Grief to Gratitude

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.

Politics, Religion, and Peace

by Sherrie Cassel

The end of another hostile election year in America, the country of my birth, the country of my parents’ births, and my grandparents, and their grandparents, etc., has culminated in a loss for some and for others a win. Power waxes and wanes and is sought after homicidally and immorally. Just like all kingdoms, America’s will fall at some point, and perhaps a new one will occupy us. Who knows? We’ve managed to maintain status quo for two-hundred and fifty years. My mom, a fundamentalist Christian, used to say we need a world revival and a return to the God of her understanding. Perhaps a revolution in America will shake up our lazy slumber. Maybe. For those whose candidate lost, hang in there; as the MAGA people’s president has said, “It is what it is” –. The candidate who lost and their constituents will survive just as their opposition did their own gnashing of teeth when your candidate won.

I’d be remiss and derelict in my responsibility to my country if I didn’t at least mention the election, and so there, I have. The rabidity with which this election fell prey was unnerving, both sides, and yes, it’s the norm, but I’ve decided I’m too fucking old to lose even one second of my hard-earned peace to debates, old wine in new wine skins. The political debates have descended into religious debates, again. The hunger for and the race to power is nothing new.

Sometimes one must shelve ideological, internal challenges until one has time to work on them. Scheduling time in our busy lives to handle the stuff of emotions is a true chore in American life, in California, for sure. We work ourselves to death and we strive for the almighty dollar, because money equates to power in my country. I can speak only in terms of my national experience. I surrendered tribalism many moons ago. I am a product of my culture – the mind/body challenges still abound, and I have chosen fragmentation in the past. I prefer a more holistic approach to, well, pretty much everything.

I don’t think America’s problems abound because of one party over the other, one personality over the other, or how to wield one’s power over the other(s). I think we’re struggling because of the brokenness of our country persons, all of us, beginning in our infancy all the way to positions of leadership. A class I took last year, I believe, called Trauma and Grace, opened my eyes and my heart to all people and to all living organisms that are also “fearfully and wonderfully made.”

The problem with perspective is that it arises from the minds that are both healthy and unhealthy. I’m no exception. Power seeking from an unhealthy mind is destructive to self and to others. Villains are archetypes, and some of them are real. So, on I go wielding my sword against them, in defense of self and others. That’s why we’re here, to love one another unto creating a Kingdom of peace…one generation at a time. We’ll have our Goliaths’ to slay, and some duels we’ll win and some we’ll lose, but every once in a while, collaboration and another attempt at peace. Perhaps.

I am pushing on toward my master’s degree. I’m working with vulnerable populations whose minds are not engaged in political and religious debates; they are just trying to survive. Our grandson will be with us for the holidays, as well as our family of choice. My husband turns seventy next Saturday, and I’m throwing him a birthday party with a guest list of nearly forty people. I have a class, a very challenging, but riveting class that requires graduate level reading, so, needless to say, post-election victory or loss, we keep moving forward.

When my son died, I was lost, and politics were the last things on my mind. I had no choice for how to choose what I would allow in my bubble of grief; I just ached, deep in my Spirit. I have a choice now. I did my due diligence and voted for the candidate I felt most represented the American and my values. That’s what we do as citizens of our respective countries. I hear people say all the time, patriots, who say that “We live in the greatest country on earth.” Trust me, we have our issues.

I love being an American nonetheless, in an America rife with issues and promise. “There is nothing new under the sun.” Old wine in new wineskins. I will not allow myself to lapse into a conspiratorial mindset. Life is so short, and people are so special I see the face of my Higher Power in the face of each person I meet, even those with whom I disagree. I think the death of a child, through the grief, catapults us into a deeper relationship with the Cosmos and all that is in it. I know, my love for people has intensified since the greatest loss of my life, and since I took the Trauma and Grace class.

You see, no one is exempt from some type of trauma, and out of the residual effects of our respective traumas, is where our opinions are formed. Do you love, or do you hate? Do you understand, or do you judge? Is your worldview life enhancing, or life depleting? These are the things that, in my worldview, bring me peace. Love, love, love, not in a Marianne Williamson kind of way, but true concern for our fellow persons’ welfare is the Guiding Force in my life.

I know my fundie friends judge my choice of Higher Powers, whom I also call G_d. I protest the way some Christians treat those with whom they disagree, unto that rabidity I spoke about above, same thing with politics. About the Book, the B-I-B-L-E (a song from Sunday school one-hundred years ago)… I love it. I cut my writing chops on Emily Dickinson, the Hebrew, and the Chistian Bibles. But, I’m sorry, for those who love me and are praying for my Soul, I serve a G_d of love, not one of judgment, and certainly not one who “loves” people so much, that that god would be willing to damn a “loved one” to eternal suffering. Nope. That is just contra to Jesus’ teaching. God is love, or God is not.

