Grief to Gratitude

Twelve Stepping Baristas at Al Anon Meetings and the Fourth Step

By Sherrie Ann Cassel

The coffee at Al Anon meetings is always perfect; it’s like those whose service task is making coffee for the meeting have a gift for concocting the magic elixir that keeps one awake until her voice shakes as she shares her angst about her addicted loved one. Al Anon did save my sanity as I watched my son’s final descent, unable to climb his way out of the vortex of addiction. I wept and I listened … and I learned. There were accounts that broke my heart, or made it soar with hope. We do “love” each other at meetings. I believe I went for three years and made two beautiful friends who taught me so much. I will tell you, shortly before my son died, I was on Step Four: A Fearless Moral Inventory, and it royally sucked. Gratefully to the God of my Understanding, I jumped to Step Nine: Making amends before he died, and I had a lot of them to make. I did. I learned from my two friends how to love and take care of myself; go get my hair done, find a hobby, pursue my dreams – even if my hands shook; and they did – for the four years my son, my tortured son, was dying. I learned to keep on living – even after the heartbreak of a lifetime, accompanied by a pain so great it can knock the wind out of you, sometimes with no visible provocation, a song, the geese flying south for the winter, a pink sky, the scent of his favorite household cleaner; it could be nothing anyone else can understand unless she has lost a significant loved one with whom she had an intensely loving relationship. Each of us has. My grandson lost his dad (my son) when he was only six years old. They were very close; for our grandson, it has been his greatest loss.

Twelve Step potlucks are a huge spread, like when we celebrated the anniversary of my home meeting, or there were speaker meetings, and Thanksgiving, Christmas at shelters, auditoriums, and rehab facilities. During the holidays, one can find a meeting any time, anywhere for twenty-four hours, and now with the internet, the Twelve Step message can go out to even more family members who love and are stressed out about their addicted loved ones; however, if one utilizes only the virtual meetings, she misses out on the perfect coffee and the camaraderie of real people in real time and the handholding ( less so since COVID) and reciting in union, a communion of sorts, the Serenity Prayer.

See, when an addict is so sick and compelled to use, no longer in control of his compulsion, the effects on the family and other loved ones are substantial. One of the tenets of the Twelve Steps for Al Anon is: We didn’t cause it. We can’t control it; and, we can’t cure it. Some of us do bear some of the responsibility for our addicted loved one’s personal angst, not all the responsibility, but for whatever secondary gain we received from our willingness to ride that mechanical bull of hardcore addiction with our loved one and for however many mistakes we made, one can still make amends and in that single task, one can begin to heal. I used to beat myself up – on the daily; it was almost like I needed to hurt in the same way my son needed to use heroin. If I could just hold on to the pain, he would always be present in my life. I wanted that pain. I needed that pain…and I’d begin to heal and then I’d rip off that scab and I knew that the force and disregard for the progress I made – time and time again – one step forward, two steps back — I knew it would bleed. I tell my friends and family (with whom I’m still in relationship) – that just because we fuck up doesn’t mean we’re fuck ups. We have all made mistakes in our lives, in our relationships – make amends to those who are still willing, as the Ninth Step says, “Make direct amends to such people wherever it is possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.” There will be times when it is too late, and the damage is too great to keep a relationship, even with family – maybe sometimes especially with family. There must be some common energy that flows through DNA, and DNA of our Souls. I was created in the climate of domestic violence, and some can’t ever be healed – and that’s okay. I watched a movie years ago called Rachel Getting Married with the beautiful and amazing Anne Hathaway. In one scene, she’s in a Narcotics Anonymous (NA) meeting and when she was able to share, she was on the Ninth Step, she was asked by the secretary of the meeting what she could expect facing the making of amends with her family. Hathaway’s character said, “They can forgive, or they don’t have to, and that’s okay.”

See, it is okay.

