Rationalizing until the Cows Come Home

By Sherrie Cassel

Dedicated to the Esperon Family

The world would be silent, but “American Pie” is playing on my phone and I’m grateful for the noise. I’m listening as Don McLean sings about the spirit of my generation. I think about how Lennon read a book on Marx and how when someone is in a position of power, she can change the course of history for good or for evil – through the imposition or compulsory laws spreading her philosophies: You must believe this way, because it is the only way.

And kingdoms since time immemorial have been force fed someone else’s dogma, and it spreads, and it conquers and divides. But here I go again, rationalizing away my current deep grief for the loss of a dear and wonderful friend, Eric Esperon, a remarkable man and career teacher who touched generations of lives. My heart is broken, but Don McLean and Paul Simon are comforting my tender heart.

Isn’t that how we first begin to grieve, we distance ourselves from the full impact through rationalizations? Isn’t thinking less painful than feeling? I’ve always found it to be so. I have shed some tears, but I’m still in shock that Eric has, like my son, parents, your loved ones, been plucked out of the universe and I will not see him again in this life. I cannot laugh with him, be touched by his kindness, admire the relationships he had with his students and friends, or buy him a Shirley Temple. He had just turned fifty-one.

Once you’re heart can handle the full impact of the loss, you’ll catch yourself clutching your chest overwhelmed by emotion – hold tight. If you’re in a safe space with people who can handle your pain, or even if you’re alone, give in to it. Feel it. Immerse yourself in it. Sob. Please don’t attempt to get behind the wheel of your car if you’re in an emotional overload. Sit it out. Call someone to come get you. Breathe. Pray. Those first overwhelms are absolutely terrifying. Acute grief is a physical response, I would argue. I felt/feel it deep in my chest, where my heart is. I can touch where the ache is. I feel it now.

Eric was a dear friend of our family, as a matter of fact, we consider Eric family. He’s always been there when we needed him; he was always there for everyone. His students are bereft and the entire community is too. He was well-loved because he was so loving. One loss has the potential to resurrect old wounds from your previous losses of loved ones. I carry grief – chronically, since I lost my son. I’ve learned to move forward and continue to live a life of quality, without my son in the universe; it’s a different one without him.

One day, the world will adjust without me, and as I begin a new grief process for a dear friend, I’m mindful of how Eric would want us to live, just as he did, with joy, gusto, tremendous play and compassion for all living things. I will take some time to cry with all who loved him at the celebration of life. Rationalization: the funeral/celebration of life is an opportunity to grieve communally with others who loved your loved one. There is no greater way to heal than communally. Accept the hugs. Weep openly. Speak the truth of your emotion. Share with those who also want to share their heartbreak. We will need each other in the coming days as we help Eric’s family set his Spirit free.

Community is so important in grief. Certainly, there are times when you must just lock yourself in a room with pillows to punch or scream into, or just to curl up in the fetal position and sob – just you and your loved one’s memory. Grief will touch everyone in her lifetime; it’s good to know that your feelings are valid, important, and temporary. Intensity in the beginning is because our minds have just been totally fucked with. Boom! One minute you’re living, loving, and laughing with someone, and the next, you get the call. I’m still reeling over Eric’s death, and we all knew he was very sick and that it was terminal. Still … are any of us ever truly prepared to lose someone, even when death is imminent?

From experience I have to say no, we are not prepared. My son was dying in front of my eyes because he was sick from his heart, addiction, and the kind of brokenness that took him from us, but when he died, and I really did know he was going to die, I was lost for four and a half years while I bucked away from acceptance that he was gone. Fighting the inevitable tidal wave of grief is futile, and it is exhausting. I had residual grief from other losses I had not worked through. This is an important rationalization: if we don’t work through shit, it keeps presenting itself. There is something I would call complex grief, which I would say complex grief occurs when unresolved grief is compounded with current grief. One is at critical mass when one first discovers she has lost a loved one.

I’m still  numb about Eric, but because I’ve worked for nine and a half years to get to the other side of chronic emotional pain from losing my son, I can talk myself through the tears, share my grief, my loss, my broken heart with others who need the same release because they loved him too.

The jury is still out for me about what happens after we die. But if there is a heaven, I know it’s filthy with people we all love, and even those we didn’t. Today I have to console myself with music, words, because it’s not time for the dam to burst yet. I need rationalization to help me land safely into a field of sunflowers where I might weep for my friend.

Eric, as a friend, and as a human being, was as dependable as the sunrise.

I’m not quite ready to watch his sunset yet. Eric was a ghosthunter, and I think he will stick around ‘til after the celebration of life just to watch us all together, like he always did; he always brought people together. Yes, I will rationalize until I can’t hold the tears back any longer.

Rationalizations are so much better than runny noses.

I miss you, my friend.

Busking Joy

By Sherrie Cassel

There’s too much racket – here. The swamp cooler whirs. The cats meow their grand entrance on the scene, and the goddamned crows caw, interrupting my reverie.

It’s just too damn loud this morning,

In my head.

Sometimes I need the noise; it drowns out the screams of a grieving mother, not unlike the monkey my son carried on his own broken back; it’s chronic. He was tired. I’m tired. I’m always tired, and yet, the benefits of bipolar disorder, for me, are manias. I can go until I collapse into bed, sleep four hours, and get up and do it all over again. Manias are what fuel the success of my healing process.

I’ve been missing Rikki in the worst way, and I mean that, in the worst way. I miss him all the time, for sure, but there are times when I’m idle and so many memories come flooding into my spastic brain, so that I need to fill it with loud music and a meaningless beat to save me from a meltdown. I know I need meltdowns from time to time, and I allow for them, just like I allow for meals and bathroom breaks. I really don’t mean that flippantly; meltdowns, after a while, can fit neatly into chaotic life and work schedules.

In between meltdowns…I’ll take the noise.

