop, and I’d lapse into depression for a few days (which I hate). I seriously used to bone up for what I thought was inevitable. My son’s angelversary was on January 22. I miss him more than I would ever be able to adequately express.

But…

I knew I wanted to feel better. I knew I didn’t want to hurt anymore. How long is too long to be a mess? If I wanted (and I did/do) to have a life where joy was possible, where I could reclaim my life, and where I could rejoin the living, the hustle and bustle of our common experience and manage a life of purpose in spite of my forever-aching heart then I would have to work for it. You all know what if feels like putting one foot in front of the other, one moment at a time: it’s painful; it’s exhausting, and yet so very necessary.

How can you experience joy if you’re stuck in the deepest part of grief for perpetuity? You can’t. I don’t know if I truly did, but I feel I wasted a lot of days and nights being numb before I realized it was my responsibility to heal myself. What I said to myself became more important than all the advice I’ve ever received combined from others. This moment was a rude awakening to me. I had to decide to learn and to grow or to stagnate and atrophy psychologically and emotionally.

I remember early in the grief process saying that I would never accept that my son died. Is grief rational? Maybe. I know I said a lot of things in early grief as I’ve traveled the road to emotional health and a full life. But even when people aren’t in grief, we all say things at each stage of our lives that make sense to us at the time. I said I didn’t think I would ever heal from the loss of my son, and yet, here I am, revving up for my next adventure – without my son to share in my joy anymore; that smarts.

Five years have passed since I lost my beautiful son; it seems like a flash in the pan. I still feel the tugs at my heart. But I don’t sit idly by anymore and ruminate on all my regrets or the last years of the harshness of my son’s life. I find some comfort in knowing he’s no longer suffering in this rough terrain. He had smooth sailing a few times in his life; I saw it. We laughed a lot. We cried together. We loved each other fiercely.

I try to think about those times; I feel closer to him when I’m laughing over a memory of something funny he said, something silly he did, and all the ways he was remarkable. I used to not be able to remember a happy time without a harsh follow-up memory. The other day I thought of something funny and I, as the kids say, laughed out loud. This gave me an opening to talk to my son, to tell him how much I miss him, to ask him if he remembers the happiest times of our time together. Sometimes I go months without a dialogue with my son. I know to maybe someone who’s not yet had the opportunity to grieve, having a dialogue with an angel might seem irrational, but I guarantee it helps. There were times my son would not listen to me and he was such a passionate conversationalist I would scarcely get a word in edgewise. I have his undivided attention now, only…the answers to all the questions I have are my responsibility to answer. With each milestone in my life,  I see things differently. I see things, perhaps, in a more real way than I did before I lost my beautiful boy. I’ve learned how deeply a person can be wounded and still make it to the top of the mountain … for a victory.

I have rejoined life, social gatherings, opened myself up to being vulnerable again, and grabbed hold of joy and I will never let it go. I’ve been told that my son wouldn’t want me to sit around sad all day. I know that when he was alive he loved when I laughed. We would laugh together until we couldn’t breathe. I don’t laugh as often as I used to, but I sure laugh more than I ever thought I would.

My last therapist told me that the recipe for happiness is to:

Have someone to love.

Have something to do.

Have something to look forward to.

Find those things that will make your life purposeful. You deserve joy. The grieving process is inevitable. It just has to happen. But you will find your center again.

By Sherrie Cassel

Five years have passed since my son died; this is to say, it has been five years since I hugged my son, stood on my toes to kiss his forehead, or heard his voice, his laugh, tended to his tears, knew he was just a phone call away. Five years is a long time to be without your only child, husband, wife, sibling, friend…

The intensity of the early days, indeed, the first two years, has dissipated, although I still gasp when I think back on the absolute mess I was back then. I haven’t written for some time. Graduate school kept me busy, a marriage kept me focused on my most important relationship, an ailing mother redirected my focus temporarily as I began to become aware that at my age, parents begin to go “gentle into that good night”. Our focal points are mutable and as we live our lives constantly in flux, our trajectory’s destination is always a near hit, but never quite targeted exactly. How can it be?

After you lose someone with whom you had an intense love relationship, your vision for your future shifts in crashing tectonic movements. Death leaves a lifelong impression on your brain. Pain is chemical too; I imagine. Our hearts must find a way to move past their deep ache and return to a functional homeostasis. We will never be the same. I encourage you to listen to Melissa Etheridge’s song, “I Will Never Be the Same”; it accurately depicts the powerful effects our loved ones had on us, indeed, have on us.

