Grief to Gratitude

Gnarly Family Trees

by Sherrie Cassel

The tree was beautiful in the fog; it was misshapen, and its branches were gnarled throughout its girth. He’d be asleep like tired children do after a day of learning about how to live in a world that is uncertain – and where parents are not always well enough to love their children in the manner they deserve. He always slept so soundly. In the Northridge earthquake, which was felt all the way to Tijuana, my son slept through the worst part as I ran down the quaking hallway to get to him, where I found him sound asleep.

We find symbols and metaphors that speak to our life experiences, milestones, dilemmas, and resolutions, or even acceptance that there are things we simply cannot know here. Maybe we will know all in the afterlife – if there is one. My professor of process theology last semester told me that he is absolutely certain I will see my son again. The notion fuels my desire to meet him There, wherever There is…or perhaps our spirits will dance in the heavenly ether.

The tree, it was an olive tree, left olives all over my bitchy neighbor’s driveway, so I had it trimmed back a few times to appease the life dissatisfaction of the shrew next door. Every so often a swarm of bees would choose the tree to hive in for a season, which always meant a call to the beekeepers who would come out and move them out.

My son and I lived in a 750 square foot house for fifteen years. The olive tree was something both of us were enthralled by. The tree served as a home to the opossum in our little town, and to our cat, Blackie, it served as protection from the local coyotes. My son climbed its branches until he got too “big” and “mature” to climb trees. His branches began to extend beyond our tiny yard…a natural progression, but a violent separation of branch from root. Intense relationships require intense and clean breakups.

We had such a breakup. He was using heroin, and I told him I would not allow him to kill himself in our home. He left, angrily, spewing hateful remarks, all of which I deserved. I did not set the best example all the time…and yet, he remained beautiful – and sad. I know sometimes we feel guilty about our kids’ addictions, and others try to tell us it’s not our fault, but for me, I know it partly is. I accept my illness. I don’t accept my ex-husband’s cut and dry withdrawal from our son’s life. If there is such a thing as hatred, well…I mean, I don’t obsess about him and his fuck up anymore, but when his name comes up from mutual relatives and friends, I feel revulsion, and he shares in the blame of why Rikki chose to use. There were two others, but it hurts to remember their roles in Rikki’s self-destruction; it has been best to forgive them.

I don’t hate myself anymore. Unlike the mystery of the olive tree in the fog, the sun has risen, and I now have perfect clarity about addiction. I wish I had it when Rikki was struggling, but I didn’t. Addiction is harder than cancer*; it ravages a person – all the way to their waning Souls; it ravages families too. We, my family members and I, had several estrangements over Rikki’s ten-year struggle with SUD.

Our family tree is gnarled by dysfunction originating in domestic violence and addiction.

An olive tree and its sacredness in ancient history is not lost on me; the tree also produces fruit, which is used for healing, as well as culinary uses. Rikki and I had a lot of healing to do, and I’m so grateful we had the opportunity to hash things out. He said everything he needed to say, but it was too late. He was too broken – and his body craved heroin and alcohol more than he could will himself to be well. I understand this now. I wish I had while he was still living. I would have been less shrill and more supportive. I wanted to wake him up and sometimes I was mean when I lectured him. Of course I have regrets. But I no longer allow them to devastate me or create in me so much guilt that I can’t go on and create a life I deserve, the life my son was denied.

We all make mistakes with our kids, some small, some huge, and depending upon the child’s temperament, he or she will find some resilience and some will not. I don’t know what caused your children to use for the first time, but I know what caused my son to do so, and I accept my own share of the blame. I just don’t beat myself up anymore. We must, like this 50-year-old gnarled and beautiful tree, find purpose for the branches of our past so we can take their fruit into the next season of our lives – both bruised fruit and good fruit.

I was listening to old country music, the kind my parents listened to. We also had domestic violence and undiagnosed mental illness in my childhood home; history repeats itself. The music took me back to my own family of origin. I thought about the terror and the violence, and then I made the choice to concentrate on something funny or touching – some THING, anything — that made me laugh or cry with joy for finding even one single memory that wasn’t bad.

Rikki and I had more silly, funny, and touching moments than not. But the tough times were tough, volatile, and hurtful. I regret the times I was less than the mother he deserved. You see, I have bipolar disorder, and I raised my son without the benefit of medication. In the nineties, the disorder wasn’t the disorder du jour, and it was just starting to be on the psych world’s radar…and when it was discussed it was stigmatized on shows like CSI whose main antagonists in the episodes were maniacal serial killers who “suffered” from untreated bipolar disorder. Great PR for a treatable disorder with a wildly successful treatment regimen.

I’m grateful for medication and for having had the opportunity to make amends to my son before he died. I waited for naught for my parents to make amends; they just didn’t have the emotional resources. I had time to get help through therapy and through Al Anon and the help through friends who were recovering addicts whose lives were changed through the miracle of recovery. Not everyone gets there. My son didn’t. The heartbreak of my life.

The family tree is a tired ol’ metaphor for the continuation of a generation – through all the storms, through the droughts, through the harvest and then “round and round in the circle game”…seems like some of you my age will get that reference.

Rikki and I sat in the car in front of the Motel 6 where he’d been staying. He was coming down from heroin and he was weeping in the car, and we talked until we couldn’t anymore. Jimmy Cliff’s “I Can See Clearly Now” was playing in the radio – and he said, “Momma, can I sit here for a while; this song makes me feel so hopeful.” He died the following Friday. The heartbreak of my life.

Wednesday, nine years will pass since Rikki died, next year it will be ten. Each year takes me further out of my regret and guilt. I pray for those of you who have similar backgrounds and whose children do too that however you had to manage your lives before you got well is seen with perfect clarity – and with understanding of oneself comes forgiveness for oneself. Trust me; I know.

I forgave myself for the ways I fucked up with my son; he forgave me. That’s the only thing that matters to me. He knew Momma loved him more than life itself. He drove me to the brink of sanity. I almost checked myself into a behavioral health center because I could barely function as I watched my son spiral out of control. No matter how much I loved him, the drugs had a physical pull and there was nothing I could do. I used to feel guilty about my powerlessness to save Rikki, but I was able to let go of that guilt too.

My son made some choices, some from a place of woundedness, and some because he was more of a follower than he thought he was. He always scored high in academic tests and always tested as a leader type in others. But he did drugs to fit in a communal group of broken kids. I know this. There are some things you begin to see with understanding that leads to incredible compassion for your child(ren) and for yourself – and by extension, the world.

