Grief to Gratitude

One Tin Soldier

By Sherrie Cassel

It’s so hard to not ruminate on the days leading up to Rikki’s death, when he was so sick and weak – and I was terrified. I try to not think about those things as the anniversary, the tenth, approaches. I just found myself doubled over in pain as a memory pierced my soul. See, isn’t that the way it is? There are days when we shine and make progress in our lives, and then …

There are days when a dark cloud follows us throughout the day and the nights seem forever.

I have booked myself solid for next Thursday, January 22nd; I find I have less time to writhe in my grief that resurrects itself with a furor every year. Why did he have to die? What were we doing at this time the year he died? Oh, my heart hurts. Oh, why, oh why, did I survive and Rikki had to die?

See, these things come up as angelversaries come up. I call them angelversaries because it softens the blow a bit to think of my son in angelic terms, even though he was magnificent while he was here. I just wish I’d been able to get that through his very thick skull, and yes, anger is part of the grief process, and sometimes I’m mad, but it’s been years since I felt the rage, rage at the closing of the light (Dylan Thomas), and so, anniversaries should be celebrated, and deaths, in my opinion, don’t need to be.

I don’t commemorate the day my son died, the absolute worst day of my life; there will never be a worse one. I was there the day my son died. I was there all the days and years leading up to his death. Those were painful days and years. Why would I want to remember them?

I have found purpose for my life, for the rest of the days I’m graced and gifted with life; it took a while, ten years, in fact, and I continue to heal and to grow. My journey has led me to more than healing; it has guided me toward transformation. Of course, I’d give it all back if I could have my Rikki back, whole and happy, but … reality might suck sometimes, but if I can’t be in the Present Moment, how can I reconnect to the world, to my friends, my family, my coworkers, the beggar in the street? Rikki’s life and death expanded my world. I will ~never~ be the same.

In some ways that’s good; I have softened through the loss of my son, my only child, my best friend, the child of a single mother for 18 years. How could it be otherwise? I have cried until my tear ducts ran out of tears. I have doubled over in response to a memory or a trigger. I’ve also had really good days on some of the angelversaries. I got to lead a women’s group the last two years of angelversaries. I spent four hours in traffic on each of those evenings I led group.

I know what my calling is in life, and I really never knew what it was before Rikki died, not really anyways, even though I’ve been in college most of my adult life, weaving in and out of community colleges and universities while I raised a son alone, at the poverty level, worked, and tried to stay in school. I just knew I wanted something better for my son. I got therapy and I went to college. My calling is to show others that healing is possible. My calling is to guide others to something magnificent in their life, an anchor, something that will guide them once I’m no longer part of their process. My purpose is to teach people how to grieve in ways that are not self-destructive. I know this, and I’m up for the challenge, even as I face the tenth year of my son’s absence.

I know I can handle it; I have for the past nine years, so this one will be manageable and I’ll get through it. 5:55 p.m. will roll around and I’ll work hard to not look at the clock. It’s like when you know something bad is going to happen, and you can’t stop it, but you wait in dread until it happens and you survive it, relieved that you made it through, and ecstatic that it’s over.

I grow each day as I live without my son. Again, I’d give it all back if I could have my son back, but if and when that day of reunion comes, I’ll be a different person than the one he knew, and I’ll wrap my arms around him in utter joy and gratitude. Is that going to happen? I don’t know; I hope so. I miss my Rikki so much.

I want you to know that as you face the angelversaries, they hurt; they just do, but even as you hold your breath for an entire 24 hours, the time will pass and you will get through it. My friend and I are going to make Mexican food and light some candles and incense for Rikki. I need another woman to accompany me on the day, another mother, even though she has not lost a child.

We may paint a picture or make a mask, or I may choose to watch a movie with her. I just know that as the day draws near my heart races and I hate the day. I will not cop to ruminating on the second I said goodbye to my son. I will ruminate on how much he made me laugh; how beautiful, generous, and kind he was. I miss his amazing conversational skills. I miss talking on the phone with him until 3 a.m. – just chatting about absolutely nothing and absolutely everything.

I will think about those things on January 22.

We can do this. Many of us have been doing it for longer than I have, and because of you, I’ve had models to emulate. Thank you. I know it gets easier, but it’s never easy. I carry my grief like an accessory; some days I have mascara running down my face, and other days my make up is perfect and I’m able to get through the day productively; it’s a crap shoot on any given day, despite the fact I’m now able to control my overwhelming moments, my breathing, and calm myself down enough to find reason again and walk myself through the panic.

That’s what I’ll do next Thursday. I’ll think beautiful thoughts about Rikki. I’ll cry. I’ll breathe and then the day will be over, and I’ll have made it through another angelversary.

Yep, another one.

As stone is to flint

By Sherrie Cassel

As my older brother riffled through our dead mother’s belongings, I sat and waited for his assault on my mother’s last belongings to be over. Her calendar of her days, when each of her children visited or she spoke with us on the phone were priceless items I could not part with . My mother had a cheap plaster Virgen Guadalupe that I asked for from my siblings. No one wanted it. I kept some of her notes she wrote, and a couple of robes I could cling to in the early days following her death.

After my brother finished packing up his booty, my younger brother and I were left with clean up, which was substantial. She had just been cleared of breast cancer, after a mastectomy, at 83 years old. She wasn’t supposed to die after such a victory for our family. I guess when it’s your time to go, it’s your time to go, and it was hers. The last few years of her life, after our father died, she thrived, even despite her physical limitations. She always dressed her best and had smiles for each of her children. When we lost my son, she lost her only grandchild, and the grief never left her, just as it will never leave me – in this lifetime.

I had a tempestuous relationship with my mother. We were so different. She was also abusive to her children; she also dealt with mental illness. Everyone in my family does. Despite the abuse of withdrawal of love or a full physical assault, I loved my mother. Trauma bonding is very real. Sometimes, and I don’t know who is blessed or cursed with this ability, we romanticize our parents or others who may have abused us. I know my mother was imperfect, as am I; she tried on her good days to be a great mom, and there were days, just as I was, when she was a good mother. Those who come from abusive backgrounds have conflicted relationships with their abusers.

I don’t know why I maintained my love for my mother, but I did. Perhaps, the reason is because of a deeply embedded Christian ethic; you know, forgiveness is big in the Christian doctrine (well, the one that the archetype of Jesus advocated for – forgiveness and wiping the dust off our feet). I understand my parents, and maybe, because forgiveness is a process, I extend forgiveness and then I take it back. Again, the relationship, was dysfunctional from the day I was conceived to the day my mother died, I loved my mother, and I always sought her approval, and sometimes she was able to give it to me. She didn’t have the emotional resources to always “be” there for us. She could be loving and then ten minutes later, she’d be shaming or hitting us.

Which brings me to interesting metaphors; like a double-edged sword, metaphors can cut to the quick or inspire us to moments of clarity and states of pure and extraordinary lucidity as we pare away toxic ideology and toxic people. The mental/spiritual phenomenon/a of achieving clarity is a magical, sometimes scary experience. In my opinion, being lucid in a moment of clarity can be transcendent, launching you from a place of stagnation into the most dynamic life you can imagine.

I know.