Best case scenario in our lifetimes we have the opportunity and the freedom to be touched by others and to touch others at the level of the heart, the mind, and the soul. My son touched me in each of those elements of my humanity. We had the same tonal inflection, the same sense of humor, the same interests. We shared a life together for 32 years. There is a gap infinitely many miles wide which now separates us from that life. I do not wish to be dramatic, but the gap still hurts like a son of a bitch. He touched me. His death hurt me, but it has also inspired me to be a better person, an intentionally finely tuned and consciously passionate director of my life.

How has the death of your loved one changed you? Are you more passionate about life? Have you accepted or peacefully resigned yourself to the loss? I will admit, it took me three and a half years to come to grips with the fact that I couldn’t sit on the sidelines licking my wounds waiting for my heart to not hurt anymore. Death is a wound straight to the ego as well as a detonation to your life. There is not an adequate descriptor to metaphorize the depth of your loss.

Five years have passed, and I don’t believe I’ve successfully made anyone aware of how much pain the death of my son has caused. As Ms. Etheridge sings, “I will never be the same” (emphasis mine).

With all the regret I have over not always being emotionally present for my son because as John Lennon intimates, “Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans.” I hope I gave him enough attention to have made him feel special. I think I did. He was special beyond all reason, so I must have done some things right. Because of regret, however, which I argue is not terribly beneficial to a successful grief process, I have learned how to be more present in the lives of my living loved ones. One can fall prey to rumination on the person who has died, and for a time this is expected, but we must rejoin the living. Staying indefinitely in the rumination phase is self-torture.

I believe my mourning phase lasted a bit longer than is healthy. My deep mourning phase and fear of reestablishing my relationships, indeed my relationship with the world, lasted three and a half years as I’ve mentioned before. People grew and changed. People had babies and lost loved ones. Friends broke up or began new relationships. People lived full lives while I ruminated.

So, five years, five years(!) have passed and I am forever bereft that my son is gone; but he is, and I’m still here. I have lived, even in grief, in those five years. I have grown and changed during this time. My life was happening all the time I was preparing to emerge healed from my loss, which I’m not sure truly happens. I have learned to handle my grief, to redirect my steps toward the living. When my son died, I bought many types of cremation jewelry to put my son’s ashes in so I could wear a piece of him around my neck or on my right ring finger. My psychiatrist told me that I needed to stay with the living and not hold on the death of my son.

I realize now she was right.

If anything has taught me that life is exponentially quick, a flash in the pan, a moment of substantial brevity, it is the death of my 32-year-old son, the death of a baby, a child with cancer, a young soldier killed in battle, ad infinitum. Life is short and in between random culminations of our lives, it is where we live, and I hope it is where we truly live.

I’ve reclaimed my life and I now allow the death of my son to open doors for me. I’ve asked the God of my Understanding to give me courage to go through those doors and to be blessed by what awaits me on the other side. And I have been blessed.

A balance of grief and joy await us while we’re busy tending to our broken hearts, while we’re “busy making other plans”. I don’t want to diminish anyone’s early days of intense grief, because unfortunately, one must traverse the preliminary and seemingly unnavigable terrain.

Transformation is absolutely doable; it is a conscious effort, however.

I didn’t waste time grieving, even though it was for longer than I expected it to be. I did a fair amount of emotional bloodletting during my intense grief period. Grief is a dynamic process; it requires our full attention, maybe for perpetuity. I am constantly aware that I have lost a child. The knowledge never leaves me be. I will never be able to shake the shock of his death. Grief is a constant readjustment to life – life, the one that is fleeting, as elusive as a deep emotion you can’t escape, but also know you can’t stay in. We’ve got to loosen our grip on grief if we want to reach for life and renewal of relationships neglected largely by our absence while we nursed ourselves back to emotional health.

We just had the fifth angelversary of my son’s passing. I did things differently this year. I did my level best to not think about the night my son died. I was mostly successful. Each time a memory arose, I brushed it aside and replaced it with another thought, task, song…one that warmed my aching heart enough to get through the day.

I choose to think of how he lived before the bottom fell out for him. I choose to think of his joy over his own son. I choose to think of all the amazing things about him, and I choose to celebrate his life — doing so is the best I can do. Oh, even beautiful memories are double-edged, bittersweet, and unpredictable in their effects on my heart.

Ah, the heart, it heals slowly, but it does heal. I allowed myself to be entombed for three-and-a-half years before I allowed myself to thaw, before I allowed myself to be emotionally touched again. I’m not the same person I was during my son’s illness and ultimate death. I believe in some ways this is a good thing. I’m less selfish. I’m more present in my life and so, in the lives of others.