We move forward with our life after a significant loss; we must. If we don’t move forward – forward from our mistakes, forward from our self-flagellation, forward into life, we die to so much of life. I know. I’m sorry to say because my grief compadres may disagree with me. I used to wonder why Twelve Step programs are so successful in helping millions to stay sober and for reaching out in love and compassion to those who still struggle. I wish I’d been able to offer more of the latter, and as much as addiction is a family disease, and as much as I was raised in an alcoholic family, I did not reach out with compassion some days, but there was always love, and he knew it.

See, addiction makes the whole family system crazy – all the way to an infant who grows up in alcoholic tension. There is a play, my absolute favorite by my absolute favorite playwright, Eugene O’Neill called LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT, and in the play a mother who is addicted to morphine has relapsed and has started using again. The tension in their relationships is palpable. The refusal to discuss the glaring issue that their mother and their father’s wife is steeped deeply in addiction is also glaring. It is exactly what happens in codependent families affected by addiction.

Sometimes “talking” doesn’t work, because when one is loving and so angry she can scream, the addicted loved one is high or drunk or jacked up on meth or nodded out with heroin or ODing on fentanyl. Screaming at an addicted person is like screaming into a canyon; the only thing you hear is the echo of your own words coming back to you. Screaming NEVER works; we’re only hurting our relationship with our loved one, or we hurt ourselves with the inability to release some of the responsibility to where it belongs, squarely on the shoulders of the first choice to use – and while your addicted love one still has her faculties, you might be able to reach him; but by and large, we perpetuate our own pain by not being able to let go, to truly let go.

I don’t mean to say I’m angry with my deceased son. What I want to express is whether it’s a grief support group or an Al Anon meeting, find your niche and allow the healing to begin with you. Again, I like the Al Anon I’ve written about above, “I didn’t cause it. I can’t control it, and I can’t cure it”; it’s true. We each have agency, i.e., the ability to think for ourselves, even if we are burdened by ghosts from our past. Of course, there are some exceptions. There are some people who are so wounded in their brains, hearts and Souls they truly can’t think rationally and trying to rationalize with them is an exercise in futility; it ain’t gonna work! I tried…and failed….and tried and failed. There were days when I was wildly successful loving my tortured son. I know what it’s like to love a child so much it hurts. I know what it’s like to fuck up with a child and I know what it’s like to love a child so adequately that he will love you ‘til his dying breath, the way I love him, in spite, yes, spite in of the face of dysfunction and a dystopic family environment.

If I had not attended Al Anon I might have gone insane. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t work. I couldn’t manage my own life because I was so busy trying to save my son’s. He was wounded by his family, and he was wounded by others. When he died, his heart wasn’t just physically sick; it was broken. He used until he couldn’t feel anymore and then he used until he died. He died in withdrawal. His heart was so sick it couldn’t handle the harsh and violent withdrawals from heroin. I understand Jerry Garcia died the same way.

I just can’t recommend Twelve Step programs emphatically enough, and not just because the coffee is always excellent and the potlucks are right up there with church potlucks, but because the people who accompany you on your journey of realigning yourself with the rational world where you know that addiction hurts everyone in its path and it’s not that you’re crazy, but powerless, “We admitted we were powerless over [whichever substance your loved is using] and our lives had become unmanageable.” (Step One)

After my son died, I thought Al Anon might still be helpful and I missed the friends I’d made through the years, so, I went to a meeting. Big mistake. My qualifier, we didn’t use names of our loved ones in our roundtable sharing, my son, was dead and I could no longer commiserate with the group; it hurt too much to attend a meeting after I’d lost the love of my life. I haven’t been back. I started this site and another private page on Facebook, and the parents at our site have been my Higher Power and my healing power. Research has been done regarding the success of the Twelve Step programs; what has been suggested is peer-to-peer support is helpful to people who are struggling and with others who share similar struggles, i.e., those whose loved ones are addicted to a substance, or several.