This morning, I thought I’d cry for a while, but despite the sadness I carry with me all the time, I’m unable to cry. I’m not frustrated; tears can be anticlimactic, too. There’s an acceptance to noise when I finally have the time to actively mourn the loss of my son. There’s an acceptance that Rikki is not physically present, and on this noisy morning, I’m going to let it be okay.

I don’t feel stuck. I’m moving forward with the Ph.D. program. I’m in a stable and happy marriage. I have amazing friends and a family of choice. I have a great deal to keep me busy, and while it’s been a marvelous two months off, it’s time to hop back on the academic fast-track again. If I’m idle for too long, it is the silence that breaks me.

I walk in my life every day with Rikki beside me in some way, shape, or form. I used to think it was just the desperation of a grieving parent that made me think Rikki was all around me, but after nine and a half years of his physical absence, I’ve discovered that his Spirit, his Essence, the part of us that is forever mingled, umbilicus and soul, are ever-present. I wish I could explain it, but as Horatio found out, there are more marvelous things in this universe which we will never be able to explain, and yet, we “feel” them deep in our core, so deep in our core that it feels physical.

This morning, I wanted to commune with that Spirit that connects me forever to my son, and the cats wanted to be fed. The crows were squawking good morning before I’d had my coffee. I generally listen to music at four a.m. before anyone else is up, the cats, my husband, the crows. A neighbor has chickens that sound off at one a.m., two a.m., three a.m. –. They are confused about what time they are to rise and shine. I get it.

I speak to my son every day, not in a way that would make someone question my sanity, but in a way that keeps me connected to him. I believe if you knew someone really well in his lifetime, that you can anticipate what he would say to you about a situation you might find yourself in. I can hear Rikki saying, “Mom, um, not one of your better choices.” I had a friend who turned me on to the Akashic Records. I sat in a chair and called upon the Spirit of my son, and I had a conversation with him, and I was able to make amends to him, posthumously.

I’m feeling some resistance to tapping into the truest and deepest grief available to me today. The sun is shining. I’m feeling great. The irritation about the noise has dissipated, and I’m looking forward to a day of joy and gratitude with my husband. Rikki will accompany me in the music I’ll listen to as the music of consensus reality settles into background music…the leitmotif of busyness. I’ll take it.

My nocturnal felines have returned to slumber, satiated and spoiled. The crows have begun their scavenging. My husband is still sleeping, and in the silence is percolating the ingredients for a good day. My meltdown will have to wait for another day, another trigger, another reason to be expressed.

I love the carnival at night…the lights, the music, the distraction from reality. My reality is that I lost a child. I needed reality this morning – and I got the carnies beckoning me toward the carousel. A nice ride of homeostasis. Today is shaping into a nice day, pleasant temperature, with low emotional intensity.

Music is an emotional emetic. If I need to weep, I know what I need to do, what I need to listen to, and so, I steer clear of certain songs when I’m not willing to go there emotionally. Again, we get to a point in the grief process when we can schedule meltdowns. Triggers will always present themselves, and we never know when or what, but after a few years, we can even manage triggers.

I know, for example, to keep this light, my son loved those giant deli pickles. I haven’t eaten one since before he died. I see them and I want to weep because they brought him such joy. I can now walk past them in the deli without the experience creating a visceral reaction, but I still feel a strong tug.

Today is not the day to weep; my thoughts affect my olfactory memory, and it’s summertime, and I long to be at the beach, smelling the salt air and Coppertone, and remembering all the years my son and I walked on the pier and how he always had to buy a giant pickle, and how much joy those walks brought to us. See, I’m feeling the tug even as I type this.

I’m alone in silence now. I have things to do today. I think I’ll put on some music, happy music, dance music, and remember a time when Rikki and I danced in our kitchen together, and I’ll choose to smile instead of cry.

Yeah, that’s what I’ll do.

Naked

By Sherrie Cassel

I like days when the mask is not required.
No Joker’s smile.
No laugh, clown, laugh –
despite the depth of the pain
I carry

daily.

I feel it through the liquor and through
the laughter, and when I’m not required
to be on display, the wounded warrior,
the purple hearted mother…is surviving
the war,

barely.

My smile is not necessary today.
It’s not. I work hard to not brood,
to not ruminate, to busy myself with
silly tasks of no importance,

fidgeting.

He is bothering me while I try to write
these thoughts, reeling me back
to this present moment, the one
where you are here only theoretically,

ephemerally.

There is a benefit to this moment
in which I am stuck in time. You,
by whatever phenomena, reach me
still, in each present moment I stay
in remembrance of you, of

us.

Today, tears are allowed to flow freely.
There is no danger of smear, evidence that
there has been a meltdown, a loss of function,
even if only briefly. I’m not really alone. My safety
net is in the next room, my

sentinel.

The wind is blowing through the trees
and it is fire season. Last night there were
fireworks downtown, and I nearly walked down the
street to participate in

life.

I chose to sleep through

the festivities.

I didn’t have to dress up.

After the Storm

by Sherrie Cassel

This group has been my baby for nine years. Nine and a half years ago I lost my beautiful and tortured son. I look back at the wrecked person I was then. I remember not being able to get up off the couch. I didn’t have to return to work right away, and for four years, I stagnated, curled up in the fetal position on many days and nights. I dropped out of my bachelor’s program and was afraid to move because I was melting down every time I turned around – something reminded me of Rikki and I had no emotional resources to help me pull myself out of the mire of grief.

I’ve moved far from that woman, but I’m grateful for her too. The person I am today is because the broken me allowed for the pain, deep and hard hitting. She carried it for me, even though I made her carry it for far too long. I know I’ll always grieve the loss of Rikki. Make no mistake; I know this. Grief is for life.

Because I was able to take the time to truly mourn my son, I’ve been able to truly pick myself up by the bootstraps and progress to the next level of grief: healing. Some of us are quick healers and some of us need four years. Wherever you are in your process, let it happen. If you’re hurting yourself to numb the pain with alcohol, drugs, get some professional help. There are healthy ways to process your grief.