I’m learning to love myself and to give myself a life of quality, intermittent joy, and acceptance of the fact that loss is the luck of the draw. No one is to blame. When your number is up, your number is up. Our loved one’s life ends, and we’re left with big gaping holes where he or she used to be. What we fill it with is the most important lesson from our losses.

Even in deep, guttural grief, we are capable of inculcating lessons that will transform us, if only we can wipe our eyes long enough to see them. Life proceeds with or without us. The life train has made many return trips without me getting on one. I don’t want to miss the next one.

By Sherrie Ann Cassel

• 

I haven’t written a poem in years. In language is where I thrive. I once fancied myself a poet, and I definitely have had some winners, but by and large, I’m no Amy Clampitt or Mary Oliver, I’ve had some true WTH was I trying to say here moments too. I think we each have places where we shine. I’d love it if you commented under this post and shared yours.

In January, it will be five years since my son died. I never know how I’ll be on any anniversary or birthday, holiday or because the sun rises.  With my grief, acuteness is a crap shoot and a lightning strike. Mostly I’m present in the moments of my life, but I still get that knot in my stomach when an event, place, word, song, scent remind me that my son is gone.

Even in grief, and maybe especially when I’m in grief, I tap into my resiliency, resiliency I learned from my family of origin and primary caretakers, a fancy way of saying, my parents. Sometimes detachment can be a good thing. For example, in order to function well in the world, I find I can’t be chronically attached to my grief. I also don’t need an umbilical cord to help me find my way back to it when I find I’m just a little too happy.

You see, grief is in the last rose bloom of summer, the first snowflake in winter, a song I have on repeat, or any number of sensory and/or supersensory experiences; it’s omnipresent. Grief is a newly untrained puppy. She wreaks havoc, eats shoes, your favorite pair of glasses, and tears up your physical world. There is, however, an eventual return to a pretty consistent emotional homeostasis after a modicum of training is in place. I just had to work harder than I could have imagined. Ask anyone who knows me, if you look in the dictionary for the word resilience, you’d see my picture. I’ve done a few revolutions around my crazy maze in my 58 years. Life experience has taught me many hard lessons which I’ve spun into brilliantly colored incidental patterns.

Where grief once consumed me as it tore through my soul, it now is a color on my palette, from which I will smatter my paint upon a canvas worthy of Pollock. Rikki created a collage when he was in rehab. There were four colors, one for each person he loved. He paid attention to what his loved ones loved; he was the kindest person I know. The largest swaths of tissue paper were orange, my favorite color; I am honored.

I can have moments now when to remember no longer slays me. I feel the clutch in my chest. I breathe through the moment, and sometimes – I weep. I do still schedule days when I can mourn and not have it affect my ability to function in the world, or prevent me from attending to my relationships, or keeping focused on coursework, or experiencing the joy of having a lot on my plate. I still need boosts of adrenalin and I have no problem amply providing them for myself.

The taglines for a griever from those who want us to sprint through the pain are many and mostly cliched, but of course, well-intentioned. Even five years in people I love are still uncomfortable with my losing it. My husband of nearly 11 years and partner of 15 has held and calmed me during some of the worst breakdowns since Rikki died. My younger brother has held me as I sobbed into his chest. Few people have seen me in that dark place where I allow myself to lose it.

I’m open on my blogs and on my personal Facebook page. I pour out my words in an effort to commingle grief and hope with other travelers. I’m not afraid of being vulnerable in the field of the written or spoken word, but those haphazard tears out of seemingly nowhere? Those are not for public display. There are some people with whom it is not safe to open up the floodgates because the fear of the intensity of your feelings makes them uncomfortable; find people who can sit in the dark with you.

No, there are still some things I’m not revved up enough to do quite yet. But I think of all the accomplishments I’ve made since my son’s death. I created a community of fellow grievers who I love and with whom I am most vulnerable online and whose courage inspires me daily. I completed my bachelor’s degree and now I’m finishing up my first semester of grad school. I’ve moved to a new area, a place where I don’t hurt so badly because of all the memories, and because participation in life can be painstaking. I maintain this blog although I don’t have the time to write on it like I used to. I’m grateful I had the time to share this morning –. Remember to give yourself kudos from time to time.

My husband has Brahms playing from his home office this morning; the music is soothing, not frantic or despairing, not Tigger or Eeyore, but Owlesque, older, wiser, more centered. This music is celebratory, and I chase the notes toward a good and productive day. There is no shortage of homework to do. On a lazy Sunday of a COVID weekend after a historical election year and the culmination of a brutal campaign period, I rest.