I strongly encourage you to find a grief group in which you will find your healing niche. We have a group dedicated to parents who’ve lost their children/grandchildren to addiction. We know each other’s battles intimately – even though the circumstances surrounding our child’s death may be different shades of black on the spectrum of grief. At the end of our darkness is a life rich with possibility; but first we must relinquish whatever residual irrational thoughts we carry into each day, holding on to that angst, holding tightly to visceral feelings that hurt us and ruin our ability to thrive. Compassionate Friends is tremendous grief group. I highly recommend it. One of my members went on to form her own in person grief support group. I went on to finish my Associate’s, my Bachelor’s and now, my Master’s degrees because I started focusing on myself after thirty-two years of being mother to a child and man who battled demons his whole life. The last four years were horrible with snippets of joy, and then…he’d relapse. I formed the group because I was inspired by the Al Anon meeting, I attended ten years ago, and because I could find no therapist who specialized in grief from losing a child. They just weren’t out there. I went all the way to seminary for answers and gleaned from the Facebook page all the amazing wisdom from parents who’ve been on this terrible journey for a substantial amount of time, and sometimes, some of us saw it coming…and as hard as we tried to prepare ourselves, no one is prepared to watch a loved one take his last breath and leave our world forever.

I don’t care how the Twelve Step programs work; they are wildly successful for attracting others through behavior change and compassion. As of 2021, Alcoholics Anonymous itself, was active in 180 countries with an estimated membership of nearly two million – that’s nearly two million Souls who have found their way to sobriety and a life of promise – and the coffee’s not too bad either.

Be well. Forgive yourself for your mistakes with a loved one(s). Make posthumous amends. I’m not sure what I believe every day of the week, but on my most in step day with my son’s Spirit, I feel its Presence. I can hear him. I can smell him. I just can. I talk to his Spirit all the time, on my four hours of traffic time in rough traffic. I tell him I love him and miss him, and then I shrug my shoulders on other days and remember that I have no knowledge about the afterlife, only hopeful speculation.

I’d love to know about your experiences and perhaps we can help others through this terrible/wonderful journey. I want my son back; I always want my son back, but I’ve had to move forward from a situation I could never cure or control; I’ll accept some of the causation, but there were others who contributed to his ultimate choice to use until he made himself so sick his heart could no longer manage keeping him alive – and – I lost him.

Forever…but the show must go on; it just must.

I wish you a day in which you find peace and maybe even a snippet of pure, uninhibited joy, maybe even through this blog post. Peace.

A Good Cry

By Sherrie Cassel

We are each fortunate from time to time, even those whose lives resemble a life likened to Job in the Hebrew Bible, or perhaps Sisyphus of Greek origin, to have days when there is smooth sailing and our loads are light enough for us to catch a moment of relief from the onslaught of the barbs of life. Two weeks ago, I had such a day of tranquility. I had nothing to do, for once; I was caught up with my weekly notes, caught up with my homework for my Models of God class, etc. I was on top of things. I realized there was nothing going on, nothing that needed to be immediately prioritized.

I hadn’t cried in months, not that it’s my thing, but grief is for the lifespan and triggers are unpredictable, so, every so often a song will come on, and sometimes it’s a silly song that Rikki would have hated, and I’ll be in tears, months, and now, years after his death. Grief makes no sense, other than to prove that love is eternal – even when there is no physical entity with whom to share it. Find a way to sublimate that love connection which you now grieve; it took me a while to get that the connection is still here. Even if the placental remnants from his birth didn’t link us forever, our spiritual connection has always been very solid, even in turbulent times. We were emotionally enmeshed, a two-person household, just him and just me, and – just us.