Astrologers and psychic folx have me pegged as a Gemini, one who is double-minded, i.e., taking forever to make a decision because she can see both sides of the coin. Who ~doesn’t~ have that ability? Someone for whom healthy decision-making skills were not modeled may not have the requisite trust in herself to make wise decisions. Or the alternative is true; someone for whom healthy decision-making skills were modeled would behave accordingly when making decisions, “twins” or not. I’ve also been told by my energy working friends that Libras take forever to make a decision; hence, the scales are symbolic of trying to balance the truth…good luck with that.

Anyhow, metaphors.

I didn’t ask for much from my mother’s belongings. My younger brother and I were interested in things with her handwriting. I took her ChapStick, silly tokens of Mom’s last few days, things that were specific to my mother’s daily life. We each grieve differently.

There was a spoon Mom used to cook with, a wooden one. She had that same spoon as far back as my memories go. Mom was a fantastic cook. My parents were from Texas, so we ate a lot of Tex-Mex food. She loved being a mother; she tried. But back to the spoon; as lovely as I remember her cooking for us, lovingly, always justifiably proud of her meals, also, always on a tight budget, she used that wooden spoon to hit us – on the head, on the backs of our legs, basically, wherever it would land.

Why would I want such a thing? I guess, we, or at least I, received from my mother one of the good coping skills: Pollyannaism; and one of my father’s gifts was a keen sense of wonder, oh yeah, and a large dose of cynicism; but I guess inherited behaviors can also become restrictive and oppressive. Mom also shared her steely and caustic tongue with each of her kids. Some of us used it more effectively, and more meanly than the others in my family. Unfortunately, words … are my wooden spoon, lovingly creative, or targeted missiles. I no longer shoot for the latter.

The death of my son changed me, made me softer. My husband’s heart attack awakened me to how temporary and random life is. My seminary experience changed me. I choose to use my wooden spoon to blend the ingredients of you and me, with a smidge of him or her or they, with healthy coping skills, including the prosocial behavior of compassion. I no longer need a wooden spoon for anything other than creating beautiful and communal spaces for those with whom I come into contact. If I’m lucky, I’ll live as long as my mother. Mom tried to make up for her imperfection later in her life.

Her behavior was all about survival – and when you’re using all your emotional resources to just make it through each day, you don’t have the resources of love, empathy, compassion, or insight into someone else’s life. I get it now. Do I forgive? I don’t know. I’m slowly letting go of the anger and bitterness I had for my father; it’s almost gone. See, I don’t know where you come from, heaven, hell, or limbo (stagnant life), but healing is possible.

We each have a wooden spoon, our double-edged sword, or like an oar that steers us toward a beautiful shore or tossed about on the rocks of despair and discontent, where we are living towards dying, without hope.

I was able to walk away with a note my mother wrote to the God of her understanding. The note said, “God, please don’t let me hurt my children.” I took it as an apology for all the times she was out of her mind from fear, rage, mental illness, and avenging her childhood on her children.

She loved me and I know this. Despite the fact we were often at odds with each other, I know she loved me. Mom was a hardcore, kind of fundamentalist Christian, with modifications for her gay children who she adored, and a daughter who wouldn’t behave until she was thirty-five. Mom prayed for us incessantly. She prayed for us out of her love. Prayer was on the kind side of the wooden spoon. I still to this day appreciate the prayers or good juju said and sent by others. Do they work? I don’t know (she said irritated). But I appreciate them nonetheless; the mere intention shows me people care.

I know I’m not mad at my mother anymore. She gave me some good things too, i.e., ladybugs, butterflies, perennial flowers, and she gave me life. My mother was my wooden spoon; she created out of love, and she struck out because she was broken. If I’d been a perfect mother perhaps, I wouldn’t cut her so much slack. But who’s perfect? Who does it consistently right every time? No one. Not my mother. Not you. And certainly not I.

Hurt people hurt people, with words or with wooden spoons, in whatever form they come to us. As I write this, I’m full of love and understanding for my mother. Some days I have the energy to think rationally and so my pot of gold at the end of my rainbow is freedom from lingering anger, fear, woundedness, pain. You name it; all sorts of neuroses emerge from the dysfunctions of domestic violence, sexual assault, unhealthy social influences, ad nauseam.

I laid down my wooden spoon; I don’t need it anymore. I prefer the electric mixer anyhow; it blends all the ingredients into one blended whole, a whole where we are not separate from one another. I prefer the newer metaphor, more modern, fewer memories of dually-edged challenging parentage, confusing, conflicting, and compassionless –.

I haven’t relinquished Mom’s wooden spoon. Perhaps the vestiges of the poor coping skill are conduits for lingering masochism; I hurt myself and others for a number of years, until I got medicated and was able to learn to trust the world enough to lay down my wooden spoon.

My best friend in high school, used to say when people were jerks (in high school the boys were relentless), “Kill them with kindness.” I was too angry from all the ways the wooden spoon had been used against me, kindness? Why? Who extended kindness to me? Well, decades later, I see the value of the saying.

Kindness is always better than conflict; since therapy and since medication, I now see that love really ~is~ the answer. I’m lovable. I’m worthy of love. We are worthy of the good side of the wooden spoon. We are worthy enough to free ourselves from our own wooden spoons that come to us in the forms of causticity, hypervigilance, ad infinitum. I love the quote by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., apropos of his birthday, “Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, we’re free at last.” Abuse is oppression, and we are imprisoned in that oppressive climate until we have that moment of lucid clarity and set ourselves free. Elsa from Frozen (yes, I saw it.) sings a song, “Let it go.” The Buddha reminds us to let go because all things are transitory. St. Augustine said, “Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.” I was an angry lass before therapy and my lucid clarity (said in an Irish brogue).

Life is so much lovelier without hanging on to the brokenness my parents passed down to their children. I suppose I’ll heal from the polar opposite purposes for my mom’s wooden spoon. That’s my goal anyhow…it’s a lifelong process. Anger and rage use energy that would be better used for healing yourself, your relationships, your mind, and your soul.

Anger poisoned me and my relationships for decades. So, I laid down my wooden spoon. I breathe more easily now.

Namaste

On this First Day of the Year

By Sherrie Cassel

On this first day of the year,

I pledge to honor my emotions

as they arise, the good, the bad,

and the infantile.

Hey, it happens.

On this first day of the year,

I pledge to be like Michael J. Fox

and Stephen Hawking, who,

despite their challenges,

continue to inspire.

On this first day of the year,

I pledge to make no resolutions

which are binding contracts,

and therefore, shamefully unattainable.

Yes, I can.

On this first day of the year,

I pledge to reach for love as my first

line of defense in every situation,

so that I may offer grace even in the eye of the storm.

Who am I that thou art mindful?

On this first day of the year, I pledge to follow the example

of the Good Samaritan, lowly and despised

by an unkind world and offer kindness anyway,

even when it is not reciprocated.

Be kind anyway.

On this first day of the year, I pledge to

look for things for which to be grateful,

especially on days when it’s difficult to

open my eyes and cry out to heaven.

And so I am, so grateful.

Fashionably Late

By Sherrie Cassel

Racing against the clock; it’s 11:28 p.m. I know, with eight billion people in the world, there are bound to be a few wistful, woeful, and wonderful missives saying goodbye to 2025, and so, here’s mine. I can describe my year as wonky and wonderful. I finally, after what has seemed like one-hundred years and many lifetimes ago, received my master’s degree in a discipline so far removed from my history and psychological development: interfaith studies, that I’ve shocked people who’ve known me my whole life, when I tell them I’ve gone into the “ministry.”