On January 22, 2021, 5:55 p.m. I will do what needs to be done, whatever that may be. Today is what I have to work with and all the moments therein.

Maybe I’ll write a poem.

By Sherrie Ann Cassel

• 

I’m thinking, which is not always a good thing, about facilitating a women’s Bible study on the life of Mary, the mother of Jesus. It is called A Woman Overwhelmed. I think we all, mothers and fathers, especially in America, overwhelm ourselves. Sometimes, as we know from losing a child, life throws us curve balls of overwhelm, and sometimes we dive in headfirst to overwhelms of our own making. I’ve been straddling the fence of both. When I lost Rikki, I didn’t think I’d ever have a “life” again. I thought I’d be one giant, tangled ball of grief for perpetuity. And grief is a garment I wear every day. There really is no separation between me and grief anymore. I miss my son and no matter where I am, or with whom, or what I’m doing, grief and I will be together until I die and get to dance with my son for all eternity. I know as a Christian I should be thinking about meeting Jesus, but seriously, I’m a giant bundle of love for my son, love that is all directed toward my son. Does that make sense?

My faith has gone through several metamorphoses over the course of the years, from Rikki’s illness while he was alive through his death and beyond. I have been angry with God, rejected God, cried out to God, and returned to God. I wish I could explain my journey more succinctly, but even with my love for language, I cannot. We each have our own trajectories through grief. Those of us who have been at it for years now, know about resuming life amid the worst kind of pain one can feel.

I felt like I was in an inescapable black hole for three and a half years. An analogy: I’ve mentioned here that I have a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. If a person with this diagnosis is misdiagnosed with depression and given an antidepressant, the medicine will cause a bipolar patient to go into full blown mania. I was misdiagnosed and on norpramin for five years. I raced through life at breakneck speed. Much of the events during those five years I don’t remember; that is a tragedy, because those are years when I was raising my very healthy and vibrant young son.

Hardcore grief has had much the same effect on me. There are three and a half years I did not participate fully in life and in my relationships. My loved ones waited for me to return to them, after being in that intense grief space knowing there was nothing they could do or say to help me travel to the other side where I could re-immerse myself back into life and back into those relationships. I am not the same person. I thought maybe I would return to myself, but I now know that is impossible.

I am Rikki’s mom. I will always be Rikki’s mom. I am Rikki’s mom in a different way now. He is in my soul keeping me alive until it’s my time to go. Can a Spirit have a gestational period? I believe it can. I am separated by time and space from my son, but not even death can separate our spirits from one another. I saw my reflection the other day and all I could see was Rikki’s face. I could see his eyes, his nose, his lips, his cheeks, and I made a facial expression that was one he made all the time. I closed my eyes, and I felt the longing for him wash over me. I braced myself against the bathroom sink. All this after an amazing day of busyness and feeling purposeful.

You see, grief never quite leaves you, and I mean never. I have had busy days since grad school began, and we’re up in the air about buying the house we’re in, and we may be facing a potential move during the busiest time in my life, and Louie will be here for Christmas, after our possible move, and I have a marriage to a wonderful man I am always working on, and, and, and…I am grieving the loss of my beautiful Rikki.

“Wild Horses,” by The Stones is playing on the radio right now. October weather is making me miss my Rikki to the core of my being. I am three months away from the five-year angelversary for my precious Rikki. And I am busting my ass in graduate school…but nothing takes away from the omnipresent grief that comes from losing a child.

I stopped wishing the pain would cease; it never will. But I no longer believe grief is love with no place to go. I believe grief is love from our children being infused into our lives, lives they would want for us. I am doing my best to be present in my life, to be present for those I love and for those who love me, to be purposeful in the contributions I still have the ability to make in our world, and in the rebuilding of a life that has been shattered by loss.

I live my life intentionally now. I stop for moments when the loss is felt so strongly I must brace myself and I wonder if people can sense how much pain I am in at that moment. People’s understanding used to matter, but it doesn’t anymore. Grief is my old friend now. He’s my new dance partner, one step forward, two steps back, a twirl, and a dip, to music only I can hear — music for me and son.

I miss you, my son. Until we meet again I will be strong and live purposefully and live my life to honor you.

By Sherrie Ann Cassel

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3:45 a.m. seems like a good time to write. For the most part, those who are in PST zones are sound asleep. I used to romanticize about those wonderful folks who work at 7-11 during those hours some of us occasionally find ourselves awake. Do they have great stories? They are at the front line if you think of life as a battle. They are salt of the earth if you have the insight to be conscious of others’ economic realities. They are on the cutting edge of where life, in all its goriness and glory, happens.