I recently said that someone I know is too “task-driven” and that it drove me crazy. Pot, allow me to introduce you to Kettle. I realize that I too am task driven. I have a reason for every single thing I do during my day, from housework and homework, to scheduling time for emotional meltdowns. My husband and I are planning a trip this summer, along whose way we will see beautiful things my husband is dying to share with me and with our grandson who will be accompanying us. My husband is very excited and keeps adding things to see on the “trip.” He was adding the events at a dizzying speed, and I’m reminded that this is supposed to be a “vacation” too, after a traumatizing and amazing internship and culmination of my master’s degree program.

I graduate in three short months and have a lot of tasks to accomplish before I walk across that stage, shake hands, smile for the camera, and walk away with a tremendous sense of pride and relief; it’s been a very long journey. I realize how I’m also task-driven, and after decades of academic work, I want to slow down for a semester, before starting a Ph.D. program. From the moment I wake up to the moment I hit the bed, I have something to do. I keep it that way, maybe so I can stay in a state of comfortable numbness. Grief is great and it is ever-present.

So, busyness keeps my attention on things other than my broken heart, but just like oil rises to the top of a puddle, so too does grief, no matter how much or how deeply I stuff it down, it will rise at the first scent of a rainstorm reminding me that my loss is for my lifetime. I work hard two days per week, and I live peacefully with my adoring and brilliant husband and cats. I know how important self-care is, and I also know that those of us who work in the helping professions do a pretty piss poor job of taking care of ourselves, and I was majorly guilty of this before my internship. I was fortunate to have a supervisor who was firm, but not harsh about urging us to take care of ourselves. I’m grateful, even though it was a hard, but necessary lesson to learn. I know it’s a tired analogy about the oxygen mask on the airplane and using it first on yourself before assisting someone else. One cannot adequately care for others if one is not taken care of herself. Makes sense.

So, I’ve been taking good care of myself. I booked myself solid on the angelversary of Rikki’s death. I never melted down during the day or night, but I did allow myself some measured tears, and then I collected myself and resumed a life of blessѐd peace and two days of chaos on the freeway and the amazing fortune of seeing people who are awe-inspiring. Life is give and take … and acceptance and adjustment to things not always working out the way we want them to.

Two weeks ago, I was feeling antsy because I don’t know what to do with myself when things are going too well – for too long. I still have vestiges of C-PTSD and occasionally need to fuck up something, because may the gods forbid, smooth sailing last for too long. On a Saturday morning, I was avoiding doing housework, and I was playing music on YouTube, and watching animal rescues and ridiculous things people do.

I was feeling like I needed to be doing something, because in my task-driven character, I don’t know how to relax, really, even on my days off I’m busy…and you should see what’s in my head! I was also in neither a good nor bad mood. I just was. The dog videos weren’t helping me tap into my emotions this particular morning. I wasn’t feeling anything but anxious, and nothing was going on.

There it is, a video of sons returning from the military to surprise their mothers with the accompanying music, Christina Perry’s “Thousand Years.” So, I wasn’t feeling bad (yet). I thought this will help me to feel – like an emotional emetic. I was right. I hadn’t truly commemorated Rikki’s angelversary a few weeks back sufficiently. I sublimated my raw emotions and poured them into tasks and into people, and I gave myself a gold star and checked the day off my calendar.

As the first mother’s mouth fell agape, my eyes welled up and I wept a blue streak. You see, my son will never surprise me again, not here anyhow. If there is an afterlife, I hope to meet him there. I live in my head most of the time, and like Persephone, I come out in the spring to pick daisies and hide in fields of sunflowers. My crone is now appreciating the longevity of summer days and short summer nights. My mother’s heart burst wide open – again.

My husband taught high school theatre arts and English for nearly forty years. He taught even the most introverted and shy students to those whose fire shone through each character they played. I was blessed to be a part of his last fifteen years of teaching and watching the productions he directed his students in. I, myself, could never have been an actor, and in high school, I was a gangly nerd, so no acting (other than the presentation of my public persona). I always wondered how actors could cry on demand. I myself cannot. I need a video of sons returning home to mothers who’ve missed them for a very long time.