Since Rikki’s death and my grief process, I made it all through four years of seminary. My olive tree also contains the branches upon which a dove of peace and renewal feeds. Please allow forgiveness for things over which you had no control – and/or because you needed the same help your child did.

We’re off the hook. We did our best.

31 years cancer free

The Fruit of the Tree

By Sherrie Cassel

Education is important to me; it should be important to a country too. I’ve spent over half my life in academia, first working toward an associate degree, then a bachelor’s degree, and now a master’s degree. I nearly threw in the towel last year, among the toughest intellectually, practically, and in spiritual growth. My internship is rewarding and fills me with gratitude for the people I get to work with. The policies, the administrative tasks, the learning curve have been fairly traumatizing. I’m still recovering from a rough fall semester. Life moves forward and I’m able to put a few lessons from last year into my knapsack of emotional resources. In retrospection, last year was a time of showing my muster, what I’m made of, and having a few victories. I didn’t abandon my academic dream, just as I haven’t throughout my academic life. I’ve braved physical, emotional, and spiritual storms to stay in school – no matter how long it has taken, and no matter how long it takes.

My son, my husband, and our grandson know how much I want my Ph.D. I graduate in May with my master’s degree. I’ve decided to take some time off for about one semester, maybe just the summer, and then I will begin a doctoral program and those of you who know me … know I’ll get there – even if I’m eighty! Hey, it happens.

My husband has supported me over the past twenty years. We’ve faced poverty, heartache, loss of a home, three moves, the loss of my son, and so many events since we found each other and became life partners. Ben has helped me to remember that I’m a rock … I don’t need a rock; I am one. Rikki, my son, my husband’s step-son-in-love, traveled with me nearly all of my academic career — up until nine years ago when he died. I share my academic success with him. He celebrated with me – and sometimes he celebrated alone – because I sacrificed a lot of mothering time with him to be in school.

I can’t tell you how much education has changed the trajectory of my life. I’d hoped to show our grandson that a degree will guarantee money in the bank, but since we continue to struggle financially, I can offer him only a glimpse of personal fulfillment but not the hope that he won’t struggle on his life journey. I will do anything to stay in school – to achieve my dreams – academically…even eat mac and cheese.

There was a girl in junior high school who came from a wealthy and educated family. Her parents were both doctors in my small town. I was not so fortunate to come from a “good” upbringing. I was frightened because of all the violence in my childhood home. Chaos and domestic violence really do affect one’s ability to learn. I was not a popular kid in junior high school. I was not a good student because I was nervous and frightened all the time. This girl, let’s call her Pauline*, “when choosing sides for basketball” (Ian)…didn’t choose me to be on her team in a class. I was the left-over and no one had chosen me. Pauline said to her team members, “Sherrie’s going nowhere in life. We don’t want her on our team.” Ouch. The memory still stings and I’m sixty-two years old now! I was twelve years old – I allowed comments like Pauline’s to set the slow pace at which I would attempt to change my life for the better.

Education doesn’t breed quality humans all the time. We see that in current day politics, religion, and some parenting styles. Hurt people hurt people. Traumatized people traumatize people. Those facts have healed me as an adult child of an environment rife with domestic violence. I survived, but not without a significant time of self-blame and self-loathing. A child can’t conceive of a bad parent, so – there must be something wrong with her to make her parents so mad. I spent too many years with this thinking.

Education has opened my mind, heart, and soul in ways that have made it possible for me to heal. Some clinicians, folks, Bible thumpers push “forgiveness”. Some say one cannot heal if one cannot forgive. I grew up fundie and I once thought this very thing too. Forgiveness? My wounds run deep, but they are mostly healed, and some will always be in the process of healing. I took a class called Trauma and Grace in seminary a few semesters ago; it was a pivotal experience in my life.

Grace is not forgiveness. Understanding is not forgiveness. Forgiveness is a process. And just like on the internet, once something is out there, it’s out there, and even if one is successful at dissociation … the effects of traumatic experiences are lifelong. Take a look at your relationship patterns and see how much history you’re repeating and then see if you can let go of behavior that no longer serves you. Change your environment. Change your life.

Education has gifted me with self-awareness, an awareness I will never let go. To understand self is a monumental achievement. Too many people walk around in lives without meaning because they don’t know their worth; education about our amazing and marvelous selves is necessary. Look in the mirror at the miracle you are. I’ve had the momentous occasion to have given birth; there was nothing so amazing as having a baby growing inside of you. We are truly fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139: 14). Even if one doesn’t have an understanding of a Theos, creation, natural selection, the big bang – however we got here is a trip in infinitely many ways.

I’m not suggesting everyone shoot for a Ph.D., but learn as much as you can in this one wild life we get to have, learn as much as you can to awaken you to the marvels and not just the tragedies in life. I have people I love who have had a similar childhood to mine. Some have spent the necessary and grueling years in therapy to heal; some are still struggling, and still, some others will never heal.

Find something in which to pour yourself. A shrink, not a good one, once told me, “The secret to happiness is: Have something to love, have something to do, and have something to look forward to.” It’s not original, but at the time, it spoke to me. I was lost without my son. I read everything I could get my hands on about healing from grief, the loss of a child. I went all the way to seminary for answers.

Did I find the Holy Grail of answers? I’m still searching – and I will until I meet my son on the other side. Knowledge is the Holy Grail and my cup is overflowing even through droughts. Droughts are my fault. I read once that boredom is the plight of the unintelligent. May it never be! There’s always one more book, one more research article, one more piece of art, one more mountain to climb … I’ve learned to ride out the waves and to swim in the navigable waters, and to find a rock to rest upon when the waves are choppy.

The night my father died he had the look of a person who had total understanding of his life and of his impending death; he was at peace, and trust me, my father had a lot to answer for, but he was surrounded by his family, a family he never deserved, and after he heard my promise to take care of my mother, he closed his eyes and he died. May he rest in peace.

Understanding leads to grace, maybe not forgiveness, but certainly there is a conk on the head when we see that whatever abuses we endured were NOT our fault. How many people out there spend their entire lives self-loathing? I nearly did. My father knew a moment of peace at the moment of his death; I don’t want to wait that long. I will not find the Fountain of Youth (darn it); I’m getting old, but my life, in many ways, has only begun. I lost four years of my life in deep, visceral grief. While my son was alive and struggling, I read every book I could find on addiction, how to love a person with SUD, how to protect myself, how to set boundaries. There was no book about how to armor a heart against the most devastating loss a parent can endure, and so, when our battle was over, my next journey was the one of a lifetime in grief.