These are the things I think about when I’m trying to not think about losing my son. Where before, the fetal position and great guttural sobs were my reality, I’ve progressed to the ability to intellectualize my pain for longer periods of time. Please don’t think I choose to not remember my son; that is impossible. What I can do now, however, is control my meltdowns, when, where, and how much time I’ll need to purge sufficiently.

Sometimes I think I sound so clinical about grief, but that is not my intention. The pain of losing someone increases exponentially in the beginning of the grief trip, and it is a trip. Who knew the endless places a mind could wander? I didn’t — until the greatest loss of my life brought me to stare squarely in the face of chance.

I’m doing the only thing I can do if I’m to have a life of quality, with rich relationships, wonder, awe, and personal growth. I had my heart ripped out and I recovered it and started to help it heal, but first, I hurt systemically, and I hurt at the level of the Soul.

Really, there is no word that adequately defines the kind of emotional pain the death of a loved one brings up. I had no idea the depths we must plumb to emerge a stronger, more insightful, more conscious, and a person more in love with life. Maybe he or she was always there, but for that damnable luck of the draw.

I know why and how my loved one died. I have played his life repeatedly in my mind.

It doesn’t help to know that you’re so far away […] ~Carol King~

And I’ve turned over the minutiae and the magnificent. How does one begin to adjust to the presence of permanence? This too shall pass is obviously a myth. There are some events or emotions whose effects are monumental and that will affect us for the rest of our lives.

I’m in a master’s program, at 58 years old. I have always wanted a Ph.D., and so, maybe when I’m close to 65, I’ll finally be finished with school. I have a voracious appetite for knowledge, and I’d forgotten this during the long trek back to the realm of those who live full lives.

I know some strong people who’ve lost someone extraordinarily close to them, traveled through the visceral and emerged on the other side victorious. I will never get over losing my son. I’ve learned to live with the constant readjustment to him not being here. I still want to pick up the phone and hear his voice, his living voice, with all its inflections and the deep booming sound that I could feel in my Soul. I have some videos and old phone messages he gifted me with. But I don’t watch or listen to them every day.

As a matter of fact, I can only watch or listen to them when I’m feeling very strong and maybe a bit weepy. I still have days when the most mundane thing can send me into sobs, but as of late I haven’t cried in weeks…and before that, it had been months. I was too much of a mess in those early days to get that the magnitude of pain would become less throbbing and intense – or that one day I would be living a life of purpose with flashes of joy.

I need to share with you all: the intensity lasted for three and a half years. For some it takes a shorter span of time, for some longer, and then there are some who never heal from their loss. I can speak of healing now. I can tell you how great I feel now. I can even tell you how I got here, but I can’t tell you how you will get to a place where grief no longer doubles you over in pain; nor can I tell you how long it will take you to get to that place. Grief is harsh, but it is we who must master it, and I am a firm believer in wrestling with the angel for a blessing.

There is a blessing despite our soul-wrenching experience, and later we’ll see, there is a blessing because of our soul-wrenching experience. Healing doesn’t just happen; it takes an enormous amount of work and a willingness to run that gauntlet of the many excruciatingly painful emotions and thoughts that run through our hearts and minds after a loss.

Grief buffets us from all sides with hurtful thoughts and varying emotions and in varying degrees of intensity. We must let go of those hurtful thoughts and that pain that inhibits us from growing and developing into that person who is full of passion for life again.

Garnering the courage to release the hold grief can have on us is necessary in my estimation to stay on the path toward healing. Somehow life goes on – and even in our grief we must go on too. I told a 7-11 clerk one time about my loss and he was palpably empathetic and then he gave me a cup of blueberry coffee — such a huge surge in my Soul for such a small token. Or maybe we do get to choose our perceptions of phenomena as they arise, how we will respond, react, or rebuff.

Ah, but there I go again: thinking is far less painful than feeling.

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In the time of my confession, in the hour of my deepest need
When the pool of tears beneath my feet floods every newborn seed
There’s a dying voice within me reaching out somewhere
Toiling in the danger and the morals of despair.

Every Grain of Sand, Bob Dylan

Oh, that Bob Dylan, to nail so perfectly how despair can apprehend our joy and hold us captive in an all-consuming way. During the beginning of Lent at a church I used to attend I was asked to give a talk about Jesus walking alone in the desert. I remember the dear sweet pastor saying that we are never alone.