I cried at the first vignette, and I wept for two hours, unabashedly and unashamedly, the tears of a grieving Momma who keeps herself so busy she has no time to stop in for a spell to allow herself even a safe space in which to grieve.

I didn’t schedule this meltdown, but I needed it, nonetheless. I miss my son. He is no longer here. I have had to move forward in my life – and I race, as task-driven as I accuse others of being. I asked myself the day of self-imposed mourning why I needed to tap into visceral emotions. Did I need to impale my already and forever tender heart because life was just going too damn well, and I needed some reason to hurt myself for the day? I always overthink my grief. I lost a child, yo, my only child; I have a right to grieve as silently or as sonorously as I need to.

I remember in early grief, sobbing and wailing loudly and not caring that the neighbors might have thought I’d plum lost my mind; I kind of did. One can be beset with grief; I was. Because of an infernal American worldview that insists we be constantly cheery, I worked hard to keep my shit together in the company of everyone I know. In private moments I would lose it. Even if my husband were in the next room, I wanted to be alone with my grief and with the ghost of my son. How does one grieve the loss of her child? There are no rules, time limits, or methods to get through the acute phase of grief. I recommend screaming until your throat hurts, sobbing until your chest heaves and hos, curling up in the fetal position and sleeping so you can’t feel – in the early days and months of grief.

Everyone is different.

I recommend meltdowns – in safe places and/or with safe persons. Writing and pouring myself into something that evokes passion in my Soul are things I would also recommend as you grieve. I’m amazed by the creativity that has emerged from my grief process. I’m inspired by the things many of the parents at my grief sites have gone on to do after the loss of their child(ren). We spent our seasons in hell, both while they were living and since they’ve passed on. Nine years and nearly one month ago, I said goodbye to my son. Seasons have come and gone and I’m getting older and grayer, and hopefully, wiser, and time marches on.

Crying is nothing about which to be ashamed of. Grief is a natural reaction to death. Meltdowns are natural. Songs are meant to be emotive. Art is meant to help us express those emotions for which there are no words, only colors, textures, and soul energies poured onto canvases, and sometimes, our emotions are too deep for words, and so, the flow of emotions can burn hot, but inexpressible. Paint, hum, compose, dance, ad infinitum toward the healing of your heart.

Two weeks ago, I was in a funk that lasted for two days. I suppose I needed to cry; it had been a long while. I read that tears release hormones that help us to heal, to regulate the intensity of emotional states. I hope that’s true, because I cried a river … elicited by a YouTube video that slayed me.

I guess we each do what we need to do to “feel” the things we need to feel so we can find our way back to lives of purpose where we can use our pain and our grief to reflect growth, compassion, love, and transcendence – back out into the world toward healing others even as we continue on our own healing path.

Like I waited too long for my last oil change, I waited too long for a meltdown; it was well past time. I didn’t need to hurt myself that day; I needed to feel, and I’d kept myself too busy to do so.

I’ll pencil it in for next time.

Stoking the Embers

By Sherrie Cassel

I held it up to my face,

my left cheek, of course,

because of your handedness.

_____________________________________________

The round ceramic dish

with your name scrawled

on the bottom is

_____________________________________________

shiny and green, like a cactus,

no spines, just innocent little

fingerprints, proof you were here.

_____________________________________________

Years later we would laugh

at its resemblance to an ashtray,

and we thought, “In the first grade?!”

_____________________________________________

I wish you were here to remember

this with me, to laugh at the absurdity

of life and to cry over – your death.

_____________________________________________

I kiss your tiny signature and I

put my fingers in your fingerprints,

and I remember those tiny hands,

_____________________________________________

and my heart swells with so much love

that it encompasses the whole world,

as I spill my love for you into the Universe.

______________________________________________

I’ve been broken wide open. Unlike this

little ceramic dish that has traveled with me

for over thirty five years, I’ve been shattered

_______________________________________________

because I lost you,

because …

I lost you.