I want to validate those of you whose losses are VERY recent. It’s important to mourn our losses; they are beyond significant losses. Cry. Scream. Punch a pillow. Meltdown with a trusted person. Take a nap. Go for a walk. Talk to the God/Spiritual Source of your understanding. All of those are okay…for as long as you need to. We each know, because we’ve lost the most special person in our life, how very quickly life passes.

Rikki was only 32 years old. I’m 63. My son has been gone nine and a half years. I took my time mourning – because I had the time to experience and express the many faces of grief, including alcohol. I’m glad I got my shit together because I have our grandson, Louie. He doesn’t need to see another person who struggles with addiction.

I forget sometimes how long it’s been since Rikki died – and every so often it hits me square in the face…and I meltdown – even all these years later. I know we have parents and grandparents and aunts who raised their nieces and nephews, whose children died decades ago who still have meltdowns. One never knows when something will elicit a trigger that may have us weeping for an entire day. I know. I get it now.

When Rikki first died, I begged an illusory god I’d been taught to believe in, to bring my son back like the legendary Lazarus in the Christian Bible. I screamed that Rikki might wake up and come back to me. We’re allowed unrealities in deep grief. I remember saying I would never accept Rikki’s death, and I held on so tightly to the suffering that my fingers bled. I prayed so hard for something impossible because I would have given my soul to bring my son back.

I finally did/do accept my son’s death. As much as it hurts, I know in my entire spirit that Rikki is gone and he is not going to come back. I’m one who desperately holds on to hope for an afterlife. I miss Rikki so much it really aches sometimes, but so I could move forward with my life, I have to accept that Rikki is gone and there is nothing I can do about it, not even selling my soul. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read this online…the desperation of parents to the point they say things that are unrealistic. All of that is understandable if you’ve lost a child –. One of my professors told me that I had incurred the worst loss imaginable. I was taught to be humble, but in retrospect, parents who’ve lost a child(ren) will never “get over it”. I haven’t. I’ve accepted that Rikki is dead. As much as that reopens a wound that is still very tender, I’ve accepted that that wound will never heal completely.

So…as time goes on, acceptance becomes necessary to move forward. Some of us are able to heal enough to turn our pain into purpose, perhaps helping others who’ve incurred the same loss we have. I know that this page and all of you have only helped me to heal – even as I reach out to help each of you.
There will always be a giant hole in the fabric of our family life. I love that some people put a plate out for their child(ren) at holiday functions. I tried it once and wept through the entire holiday curled up in the fetal position in the dark. My poor family didn’t know what to do. I realized after four years that I was the only one who could uncurl myself – body, mind, and soul – and rise up like Lazarus.

See, I couldn’t raise my son up with an incantation … but I would rise up and claim a life that still matters – to myself and others, people I love and strangers we meet who need a little love and compassion.

I say this often, the fast track to healing is to help someone else; this has been my solution, one that hurled me out of a four year depression. Not everyone will do the things the way I’ve done them; and that’s terrific. I hope four years won’t pass by before you’re able to claim a life that still offers joy with and for your loved ones – and that you allow that for yourself. I didn’t. My loved ones who truly loved me waited for me to come back to them and were there waiting for me when I came back to myself, forever changed, but still loved.
I pray you have friends/family who love you like that; it matters.

After Rikki died, I must have had four or five cremation jewelry items with Rikki’s ashes. I needed to feel him in a tangible way. I wasn’t ready to let go of him yet, and irrationally I thought by having several amulets/rings that I could wear his ashes, he was with me. I had an HR manager tell me that beyond “trinkets” is their true spirit and that requires nothing but our willingness to commune with our children…even though it will really hurt sometimes. Sometimes, though, talking with our children yields good memories, laughs, and the ability to make amends – even if posthumously.

I really want you to know that even though there will always remain pieces of the old me, they helped me to survive a complicated and challenging childhood, I’m no longer the same person I was before Rikki died. I’m far more present in my life now. I know how to take a minute to pull myself together when the time to lose it is inappropriate. Trust me, I ran out of the grocery store weeping when I ran across my son’s favorite pickles. I also know now how to lose it when I have the time…and sometimes I cry alone (preferable) and sometimes I allow my husband to hold me (if it’s really bad – and my tears turn into convulsive sobs). I still have those days and nights and sometimes afternoons. Now that I’m finished with seminary, I have a lot of time to ruminate, and so I’m looking for things to occupy my time. I’ve started writing a book. I want to spend more time at AFTER THE STORM and be present in ways that I didn’t have the space – in my head or in calendar – during seminary. I hope it’s okay if I do a lot of writing about grief and post it.

Many of you are veterans here – I hope you know how much you’ve saved me when NO ONE else understood. I can bleed on this page – and – I can share my accomplishments through the grief process. Trust me, I don’t even know how I did it. Part of it was I had something to pour my heart into, and I loved what I was learning and the internship. I found purpose for my pain and as you all know, the pain is so intense that it’s physical. I started to let my son go to wherever he will be totally whole and free from the pains of this world. I want to see him again, and who knows, maybe I will.

Please forgive my long-windedness. I needed to share my heart about how awesome our members are, and to encourage our parents/grandparents who’ve had a recent and devastating loss to work hard through your grief process. I know the word “process” sounds so detached, but that’s what we navigate through, and it is a process. I know a lot of metaphors as a writer, but truly, is there a way to get our point across about the kind of pain we’re in with someone who has not had the same loss?

I do my own form of prayer/meditation for each of us here. I wish you each a day when there is a time for healing.

Namaste/Blessings.

Busy is the Operative Word

By Sherrie Cassel

Multitasking business woman working in the workplace

I’m having a tough time today. Grief is unpredictable. I’ve been on the fast track for four years. I have leisure time I haven’t had in FOUR YEARS. I’ve been reading, visiting with cherished loved ones, writing, living, loving, laughing – and today, the world returns to my normal, another second, minute, hour, day without my Rikki.