“You?”

“You what?”

And cherry on top, “You gotta be fucking kiddin’ me?”

Some people change very little. Some people never change. Still some people change until they no longer resemble their former selves. Losing a child is also transformative – grueling, but navigable and winnable. I mean that too. Humans tend to anthropomorphize those phenomena we can only understand through “fleshing” them out. In a business meeting or in academic halls, we’re often asked to “walk out” an idea, as if the idea could ambulate. Jesus, to me, is a fleshed-out example of what it means to be fully human — in touch with the divine – with healthy boundaries; I also have an affinity with the mother of Jesus, having lost a son to a trajectory about which I could do nothing. Certainly, the character of Jesus was placed in the First Century, so, the social norms and mores were much different than they are today.

2025 has been chockful of lessons, falling in love over and over again with people whose lives intersected with mine and who taught me how to do pastoral care. I saw the man who had been robbed, beaten by the side of the road, and left for dead in the people I was blessed to counsel. I so want to be that Good Samaritan in the lives of those who are aching in their Souls. How could I feel anything but blessed for the people, places, and the acquisition of an excellent seminary experience at Claremont School of Theology, all gifts over a four-year uphill climb?

I say goodbye to some friendships that proved to be toxic in some way. I’ve let go of family members for the same reason. I have worked too hard to surrender my peace for the kind of drama that comes from unresolved trauma. I did the work; so too can they.

I say hello to the possibility that I will be accepted to all three of university choices for the doctoral program – psych, religion, and consciousness, the anthropology of religion, or a Th.D. I fell in love with process theology in my last semester of internship; they were extra-curricular classes, and my mind was blown pretty much by every reading, every discussion, every connection I was making as I learned about all the models of G_d there are. Boom! (as the kids say) – My mind was opened in a way that has allowed all the knowledge I can handle to flow in and through the gyri within it – like electricity enlivening dead tissue.

How can I say goodbye without a fair amount of wistfulness? This year has been amazing. I met a terrific friend who will always be a huge part of my heart – even if we never see each other again. Life keeps on plugging along for each of us. I know what it’s like to be so busy you don’t even have time to eat or to pee. I know how to live at that pace; at 63, I no longer thrive at that insane pace. I’m too old for that shit.

Well, it’s 12:01, January 1, 2026, and I didn’t make the “deadline” – that’s alright, too. I let go of yesterday reluctantly. In retrospect, despite the blood, sweat and tears of graduate school, and internship, and a husband who ended the year in the hospital, last year (two minutes ago) was a marvelous year. If the goal is to grow into the finest version of yourself, then 2025 shot me closer to that goal, closer than I’ve ever been.

In 22 days, my son will be gone ten years. Unbelievable. I miss him, and I have never left him behind, even as the years march on. He is in my heart, and we share DNA; his is still with me; this comforts me as I carry him into the new year with me. Always in my thoughts, always.

I missed the deadline because I had to run into my husband’s office and kiss him into the new year. I traded in the crowded firework displays for our own pyrotechnics.

Happy New Year! May 2026 provide you with everything you need to be the finest version of yourselves.

Namaste.

Wrapping it up

By Sherrie Cassel

24 days from today, I will navigate the tenth anniversary of my son’s passing: it’s a biggie. I’m not making light of it, trust me; for some reason, this one hits harder than even the first two anniversaries. I believe I was numb for the first two years, and then … I was angry, so angry, I couldn’t find a direction toward healing; I didn’t even see healing as a possibility. And here I am, ten years later, without my beautiful and tortured son, without his wit and without his zest for life, without his presence, without his infectious laughter, without my boy, and I’m thriving. How does one go from emotional paralysis to a life of quality and purpose? The amount of work I’ve done on myself as I’ve healed so I can be of service in a world whose common denominator is, “Everybody hurts sometimes.” (REM) is quantifiable and observable.

My husband was very ill this week, so ill, he was hospitalized. I thought I was going to lose him, and as is no one, I was not ready to lose someone I dearly love. I lost my son, my flesh and blood son. I carried him for nine months. I gave him life. We traveled together in the same tempest for thirty-two years. We knew each other’s secrets, some of them. My point is, I was afraid for my husband this week, as I prepared myself for the worst. But I wasn’t devastated, and I knew I’d be okay no matter what.

By the grace of the roll of the dice, my husband is on the mend, and it will be a very merry Christmas, indeed. We tend to get a bit romantic about life around this time of year, whether it is because we celebrate capitalist or religious Christmas/Xmas, or we just enjoy the buzz in the air; it’s absolutely electric. I look forward to the new year; the past two were rough. I completed four years of THE best academic experiences of my life, and of two years of an overwhelming, but richly rewarding internship.

People have entered and exited my life, each of them teachers, and whether the relationship endures or was here for only a couple of lessons, I’m so very grateful for all of them. For example, I recently joined a page of religious deconstructionists; I’m in great company, as I continue to pare away harmful untruths and build a life-enhancing theology as I travel toward a rich life here – despite our losses, even the most painful ones. Also, my spiritual awakening is personal and not universal. My hope is that through hell and high water, we each reach the apex of life experiences and transcend the veil of illusion (No, I’m not Buddhist) — , and hence, dispense with the separateness that has only hurt us since time immemorial.

This year has been rich with gifts on so many levels I can scarcely begin to leave an accounting of them as I leave it behind. How do I face another year without Rikki? I don’t know how I’ve managed the last nine; I really don’t know. I guess I booked myself solid on each anniversary/angelversary. I’m good, really good at overbooking myself so I don’t have to deal with things that hurt or that create a lot of discomfort.

Judge Dread said, “Emotions? I think there ought to be a law against them.” Perhaps hyperbole is a necessity when things become too absurd. Chance or Divine Intervention? Who knows? I don’t need to answer that question anymore. I know that each time I think I nail it, G_d, or truth, or spiritual wholeness, the dice roll as they may, and I’m forced to allow changes in my life because of lessons learned in myriad places and through myriad teachers. Those teachers help to guide me into a greater version of myself. No [wo]man is an island, entire to itself (Donne).

There’s so much to do, but I don’t care to stress myself out over busy tasks; I’m way out there on a plane of collective consciousness, and trying to solve social ills through divine inspiration in contemplative prayer; some call it G_d. I’m still working on it. Whatever it is that holds this universe together, if it’s external or is it through the collective will of humanity that agree we are here in this time space continuum, and we have the ability to singly, or collectively, change our living conditions, to optimize them for all living things, to find and to share wholeness, here, now.

Ten years ago, I could focus only on my pain; it was all consuming. I used to think I hadn’t accomplished anything during the first three and a half years of my grief process. I sobbed – and convulsively, too. The crying spells were exhausting physically. I often could not breathe and would have to put my head between my legs to come back to the present. I was lost and during that time, even in abject pain, I knew there was an answer that would satisfy my soul enough so that I could go on without my son.