_______________________________________________

But I have this little token of your love, and

every so often, I hold it up to my face, and I

try so hard to connect to your Spirit, and

Sometimes, I think I do.

Grieving Mental Health in America

By Sherrie Cassel

I’m a writer tonight, not a spiritual care intern, not a psych major, but just a writer who is teetering on inappropriate characterizations of a segment of society that struggles to be noticed, other than as spectacle. There’s no other way to say it, and I’m not a clinician, so I won’t dare offer a diagnosis, at best it would be a guess, carefully consulting the DSM-V, but … the guy was batshit crazy. We were stuck at an exit off I-10 W in California. The traffic was particularly heavy at this offramp, and we were at a standstill for at least an hour. I saw something out of the corner of my eye, and so I turned to see if it was an animal. One might characterize the crazy man as animalistic, but they’d be wrong. Certainly, there was some serious mental illness. For a person to jump over the guard rails on a busy freeway weighed down with metal poles is self-destructive and high-risk behavior. I was initially afraid he was going to take one of those poles and start beating our car, or the other cars in line. When he climbed over the guard rail and squatted down beside our car, I nearly had a heart attack. He jumped back over the rail to an area that was a bit ~safer~. As I called 911 (my husband was driving) – the gentleman jumped over the guard rail again, very careful to not jump in front of a car or into the freeway. I thought to myself, “Okay, yeah, he’s crazy, but he’s not crazy enough to really put himself in harm’s way. At some level, he knows there’s a line not even some of the most mentally ill folx will not cross – the one that takes them out of their mental illness – and life – forever.

I gasped as I watched this man live by the skin of his teeth and the survival skills of a person who may still be in there, and but for piss-poor mental health care in the United States, he could very well be recoverable. I’ve seen medication do miraculous things in a person’s life, in my life. I have the luxury, a very expensive luxury, of health insurance. Although some of my recent decisions of late might lead one to think otherwise, I’m not insane, but I am challenged with a mental disorder which I’ve discussed many times here and on my other pages. I’m beyond fortunate to be able to pay for the meds that keep me balanced and in love with life.

I read somewhere once that behind every insane person is a sane person watching. I wonder if this is true. From personal experience, I knew when I was losing it, and I knew when I’d lost it. I wonder if this guy knows he’s lost it – and if he wants to come back. He lives off the side of the freeway. He was filthy, wearing what looked to have been a nice jacket once, now torn and grungy. He spoke into a piece of cardboard as if it were a cellphone, then he screamed angrily, unintelligibly (my window was rolled up – and my door locked) … as he kicked and stomped on a piece of scrap metal on the inside of the guard rail.

I don’t know what has inflamed this man’s brain to insanity – but something did, and no one is watching out for those who can’t take care of themselves and so, in this one short life, he is not enjoying it. I find that tragic. Don’t you? I knew immediately this gentleman would be the subject in my next writing assignment, when I saw how close this guy got to getting hit by a car, but how he was able to stop himself from getting too far out into the freeway, like he may still have a “life wish.” Is it possible that those who are certifiably insane want peaceful and quieted minds, want normalcy, want minds that don’t burn them until they writhe in the hands of the gods of insanity – no anchor, no insurance to rescue them, and rife with historic and ignorant stigmatization?

I watched this man struggle with the ease of someone who is non-existent in the eyes of those who are privileged to blindness. I admit, I was afraid, first for myself, as is the case with the human animal, but then – I was terrified this poor soul would get hit and killed – and I would have to watch it.

The police dispatcher asked a bunch of questions as I watched this kid cheat death. Yes, there is a pedestrian on the side of the freeway, oh, my God, he’s jumping over the guard rail!

Hold on, Ma’am, I’ll transfer you the dispatch for that area.

WTF? All this unfolded as we sat in traffic for over an hour; it’s amazing what one can catch if one is willing to edge out of her comfort zone and explore what’s out of her safe peripheral vision. I thought I was way beyond my own judgmental characterizations of those who are more insane than I am, and more insane than you are.