I disagree. There are times when no one can hear your quiet screams of anguish, and so no one can help you. I watch those who struggle with addiction, like my dear son who died after a long fight with it, and I wonder where they go in their darkest, lucid moments. I have struggled with bipolar depression for my entire life and when I’m in a slump, I go to a dark place. I’ve learned to find the tiniest pinprick of light, but sometimes even that infinitesimal bit of light hurts my eyes and I must wait for my heart and my eyes to adjust to find my way out. Sometimes I just sit in the darkness and ask all they whys about my current state of emotions. I ask if things are as bad as they feel or if it is the bipolar chemicals centrifuging me to the bottom of my emotional test tube, heavy and coagulated.

Is joy only at the top or can it be found in despair too. There is an old episode of Cheers where Carla loses someone close to her and she puts on a black shroud to honor her grief. Sam gives her sage advice and tells her that when she least expects it, something will happen that will bring her back. Cliff stops by to visit her and when he bends down, his pants rip, unbeknownst to him, and after he leaves, Carla can hardly contain herself with laughter.

I have had similar moments, maybe not always with laughter, but sometimes with an exhalation. I think sometimes we hold our breath to stop our pain. When the cool breeze of temporary release comes, we can let go a bit and catch up with consensus reality. The kind of reality that grounds us and takes us out of our despair, e.g. the sun is shining, I’m making toast, the children are playing, it is not the end of the world, I can do this today.

I don’t know how I pick myself up from my bootstraps. I don’t know if it’s volitional or an act of Providence. I just know that through some of the darkest periods of my life, during sobs and moans too deep for words, I catch my breath, and I’m okay – until the next despairing moment.

I believe that despair is a universal experience. I believe we each find ourselves in its clutches from time to time. I know depression, from my personal experience, is real and not everyone is challenged by it, but I believe that we each are touched by despair from time to time. This is a tough place to be and we each have our own experiences that have shaped us and prepared us or not prepared us for how best to navigate our despair.

I have wished for death a half a dozen times throughout my life, most recently when my son lost his battle with addiction. He was my only child. He was everything to me and the knowledge that I would now live out my life without him brought me to a place of complete and utter despair. I would cry until I gasped for air, or – I was completely numb and listless. No one could reach me. There were no words that could be said to assuage my despair. How did I make it through to the other side where joy could be rediscovered?

Time.

Time doesn’t make things better because, bottom line, there are situations in our lives we simply must learn to live with, e.g. the death of a loved one, a terminal disease, poverty, addiction, and those things are part and parcel of life.  What time does do is distance us from our pain, the further out we get from the intensity of it, the better able we are to heal ourselves.

I had a pretty shitty childhood, about as bad as most people choose to not want to discuss. I have also had some traumatizing experiences as an adult, watching my son plummet to his death, for example. Others have had equal or more traumatizing experiences than I have had. Some of us find ways to find solid ground again, from where we can see hope off in the distance beckoning us toward transformation. Some of us don’t. I’m not going to make judgment calls about suicide. All I can say is that if that’s where you find yourself, please reach out to the National Suicide Hotline*, a trusted friend or family member, and if there is no one else around, tell a stranger on the street. TELL SOMEONE.

My personal blend of faith compels me to believe that the God of my Understanding (the GOMU) knows how difficult it is to be here, cruelty, poverty, addiction, rape, child abuse and/or neglect, domestic violence, ad nauseam, and because of this we have a one-way ticket to “heaven”. That is my personal belief. I’m not ready to go there just yet. As much as I miss my son, I still have work to do, work on myself and work on behalf of others.

Today is my son’s birthday. He would have been 37. I ache because this day is a reminder of both his life and of his death. I mourn, accompanied by the grief that never leaves me. Four years and eight months have passed rather quickly. The days when I sat on the couch and stared into the empty cavern of my broken heart seem distant.

Despair seems infinite, but it rarely is. There is a homeless man who lives in my town. He is filthy, toothless, and we do have winters here, so weather can be unkind to our homeless population. Snow doesn’t last but a few days and we’re in the desert, so temperatures can also really soar. He holds up political signs or counter-arguments to the evangelical man who has signs damning people to hell. Even in his destitute life, perhaps in his own darkest moments, he strategizes how to remain afloat in his despair.

We take lessons from where we can when we can. Butterflies and rainbows aren’t for everyone; I prefer a good Leonard Cohen song in a dark room, and sometimes, I even turn on the light.