Educating myself about grief has made all the difference in the world and in my process. I allowed grief to thrash me around and be the exclusive driving force in my life. I’m no victim of a painful epoch of my life: I control grief. I learned this after reading a shit ton of books about grief – . I’ve applied what I’ve learned from them to have healing effects on my mind, body, and soul.

We are our greatest healer. Physician, heal thyself. I’m beyond thrilled I’m finishing my last semester in the next few months. I’m tired, with a satisfied mind. I’ve carried grief with me for nine years, and with each unit of learning, its weight has decreased.

Knowledge is not just about authoritative power, it is also about personal power. I encourage you to read a challenging book, take a challenging class, learn a new skill, and educate yourself about whatever your current predicament is.

I’m not so privileged to assume that education is accessible to everyone, even in the United States of America. Certainly, there are economic barriers that make education cost-prohibitive to marginalized and underrepresented BIPOC. Maybe in some cases, ignorance is a choice. But even in our economic struggle, we can choose knowledge and allow it to change our lives for the better and for the betterment of our world.

In the words of my heroine:

You grieve you learn
You choke you learn
You laugh you learn
You choose you learn
You pray you learn
You ask you learn
You live you learn…

Alanis Morissette

May it be so.

Fictional name

To Unlikely Teachers and Oblivious Students

By Sherrie Cassel

One-hundred years ago a man whose name I can’t remember, so I’ll call him Solomon, gave me some solid advice, and it’s taken me decades to heed it. One-hundred years may have passed him by; he was retired when I met him. He was my first experience with a true empath; I’ve known only one other. He said things to me that were spot on and ofttimes prescient. I’m pushing one-hundred years – at sixty-two – should I be so fortunate. My husband and I were having one of our intensely interesting discussions when we laid out some plans for ourselves once we are no longer able to care for ourselves. We walked away from the conversation, satisfied and comfortable with our decisions.

I spoke with my professor of process theology from last semester regarding my desire, but uncertainty about there being a heaven and if I will see my son again. He assures me I will – and even though I hail from academia, to which I bow — figuratively, I remain uncertain, and just as I’ve had to adjust to a world without my son and the lifetime of unlived experiences with him, I’m adjusting to the idea: this is all we get…and if that is true, I’m going to live it to the hilt – searching for a comfortable truth – so when I leave this place, I will do so with a satisfied mind.

Back to Solomon from one-hundred years ago, my process theology professor also told me that I like hyperbole. I do … more than anything, even more than soft-serve ice cream! See what I did there? So, Solomon says to me, “If you don’t start writing you’ll get sick.” I had a voice which had been stifled for all the years prior to our meeting. I wrote about scientific advances in evolutionary psychology, comparative Anthro, sociology, philosophy – a lot of topics in sporadic ways; that’s how my brain works.

I didn’t begin to write my story in earnest until after my father died; funny, as much as he hurt us, I didn’t want to hurt him. Sucker or saint.

Martin Luther King, Jr.: ‘I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.’

Grace not grudges. I walk away from people who are hurtful because they are not self-aware, i.e., they know not what they do, so – hurt people hurt people. My peace, for which I have worked hard, is too important to hold on to repeat offenders. I release them. I release myself.

Solomon was a person who gave me permission to tell my story. Certainly, there were others before him who encouraged me to write, but I lacked self-confidence, and my stories were ugly and so, I didn’t tell them for decades. I’ve told them until I was blue in the face – and now I don’t need to anymore. Both parents are gone; I’ve spent a significant amount of time in therapy working through my shit, and Solomon told me to not be afraid to tell multiple stories throughout my life…at each epoch…at each milestone.

I don’t think people get “sick” – i.e., cancer because we are not able to tell our stories. I think that’s a cruel perspective. Yes, science, has shown that pre- and perinatal trauma affect the “neonate”/infant through the lifespan and significant trauma elevates monoamines/catecholamines, i.e., cortisol and adrenalin, stress hormones that are seen in humans who have been abused – are also seen in adults with diabetes, heart disease, obesity, etc. Round and round again in the circle game (Mitchell).

(Hevel) Breath, (hevel) breath, all is (hevel) breath. Ecclesiastes 1:2

I spent a significant amount of time in grief, profoundly miserable, broken-hearted and raw. I was fifty-four when I lost my son. I’m sixty-two now. I spent the first four years after my son died in abject pain. I didn’t grow because I could barely see to raise my eyes up to ask for help. I was too exhausted like the sun at the end of the day (Potter) to tap into an energizing Source to jumpstart me back into the driver’s seat, to regain control of the wreck I had become.

So, my next milestone, a life-altering experience, the death of my son, has had me writing about grief for nine years on the twenty-second. Grief led me all the way to seminary; the desire for answers to very deep questions occurred when my son was sick from addiction, and after his subsequent death. Have I found the answers? I don’t know. I’m happy — with a vein of sadness that runs through everything, even joyful moments.

Lately I’ve been writing about my understanding of God/Ultimate Reality. I’m taking another class about Models of God and Alternative Realities. I’m charged. I’ll write about my next journey and hope it resonates with someone. Certainly, I write for my own edification, same reason why I read. But my contemporary Solomon told me there would come a time when I would have a burning desire to write rather than to read. I kind of think I love them both equally.

I find both to be spiritually rewarding.

How ever wisdom comes to us can be a beautiful thing. Of course, sometimes wisdom comes to us retrospectively, after a hard lesson. I’ve been there more times than I care to remember.

Maybe you have too.

I did get sick. I had cancer twice – but it had nothing to do with my not having a voice during some crucial experiences. Cancer is the luck of the draw…no one’s fault despite what Christiane Northrup, Oprah and some extremist evangelical zealots peddle. My Solomon cared about me. He recognized some things in me that I hadn’t revealed to anyone. He was the truest experience with an empath I had up until that time, in my thirties. He had two master’s degree, one in English Literature and one in psychology. I listened and thought critically about what he was saying and then — wrote it off – except for the writing part.

He knew what kind of books I liked; he was a professor with whom I worked. I’m sure he’s gone by now. I’ve thought about him over the past thirty-two years. Life brings people into our worlds and then … they stay – or they leave. We learn to navigate each other’s storms and the detritus or the jewels that come hurtling out of our tempests…some we keep; some we toss. But even trash has a function. I’ve learned great lessons from both jewels and detritus.

What will I be writing about in the future? I have some ideas, and a friend and I are going to team up and work on a book together. I love the idea of joy – after some of the darkest nights of the soul. I KNOW with every fiber of my being joy comes after mourning – day, night, afternoon – one day, we’re conked on the head with self-awareness, and the will to grab hold of life is reinvigorated.