Didn’t the Mad Hatter tell Alice that “We’re all a little mad around here”?

The perception that even I have as a person in the helping professions surprises me. I didn’t get out of the car – too dangerous and I’m not one to jump out of cars on busy freeways, but here was this man, either full of faith or in a bad way. If you’d seen him, I wonder what you would have thought. Please leave a comment and let me know what you think you would have done. It’s a hard call. I still give money to the unhoused. I still help out my neighbor. “Who then is your neighbor?” I do what I can to help those who are ignored and then marginalized. My super power is love, the kind of love that compelled me to love myself enough to not put myself in harm’s way by helping this lost soul in a dangerous, potentially fatal situation, the kind of love that compelled me to call 911, the kind of love that has me thinking about him still, and offering a prayer of deliverance for this man, deliverance from an unquiet mind. I wonder what his voices tell him.

I know they tell him to not get too close to death, and so, he didn’t. At one point I covered my mouth as I gasped as he kept getting too close for my comfort to the cars, and he laughed. It’s difficult to tell if he was laughing because one of the voices told him something that struck him funny, or if he was laughing at my fear, and there, you have it, I’ve wandered into crazy land.

There was a gentleman, a person who was challenged with schizophrenia, and he attended a liberal and moderately progressive church I was attending at the time. He would every so often burst out into raucous laughter, right in the middle of a sermon. He was harmless, smart, and unhoused. He lived under a train track and he was stabbed to death by another houseless man who shared the same mental illness. There’s an entire universe of unhoused people who are mentally ill, without access to mental health care. I wonder if the traffic hadn’t been during rush hour, would I have offered him a meal? For safety purposes, for my safety and that of my husband, and even of this young man, I stayed in the car and offered a prayer.

This event transpired over a little more than an hour. These are the thoughts that ran through my head as my heart stopped and started over and over again while this man negotiated his dance with near death like a seasoned tango dancer.

We finally got up to the light, to the Light, and left this man’s presence, hoping the police really were on their way and that they’d be kind to him. Sometimes…they’re not. I imagine they’ll put him on a 72-hour hold and then cut him loose back on to the street, a different offramp, where perhaps a Good Samaritan will endanger herself and put him in her car and buy him a meal, and get to know his story. Maybe she’ll even tell it to others, his story, her story, our story.

In January 2024, 770,000 people were unhoused in America. 18.4 percent of people who experienced homelessness in 2022 had serious mental illness (SMI). I don’t know where on the spectrum of mental illness this young man is, but it doesn’t take a shrink to see this man needs help.

We were on our way to a party where we would be eating prime rib and drinking adult beverages and laughing it up with friends and family.

I wonder if he was hungry.

Promises to Keep

By Sherrie Cassel

Happy heavenly birthday? I’m not sure I even believe in heaven, but desperation to see my son again compels me to hold on tightly to my doubt – because then I can hold on to some belief, some inkling of hope that there is a place where a parent can meet her child on the other side. Today is nine years ago that my son died. I usually get a little morose a few days before; it’s the dread of the overwhelm of feelings, when I’ve worked so damn hard to keep them controllable. I don’t mean that in a control freak manner of speaking, but in the way that a person who’s been working her grief process for nine years can learn to schedule meltdowns – except for triggers that knock the wind out of you. Yeah, right. I stayed up until 12:05 a.m. so I could get the entrance to the worst day of our lives over with. It worked. I went to bed and cried myself to sleep and then woke up resigned to another year without my son.

So, this site is about joy, and I know I get off track– often. I’m human, and I need an outlet just as much as my readers say they are helped by my work. I appreciate the readership – when I’m focused and when I’m like WTH is she even talking about. My brain is a many-splendored thing. Hey, you know what, so is yours.