I wept this morning as I remembered recounting to my friend over the weekend about the day he died. I don’t allow myself convulsive sobs anymore, but today, yes, I had them. I allowed them. I have time for them.

I made time for them.

I stopped with my dear friend just as the lump began to rise in my throat and I needed to clear my voice so I could maintain my composure. I was successful. I pulled myself together and waited until I could weep unapologetically, and without having to take care of someone else. I was the confidante for both my parents. I’m done with that kind of dependence on me.

I’m fortunate that I found my sense of empathy after Rikki died. I mean, I always had some, but since his death, it has only grown keener and more present. I want to impress upon each of you, as I navigate my own rough day, to keep busy after your meltdowns. Certainly, weep when the time calls for it, when the overflow is imminent. Life is fleeting and we know this because of the lives we’ve already lost, young and old.

I used to spend months in that space of despair and suffering. I work hard to stay in the present moment, clouds or sunshine, and I’ve learned to navigate both kinds of days. I’m at the one-month mark since I finished my time in seminary. I’m enjoying my time. I used to beat myself up because I now have wonderful days. I don’t know why it hurt so much at the end of an awesome day…but…it did.

I’ve said many times that every single experience since my son died is bittersweet. I’m fortunate to have amazing days, long stretches of smooth sailing, and an occasional slump, but all those experiences I now experience without my son. There’s a tremendous amount of sadness – hopelessness even, not perpetually hopeless, but the kind of hopelessness that is truly hopeless. My son is gone; he will never return.

How does one handle those facts? You do. You just do. Nine and a half years ago has passed since my son died. Jesus Christ! It’s almost ten years since the last day I saw my son. I try not to sit and ruminate about that day, that evening, and the four and a half years I was in complex grief. I mean, grief is a natural outgrowth of loss, of having someone yanked from your reality; it takes time to adjust to the absence, to normalize the loss; it can be done.

I am coming to the close of a much needed break. I know this because ruminating about past events that hurt me is too easily done these days. I’m not busy anymore. I need to grieve, but I need to not stay there. How many of you do better with your grief if you’re maxed out, or even just busy enough to take your mind off the loss of your loved one for a little while? What do you fill your time up with? How is it possible that we can ache to the depths of our core and still function? Those of us who have found his/her/their footing again after the death of your loved one, know that keeping busy is a solution to hurtful rumination and extended suffering. Certainly, we’ll suffer when we lose someone – and there are too many variables to list why we grieve in gradations according to our emotional health, but … we grow away from chronic, acute, and complicated grief when we work the grief process, when we’re willing to take a hard look at the shittiness of the loss, and the deep visceral emotions that accompany when we’re able to see the truth of our loss without doubling over in pain.

I’m going to get busy again because it saves my life every time I find purpose and meaning despite my greatest loss. I just turned sixty-three and I’m feeling the tug because my son wasn’t here to celebrate with me and our amazing friends and family.

I have things to attend to, but not too many. I still have time to allow myself to miss my son, to weep, to laugh over memories, to remember how much I love him. Ooomph, that hurts.

I wrote poetry this morning. I wrote a missive for my personal Facebook page in which I thanked all the people in my life for being so amazing and for gracing my life with theirs.

When I’m down, I lift myself back up by remembering to be grateful for the things that currently bless my life. I actually do have too many to list. I’m very lucky.

Complicated Grief: The Tip of the Iceberg

By Sherrie Cassel

I want to share resources I find beneficial with my readers, and with those who accidentally find my page. I’m taking a little time off before I hit the academic trajectory toward a doctorate. I’m taking time for self-reflection and relaxation; it’s been a long four years! This book, which I’ve shared a picture of, is proving to be one of the most amazing and helpful books I’ve ever read. As a mental health professional, I’m good at what I do. My clients love me. I love them. We have excellent rapport, and they teach me about myself as they share their truths vulnerably and courageously.

With whom do I share my deepest feelings, tears, psychological and emotional challenges, and spiritual confusion? I have my husband who has seen me afraid, my most vulnerable emotional state. Oh, sure, I can puff out my chest and try to appear larger than I am, like a wildcat, or a kitten, which one depends on my self-perception of the day.

We are emotional beings and depending on our emotional stability and healed traumas, we navigate life with oozing, gaping wounds, or with peace and liberation from maladaptive behavioral patterns. Copley says that until we courageously unpack our trauma, we will continue to repeat toxic and maladaptive behaviors in every relationship and in every experience.

There is also disadvantageous behavior in which a person processes his/her/their emotions from a position of emotional scarcity. What this means is that, for example, someone who is unable to be happy for someone else’s joy, there simply are not enough emotional resources to rise above our more base emotions, jealousy, for example; it serves no adaptive purposes, and as a matter of fact, it generally serves only to hurt our relationships.

The reasons I begin with trauma and emotional resources are because scarcity in the latter only perpetuates the effects of the former in our lives. But how does that affect the grief process? Give me a page or two to share from my own grief journey, and to share how my fountain overflows with plenty of resources, unless I’m in a funk, like stuck in a victim mentality. For example, I did not lose my son because I’m a bad person. My son died because of addiction, and there is nothing either fair or unfair about his death.

As a process of natural selection, our time here is temporary, with very few of us knowing when or how it will end. I get it. I understand and I even accept the transitional nature of life into the existential dissolution of human reality, another otherworldly launching pad into perhaps eternity, or perhaps, the sweet oblivion that comes from no more human strife.

I don’t, as often as I used to, ask questions that don’t serve the world or me in any beneficial way. I no longer choose to torture myself with unanswerable questions. I no longer choose frustration over freedom. How did this happen? Losing a child or someone else with whom you have had an intense and close relationship with is grounding.

