Grief to Gratitude

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.

By Sherrie Cassel

for Rikki

It’s been a minute since I’ve had time to write my grief. I feel it every second of the day. It’s like a soft, aching minor chord; it runs through everything I think, say, do, and feel. Even good moments remind me of his absence – and I always get a catch in my throat, and it takes me actually and physically shaking it off. I’m always aware. I will always be the mother who lost a child – and if that wasn’t devastating enough, I also watched him struggle, blood, sweat, and tears as addiction ravaged his soul and destroyed his beautiful mind and his thirty-two-year-old body, once cut and toned because he loved going to the gym. I watched him die a very slow and heartbreaking death. I know many of you know how it feels. There have been some people who have told me, “Well, my son died a ‘normal’ death.” I always take offense because my son died honorably, even if he was broken. He was a son, a father, a grandson, a nephew, a friend, a human being. He was the love of my life.

Life has been moving quickly for me. COVID kept us isolated for three years, and my social skills began to atrophy. Seriously. And my seminary classes were all taught via distance learning online. I had my first in person class last April. I’m currently in a class now and an internship, seeing clients, navigating traffic and personalities, some challenging, and some, easy peasy (lemon squeezy – Louie, our grandson, used to say that). I’m softer in some ways since losing my son, but I’ve also gained strength of which I had no idea I was capable. Like Persephone, I spent a few years in Hades, and then I reintegrated back into social life. I don’t find myself in Hades anymore – well, maybe on his birthday and the anniversary of his death. I summon Demeter, the mother within me and I come up for springtime air.

I have moments when the memories are just too much. What do I do? On most days like when I’m feeling a meltdown coming on, I book myself solid so I can just firmly hold on to the present moment(s) I’m blessed to have. My son, your loved ones were not that fortunate. I miss my son every minute of the day, and I have reclaimed, or truly claimed for the first time, a life rich with possibilities. I now have a heart that is tough and soft in all the right places. I’m not merely surviving anymore.

I’m alive. I’ve worked hard to be where I am. I thought I’d die when Rikki died, in fact, I wished often that I would fall asleep and never awaken. The pain was deep within my soul, and I will have a bruised heart, deep into its core for the rest of my life. My heart beats now for his son. I owe my son that.

In the beginning of my grief cycle, I was barely surviving each day as I worked strenuously to put the pieces of my life back together. My purpose for this site was to open up a safe place to share my grief and my gratitude. Sometimes I work through my shit – not always about grief. I’m grateful that grief is no longer my singular focal point; it was for nearly four years – a time when my life was one giant ball of angst and sorrow. I try to never forget the woman who temporarily lost her mind from grief, remembering her keeps me soft and empathetic toward those who are at different stages of the rocky path of grief. I have figuratively clawed my way toward wholeness. My entire being ached.

My words are weak in conveying my grief; they will never be sufficient.

I’m finally, nearly nine years later, able to speak to my grief without a meltdown. I find it funny (amusing) – which is progress – that when I bring up when I’m missing my son, people just don’t know how to respond. I get if someone is in a hurry because they must be somewhere; I don’t get staring at her feet because she’s suddenly gone mute and insensitive. I know it’s hard to know what to say about something that may scare the hell out of you, either that you will lose someone with whom you have an intimate relationship, or that I’m going to lose it. No one is equipped to handle someone else’s grief. Certainly, you can create a compassionate and loving space for her, but there will never be words except the ones that grievers find to heal ourselves.

See, I tried therapists; none of the four I saw were trained in grief. I went to fundamentalist churches looking for answers. Why my son? Why didn’t G_d heal him and bring him back to me? I learned the story of Lazarus is cruel. I prayed for my son to awaken from death, and he did not. As a griever, you’re off the hook for descending into unreality. Of course, my son would not awaken, no matter how much I begged the god of my very limited understanding at the time.

I chose to go back to college and complete my B.S. in psychology, and since I did that, I figured I may as well go back and get my associate degree in social and behavioral sciences. I’m now in seminary in a master’s program. If I didn’t have something to pour myself into, I’d lapse into utter grief – like in the early months following my son’s death. My experience has shown me it is best to find a channel for your pain. Create something beautiful from the debris in your shattered heart.

My grief took longer to manage because I did not have people in my life who knew how to sit in the dark with me. After the Storm has given me the greatest gift throughout this nine-year journey. The members at our site have lost as much, and some, even more, and they are courageous in how they share and in how they assist others, from the depths of their own pain. I have healed through their beautiful sharing. My heart has felt heard and understood at the site. I’m grateful for the parents who have touched me so profoundly as I navigate the horrible/wonderful grief cycle. “Some days are diamonds; some days are coal.”

Grief to Gratitude is something I want to do for others who may be struggling with regaining their footing in a new world without your loved one(s). Healing is not an easy task, and I’ve known some who may never get there; however, healing is also a journey. You’ll be battered and bruised, for sure, but after the convulsive sobs and doubling over in pain, there will be times of respite, times in which you can catch your breath, times when your head will clear and you can think and plan and move forward, not away from, but toward the reclamation of your life. We’re learning about time in my Science and Religion from a Process Perspective class. I swear, it’s as difficult as algebra was for me, and I don’t claim to understand any of it, except from a metaphorical perspective. The one thing I do understand is that life moves so quickly, the next thing we know we’re in our sixties. We’ve loved and we’ve lost.

We will always miss and ache for our loved ones who’ve passed away, died, transitioned. But time waits for no one, and the constant of grief expands and constricts our heart – and we must go on. I wish I could tell you the recipe for healing a broken heart, a shattered spirit, but I only know what has worked for me: hard work, both inner and with relationships I’ve neglected, helping others, filling my brain with information that provides clarity for me, and turning my grief into gold in others’ lives.

I was the only one who could comfort my heart. I had to find the internal strength to create a new lexicon for my experiences: posttraumatic growth, grit, and grace – and even a new conception of the G_d of my understanding. Seminary has healed me in several ways. I’m learning a great deal about myself and humanity in my internship. I have the wherewithal to grab hold of the brass ring and pull myself out of the darkness of chronic grief. I’m walking in the light of a full life now. I thought I’d die a little every day for the rest of my life.

I don’t know when it will happen for you if you’re currently in the early stages of grief, but it’s possible. I have now met parents who have been working their process for double digit years. I’m now a veteran griever. Nine years, soon it will be ten, and each year takes me further and further away from the night my son died – a seismic event in my soul. I make the choice everyday to think about our happy times together; it helps, but I will always have a dull ache in my heart…but it must keep beating. I have living people I love. I have goals and dreams – even at sixty-two. I carry my son lightly these days – I give his spirit respect. He had to go; it was his time, and I had to let go of him.

The Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS has been in the sky but will leave our sight soon and won’t return for another eighty-thousand years. I’ll be watching it with my son. I’m counting on it.