On this day, this ninth year without my son, I will do my best to not think about the months, days, hours leading up to his death. No, I’ll not do that to myself. I won’t think about the ways his death wounded me deep in my Soul, or how it changed my perception of the God of my understanding, how it made me more compassionate and more open to sitting in dark places with friends, family members, even strangers. My eyes are opened more widely and I see more and more of the “bigger picture”. If I have to think about how much his death has changed me – then I have to remember the agony it’s taken to get here.

So, I’m supposed to talk about joy on this day; I’m going to do my best. Often, speaking about your loved one to someone else who loved him or her too helps a great deal, providing the other person has worked through whatever residual emotional challenges he had with the person who has died. Sometimes…the person at the bus stop has more compassion than a family member.

I’m doing remarkably well. My heart hurts and I’m doing my level best to keep my head above the torrent of tears that historically breaks free at the end of my work day. I took the first part of the day off to do busy work and to mourn – and to write this joyful/not joyful blog post. Angelversaries are lonely and so I reel in anyone who will listen to me say, “My son died on this day.” But I do know to whom it is safe to say it and from whom I will be met with tense gazes and quick getaways; it’s okay. Not everyone can sit in the darkness with another person.

What about joy? The first year after Rikki’s death, I got in touch with my immediate family to take a couple puffs of Rikki’s favorite flavor of cigar at 5:55 p.m. in honor of my beautiful son. Everyone did and they took pictures of themselves from wherever they were…even his ex-wife. I was moved by the gesture.

See, I may not always have the energy to hold up under the weight of impending and significant dates, but sometimes, I can catch the fire of someone else’s charge, and I can get through the day. I don’t even necessarily have to tell someone I’m the wounded one in our dyad for the day. Great emotional strength from a growing set of healthy emotional resources have helped me through the grief process. As each day proceeds, there are lessons that come from our pain – and with skinned knees and eternally bruised hearts we get up and we turn our grief into something spectacularly service-oriented.

I love the quote by Mother Teresa, “May my heart be broken so wide that the whole world falls in.” I feel that way too. My pain is great. My love for my son is greater. I’ve always said the fast-track to healing is through helping others. The love I can no longer shower on a living child, I pour into the lives of as many people as I can. Do unto others … was a platitude to me until I lost my son and since I’ve spent nine years grieving his death, adjusting to a world where he does not physically exist, and learning how to live again. None of those tasks has been easy … but joy, that’s right…

I’ve been pushing away any bad memories I have of the day he died. I choose to think of the day he was born, a beautiful and frightening prospect. He was beautiful. He was so tiny. He had red hair when he was born, but as the days and weeks progressed, he went bald, a little old man baby. He was adorable.

I want to think about his milestones: his first step, his first word, his first heartbreak. I want to think about the times I was emotionally able to step up to the plate and be a good mom … however intermittently. I want to take his baby teeth to a psychic and hope against hope that I will hear nothing, but also afraid I won’t.

I want to hear his laughter and I’m grateful for the videos and voice recordings I have of him laughing and speaking. He had the most genuine and unabashed laugh. We would laugh until we cried.

I’m going to listen to his favorite songs today, but only the ones from which he derived joy; I’m going to share in my son’s posthumous joy. Some say he’s gone, just gone, but I’m not going to bring in questions of Ultimate Reality today; I need the energy I have to keep my shit together while I’m out in the world.

I want to go read the birthday cards he wrote to me with his own hands. I want to hold up to my face the little ceramic dish he crafted for me when he was just a small boy. Will I feel his spirit through these items, through these talismans? I’m going to try, for joy’s sake…for my sake. See, I can calm the storm in my heart; it hurts today. Emotional pain is acceptable and understandable – for any occasion. Like REM sang, “Everybody hurts … sometime.”

But damn it, I will be joyful today … if it’s the last thing I do. I miss you like no one can comprehend, my beautiful son … but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.” (Frost, Robert)

Happy Heavenly Birthday, Baby Boy.

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