Prior to my son’s descent into the darkness of addiction, I was an idealist. I ALWAYS looked on the bright side of life to the exclusion of reality. Life can be shitty as well as marvelous. Emotions can cause us to ache or to soar to great heights toward optimism and mad possibilities. I anthropomorphize emotions here because we know emotions don’t cause us to behave one way as opposed to another; it is our reaction elicited by healthy coping skills or poor coping skills. My reaction to the loss of my son was from the stance of a pure victim. Why did God do this to me? Why do I have to suffer like this? When will the pain stop?

If I had been navigating life from a healed and self-aware emotional position, my grief, while still intense, would not have been extended. Again, for my regular readers, four and a half years of emotional paralysis and physical immobility were choices I made for myself out of deep-seated unhealed wounds. I ached from the dissolution of my perfect, Pollyanna world. I always wanted to be a cynic, but I just don’t have it in me.

I guess I still look on the bright side of life.

When Rikki died, I did not have a surplus of emotional resources to handle anyone else’s pain, even my fellow grievers – at first. I looked at the date I started After the Storm and Rikki had been gone only nine months when I reached out and asked for help from others who were on the same path as I found myself; it matters. I gained the emotional strength to move forward with my life, despite the darkest days of it.

Learning about oneself is scary, but it is healing, and self-awareness will be your reward. Many people live their lives knowing not what they do. I remember when I was younger and everything was freak out worthy, and I was frequently in a panic. I couldn’t form close relationships because I was caught up in a victim mentality. I’m older and more healed now. I’m able to breathe through intense moments rationally and calmly…even overwhelms of grief.

For example, yesterday, I had such an overwhelm. After reading Copley’s book and remembering what I encourage my loved ones who are freaking out to do, I pause, take a deep breath, ask  myself if there is anything I can do about the situation, breathe again, analyze my emotional resources and regulate my emotional status so I can think clearly enough to find solutions to problems in a way that is only beneficial – to me, certainly, but to others as well.

If you’ve never read The Rabbi Harold Kushner’s book When Bad Things Happen to Good People, I highly recommend it. The Rabbi lost his fourteen year old son to progeria when the young boy was only fourteen years old. The Rabbi, of course, was wounded to the core, but he did not blame an impersonal, uncaring god. He said the loss of his son and the initial affliction were not God’s fault; they simply were the luck of the draw. I’m paraphrasing, of course.

When the internal pain is unbearable, we reach for externalities to help assuage that pain: alcohol, drugs, food, sex, relationship drama, ad nauseam. There was a playwright, Harold Pinter, who is credited with what is called the Pinter Pause, i.e., a perfectly placed pause pregnant with possibilities. I don’t know about you, but when I’m in a state of nervous energy, there is nothing logical in my frenzied brain, and it is never a good idea to make decisions when you’re frantic.

Take the Pinter Pause; stop for a half-second and consider all the possibilities available to you when you’re of a sound and quiet mind.

I did ask all the questions about how a loving god could have so violently yanked my son from my life, from the world, from his son, from all the people who loved him. I blamed a misperception of god for killing, yes, killing my son. Why did my son not survive and have a victory story? See? Unanswerable questions. Rationally I know why my son died and I know how, but when one is in the throes of acute grief, reason is non-existent.

I wish I had been more healed when I lost my son. Memories from the early days of grief are a giant mass of pain, despair, and hopelessness. Sure, I bartered with the god and the devil from my youth to bring my son back to life. No Pinter Pause, just plain ol’ hysteria and unreality from losing a part of myself.

How do we shake the victim mentality when someone dies who is as close to us as one can possibly be? I know this sounds too simple, but the way you shake suffering is to choose to not engage with it. I miss my son. I have grieved for him and will continue to grieve all the ways he should still be here with us; grief is a natural process. When we lose someone we love, it shakes up the natural order of things. We can’t conceive of their eternal absence. How will the world run without this person? Will I ever stop hurting?

When you’re in the moment, again, dependent upon your emotional reserve, you pick yourself up by the bootstraps and dust yourself off and keep on going, forever changed, forever changing. Or … you collapse under the weight of the loss, and it takes you years to claw your way out of despair. I was in the latter rung of hell for much longer than I needed to be … because I hadn’t healed from other traumas and didn’t have the emotional resources to focus on the powerful force of grief, and it is powerful; it’s physical and it’s profound – and the duration we must stay under before resurfacing from the depths of grief depends on our emotional health; it just does.

I can see this now that I’m no longer in acute grief and I wonder … if I’d worked through some of my other shit, I wonder if the acute pain would have decreased in intensity sooner than four and a half years, four and a half years during which I sat frozen in pain. I couldn’t see past my pain and again, I can see it now; there was an iceberg of Freudian pain upon which my most immediate pain writhed. Grief was just the tip of the iceberg, however, and after nine and a half years of grieving my son, my childhood, my idealism, my … and I started allowing healing from a cleared and healing consciousness. I’m not a victim of a punishing god, or of circumstance, and I didn’t lose my son because the Fates called for it; shit happens and when it happens to us, we have two choices, to bail or to buck up. Certainly, take the Pinter Pause; it is in that silence where we grieve deeply, and it is in that space where we are aware of our vulnerability, and it is in that space where we find the courage to move forward with our lives – .

I’ve spent many years in and out of therapy trying to make sense of my wretched childhood, speckled with a few smiles and seasoned with some fine people who tried to rescue me. I’ve spent time in therapy because I had a horrid first marriage and I wanted to know why I stayed when the marriage offered no joy or promise of shared dreams or nurturing one another’s dreams – or dreams! I spent time in therapy when I lost my son. I have no issues touching base with a therapist when things come up, and the book Loving You is Hurting Me, provides ample triggers and opportunities for posttraumatic growth (PTG). See, I can allow myself the delay of freaking out, but that means I’d lose valuable healing time. So, I do what I can to stay in the present moment of a life challenge, grief or a different challenge. If I allow myself to give in to the panic or the paralyzing grief then I can’t move forward in my life, in my relationships, and in my spiritual connection to the Divine.