So, what did I do? I educated myself through books on grief, loss, rediscovery, wonder, healing, and then…I went to seminary. Did I find the answer? No, I have not. But every day, I’ve healed a little more, all the way to the point where I’m now able to be present for someone who is in the same kind of pain I was in ten years ago. There was never calm before the storm; we were always deep in the tempest, and because of the turbulence, I now have peace. Does that make sense?

I’ve been trying to make sense of everything since I was first sentient and verbal. I have a voracious appetite for knowledge, and books are my addiction, well, and clothes. Trying to make sense of grief and trying to figure out what adaptive benefit it holds for us has been of great interest to me since I began to heal. Honestly, as I close out this year, I’m certainly going to grieve the loss of some amazing people who traveled 2025 with me. I release them to their own trajectories, and if we intersect at some point again, I’ll celebrate; if we don’t, I’ll celebrate because they did at one time, and I’m forever changed because of them.

My son changed my life. Both his birth and his death and all the days in between and all the days since he left us. I am not the same person I was before he passed and not since. I’ve grieved for the person who got me through so much of my life, and I welcome the new person who dances me into the next phase of my life.

I’ll be sixty-four in June, and I want to hear the chorus loudly, “Will you still need me, will you still feed me when I’m sixty-four.” My husband made me swear we wouldn’t sing it at his 64^th. I will be starting a doctoral program in Fall 2026. I took a year off after seminary, and most especially, after a tough two-year internship. My “sabbatical” has been used researching my areas of interest, vegging, growing, getting in shape intellectually, spiritually, and physically.

Ten years ago, I was so focused on getting a handle on grief, I couldn’t see past my own pain. All the while, people were hurting all around me. People were angry. People were confused. And the hits just keep on comin’. I never had the clarity of mind to see past the illusion before my son died; I was very much a part of it. When you lose a child, well, I don’t know how much more reality one can cram in your face; things happen, terrible things, and there you have it.

How we handle them will determine their duration and their outcome.

As I think of Christmases past with my tiny boy, with tape and tinsel in his hair, and as I think about times when I got everything right, I am a bit wistful for Christmases – the ones I never had. As I wrap up another year of posttraumatic growth, I’m grateful for the chaos I grew through. I’m grateful for the polished and the inept teachers who graced (or dis-d) the last 365 days. I’m grateful for the gems found on the journey, even those I had to bleed for.

I have a caravan of loved ones cruising through on their way to other places. I’m grateful my holidays are no longer spent in the fetal position in our darkened bedroom. I’m also not ashamed there was a time when I found that position necessary; it’s the position of supreme pain; ask anyone. Even roly-polies curl up when threatened; it’s a great strategy for actual or emotional danger.

Anyhow, this word soup is my way of saying goodbye to a year filled with joy and frustration. I feel nothing but gratitude today, as I go into the new year, spiritually in the black, and for me, finding my peace through the pain I’ve navigated for too many years is the one package under the tree that I’ve waited for my entire life thus far.

I may, for the sake of nostalgia, find a Christmas Eve candlelight service to attend, or I may watch It’s a Charlie Brown Christmas, and reminisce about a handful of tender moments from my childhood, few and far between, but I’ll find some, if it’s the last damn thing I do.

I pray, yes, I really do, to the great whatever that holds us together in this great big universe, that your holidays are merry and bright, and that your Christmases are light. (I live in the desert; snow is a rarity).

Merry Holidays! As I await the brightest star in the sky, the one that speaks to me about the arrival of my own son, forty-two years ago, I’ll travel the pathway Mary rode along on her donkey only to find there was no place where she might give birth to the king of the universe — with dignity. I may interpret the story more deeply than before, but I’ve been there before, as have we all.

I remember my mother’s knack for wrapping presents and for making things pretty. My packages were wrapped up pretty much like this blogpost, bulky, and leaving the recipient with his head tilted asking, “What the hell could it be?” That’s okay, I’ve learned that I can’t have order all the time, and once I allow myself permission to just say, “fuck it” and move forward with the wonder of and in the universe in all its imperfection, I can breathe again.

Just like when Rikki died…I learned to navigate in messiness. If I’ve learned anything this year, it’s that life is messy and I can either deal with it or lapse into chronic neuroses and dysregulation.

I choose the former. I choose to feel every single emotion – even the really shitty ones. 2025 was messy, but oh so wonderful. I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.

Sweet Jesus

By Sherrie Cassel

Every Christmas for a few years now, I’d repost a missive I wrote for Christmas that actually received over 1K hits. I had been pulling away from the hold that vestiges of fundamentalism still had on me. I just remember in a home full of angst and violence, the holidays were still magical. We always had a tree, and I heard stories about how my poor, asshole father would get us a tree, sometimes the night before Christmas, and we’d wake up to a fully decorated tree my mom had created out of her imperfect love for her children. Our father didn’t get drunk on Christmas and the twinkling lights from Christmases past blend into my present — lights, with days and days of peace, something I wasn’t fortunate enough to find in my childhood home. Perhaps for this reason, I am wistful on Christmas Eve.

This is the ninth Christmas without my son. I feel it too.

I finished my four years of seminary, plus two process theology classes. My husband and I celebrated our twentieth anniversary as a couple, and on December 19, we’ll celebrate our seventeenth year of marriage. I don’t preach a “gospel” of “good news” for anyone but myself. I know there is a spark in each of us, even the worst among us that burns, even if it’s just barely keeping the ember alight.

I trust everyone will find herself amid a good life – if we can only let go of all the things that hurt us, people, places and things. Religion as viewed through the lens of a survivor of domestic violence, aka a former “victim”, will be a much different experience than someone who was loved throughout her formative years. A contrast that is sobering. How does one find the God of one’s understanding? Does one need a God to have a fully satisfying life? My husband is an atheist, who is not informed by a “god”. He was not raised with parents who “worshiped” a “god” – nor did they routinely attend church. Other than my father-in-law singing “The Old Rugged Cross” – there was no “Christianity” in his bones.

I’ve known hundreds of Christians throughout my religious deconstruction. I’ve known many who were deeply religious, and so, deeply tortured about their impotence to do God’s “will” – adequately, and if they didn’t win enough souls to their God of judgment, they could be cast into a fiery hell where they will burn for all eternity while never acclimating to the torturous heat. Sweet Jesus. I was such a “Christian” in my early life, but I had such low self-esteem, I needed a powerful God to hide behind. See, if I was “good” I wouldn’t go to hell, and there was something about knocking someone off her human pedestal and sending those “enemies” straight to hell – in my broken spirituality – that scared me even then. This behavior, this belief are not conducive to being able to extend grace to others.

I don’t know what it means to be “perfect” – I only know that I’ve made so many mistakes in my life, some from ignorance, some from adrenaline seeking and high risk behavior, and some from sheer willfulness. Guilt is also a strong guiding force – until you learn to let go of the illusion of perfection, of your perfection, and so, of others’ perfection too.

I find guilt to be a vestige of religiosity. Before I was even conceived, I was a fearfully and wonderfully made “sinner” who needed salvation from the get-go, or the consequences were that fiery pit of eternal torment. I knew this story since my early catechism days, and then I concretized and syncretized Catholicism with the Southern Baptist contribution by my mother. The confessional was a frightening room, dark as my secrets. As a sexual assault survivor of a Catholic priest, the bridge to Catholicism is one that I have burned, and I don’t wish to reconstruct that bridge; there’s nothing for me on the other side.