I think that’s what I choose to write about in the new year: hope that sadness will turn into joy – maybe not overnight, maybe not even after a year, not even after four, but one day, it will happen. Be open to it. It hurts to have joy without your loved one; I know it does.

If there is a Solomon or a Goddess archetype in your world, listen well and when you’re ready, give in to the reality that life here is not infinite; it rushes by and before you know it, you’re a legend in someone’s story.

I have a lot of characters I’ve known in my sixty-two years. I’ve written about a few of them, nothing magnificent. I’m not good at developing literary characters, just exposing real ones, snarkily. I won’t say I’m over my snarky phase – I grew up in a caustic environment. We all, in my family of origin, have a bit of a mean streak. I’m hoping mine becomes less prevalent.

Where have you turned for relief? Where do you go for wise counsel? “When the student is ready, the Teacher will appear.” I recently learned a lesson and even though it was painful, I arose like a poor, tired Phoenix, Solomon’s sun, hurt but victorious; it happens.

If you write or have some other media or several media, please let them be your voice. If we get sick from anything if we’re unable to speak for ourselves, it is our souls that get sick and enchantment with life becomes untenable; it hurts too much to not say, “I MISS MY SON! I MISS MY DAUGHTER, HUSBAND, BROTHER, SISTER, WIFE, FRIEND, DOG, CAT!” , and to say it as loudly as we can. My heart will always have a bit of pain pulsating through it and especially on beautiful days I know my son would love. I hear a song, and I think of my son and how much he loved music and teased me about my seventy’s music. Some days it’s easier to do that than others.

We each have a gift, and some have many. Please use your gifts to touch others who need to know they have common experiences with others. Find a support group that focuses on healing and recovery from grief.

I’ve fine-tuned my storytelling. I’ve written until I can scarcely stand it, about sad things. Grief is hard; it brings with it utter and sometimes inconsolable sadness. Let a Solomon, a real-life character in history, be a Teacher to you today.

Namastѐ

Sunrays through the Rain

By Sherrie Cassel

One of my professors has told me on a few occasions that I have an overdeveloped sense to be liked. Interesting, because early in my life I was a “come closer, go away” kind of person. I prefer community to distance these days. I have a mostly positive outlook on life – despite my tremendous loss, just like many of you do, positivity in the face of pain and ever-present grief. Perhaps my sunshine comes from my “overdeveloped sense to be liked.” Or … could it just be because I’ve worked my ass off to stay the lifetime course of rolling that Sisyphean boulder of grief up that mountain – like someone who struggles with addiction, we will have days when we soar and days when we sink – for the lifespan. I have more days in flight now – and I never roll with the boulder all the way down that mountain like in the early days of grief.

This page is supposed to be an aid to healing and about sharing that even after the tempests of death claim the loved ones of our hearts and souls, there will be calm waters intermittently, a place where we can do whatever needs to be done to begin to rebuild our lives to sail for a spell with the spirit of our loved one as we commune with their memory. We must. We have people with whom we were in relationship before the illness and the ultimate death, or the accident, or the suicide, or the overdose of a loved one. The good ones will be able to sit with you in the dark. The good ones don’t expect you to “get over it” in their time.

I didn’t anticipate I would ever lose my only child. I thought we had more time. I’m grateful for the thirty-two years we had together, and I’m grateful that I was able to make amends, and we worked through a lot before he died. I find great comfort in that fact. I want to share good news all the time, but the truth is: I still have meltdowns, and I want each of my readers to know that meltdowns are nothing for which to be ashamed. I don’t have them as frequently as I once did, but holidays, angelversaries, birthdays, even my own milestones bring with them anxiety about the feelings those days bring up for me.

I am fortunate to have a lot of blog followers who have helped me stand on days when I just didn’t have it in me to take one step forward. I hope I have offered them and you a modicum of comfort from my own grief trek – from the bloodied knees as I prayed for him to get better to the moment I began to heal – and now that my healing process has brought me to peace and led me to move forward with my life, I am. My life will never be the same … we must adjust to lives without our loved ones. I had four years of separation anxiety – and unlike a fur parent returning to his pup, I will not have that glad reunion with my son – on this side of Whatever.

If you ask me how I’ve managed to find some peace through the tsunami of tumbling emotions like stones being abrased to smoothness and beauty, I would say, with the wisdom of a seasoned boxer, I took the punches as they came and with each round in the grief arena, I came back stronger – and the fight in me came back – and I desperately wanted to live – again – until I remembered that the world is also beautiful despite the darkness of things like cancer, addiction, death.

Fighting with grief until you take it down and make it surrender to you puts bulk in your emotional muscles. I still cry from time to time. My eyes well up from tears, or I feel that steely rapier in my chest; it hurts; it will always hurt. I have no secrets to making it stop hurting; it never will. I’ve just learned to manage the deep, deep pain better. I schedule appointments with grief and pain when I have time and space to allow for full vulnerability. I’m driven … even at sixty-two. I want to push myself all the way to the doctorate; it’s a grueling task, but after surviving the loss of my son, I know I can do anything I set my mind to. I mean, it’s too late for me to compete in corporate settings that recruit from a younger, market-driven population, but I can work toward my academic dream, as I grow intellectually and spiritually – and make a difference along the way.

The true search for spirituality or a sense of the Divine or Sacred didn’t happen for me until I lost my Rikki. I asked the common question: Why, why, why? until I found the answer to why. I had many shoulders to stand upon. Along the way some of my spiritual guides at After the Storm made me think, pissed me off, comforted me, and gave me hope. I knew that barring an extraordinary spiritual experience, the hope of being with my son again was, in fact, hopeless. I had to accept that my son was gone, and I had to accept the reasons why. This is not an easy task.

When I created After the Storm, it had been only eight months after Rikki had died. I needed the camaraderie and understanding of others who had common losses: parents who had lost children to addiction, specifically heroin and fentanyl. I started Grief to Gratitude a few years ago – after I rediscovered joy and enchantment for life. There were times when I thought I’d be miserable for the rest of my life. Everything was so heavy I was exhausted all the time. I couldn’t find the will to continue with my academic career. I dropped out of my bachelor’s degree program and didn’t go back for six years! My life stopped. My dreams perished with my son’s last breath.

Jerry Garcia sang,

“Ten years ago, I walked this street;

My dreams were riding tall;

Tonight, I would be thankful Lord

For any dream at all.”