When we’re stuck in the mire of our grief or other past experiences, sometimes we struggle and fight to get out, and other times we surrender in despair. The thing is, we have choices. Get the therapy so you can handle even the worst possible pain, physical or emotional.

If you have time, read this book; it’s phenomenal. If you experienced trauma at a very young age, if the trauma was repeated, or if you experienced a monumental trauma as an adult, a rape, witnessing a murder, domestic violence, the loss of a child, etc., heal the wounds preceding the current wound; it matters. We have the ability to dress our wounds with love and to expose their depths. We have the ability to recognize our wounds; from all the places they originate. We have the responsibility to ourselves if we want lives of quality, in spite of the many things that have wounded us, to heal ourselves through prosocial and adaptive means, hard, hard work.

Healing continues in my life. My heart no longer races when I think about the past, or the loss of my son, or the state of my country. I just breathe and focus on what is right in front of me. I no longer need to carry all the shit from the past into the present. I can let it go – a little, or a lot – at a time.

Please allow healing to take place in your life. Don’t fight it. Start from the beginning … see where it takes you.

Unmuting the Muse

By Sherrie Cassel

In The Artist’s Way, the author recommends writing three pages a day, or painting, or singing, or going on a meditative walk with yourself. I know for those of us who are really bad at self-care, trying any of these exercises is excruciatingly difficult, and our self-care is neglected to the point of exhaustion and so we have no energy left for our creativity, which we all possess in droves and in different areas.

I try to write every day, but sometimes, I just need a break from the shit in my head swirling all around from angry Americans who choose divisiveness over peace and politics instead of people. I don’t watch the news, and I scroll right past information that is ridiculous, hateful, judgmental, or that lacks compassion for all humanity. I steer clear of the trivial things that are on the table right now in my country.

Life is too short.

I’m so thrilled to be finished with seminary and therapy notes. I will always miss and be grateful for my clients; they made the four hours a day on the freeway worth the drive, and worth the uber-challenging time I spent in the internship. I celebrate my freedom wistfully. I will never forget the clients who helped me to be a better person, to listen better, to grow in my own posttraumatic growth, and I pray to the GOMU that I also assisted them in their own posttraumatic growth.

I’ve learned that no matter where a person comes from, there is hope that she/he/they can grow out of their pain and into the promise of a peaceful and happy life – in any circumstances. If you’ve never seen the movie, HAPPY, I highly recommend it. Poverty is a very real thing. People starving and homeless are very real things. Child abuse and other forms of domestic violence, rape, murder, racism, misogyny, Christian nationalism, and a host of other things that are also very real and  present in our world.

If you’re in a position to help someone in a dire situation, do what you can.

I love the story of Job in the Hebrew Bible. Boy, did he have a rough few months, eh? We may have had times when we were beset with problems, loved ones with terminal illnesses, the loss of a loved one, divorce, poverty, ad nauseam. How does one manage her emotions, her stress level, her physiological responses, her ability to connect with others when she is in the throes of a tempest? Not easy; I know.

There are many techniques from many sources, religious and scientific, which can assist us with returning to homeostasis (balance) after a stress-provoking event. I find that lying on my bed and centering myself through deep breathing, and talking to my son, or the GOMU brings me back to the Present Moment, instead of being saturated with the problems/life challenges that present themselves.

I have felt defeated many times in my life, but I’ve never given up. I’m still standing and so are many of you. If you’re challenged by C-PTSD or PTSD, find affordable therapy, pastoral care, a trusted and emotionally-sound person, or the child inside you who is desperate to grow up and make loving connections – with your adult self and with others. We have personal power, maybe not the kind of power and prestige that comes from money and inflated egos, but the kind of power that says, “You cannot take the creativity from my soul.” I love the book MAN’S SEARCH FOR MEANING, and WHAT MY BONES KNOW, and THE SUNFLOWER and books that talk of victory in the face of what can be seen by some of us as insurmountable challenges, but then…

Every once in a while, someone makes it out, sometimes limping to the finish line, and sometimes rising from the ashes into the air from a place of long-term defeat. I know our grandson is very literal. Sometimes we lose, but defeat is not permanent. Neither is victory. But as transitory as victory and defeat are, there are moments of balance and even moments when we soar. I don’t like the slumps any more than anyone else does, but they happen, and we work through them, blood, sweat, and tears.

My suggestion is, especially if you were raised in a shaming, creativity-stifling environment, is read a few victory stories, and see if you can find that same spark in your own consciousness, enough of a spark to set you on a creative journey, one in which you will find yourself in the zone, unable to stop your creation, until it’s been completed.

I’ve been writing since I first learned how. I’d make up stories about perfect places. “The Land of Counterpane” was one of my favorite poems, and I remember my elementary lit teacher telling us that Stevenson was a sickly child who had a rich imagination and created stories from his sick bed. I wasn’t sick, but I was living in a sick environment. I didn’t have a rich imagination at the time, and so I read all about mental illness, addiction, child abuse, sexual assault. I remember one of my teachers telling my mother that I was reading books that were not appropriate for someone my age. I so desperately was trying to make sense of the chaos and dysfunction in my family environment, and my creativity went underground for decades.

I hope as you heal, your creativity returns, forcing you out of years with no vehicle to voice your experiences. We don’t all need to “tell” our stories in words; words just happen to be my favorite mode of communication. I love Gottfried Helnwein’s work; it’s dark and sobering, like life can be from time to time. How do you handle your darkness, your dark nights of the soul, a really shitty day? Bad shit happens in cycles. No one is exempt, nor is anyone a victim of the Fates, or of a god.

I wish I could offer that one day you’ll come to a place where challenges are few, but if you work hard on developing your self-awareness and your self-love, the world will begin to open up and your connections will be stronger than before, or … you’ll be able to walk away from toxicity, regardless of who it is. Parting is such sweet sorrow, said the Bard, and sometimes it is. I’m thrilled when I can let go of a problematic person, and I’ll admit, sometimes I’m a little too Pollyanna for my own good, and I’ve hung on to people long after they’ve shown themselves to be toxic.