Guilt serves no purpose. I have remorse for when I’ve behaved badly, and I accept the consequences of my actions, she said blushing, because her misbehaviors have been many.

I’m very careful about how I present my spiritual location. Am I a Christian? I’m a Buddhist? Am I secularist? Am I humanist? Interesting intersections, if you’re open to finding connections between others, and within yourself. I wish I could say with definitiveness that I am a Christian, Buddhist, secularist, humanistic, but I can’t.

My parents imposed their “religious” traditions on their children, and as such, I know I have a part of my brain that was conditioned to believe in a Higher Power; not everyone is. I do have a template in my brain that is filled with so much knowledge, the connections I’m able to make with my fellow living organisms, especially with my fellow human beings, have been earth shattering. I’m grateful for the struggles, and I’m grateful for the victories.

The presentation of Jesus in the Christian New Testament, to me, illustrates a rational mind. You feed the poor and starving. You clothe those who have not. You take care of the widow and the orphan, and you love God and others as you love yourself. Jesus, to me, represents altruism, selfless behavior, with the expectation that people would heal enough to be responsible for their own healing, “Take up your bed and walk.” With all the self-help books on the market, the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Androcles and the Lion, Little Red Riding Hood, and the stories about Jesus are each and every one of them cautionary tales meant to highlight some aspect of our psyches that need changing or fine-tuning.

G_d is real to me – in a panentheistic way, i.e., G_d encompasses All That Is, and because of this, I feel the Wholeness and the Holiness of a Higher Power that informs my ability to love and to extend grace – even to the worst of us. I’m not saying that “forgiveness is necessary” to move forward in one’s life, or to have a spectacular life; it’s not. Grace is different than forgiveness. Forgiveness makes me think that by forgiving, all is forgotten; it’s not, nor will it ever be forgotten.

Grace requires understanding. Understanding is an outgrowth of healing. I get that my father was a terrible man, and I also know his father was, and so was his mother, and my mother’s grandmother and aunts were abusive to her. One became abusive and the other became a frightened shadow of what she could have been. I think genetic inheritance is kinder than emotional inheritance. We each, my siblings and I, got a little of each from my parents.

So, why do I need a G_d? I don’t know that I do; I mean, I don’t know that I “need” one, but I know one of the archetypes that speaks to me is the symbol of Jesus. I would love to be able to walk around just loving people and encouraging them to know they are worthy of whatever wholesome love is out there. I do this now, but only because of the archetypes with which I’m most familiar. Is Jesus an archetype or is he a real person to you? The Jesus model I got to know in seminary is a far cry from the one who had words put in his mouth and was interpreted through the eyes of judgment and imperialism.

I don’t know what I celebrate during the holidays anymore. I know I still have a soft spot in my consciousness when I see the twinkling lights, or the creche, or kids with eyes as big as the shiny globes on their trees. I love IT’S A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS and FROSTY THE SNOWMAN. I love Christmas carols.

Finally, I love that during what can be a good time of the year, we’re wishing peace and good tidings to all (except at the malls). I love the story of Jesus coming to the world to save it from the kind of religion that really hurts people and so, wreaks havoc on social systems.

Women, we’re still digging ourselves out from underneath the patriarchy.

Our grandson is too old to get excited about decorating the tree; he’s too cool for that. He is going up north to be with his mom, and we will celebrate the holiday with our son, and ring in the new year grateful for each other, and grateful for the coziness of a holiday that has largely become meaningless in America, but for the capitalistic conspicuous consumption – and the massive debt we go into as the new year begins – in the red.

I’ll read the passage in the Bible that Linus quotes*, and I’ll feel warm fuzzies, and a touch of wistfulness as I remember the Jesus about whom I used to be certain. I’m not sure if Santa was a necessary prototype, one that would prepare us for the unbelievable, but I learned Santa was my mom and dad when I was only four. I don’t know when I learned that Jesus was not a historical person, but a metaphorical one. I just know that I love what Jesus represents to me, a person with reason, a person with strong and healthy boundaries, and a person with empathy and love toward all living things. So, for Christmas, Xmas, Winter solstice, or just any other day, I hope the 25^th going into the new year brings with it peace, joy, the messiah you need, especially the one within you.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Luke 2: 8-20

With no particular place to go

By Sherrie Cassel

3 a.m. musings – and I’m wide awake, ruminating on craziness, on the rollercoaster of a 63-year-old life. I’m pushing Medicare age, and, yes, I’m hoping that in the two years I have until I’m “there”, there will still be Medicare. We’ll see. Health insurance, Covered California, while not ideal, is also projected on the chopping block. Hang in there, folks; new regimes led by the whims of child leaders is nothing new. People get tired of chaos and fight to regain order – it takes a minute, but … this is not a political post. Did the opening grab you though?

I spent some time in Mexico with my younger brother and his senior and absolutely adorable dog, Argo, and I, again, had the whole house to myself, just my fur nephew and I, chillin’ down south. I really enjoyed myself. We ate great food and watched horror movies, and I listened to the political views of someone I love who is the polar opposite of myself politically and religiously. We each express our spirituality differently even though we grew up speaking the same language and with the same theology. Seminary changed me and my relationship with the God of my understanding (the GOMU).

I’m not prone to expressing my sadness, frustration, or anger through sentimental tears; I’ve actually been very good holding back the tears. My father was a mean Marine, and crying was for stupid people. Stupidity was a common theme directed at each of his children. When Rikki died, I had no restraint. I sobbed until I couldn’t anymore. Supreme grief from the loss of a child is an acceptable expression of sorrow, and had my father been alive when his only grandchild died, he would have joined me.

Having recently lost a sister, one with whom I was never close, but still my sister, the one who shared a history with me of terror and domestic violence, the sister who “knew”, is starting to affect me. I did not cry; I don’t think I really need to, but there is a certain sadness that we were never close. Such is life in a family rife with triangulations. You know pitting one another against the other. The othering of family members is not a good launching pad.

My point, like, “Where is she going with this?”, and it’s difficult for me to admit, but … here she goes, Taylor Swift’s new CD, THE LIFE OF A SHOWGIRL, had me in tears today. I spent time with one of the only two remaining siblings I have last week, and we know now, because we lost our sister that death will take each one of us and the time is uncertain for each of us. I got weepy over the strength of this young woman who had been loved well by emotionally sound parents, and by all accounts is very well-adjusted. The world watched her grow up from princess to feminist whose rebel cry is, “Fuck the patriarchy.” Time marches on, and we shift our perspectives many times as we grow through our lifespan, brief or one of some longevity.

I allowed myself, with significant embarrassment, to tell my husband what the CD means to me, choking up the whole time. See, my younger brother, my “little” brother is still as such, even though like our machismo father, he feels it is his duty to take care of the woman, and an “elderly” one at that. Geez…yes, it happens – if we’re very, very fortunate; we get old.

I consider the things I will never do in this lifetime, and they won’t be necessary in the next. I will never be in a wet t-shirt contest (again). I wasn’t the only thing that went down south. Sorry, ”it” happens too. No illusions guys, gals, and zas. There are other things I’m okay with not doing. I will probably not climb Mt. Everest in this lifetime, and again, it won’t be necessary in the next life…or my life and my incredible ride through academia and seminary will be my Everest; that will be enough.