I remember feeling this way. I remember saying I would never accept my son’s death and, I remember saying I would never let my son go. The pain that comes from the death of a loved one is deep and feels physical – like your heart being ripped out of your chest cavity – and it feels like that for a very long time as we work the grief process. There is light at the end of the tunnel, that dark and desperate tunnel we’ve found ourselves in.

I have accepted my son’s death. I have accepted the answers to the whys. Have I let him go? Acceptance and answers have been things I’ve wrestled with since he died, and even in the throes of his addiction, I get it. I understand it; knowing those things has been the most difficult thing I’ve done since I lost him. I think about him all the time, but I still function in the world, just like all of you who have helped me take one more step when I thought I couldn’t.

I think about all the mad potential my son had. He was brilliant and the most amazing conversationalist. He was beautiful and he was tortured; I get that too.

I don’t want to be the bearer of angst revisited. I want to offer you hope in a hopeless situation. Whatever you believe in about an afterlife, the fact remains, we will not see our loved ones again in this lifetime; this is a brutal reality. If there was anything more challenging than accepting the finality of death, I can’t think of it. Because we love them so much, our love is proof that they existed, that they are missed, and that we will never let them go in some respects.

My son’s paintings, even the angsty ones, hang on my office walls. His pictures are placed lovingly throughout our home. I have an ashtray on my desk he made with his own little hands when he was a child. I have his son. I have his DNA. We are separated by time space. We are separated by materiality and immateriality, but I feel Rikki’s presence every time I think about him, and with every beautiful thing I experience.

When he died, I would lose it every time a Bread song was played on my SiriusXM. I mean I would sob until I couldn’t breathe. I still don’t understand it. My son loved Korn, Limp Bizkit, and Nirvana. Bread was well before his time; it’s seventies music. He was born in 1983. So why the visceral reaction? I’ve been working on this for nine years. If anyone who knows me and a bit about psych, or who is an empath, shoot me a message if you come up with some ideas about why Bread slays me, even now, nine-years-later.

Do people really expect us to “get over” our losses? The sites have many members who’ve said their family members and friends are insensitive to their time frames toward healing. I’ve not been so unfortunate. My loved ones have tried in their best way to be here for me. They gave it the ol’ college try. No one has told me to get over it, but their eyes have averted their gaze to their feet because my emotions can be too much for someone who has never experienced the loss of someone with whom they were so close that their absence will be felt for a lifetime. It’s okay.

For those whose expectation is that someone can just get back on that horse of normality quickly is, I’m sorry, ignorant, and that’s okay too. Death scares people. Emotions scare the hell out of them. But, the responsibility to make ourselves heard is ours. This grief process is individual and unique, as unique as the whorls of our fingerprints. We have to speak to our pain; no one else can. We need to write it. Sing it. Paint it. Dance it. Shout it – in whatever way we can be heard, we must be heard, over and over and over again, until the sting becomes tolerable, and we can navigate our lives with it as a constant toleration.

Don’t be afraid to have fun in your life again. Don’t be afraid of overwhelming emotions. Don’t freak out when the ruminations are intense; that intensity will subside. It comes in waves. What I found most frightening as I moved through the early days of grief was that I would never have a moment of peace again. I’ve since come to find a peace that is truly indescribable. I’ve picked up my dreams again – and so can you. Dive into the process. Cry to the songs that touch you deeply. Live in the Present Moments of your Soul connection with your loved one who has passed. Cry. Cry. Cry. Scream on occasion. I haven’t done either of those things for some time. The anniversary of my Rikki’s death is in a couple of weeks, so, we’ll see.

Send me good juju.

Grieving — in the Black

By Sherrie Cassel

The lights twinkled on the Xmas tree, a secular tree, but not a secular evening, as she lit the seventh Hannukah candle and chanted her prayer. Incense smoke wafted to the rhythm of the universal energy, and we enjoyed the spiritual nature of our celebration, Hannukah, Christmas, Xmas, or just another day of blessѐd peace. Xmases, historically, in my family were fraught with drama, alcoholic, domestic violence, and cruel interactions with one another. We always received gifts, with the reminder that we didn’t deserve any of them. So, creating my own version of Xmas was in order. I love the holiday. I love the lights and sparkle. I love the idea of family getting together, even if it’s not with my family of origin. We were never really a family.

This Xmas we had our family which we constructed from among the best people in the world, only one related to me by blood, our precious grandson, Louie. We have been bookin’ since November when we had my husband’s seventieth birthday, Thanksgiving, Xmas, New Year’s Eve, and now for returning to some semblance of homeostasis – balance. I return to work/internship next Tuesday and the beginning of my last semester in seminary. I will graduate with an M.A. in May. Life keeps plugging along, smooth waters, tempests, and tsunamis.

My son will be gone nine years on the twenty-second of January at 5:55 P.M. My light always dims a little on the angelversary. So much has happened since I said goodbye to my son. The death of a loved one changes every single thing about us. The world changes and the rest of our lives is an adjustment to living daily without the presence of our loved one; it’s a harsh reality, but – it is a reality. There is a truism about death and taxes being certainties in our lifespans. The former has tentacles that reach deep into our nervous systems and psychological constructs; the latter hurts us, but there will be recovery time.

I’m not sure one ever recovers from the death of a loved one. We learn to carry the loss – some with grace, some with perpetual angst. I’ve seen both – and many shades of gray on the grief intensity spectrum. We hurt. We heal, or – we don’t. At some point healing does become a choice – emotional healing. I can’t speak in terms of physical healing, anomalies notwithstanding, but perhaps there are even some instances when we can be responsible for our physical healing too.

The holiday season brought a lot of guilt for me. I had such a nice time with my new family – and even though I miss my son more than I could ever adequately express, we had a nice time with absolutely no drama. No one left angry or hurt. Louie, our precious grandson, had a lovely time with his new uncle and aunt. Louie’s family spent some time with us, and we had a lovely time with them too.

Our Priestess Sunshine saged our home and we chanted our intentions for the new year, as she lit the final Hannukah candle. The house is full of different versions of the Hebrew and Christian Bibles and other sacred texts from other faith traditions. I have removed the crosses from my house save one culturally Mexican one. I have kitsch from different cultures on my counters and shelves.

There is a method to my madness. I seek what comforts my grieving heart. I seek what causes my spirit to soar, and – I seek what brings me to a place as a compassionate servant to humanity – especially to those who know grief intimately.

“[Lord], make me an instrument…”

Grief can reshape us into better versions of ourselves. Of course, no one asks for opportunities to grow through painful experiences, but they happen, nonetheless. I lost my beautiful son nine years ago and I’ve spent the last nine years trying to find new meaning in my life, since my motherhood died with my son; he was my only child.