Stephanie Foo, in WHAT MY BONES KNOW, says that walking away from family does NOT feel good, and it doesn’t, but sometimes, for one’s own self-preservation and sanity, it is best to walk away. When ANYTHING takes away from your creativity, or your ability to tell your very compelling and necessary stories, again through the media/um of your choice, it is not healthy.

I wrote about Goya’s SATURN DEVOURING HIS SON, a few weeks ago, and although I know nothing about Goya’s life, I bring my own lens through which to interpret art, literature, human behavior, including my own. He created some startling art work, disturbing, triggering for anyone who has had significant trauma in his/her/their life. But out of our pain, from our darkness, on through to the Light of self-awareness is an art form of creativity waiting for you to tap into it and make beautiful things, both the beautiful and the sobering.

This summer, free from the shackles of my internship, I am taking care of me. I’m taking water aerobics, line dancing classes, a class on juvenile delinquency, and spending time with my family of choice and my family of Ben and Louie. Time doesn’t stand still while we’re busy healing, not through the ups or the downs; the atomic clock keeps ticking and, if we’re lucky, we age a little each day.

I’ve met so many people who have no spark in their lives. Yes, they work their fingers to the bone to put food on the table and to clothe themselves and their children. I was a single mother who raised a son in poverty, was undereducated during those years, and I had lost my spark to write, to use my medium to create beauty. I’ve since replenished my creative reservoir and it now is teeming with life and verve. Don’t let your life pass you by without your artistic contributions. I have friends who crochet, knit, paint, teach, counsel, speak, write, and sing, and they create beauty all the time – sometimes even after a rough patch of isolation from the world, or time for meditative contemplation and introspection.

Life is going to come for us from all angles. Some days will be awesome; some will be really bad, and some will just be no big deal, just a peaceful picnic as you sit on the banks of a slow moving creek, with nothing really going on. Sometimes we can create in a rage — better through art than through aggression. Sometimes we create in that contemplative place. Sometimes we create from the depths of despair, but everyone is an artist in his/her/their own way.

Bring your artist out to be your voice. Be loud and clear. Be bold and courageous. Take all the shit you’ve been through and find the rough stones and polish them to a brilliant sheen and garland your pathway toward creativity with those shiny gems. Follow the path when it feels right and take a different path when it doesn’t.

We’re in charge of our creativity. What do you create? Does creating fulfill your heart? Find a way to rise above wherever you’ve come from, especially if it was a challenging place. Okay, Cameron (author of THE ARTIST’S WAY) said to at least write three-pages a day. Mission accomplished.

Find something that revs up your creativity and pour yourself into where the Muse leads you — silence her no longer. I’m trying to not be sad today. I miss my son more each day. He’s been gone nine and a half years. Unbelievable. I took my pain and turned it into purpose. I ache sometimes to the point that I double over in physical pain, not as frequently as I did right after his death, but I made the choice to go on, to create from my pain, to help others with theirs, and to create a life of quality.

How do you use your pain?

I do hope I’ve inspired you to get out there and create from the deepest parts of who you are. Life is a flash in the pan; don’t wait any longer.

Trippin’

By Sherrie Cassel

Trippin’

By Sherrie Cassel

May 20, 2025, graduation day, a hard-earned day, a lifetime of stories and struggles, and here it was, the big day. I had worked decades to be there among Ph.D. graduates and other Masters graduates. We were a small graduating class at our seminary. There were twenty-two total graduates, but only ten walked in the ceremony. My academic journey has been as colorful and as uber-complicated as my life has been.

My husband asked, “How are you today, Mrs. M.A.?” The truth was I was nervous beyond belief. I’ve never been good at receiving accolades; I didn’t get them as a child, not for eighteen years, and so, I still find it difficult when I’m recognized and praised for my talents, skills, contributions to our world. I’m getting better.

So, with so few graduates, our commencement director, rushed through our one rehearsal for how we were supposed to walk up in front of an overwhelming number of people in the sanctuary. So, we went through too quickly for my nervous self. The order of receipt was M.A.s first, then M.Divs. and lastly, our doctorates. Guess who was called first? I had a sneaking suspicion I’d be called first, of course, I would.

One of my biggest fears about public accolades, i.e., graduation in front of my family and a shit ton of strangers is tripping over my two performance anxiety ridden feet. I knew I’d flub it, trip or start weeping from the momentousness of the culmination of a milestone and decades of hard work, hit and miss ability to stay in school, raising a child, alone, and with no financial support from the biological father. I worked to put food on the table and would take a class here and there. I knew I had it in me to go to school and despite the economic struggles, the emotional struggles, cancer, algebra and statistics were some of the challenges I’ve faced as I’ve climbed the academic ladder, only to learn the acquisition is not a linear journey; it’s all over the place.

So, our master of ceremonies was supposed to take my cowl which was draped over my arm, and he was to place it over my neck and shoulders and then I’d take a picture with the president of the seminary and then walk down some terrifying stairs. Stairs to a trembling person are dangerous. I flubbed the whole presentation, but I didn’t trip! We had a “stage director” leading us as to what to do, and I followed directions after making every mistake I knew I’d make. A self-fulfilling prophecy for sure. But I didn’t trip! My biggest fear. But then I remember how some of our celebrities have fallen flat on their asses on their way to accept their academy awards, and their stage was much larger, caught on camera, videos spread all over the world, and while I’m sure the falls are tres embarrassing, they got up, red faced, and accepted their awards, and it was okay. They survived, and I would too. I was not going to let anything ruin my special day, a day for which I traveled so very far.

So, I flubbed the acceptance, but it was okay; it really was. Decades ago I would have foregone the event because of my performance anxiety. But I didn’t care about how I presented as I accepted my degree; I was graduating – with a master’s degree! So, decades ago, the very fact that I flubbed an award presentation, would have had me wound up tightly in shame, calling myself stupid, clumsy, inept at even accepting an award. Definitely clumsy, but not stupid, and not inept. I was proving it by achieving my degree.