Who knew after growing up in hell and with the moniker of “stupid” drilled into my Soul– I would climb, with blood, sweat, and tears, the mountain of academia? I’m currently applying to doctoral programs for the Fall of ’26. Unbelievable. Wet t-shirts may be a no go, but furthering my knowledge has only brought me closer to the GOMU, a vast, panentheistic God, inclusive and loving. As a result of knowledge, my life has changed enough to be self-aware that my purpose in life, perhaps, it is the purpose of every living human, to be of service to those who are less fortunate.

See, even if we were broken, we’re not permanently damaged. There is always hope. The GOMU is inside me now; It flows through and out of me; it is recirculated and mingled with yours and others, IF I allow my heart to be as open as my mind. Who knew someone whose childhood, all eighteen years of it was truly hell, would find her purpose in spiritual healing? I’m real. I’m honest. I learned after losing my son that there are some things you can’t fake. So, I was told that when I’m applying for jobs to be “careful” about my blog posts. I didn’t know I “could” be authentic. I was not so for many decades of my life. In secular academia, there’s a cutthroatedness (not a word, sorry, hubby – he taught high school English and Theatre Arts – kind of a rigid grammarian), that I, after having worked for those same decades in academia, I didn’t find in seminary. I’m a writer who was tethered to propriety for so long, I almost didn’t allow the reconstruction of a self through mad self-awareness. I won’t be tethered now.

I didn’t have to pretend that my mind was not blown every single day of seminary. Spirituality, to me, is far more of a soul trip than is academia; one may argue with me, but – they are not the same. “Knowledge is power” – what of the fortification of the Soul?

The part of my worldview, the part of my brain that housed a template for a “god” – was blown and shattered in seminary. I heard someone else’s story. I allowed myself to “feel” the stories. The stories provided the thaw I needed. The loss of my son provided the tears, steaming and hot, to bore through my fear of emotionality, of sentimentality, of shame for that sentimentality. My father was a brute, and he never received the help he needed, never thought he needed to. He avenged his childhood on us, and we each became bullies by adaptation. But and I won’t proselytize about my own “conversion” story, but the scales fell from my heart, and I’m a changed woman, since the death of my son.

There’s a compulsion like never before to be of service to those who are hurting deep in their Souls and who need to reconnect, or even to connect for the first time, to the God of their Understanding, whether it be the natural beauty of Joshua Tree National Park, or the ocean, or the tiny hands of your infant child, a teenager whose light goes on and she realizes she’s worth that pearl of great price, whatever that looks like to her, whatever that looks like to you.

Perhaps for this post, there is no point. Perhaps I just needed to say a few things born of the wonderful time I had with my brother and his dog, and the realization that the point is, and perhaps this IS the point, to eat, drink, and to be merry, “for tomorrow your life may be required of [us]”. Seems I’ve read that before, seminary? Just kidding. I’m sentimental about the Hebrew and Christian Bibles; I cut my teeth on them. I’m not, however, a literalist. The Books need a more compassionate interpretation, and those of us whose education has been mostly spiritual, need to not be afraid to break out of the “traditional” models of interpretation. Why can’t Jesus’s life and death be representative of commanding one’s life to a conclusion he/she/they of which one can be proud – whether one began her life wholesomely or shittily.

You all know where I began.

So, I was so embarrassed by my tears with my husband and inspired by the life my brother and I share now that we’re older and wiser (allegedly, right?). Expression of my emotions is easier now, but not “easy.” I hope you allow yourselves your meltdowns (as long as they are not a way of life). I have been moved by people who are truly tough with ample reasons who have allowed themselves to be vulnerable and weep with me.

Tears frightened me for a long time, especially my own. Was it because my father told me only pussies cry and it was a sign of uber weakness? Well, of course it was. When your child dies, or someone with whom you’ve had a significant relationship, tears gush and there’s no stopping them. They will pour until you’re so exhausted in your Soul, you want only relief from your pain. I’ve heard people, other grievers refer to the tears that send ache out of your body, as “cleansing” tears. They’ve never washed “away” the pain, but they have provided unguent to my broken Soul and forced me into healing.

Tears – for reminiscence, good or bad; for experience, good or bad; for love; for loss, for different phases that hurt, but transform a person, all of the tears you can tolerate will launch you into your greatest life. Please don’t compromise your artistry for bureaucratic powers that be. Allow those cleansing tears to flow into a pool on your kitchen table; I did — and create from that pool of tears. Perhaps I wept for more than the loss of my son during grief. Grief tends to make you feel EVERYTHING – past, present, and it makes you anticipate the future instead of focusing on today.

Trust me, the embarrassment goes away – with practice.

I finally realized emotions are beautiful and uniquely expressed by each of us for varying reasons. As time goes on …we change, we age, we collect social security and go on Medicare, and we live our lives, complete with unrestrained or carefully meted tears, and that really is — okay.

To everything there is a season – and a purpose under heaven.

Merry Misnomers

By Sherrie Cassel

Thanksgiving has come and gone, and Christmas is on the horizon, speeding toward us, targeting our need to keep up with Jones’s conspicuous consumption. Christmas, in America, is an insane time anyhow, but now with the social pathology taking place in my country and other parts of the world, Christmas is a bit strained. As social services are being eliminated or drastically cut, there’s a lot to be nervous about in my country.

But this is not a political post.

Thanksgiving was absolutely lovely. We had a houseful and there was laughter, love, and turkey! I loved the configuration of our guests. Conversation was riveting in each corner of our living room. I was exhausted by the time we were able to sit down to eat and after dinner, we visited until the sun went down. I really did have a lovely time.

I had a moment where I was able to tune out and feel my son’s absence. See, most of the time, after ten years, I control grief; it no longer controls me. Certainly, I was mostly present for my guests, but when a dyad was deeply expressing her point of view to another person, I was able to survey my life in snippets as I sat observing the quality of people in our lives.

Holidays will never be the same without my North Star, my Love, my sweet Angel Baby. I’ve had to make a life that no longer resembles the life I had when Rikki was still here with us. I’ve learned to navigate the holidays with only vestigial pain; I mean, it still hurts, but there’s something that really is okay about it. A little bit of wistfulness on milestone days is not necessary, if you can manage it, but it’s also nothing about which to be ashamed.

Twenty-two days into the new year, we will honor our son’s ten-year angelversary; for some reason, I’m dreading this one. Ten years without my son has taken me toward descents into an emotional hell, for sure, and it took me a few years to settle my soul after such a devastating loss. I have made grief my beta; I’m no longer afraid of triggers. I have learned to muddle through them. I’m the alpha bitch and I will not be at the mercy of rogue emotions.

Don’t get me wrong, I weep when I need to, and there are certain songs that elicit strong emotions, which, depending on if I’m in a safe space to do so, I allow myself to submerge myself into the overwhelm. I still ache when I think about my son or when I see pictures of him. There’s a pride that he was my son, and there’s a pang that howls from deep inside me because I can’t tell him I love him or that I’m sorry I wasn’t the perfect mother he richly deserved.