I love geological history, although I don’t profess to know anything about it, except what I romanticize. I think of water rushing through massive rock formations creating canyons and valleys, smoothing fissures and protrusions into glassy cave walls and suncatchers. Even in the deepest, darkest valley, the sun insists on pushing through – even through infinitesimal cracks in dark nights of the Soul.

When Rikki died my world was dark. I felt a little like what a Nosferatu must feel like when sunlight hits it; it stung my eyes, physically, and my heart could not be touched, even kindly; it hurt too much. I look over the past nine years and I’m astounded by the growth that was spearheaded through my son’s death, and, of his tortured last few years. I’d give it all back to have my son back, but we know that is unrealistic thinking, irrational at best. Who knows if there is a heaven? I hope, but I’m not certain. There I’ve said it.

I was terrified to speak my doubt into existence; somehow words made it real – and hell was real to a spiritually immature Soul; our Souls grows with each life experience, from the mundane to the extraordinary and many experiences in between. Death and grief have shaped my understanding of what is holy and what can be pared away from my worldview, from my heart, released from my consciousness.

No doubt the death of a loved one, in its finality, creates a hole in the cosmic fabric of the Universe. I no longer need to wonder about what lies beyond the black hole of death; it is the deepest grief, one from which you cannot escape. I held on for my one amazing life with bloodied fingers and ravaged fingernails as I clung to the event horizon, tugging and pulling on whatever solid I could find of the stuff of life: earth and gravel and grass, the cool grass that refreshes you after you’ve been hanging on for years trying to find a place to lie still, a place where you can catch your breath, a place where you can heal.

I almost fell down the rabbit hole for life. Four years of deep, guttural pain and emotional paralysis took me about a fourth of the way down that black hole of grief. Perhaps there is a better metaphor. If I get one life – I’m not going to spend it in chronic emotional pain. I now fight for life, mine and for the reenchantment of others’ lives. What’s your purpose? Did you lose it after you lost your loved one? Can you find it again? Has the death of your loved one changed you so much that your old purpose no longer serves you? Or your fellow human?

This is a new year and we always get a little sappy as one year closes out — in the black or in the red, and a new year opens up with three-hundred and sixty-five days of opportunities; I know I do. But this holiday season, I ended the year in the black, emotionally. I experienced joy and peace, peace is my goal for my home, and I achieved it; my family achieved it. Rikki. Rikki. Rikki. He is always present. He came from my body. We are eternally linked. My love for him is as indescribable as trying to describe God; it is infinite.

So, why the guilt?

Funny/not funny you should ask.

I miss my son. You miss your loved one. Our lives are moving further and further away from the day we lost them. We’ve grown through the pain. We’ve changed. Perhaps we’ve transformed, maybe even transcended what we once believed about life, death, the possibility of life after death, perhaps even what we thought we knew about God. Death clinks and clangs as it forges us into a pliability that stretches our consciousness and shapes us through our lifespan – however long you think that is. Perhaps death and its shadow side grief dance us into the Mystery of Mysteries of God. Perhaps.

I graduate from my master’s program in May. I cannot begin to express the thrill with which I end my time in seminary; it’s been a long, strange trip, and a grueling one. I’m grateful for the experience(s), and I’m happy for its termination. I’m applying to a few doctoral programs. In the nine years my son has been gone, four years were spent in intense and brutal grief. Was that too long? Maybe. In retrospect, I see the time I could have used for academic and personal growth could have been achieved much sooner had I not been in abject grief. I’ll be sixty-three this year and the clock ticks away. I have some decisions to make about the future I have left in this life – and — the one beyond will wait for me to get there; it can’t start without me. Right?

I want to draw a diagram that illustrates how far I’ve traveled since Rikki died. I want to, but it hurts too much. If I started at the beginning of my life and hit all the milestones, my life really started when I became a mother, and my life ended when I lost him. I’m not shooting for hyperbole here. The life I had before my son died ended. In the best-case scenario, we grow after significant losses. Life really moves so very quickly. I’ve been bemoaning the aging process lately, and then I remember, my son never got old enough to have gray hair, or pain from old athletic injuries, or the chance for his heart to heal from the person who broke him.

My life was filled up with my son for thirty-two years; it’s filled up with him still. I carried him into my holiday and we were at peace. His son said it was an awesome Xmas. He was the center of attention because he is the center of my world, just as his father was before him. See, we can make new lives for ourselves, because the truth is, the one we had with our loved one has run out of time. I don’t aim to explain the deeper concepts that come with death and grief. The questions that come from deep emotional and spiritual experiences are not mine to impose on others. I’m thrilled to read and listen to others’ spiritual worldviews. I learn from all of them, as I continue to add to and subtract from my own.

I don’t have all the answers. No one does. Am I an expert on grief? I’m an expert on my grief. I hope my journey touches you. I hope the posts where my joy exudes through the lifetime loss inspire you to know you will rise again.

Xmas was all new this year. Presence – not presents. Time spent with loved ones making memories. Carrying memories from Xmases past. Making new traditions. Learning from old ones. Keeping what works and throwing out what has not or perhaps never served us well. We slept through the festivities of the new year and rested well after a drama-free season.

Still…there will always be something missing: my son. So as the star heralded the birth of a king, it heralded memories of my own boy king, now an angel. He was here in his own way, deeply embedded in the DNA of his mother and his son, in our hearts, and in our Souls.

If you’re still clutching a piece of earth trying to climb back into a life worth living, tug as hard as you can; it’s so worth it.

Happy New Year.

Christmas, Grief, and Oldies

By Sherrie Cassel

The lava in the lamp undulates to no sound in particular; it’s rhythm is sure of its random order. No, it’s not oxymoronic. Certainly there is a trend. My husband is unboxing our Christmas ornaments. We have a box he has labeled “Important Ornaments” – Neither of us has an orderly brain, so lists – or we’d forget the other’s name. I know my son’s ornament is in the box. My heart races as I both dread and anticipate the moment I see and touch his ornament, the one with his smiling face on it, the one I’ve hung on the tree for eight years, each Christmas – without him.

His son is playing video games in our living room. He is the light of our lives. He is the son of my son, and he’s been with us for nearly one month, and we’ve enjoyed the heck out of each moment. He’ll be with us on Christmas and bittersweetly we will celebrate family and a hope for peace in our tired and troubled world. The custom of making new year resolutions only serves to bring strife and struggle into an opportunity to fine tune growth from our previous year.