I was told I was an idiot for eighteen years and then treated as if I was dangerously stupid for most of my adult life by my family. I was the ditzy one, the one who’d never be able to take care of myself without a man and then they balked at my choices in men. Okay, I made a few really bad decisions, not stupid, just desperate for someone to love me.

So, my graduation was amazing. Our grandson was there, our son was there, and my most dedicated and devoted husband wept as I received my degree. I’m no longer a big partier, so we went out for a celebratory ice cream cone and then braved the five hour traffic jam from L.A. to Calimesa. Unbelievable. We’re not city folk, and our traffic jams consist of maybe ten cars on our version of Main Street. Our lives have slowed down since my son passed away and since my husband retired from teaching. The most activity I’ve had is seminary and living life with friends and really just enjoying the life I have left because none of us really knows just when our number will be up.

Do what you can to make your dreams come true, very grueling and gritty work, but so doable. I came from a poor family rife with domestic violence and emotional cruelty. I raised my son in poverty. Just so I could stay in school, I braved poverty time and time again. I worked shitty administrative jobs, but I’m grateful for the personal lessons I learned to navigate with grace, and again, grit.

My friend and I were remembering our ex-spouses, and how little they’ve accomplished in their lives, their personal choices. Maybe they didn’t believe in themselves or were just too lazy to do the work to learn as much as they could to get to places where they were living beyond survival and making passionate and compassionate contributions to our world. While my friend and I, both single parents who struggled financially while raising our children worked our asses off to feed, clothe, spend time with our kids, and stay in school to improve our lives. We both chose the helping professions to help people who were raised like we were, to make a dent in healing the effects of eighteen years of abuse, to continue to internalize their pain and use it to hurt themselves, to help them liberate themselves from old and no longer useful coping mechanisms, and to teach them new ones.

No comparison.

We’ve done our due diligence to stay the course and get an education despite the uphill life we lived as we navigated lives with supreme self-esteem deficits and self-loathing. We married beneath us. We dated beneath us. But we learned and we learned and we learned until we started getting the help ~we~ needed and blossomed all the way to university and seminary degrees.

Seminary has been the academic ride of my life. I know if and wherever my son is, he knows how hard I worked to get here. Next stop? My Ph.D. in the Psychology of Religion and Consciousness. I’m on a journey, brothers and sisters. Sorry for the binary language; I’m learning how to incorporate new language in this age of the modification of pronouns, after sixty-two years of using conventional and binary language, especially in my favorite mode of communication, writing.

After my son died, I was so miserable; I had hit the rock bottom of my life. I went searching for answers about what happens in the afterlife. ~Where~ was my son now? What happened to the energy that animated that beautiful person? When will I stop hurting? Will I ever be okay again? Where is God in all this? Why am I in so much pain? Who or what will make it stop?

I had always straddled the fence about religion. Some religions, even some blends of Christianity, are lovely and follow the teachings of great leaders, Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad, Ghandi, Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Cesar Chavez, ad infinitum, or at least until our species lapses into the fate of all species: extinction. But in the interim, our fight should be in helping to liberate our collective consciousness from oppression in and its exponentially growing forms, i.e., racism, misogyny, hatred of the poor, and the many many ways we find to hurt each other.

So, I’ve come a long way, Baby, from a shame-filled life to a poised and confident person, with a master’s degree, on my way to Ph.D. Why? Because I can. Si se puede. Did I find the answers I was looking for in seminary? I started on a life-long spiritual journey that will not end until I do. But I’m no longer frightened of tripping through life, and if I stumble on occasion, it’s not the end of the world; it’s but a moment of embarrassment, and then life goes on, and you wear better shoes next time.

I graduated. I completed one of the most challenging and rewarding programs in my life. I did it. I don’t want to be like King Nebuchadnezzar and scream from the rooftops, “ I ~alone~ did this!” because I had a lot of encouragement and support along the way. I had support every time I wanted to quit, and there were a few times I wanted to, even in seminary. I took a class that discussed the different models of God, and I looked for one of the templates to place my own model of God within. I did not find it, but what I did find was a beautiful entrance to a journey toward the pot of gold, the piece de resistance, the end all be all, the God of my understanding. I found God in the most relational way, and I’m no longer fumbling toward God; I’m boldly walking toward the GOMU, unafraid, compelled to love all people, to have compassion, to strive for understanding, and so, to have the ability to extend my heart in grace toward those who are so fucked up they know not what or why the do things that hurt themselves and others. In my spiritual advising, I encourage my clients to love themselves, even as they trip through life. We all trip from time to time; it’s okay; it really is.

I made all the mistakes on the narthex in front of a whole slew of people, and I survived. I helped the people behind me to not make the same mistakes I did. Sure, I can say, “there are no coincidences.” I didn’t flub my receipt of my degree because my colleagues needed to learn, and I was the sacrificial lamb who would set the example. No, I didn’t learn the dance before we marched down the aisle, sat and waited to be called. Damn, I ~had~ to be first!

Life is funny in fits and starts; it really is. Sometimes we trip and sometimes we soar to great heights.

So, I didn’t learn the routine, and I made a few mistakes. I worked hard and it was okay. I held my diploma in my hand proudly relieved that it was over; it’s been a very long and liberating four years. I’m grateful for so many things. I wish my son had been there to see it. He walked alongside me on graduation day. He traveled with me for thirty-two years. He traveled with me on my academic journey for thirty-years, since he was only a toddler. I’ve done the impossible. I rose from the ashes of a devastating childhood, a horrible marriage, poverty, really desperate attempts at finding love, cancer, and the loss of a son and only child. I have tripped time and time again, just not at graduation.

And for that, I’m eternally grateful for the sense enough to wear sensible shoes.

P.S. I have a master’s degree in religious studies and spiritual counseling. Wow.

(Edited)

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