I’ll celebrate this holiday season with my family of choice. I’ll trim the tree, and wrap presents, and try to not think about another year; a significant number of years will come and go, and I’ll feel the ache, and book myself solid, so I can function in the life I’ve built for myself. See, it took me a while to get back to the living after Rikki died, but I’m here now, and I so love life – as I carry my son’s ghost. We commune from time to time, when I’m feeling strong enough.

One of my favorite things to do, and I’ve done it since my son was gifted to me, is get up before everyone else does and sit in the glow of the twinkling Christmas lights. There’s a moment in between darkness and the sunrise that I find to be holy, especially as so many celebrate the life of their king, and others partake in my capitalist society, and max out their credit cards, which means they’ll enter the new year in significant debt.

We’ve truly learned in our family since we lost the star of our show that it’s about presence and not presents. The gift of time is the best gift we can give to someone. Five minutes of uninterrupted time together with a friend who has something to say, good, bad, or indifferent, can make or break an opportunity to be of service to someone. Since Rikki died, and having been Catholic at one time, I feel like the career choice I’ve made is almost like penance for all my fuck ups.

I know that’s silly, but even ten years later, traces of regrets call me back to tough times, including the early years of profound grief. Like an algebra problem, in order to balance both sides, one takes a little here and adds a little there, and X ends up being the strength toward healing, both sad and transcendent gains and losses. What does transcendence mean? What does it look like? Have you ever known anyone, or read accounts of someone who has had a near death experience (NDE)? One does not have to die clinically to have an NDE. For example, I had cancer when I was thirty-one. I survived and as a result I began to thrive in my life after my surgeries. I began to realize what was important in my life. I transcended my suffering and turned it into purpose – with strenuous emotional work and the help of those who love me. Counseling proved unsatisfactory in grief.

Despite my greatest loss, Rikki’s death; I consider the initial shock and the subsequent visceral grief an NDE. I died the day Rikki did. The person I had been for fifty-three years had to reevaluate my life, had to normalize my grief, and had to rebuild from rock bottom up. I believe I’ve done the work and I’m now on fire for life, but make no mistake, I still have days when I have to fight to function, but because grief is no longer my master, I force myself to stay present in my life and in the lives of those I love, and with the clients I see.

I know the exact moment I allowed healing to begin; I’ve told the story many times here, so I’ll spare you the retelling of it. The touchstone of healing lies within you, within your mind and within your heart…and the language you use to talk yourself through your pain.

The holiday season brings with it the realization that life is fleeting and even when we are suffering, time passes without consideration for our pain. I know the time will fly and January 22, 2026 will be here before I know it, and 5:55 p.m. will strike on the clock, and I may have my head covered and I may be curled up in the fetal position as I mourn, and recall the day I lost my son, or, I may be busy living life, remembering him with a candle lit and an altar built to honor him. Whatever happens, I know the time will pass and I will emerge from sorrow into joy and functionality. But still, I dread.

Christmas careens toward us at a speed that is truly incomprehensible. Two-thousand and twenty-six is only a few weeks away. How can we manage through the holidays when it’s been only a few days, weeks, or the first year since our loved one died? Or even ten years. . .

What has worked for me is the love of my family of choice. My husband has been a phenomenal support to me. A few of my friends can handle when I allow myself to weep for my loss because grief never truly goes away. We used to believe that suicides happen more often during the holidays than any other time of the year. The Library of Medicine claims this is not true, but, depression, already spearheaded by chemical imbalances, is prevalent during the major American holidays, i.e., Thanksgiving and Christmas. Loneliness is often an issue for those who are either in relationships that are not satisfying or life-enhancing, or they are alone, with few friends, and no family.

I’ve been fortunate to always have someone in my life who gives a shit about me, even if imperfectly; no one manages gracefulness all the time. We are clumsy by nature. We’re still fumbling our way toward what many of us hope is a good life, glorious afterlife, or sweet oblivion. All three options are appealing to me.

I know, I’ve rambled, but my heart is both heavy with joy and with sorrow this morning. Thanksgiving went off without a hitch, and everyone left stuffed and happy. Isn’t that the goal, to thrive amidst the thorns of life? I’m resolved to let that be my life task: thriving.

I do have a couple of resolutions which I will carefully guard against sabotage, by myself or another. In the interim between now and Christmas Eve, Christmas and New Year, I will make it my goal to be a supportive person in the lives of those who are tired, broken, and alone. What can we do to ring in the new year? Find your passion and pour yourself into it. When we’re doing well in grief, we’re in the best position to help someone who is really struggling.

When I was at my lowest point during my first Christmas without Rikki, someone suggested that I work at a homeless shelter helping to serve Christmas dinner, and so, I did. The next year, and the next year, I did the same thing. I began to look forward to the holidays because they gave me the opportunity to help someone who was down on her luck, someone who was not living the American Dream, or those whose families exiled them. If I can help it, no one I know should be alone during the holidays. I do my level best to use my sorrow to be of service to other aching hearts.

What do I want for Christmas this year? In an alternate universe of unbridled perfection, I want you.

Hang in there; firsts are always rocky.

True Story in Prose: No rhyme, no reason

By Sherrie Cassel

I never needed noise to drown
out my pain, or to quiet the voices
in my head.

You did.

I need silence to drown out
all the sounds of distraction. Raised in
rigid fire and brimstone, yes.

You knew.
Our infinitely many pet peeves,
had us in stitches
on a really good day.

We laughed.

Battling imbalanced hormones,
We managed the best we could.
Even in the tempests, there was mad love.

We understood.

before it was too late. Having quantifiable
answers was always your bag. The proof was in
the pudding,

you said.

And you needed answers, rational
ones that helped you order your world,
and comforted your weary mind.

You tried.

Our brains were so alike that there
was bound to be a collision, the tsunami
built up until it could no longer carry its weight.

We knew.

We would soar or we would surrender,
and so, as choice became less of an option,
I held on until my fingers bled.

You surrendered.

Acceptance does not respond to medication.
We tried to save you, like I’d been saved,
but your disease also did not respond to love, and so,

you died.

I tried until I had no choice but to surrender.
I knew I was losing you to the tempest, and
there was nothing I could do to heal you.

I’m sorry.

I’ve burst through the veil, behind which
I could not grow beyond my grief. I have
surrendered to the Present moment; it’s all

I have.

I have fought hard against the rhythm of the
wounded. My Love, my Baby, my sweet Boy,
you’ve been gone almost ten years, and

I will always…
love you.

We each go grieving on and on, hurrah, hurrah!

By Sherrie Cassel

Hokusai Katsushika (1760–1849)

Cacti close shop for the winter. Cottontails hibernate. Coyotes come into neighborhoods because their prey has gone underground. Californians hustle and bustle all year round. Southern California has two seasons: perfect and a little less than perfect. I didn’t grow up with fiery hillsides of changing leaves or months of snow and rain.

In the high desert we get a little rain, but when we do, it hits us hard. There are signs all over our town that read, “Turn around; Don’t drown.” There’ve been three drownings since my husband and I moved here, and one of the victims was a native of the area. When it’s our time to go, it’s our time to go…by whatever cause, i.e., illness or accident.

My son’s death was ruled an accident because it was not his intention to die. Certainly, he was wounded by the events that were occurring in his life at the time of his tempest. Those events, and others, some I shoulder, are what killed my son. I tried with all my might to save him, but like the starving coyote in the winter, there was not enough sustenance to stave off his deep hunger for healing, and so, he died. Unlike the coyote though, my son was not alone when he starved to death. I was with him. As flawed as I was, I was always with him.