I’ve been fortunate to have family and extended family, family of choice. I’ve released some to their own realities, madness, lies, and other dysfunctions. As 2024 comes to a close, I’ll take a few things with me into 2025. Some things and some people will not accompany into the new year. We learn to pare away those things … like parasitic barnacles on an aging whale. I know that makes no sense to anyone but me. That’s cool. We will have company all throughout the holidays, which I welcome, and even as I will always feel Rikki’s absence, I look forward to the laughs, the food, the love, and the closeness as a family.

See, grief doesn’t take a holiday … when I least expect it and in between the flashes of the lights on our tree, I will allow myself a few tears as I partake of the Christmas cheer, and those who love me will lower their eyes and allow me the momentary angst I will feel in my core out of respect for grief knowing they will lose a loved one, and those who know my pain commiserate.

I’m in my home office staring at my accomplishments as the light of the lava lamp projects onto the wall and the ceiling and oldies from a friend play on my iTunes. Thank you, Zeke. Louie’s mom, our granddaughter, his stepdad and his step brother will join us for an evening after picking Louie up and heading to Disneyland. Louie will leave and there is always a bit of separation anxiety for both of us. We’re very close. He is a piece of my son and he’s his very own person. In some ways like his dad, and some like his mom, and some like me and his grandfather. He’s amazing. I tell him all the time.

Christmas is tough for a lot of people for various reasons. I have a friend who lost her mother on Christmas day. Those for whom Christmas holds sadness – I wish you peace and someone to share it with. I fully intend to enjoy myself during the holiday – all the way ‘til we ring in the New Year with our dear friend, Suzy Q.

Our son (a former student of my husband’s with whom we did an adult adoption) and his beautiful and amazing girlfriend, L and A. I thought I’d never enjoy another holiday, or any day, for that matter. Prolonged grief wreaks havoc on friendships and families … and what it does to one’s head, heart, body and soul is astonishing.

Choice finally becomes an option at some point during the grief process. I know one day (four years later) I said, “I don’t want this pain; it’s too intense.” And so … I reined it in and put a bit in its mouth and started to guide it where and when I need it.

The ability to do so took four years of deep pain from the heartbreak of losing a child, my only child. Nothing will ever hurt me as badly. He came from my body. Yes, holidays remind me of his huge brown eyes on Christmas Eve. He never could wait to open his presents so he woke me up at one minute after midnight to say, “Mommy, it’s Christmas now. Can I open my presents?” I’d say yes and then he’d open them and fall asleep, sometimes amidst the wrapping paper. I’d carry him off to bed and we’d sleep in ‘til ten a.m.

He was the only grandchild and hit the jackpot every Christmas. Yeah, I remember watching him grow into a man and a father. I also watched him die; it seemed appropriate that I would be with him in his final moments. I was with him in his first. Momma and son through thick and thin.

I will hold a space for him in our holiday festivities. I will sit in the flickering Christmas lights and stare at his ornament and cry because he’s gone, then I’ll pull myself together, fix my makeup, and smile and laugh with people I love. Did I get there? I don’t think we ever do get there, but we learn to navigate life carrying the great burden of grief – for a lifetime.

“I’m Your Puppet” is playing on my iTunes and this was a song that had significance for me and my son. I think I’ll listen to it while I have some me time. I’ll take this moment to stare at the lights twinkling off my degrees. I try to remember I’m in the present moment.

“Just pull my strings and I’ll sing you a song, I’m your puppet.”

Rikki, I know you’re smiling. Yes, I remember. Yes, I love you – forever.

Moving Day

By Sherrie Cassel

They’re moving today,

the tempestuous neighbors

with their love song of expletives

as he beats time on her face,

once beautiful and full of life,

now beaten — down to the

nubs of her nails whose fingers point

to bruises, black and purple,

yellowing, but never healing.

Yes, I called the cops.

Of course, I did.

I had no other choice.

Even a brazen, opinionated

feminist knows when to be

afraid.

I watched him chase her

into the house as she

screamed, “Please, don’t.”

I tried to save her, but

the cops stopped coming,

and she kept returning.

What’s a neighbor to do?

Sometimes, despite one’s

best effort, a rescue mission

fails.

She’s young, maybe the

example we’ve set for her

will inspire her to leave.

We’re the quiet neighbors,

the ones whose age has gifted

us with the wisdom to not hurt

one another.

We’re the elderly couple

in a tiny house we have

made paradise.

So, the neighbors are moving

today, taking more than their

share of baggage, and of the

generations before them. It’s

a platitude to say history repeats

itself – until a wrench is thrown.

I pray there’s at least one decent

mechanic in her world.

Go with God,

angel.

Holiday Blues

By Sherrie Cassel

No one cares about your stuffy

religion; it doesn’t feed the

poor, nor does it calm the

crazed and crusty people

shouting at phantoms,

schizophrenics with no access to meds

in filthy rags on the sidewalks outside

your temples,

hoping for crumbs from your king’s

table,

but

there

are

none.

The Christmas lights twinkle and

the prism reflected on the dirty

walkway offers a brief second of

beauty,

for those who can see it through

the haze of poverty

and

mental illness.

Take a chill pill; this is not a

sunny Christmas poem.

How does one write one

while visions of

simple sufficiency

are dancing in the heads

of one’s sisters and brothers?

“Can I offer you a prayer?”

For fucking what?

The Gospel of greed is on the

lips of all whose gods are their

bellies.

Who speaks for the little guy?

“Can I offer you some food,

a clean blanket?”

“Yes.”

“What’s your name, Sir?”

oh, it has a name?

Tryptophan

By Sherrie Cassel

Dishes flying, broken glass, and disorder were not behaviors my dysfunctional family practiced on big holidays, i.e., Thanksgiving and Christmas. Terror was a side dish to our turkey, which we always had. We were “animales” during the other three-hundred and sixty-three days, but presentation is everything and our table always looked beautiful, and we better damn well not act like a bunch of goddamned animals if we knew what was good for us; we did.

Family lore has one of my aunts taking the turkey out of the oven and throwing it at the other sister; in some versions it’s a ham. In every joke, I’ve read, there is a seed of truth. Needless to say, holidays royally sucked with a few rays of sunshine after our father passed out.