1-800-263-8255 Suicide Prevention Hotline

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By Sherrie Cassel

You can run and run and run, but you will never outrun grief; it’s like a second layer of skin that never sloughs off. I know because after four and a half years since my son died, I still feel the deep sorrow and it howls begging for my attention as I live my life fully and passionately. I know it’s there. I know it’s there every second of the day.

Keeping busy is an excellent way to reclaim your life. Once you have gone through the shittiest part of early grief, once you’ve cried ‘til your nose bled, once you’ve doubled over in what feels like physical pain, once you’ve collapsed on the floor a weeping mess, keeping busy is an effective coping mechanism.

My husband and I have had our soon-to-be 11-year-old grandson with us since March.  COVID put the kibosh on outdoor activities, so we found ways, to our utter exhaustion, to keep him busy. I was hopping to keep up with him. I was taking Zoom classes. I was reading everything I could get my hands on, and not solely books on grief. I read Buzz Aldrin’s most recent book about going to the moon. I read about theology, psychology, traumatology, religion, ad infinitum. Filling my mind with knowledge helps me to think about other things besides my utter despair from knowing my son is gone from this world.

I recently rediscovered religion and a relationship with God after years of anger and disillusionment. I speak only for myself when I say that I need an anchor, and I have rekindled my relationship with the God of my understanding (GOMU). I have found peace and contentment; they have replaced contempt for my perception that God abandoned me in my darkest hour. I have found solace in the GOMU, having been distanced from the most painful day of my life for several years.

We find what comforts us in whatever speaks to us in our deepest need. Pain cannot be the primary emotion for perpetuity; it can’t be. There is so much that is lovely and satisfying in life despite our sorrow and our grief. Some find that peace in nature or through self-expression or through religion. What have you found that has saved you from falling so deeply into the abyss that you were irretrievable?

There is no shortage of social issues in our world right now. COVID, BLM, the ineptitude of the current leadership in our country, disparity of income, poverty, hunger, addiction, ad nauseam. I am taking a most gratifying class through MCCSD on the book White Fragility: Why it’s so difficult for white people to talk about racism. See, continuing discourse with our world, finding something we believe in enough to fight for, something to be passionate about, getting involved in something that lets you peek through that layer of grief, that part of who you are now, is a good way to reenter the world that never missed a beat while you were in despair from your loss.

I think death, for me, temporarily ended my hope for a continued relationship with my son. I knew I needed to find a new way to be in relationship with my son while my heart adjusted to his physical absence, but I didn’t know how. I thought it was hokey when people told me things like “love’s energy never ends; it goes on forever”, “he’s in heaven smiling down on you”. And as a person who can humbly admit I don’t know everything, maybe those things are true, and sometimes I allow myself to meet my Soul where love and logic intersect.

I talk to my son every day. I kiss his picture.  I address him as well as God in my daily and nightly prayers. I feel him; I do. I can’t explain it, but my heart, that symbol of all that is holy in loving relationships, finds my son in my yearning.

As I maintain the momentum of my healing and grief processes, I tone my heart and my Soul cries in delight for allowing it to grow. I can’t tell you how long your process will take to find yourself again, but I will say this, grief can act upon you in a way which makes you passive to a process over which you relinquish control, or grief can be a process in which you actively and wholly participate. You are in control of your healing.

One day I woke up and said, “This can’t be all there is? Pain, misery, and despair?” I didn’t want to live that way despite my demolitioned life. My son loved life. We celebrated all the time. Our house was the party house in our neighborhood. I mean we celebrated everything. I celebrate the 32 years I had with my son, how he laughed, thought, worked things out in life. I celebrate all the lessons we learned together and the ones we learned individually. I celebrate me and all the hard work I’ve done to get to this place, through the guts on to glory.

There’s a lot to get behind in our current global and national situation. If there’s a dream you’ve had marinating for a long time, but one thing or another prevented you from getting to it, do it. Make it happen. I had to finally relinquish the hope that my son would rise like Lazarus and come back to me in this lifetime. He won’t.

So, what do I do now?

As the 12-steppers say, “Take next indicated step.” One foot in front of the other. Looking ahead. Stretching, recoiling, stretching again, strengthening, growing into the person the GOYU created you to be. I know it sounds platitudinous, but truly, you have a case study right here. For those of you who have followed this blog or my writing in other places, you’ve seen me vacillate from sorrow to joy and back again through many revolutions.

See, life doesn’t provide us with consistency; smooth sailing is not a norm in our lives. We take life each wave at a time; sometimes we get crushed on the rocks and sometimes we glide gracefully on to a welcoming shore. I learned through my life with my son that life is absolutely unpredictable. Knowing this has been a tough pill to swallow.