I may be familiar with two types of weather as a Southern California girl, but I do have emotional seasonal changes. Some people get SAD (seasonal affective disorder) when there is less daylight. SAD is accompanied by depression. I’m grateful that depression is not my challenge during winter; and depression no longer accompanies me during fall, spring, or summer either.

How does grief affect my seasonal changes? To be blunt, grief affects every single aspect of my life since my son died; I carry it with me in every inhalation and exhalation; and I will do so, until my last breath. I’ve learned so much about myself through the grief process. Grief has made me more compassionate, kinder, more open-minded and open-hearted. Grief, despite the loss I had to navigate, has, in fact, made me a better person. I’d give it all back if I could, in an alternate universe, of course, have him back, whole. I was never into science fiction though.

The American holidays are upon us; the first one is next week, and the year is flying by. Holidays used to be tough for me. I couldn’t surrender to my grief during the holidays because we always have our grandson during those times and I wanted to keep the days magical for him. I would mourn the absence at our table and the joy Rikki had during every holiday later; he made them magical for me.

My son died on January 22, 2016; he will be gone ten years in a couple of months. How did I manage the greatest loss of my life? Sometimes I wonder too, but time marches on, and I soldier on along with it. This Thanksgiving, we’re having several people grace our home and, I cannot begin to express how excited I am to celebrate a day of gratitude with our family of choice. See, it’s part of the healing process – to be able to celebrate life again after our most significant losses; it is personal growth. I mean, I will never not think about my son; he’s embedded in my DNA, and even if that was not the case, he’s embedded in my Soul.

My calling, in later life, is healing. Prior to the realization of what I needed to do, not just for others, but for me, too, I was self-absorbed, broken, despairing, in short, I was lost, and I was lost for a very long time – because I stayed in a life shrouded in pain. I think about how broken I was, as broken as my son, and I numbed my pain, too, but it wasn’t my time to go – yet. I’ll get there – just as we all will. What a sunny thought. Not.

I had no idea how to mourn. I had lost people: my father, my mother, a sister, but nothing like losing my child, my only biological child. I see now how hard I resisted entering into the mourning phase, kicking and screaming, and refusing to even entertain the possibility that I would reach a point in my process where I could function in my life again, soldier on, certainly, but also, to reach a point in my life where I could find reasons to celebrate life – despite my greatest loss. I ached so deeply, there remains a black hole in my heart, and as much as I’d like to know what’s on the other of that black hole, it’s not yet my time to know, and so, I soldier on – with understanding and acceptance of how and why my son died. I find comfort in understanding and acceptance. There is something about having answers that helps in the healing process.

Answers aren’t always pretty, and sometimes, truth hurts – especially – when we must admit the pain we, ourselves, have caused. I think self-awareness, insight into the most bare, naked parts of our psyches and our souls are absolutely essential to transformation and transcendence. I want to model healthy mourning for our grandson, as I navigate, for my lifespan, grief from losing my child. Our grandson has seen me weep, and he’s seen me laugh. He’s seen me be sorrowful, and he’s seen me celebrate life. I want him to know that no matter how much it hurts, and life can hurt, we can navigate our mourning phase until we no longer need to be there, but, again, no matter how much life hurts, sometimes – it won’t. I want to offer hope to those who are struggling through grief of their own, no matter what they’ve lost.

I want to model hope.

Losing my son has been the loss of my life, losing him has rearranged my very DNA and I will never be the same again, biologically, neurologically, psychologically, and definitely, I will never be the same spiritually. Personal growth, for me, is always the goal. The more sane, rational, lucid, and the more responsive and less reactive I become, is healing for our world, one person, one me at a time.

Our grandson and I dance together in the living room. I remember dancing with his father, my son, in our living room – a home of tempests and a love so fierce, not even death can extinguish it. Like e.e. cummings penned, I carry my son – always; I carry him in my heart. I horde memories of him, like the coyote, hungrily in the winters of my life. See, I am joyful now. I’m hopeful. I’m kind. I’m compassionate. I’ve allowed the transformation, and I have even transcended the family mythology and joined the company of those who strive for understanding and acceptance about why and how they got broken. With understanding comes grace, for others, and for oneself.

With grace comes radical acceptance, the kind that affords us the same compassion we extend to others who share in our imperfection, perhaps imperfection is the common denominator that should herd us into a place of humility. I absolutely love the saying by Mother Teresa that says she wanted her heart to be so broken that the whole world falls in. I think that’s a gift, if there can be a gift when you lose the love of your life, it is a deeper sense of compassion, a much more developed sense of compassion. It’s a bitch of a price to pay to be whole, but…

So, I can feel the tug as I’m writing; it’s pulling me toward a quiet place where I can lick my wounds privately, and later if I’m still feeling blue and the hunger becomes too strong, I’ll go for a walk and feed my soul by listening to the birds as they gorge themselves on worms after a rainstorm. I’ll tell our grandson what’s going on, and I’ll model for him how to navigate his own grief, how to move forward from it. I lost my son, but – I’m not a victim of the Fates. I wasn’t being punished for my mad imperfections by some angry god. My son was one of those who struggled with addiction who didn’t make it, again, losing Rikki is the heartbreak of my life. I’ve seen homeless men, women, and zas staggering down the street, graying past my son’s age when he died. The loss is neither fair nor unfair; it just is.

I’ve worked hard to be able to leave the mourning phase, and its black hole, for later; perhaps upon my own death bed, the sky will open up and my son will greet me, or … I’m reabsorbed into the great cosmic ball of infinite energy, finally free and who gets to flow through the living – forever connected.

Oh, Death, where is your sting; oh, grave, where is your victory? 1 Cor. 15:55

Maybe a fusion with the panentheistic God (?)– but like the black hole analogy, I have no clue what happens when we die; only hope and speculation shaped by my worldview, including the religions I was socialized in. Some things are shaped by a vestigial faith – that appears when I’m most desperate, i.e., when Rikki was dying from addiction, I lay prostrate on the floor begging the god of my limited understanding to save him. I don’t blame the God of my present understanding, the giant ball of energy that will gather me into itself, and I will never die. And other times, I want to be a tree.

It’s not my time yet, and perhaps the 32 years of maelstrom and utter love with my son are all I will get in this life now shaped by me, in this single, marvelous life. The momma who held out hope ‘til my son’s very last breath wants with every fiber of my being to see my son again. But I’m okay now if all I get is eternal slumber; I did have my son. I loved him and I fucked up, and just like someone who struggles with addiction, I relapse into self-blame, guilt, shame, and misplaced responsibility, and I dig in my heels to stay in painful ruminations. I don’t want to transmit that unhealthy coping mechanism to our grandson. Grief is like a wave; it gathers up its energy and uses it to make the water build up until it becomes too heavy for it to carry itself, and it must fall and stabilize, or … marine catastrophes. I got tired of dysregulation, and I’m the only one who can calm myself enough to get out of the rip current, and – save myself. So, that’s what I did, and that’s what I continue to do, until my last exhalation…and I don’t know what to expect, but in the meantime, time marches on, and so do I.