Decades later, both parents gone, my siblings and I have no need to be in touch. We do nothing but remind one another of the pain and suffering we endured for the eighteen years we were imprisoned by an abusive tyrant, and a mother – who didn’t know how to defend herself, after years of abuse at the hands of her grandmother, her aunts, and then her husband. Generational abuse is historical trauma, and the “sins of the fathers [and mothers] ‘are’ visited upon the children[…]” until someone rises up and says, “Hell no! Not one second more will I allow this in my life and/or in the lives of those who love me.” This takes self-awareness, and looking into the mirror of your past and how it affects your present and how even a slight variation in maladaptive behavior can change the trajectory of your life; I know this from experience.

Holidays bring up bullets to dodge, tears and words to stifle, and memories best left unspoken; holidays are not the time. Presentation is everything. I was in my mid-thirties when I stopped attending “family” gatherings. I got tired of removing shrapnel from my soul after an afternoon of targeted missiles. Fuck that. My family was exhausting, and our gatherings were tense and someone always went home mad or in tears. Again, fuck that. My baby boy and I stayed home and enjoyed the Spirit of the season and our gifts together, a turkey, and a day in our pajamas watching movies we rented from Blockbuster…many, many moons ago.

My son was the only grandchild and nephew; he scored every Christmas, so he’d attend and then come home and report to me all the events that made it easy for me to maintain my absence from my family’s holiday circus. We’d shake our heads and sometimes we’d laugh. I grew tired of the tears – and so I spent my holidays alone until my son returned from his Christmas jackpot.

No one cares about my past holiday memories; we all have them. The important thing is, if we’re still here, we managed through them, hopefully with as few scars as possible. I lost my son. This is my ninth holiday season without him. I’ve normalized my angst and can get through holidays with joy and a lot of socialization. Years passed before I was able to do so.

My son was missed beyond expression this holiday as he is every day, but there’s something about a day that was special to him and meaningful to both of us for the same reasons: single mother and little, brown-eyed boy, holding hands and hearts and trying to live normal lives from perspectives of those who are broken and not self-aware enough to fix ourselves, to heal ourselves. I was fortunate to have chosen therapy for several years and shed the hardness from non-secure attachment and claw my way toward self-awareness; my son was not so fortunate.

We had a houseful for the holiday season, and we have a small house in the desert. We laughed, ate too much, bonded, shared, and loved one another on a peaceful day of fun, food, friendship, and family. The years have lessened the intensity of the grief process from a horrid childhood of generational trauma, and in nine years, I’ve managed to reel in my grief and not allow it to flop on my line maintaining a frenetic and unmerciful tug into the chaos that grief from losing a child can take you down in a spiral that is difficult to return from. The intensity of my grief comes and goes like the sunrises and sunsets, steady and predictable now. I’ve managed to tame the beast of grief, domesticate it, control it.

Thanksgiving or Gratitude Day, certainly not a holiday for many native-Americans, whatever you call it, and however you celebrate life, I hope it’s been wonderful, you had the right amount of the right people at your table as you ate, drank, and were merry. Life is short. Grief is a given in life; I know this now. Rikki is a chronic absence in my life now. I don’t know how to explain the level of acceptance to which I’ve arrived. My son is gone. He lived and died tragically. We loved each other and we hated each other. I have regrets and I have memories of days when I was wildly successful at parenting. I feel Rikki’s presence from time to time. I have his artwork all over our home. I have trinkets and items that were very important to him. I have his son. He’s sound asleep right now in our home. There are gifts every day, if we’re in the right headspace, and sometimes we’re not. There are days when I have to work hard to find something for which to be grateful, and as I make a mental list, my heartbeat begins to slow, my breathing calmer, my brain works its way to homeostasis, and then I’m okay and gratitude is easier to achieve. I get it. I’m Pollyanna, really, on most days. I see the silver lining. I see the vein of gold in the fluctuating mediocrity and pulsing life. But some days I just don’t.

Our guests have gone home after an amazing time together. I was able to bring my son into the holiday and be heard as I talked about the happy and the sad memories I carry in my heart that I don’t often have the opportunity to share on most days. I also loved the stories we talked about, family lore, culture, and personal beliefs. There was no shrapnel that needed to be tweezed out of my skin, no dodging bullets, no tears, anger, or bullying.

Free at last, free at last, thank the Gods almighty, I’m free at last.

Blessed be.

Healing through the Holidays

by Sherrie Cassel

No matter how hard we try to push the pain away from the loss of our children, it’s always there, and it takes only one word, or one note of a song to make us double over in pain, or let out a groan as the pain radiates around our hearts and brings the loss hurtling back to us with as much intensity as we felt the day our child died. It royally sucks, but it is part of the process.

Holidays bring with them a lot of emotions. I remember how Rikki loved to make our holiday turkeys. He loved it so much that I stopped making my own turkey when Rikki learned at twelve years of age. I miss how excited he’d get during holidays because he would lovingly make his turkey, and we would all fuss over it, and he’d beam with pride. I didn’t make a turkey for the first seven years after Rikki died. I’ve since started making a turkey again. We must keep the holiday Spirit alive for Louie.

I have a knife in my heart all through the holiday seasons; I pull it out gently every time the pain becomes overwhelming, and I breathe through those moments until I’m free from the stabbing pain, and it becomes a tolerable ache that is manageable and that still enables me to be social. There are ample opportunities for me to sit and cry when the need arises. I don’t push it away; I allow myself to truly bask in the overwhelming love I have for Rikki, even though it hurts to not have him here to love him wholly and better next time around.

So many things come up during the holidays. I miss Rikki. I think of him through his lifespan. He loved Christmas, even though, as a single mother we had lots of lean Christmases, and Rikki appreciated every single thing he would get. He never could sleep on Christmas Eve. He’d wake me up at 12:01 and say, “Mommy, it’s Christmas! Can I open my presents now?”

I miss him every day, but especially during those special days that remain so special to me, because Rikki loved them so much. Each holiday has gotten more normal as the years have moved on. I always mention Rikki on holidays, and my family is very accommodating. They have no idea how to help as I navigate an overwhelming moment, but they listen, and they may offer a memory about Rikki, and that fills my eyes and heart with tears, but I pull myself together to be present for my family. For me, I carry my grief alone; it’s easier that way for me. We each have our own way of working through those tough moments.

I cried through the first seven years of holidays. My eyes still well up when I’m making the turkey, and entertaining friends and family of choice. We do the best we can, and crying is certainly acceptable and necessary as we continue healing throughout our lifetime. I may take a moment to be alone and talk to Rikki and tell him how I’ll never make a turkey as good as his, and weep for a moment and commune with his memory and work through it so I can return to the festivities with family who look to me for an example of how to deal with my own grief, so they can deal with theirs. We all miss Rikki so much, especially his son and me.

Be well, and however you need to grieve during this holiday season is the right way.