But at the end of the day, when I look into the eyes of someone I’ve been able to love through something, when I’ve participated in something that makes the world a better place, when I learn new things, when my husband holds me closely to his chest, when I have swordfights with our grandson, and when I sit in the silence and listen to my breath and re-center myself, how can I be anything but grateful?

By Sherrie Ann Cassel

The day has ended, and the night is cradling me like a new mother with her first born. I think about my own first born, my only child, and how I cradled him as I rocked back and forth in my rocking chair, singing softly, “Goodnight my Someone”, from the Music Man. I sang the song to him up through his fifth birthday. I stopped only because he would become overcome with emotion when I sang it to him. He was such a beautiful boy, my beautiful boy.

Tonight is Mother’s Day Eve, and I have done my level best to keep focused on the living. I’m fortunate to still have my mother – and celebrating with her is a gift to both of us. Mother’s Day still leaves me raw and exposed. I ask for no cards, no flowers, no dinners, just a quick, “How are you?” is enough; anything else would be too much, like a knife to the heart.

This year is a bit different. I am feeling like celebrating the son who made me a mother, flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone, deeply and forever embedded in my heart. I am a mother. I have a child; he has transitioned from this life to the next. I believe with all my being he is in heaven. I believe we all get there eventually – and I believe we’ll be reunited one day. I need to believe this. I cannot fathom a future without him. This may not make sense to those who have not lost a child – and you may ask, “What do you mean you can’t fathom a future without him? Haven’t you been living without him?” Well, yes, but there is hope in an eternity with my son that brings with it sanity and comfort. If I thought I’d never see him again, I’d slump into a depression unto my own death – even as I live.

My son’s been gone now four years and five months. I have raced through Mother’s Day weekend for the past four years. I used to hate driving by all the street corners with people selling flowers for last minute shoppers, sons trying to remember what their mother’s favorite color is.  “Is it roses or rununculus? Orange or red? What’s her favorite perfume? Oh shit, what time is it?”

To be honest, my son and I never really made a big deal about the day. Oh sure, when he was a little tyke, he’d make little gifts for me in school. Once he made a necklace made completely out of giant macadamia nuts. I was heading to an appointment, and there’s this adorable little boy with the biggest brown eyes chasing me out the door with the necklace saying, “Mommy, you forgot your necklace!” I put it on and proudly wore it to my appointment where others said, “Do you know you’re wearing macadamia nuts around your neck?” Years later I would tell my son that story and he’d say, “No shit”, and he’d laugh and laugh. Speaking of nuts, Mother’s Day for the grieving mother certainly is a bag of mixed ones.

I don’t need anyone treading lightly with me on Mother’s Day. I just want to be recognized as a mother – always and forever. I carried my son in my body for nine months. I was a single mother and so my son slept with me until he was six. I raised him by myself; he is mine. We had victories and defeats, but we always had each other’s back. We loved each other fiercely. I love him still. I’m a mother. I’m a mom. I am Rikki’s momma. He called me momma on the last day of his life. I have cards and notes and text messages and emails in which he called me momma. I consider the moniker a term of endearment, a sweet boy’s expression of love, and a medal of honor. I was blessed to be his momma; indeed, I am still.

Mother’s Day isn’t just about sweet and well-intentioned trinkets, handprints in cement, or even macadamia nut necklaces. Mother’s Day is about women all over the world celebrating our children and the blessing they were and continue to be to us. My heart aches because I can’t hear him say, “Happy Mother’s Day, Momma”, but I can hear it in that part of me that always knew when he needed something, and I feel it in my heart.

No, I don’t get a big bear hug from him on our special day, but I have the sweetest memories of all the hugs he gave me while he was alive and well, happy and whole, however briefly he touched my life. Memories are all I have along with things that were important to him, art he collected, art he created, pieces of paper with his handwriting or doodles on them – voice messages – his little stuffed dog he named, Squishy, and a love that is boundless and eternal. I celebrate him this Mother’s Day.

Gratitude in the deepest part of my soul is what I give to the memory of my son and in so doing, I find snippets of joy In the knowledge that he was mine for a short time, and then I gave him back to the God of my understanding, for safekeeping until we can be together again.

Mother’s Day can be painful when your children are living — and when your children have died.  However, you navigate the day is okay. Right this minute I am feeling strong and hopeful for a day of celebration, for my own mother, and for the mother I am too.

I will always be Rikki’s momma – and not even death can change that.

My heart is with all you mommas on Mother’s Day. May you be blessed with more joyful memories than you thought possible.

Blessings