If you’ve never read Alice Miller, I’d suggest starting with FOR THEIR OWN GOOD….brilliant book about parenting all the way to the leaders of our countries. I won’t engage in political debates; worldviews are difficult to change. I once mentioned my political leanings on this page, and was stalked by a woman who looked me up and then said ridiculous things about how I was so stupid I probably killed my son, just because I spoke my mind on “my” page. Honestly. I also lost a reader who felt compelled to tell me how she felt about my choice in candidates. MYOFB. I won’t try to convert you to my way of thinking; please don’t try to convert me to yours. The same goes religiously. None of us will ever see eye-to-eye about the origins of the universe, or why we’re here. I believe the answer to the latter is to co-create the earth with the God of our understanding and the emotional health to bring peace about our world, one person, one generation at a time. But that’s just me. My husband is atheist. We have amazing conversations about how far I’ve traveled, all the way to seminary, to find a G_d that does not offend, hate, or judge people for our brokenness. I don’t know how the word “sin” ever became a trendy type of judgment against people who struggle with many types of challenges, from domestic violence (because women should be subject to men), to mental disorders brought about by trauma, from the unspeakable to trauma with a small t, all monumental to the one experiencing it.

I guess my point(s) are:

1) We, every one of us, are fearfully and wonderfully made;
2) We are worthy to be loved, every one of us;
3) We are here to make our world better;
4) We are here to find our purpose and then as Picasso said, we are here to, “give it away.”
5) We are here to love and be good Samaritans, even to those with whom we disagree, or with those for whom we have no understanding;
6) We are here to learn how to be good human beings.

Life just moves too quickly to be upset all the time; anger causes a host of physical and emotional ailments – which – shorten our lives. I don’t think we can ever let it all go, not even religions that practice hardcore meditation. We each have to come out of our prayer/meditation time to live among others, those who are easy to love, and those who are extraordinarily challenging.

Remember, we were once strangers in a strange land, including mental health disorders and brokenness. Who am I to judge another person when I’m imperfect, missing the mark in some way, shape, or form, on the daily. But life goes on, and best-case scenario, we learn to be “instruments of peace” – and not of power.

Namaste.

Taming the Shrew

By Sherrie Cassel

Grad school and internship keep me busy, busy, busy. During the pandemic, I was sheltered in place unless I absolutely needed something from the store. Remember how scarce toilet paper was? I’ll refrain from cracking a crude and inappropriate joke here, but it makes a lot of sense, retrospectively.

There is a thin line between retrospection and ruminating. The latter can drive someone insane and that is not hyperbole. I was crazed with grief after my son died. One of the reasons I had such a hard time breaking free from the clutches of prolonged grief was the days and nights I spent ruminating about all the things I could have, should have done to save my son’s life. Ruminating about the now impossible opportunities to live a life with a profoundly important person in your life can either help or hurt you. Grief can drive you to irrationality. I begged the god of my former understanding to make my son rise up like Lazarus. My heart hurt so badly I fell prey to unreality, and I stayed there for longer than was healthy. See, it’s okay to dream unto rumination about the good memories and even the things that hurt us. We need to grieve losses, and regret is part of grieving, too. Staying there, however, can be self-destructive after too long.

Today I’ve lit some peppermint incense and I’m listening to Sublime and I’m trying to let the ache I’m feeling today go, but unlike my knees aching now in the dead of winter, there is no salve that will take the pain away, even temporarily. The ache is constant. It’s true though that joy comes in the morning and through mourning. I think we get so busy with life we forget just how much we love someone. We show them, I think by being there for them when they most need you, but in our consciousness, we take for granted just how much we love them.

My son has been angry with me, so angry, in fact, he didn’t speak to me for one year. My heart was broken. I reached out until I realized my efforts were falling on deaf and angry ears. I got the message loud and clear. For once I had done something that was not codependent with my son and I got banished from his life for one year. I’m not going to lie; it hurt like a son of a gun (I’m in seminary – I’m trying to use fewer expletives). We eventually got through it, and then, he would die four years later. His last four years were so ugly, dark, and ugly, and he was not solely to blame for that, nor was his addiction. We each have our coping mechanisms. Some are more adaptive than others, and some are self-punishing.

One of the mothers of a member of the band Sublime lost him to an overdose. I’m very close to ruminating the day away in a way that will only hurt me, but I have a lot to do, schoolwork, planning for the groups I will facilitate this week, getting ready for the holidays, and trying to stay in the present moment – in that place where I’m functioning, because today, honestly, that’s all I want to do. It’s been one hell of a year, and I mean that in the most desperate way I can to be understood: it’s been a hell of a year. I’m achieving balance in my life again. During the pandemic, we had our grandson for the first five months and then we just managed along with the rest of the world living through a historical and scary moment in time. We made it through. We always do. We are a fierce and tenacious species.

I’ve been listening to music today that takes me way back to days I look upon fondly and days I look upon with anger and shame. I’ve had mistakes, huge ones, wrought against me, and I’ve made mistakes, huge ones, against others. There is no one who can boast of a life without such mistakes. Once there was this girl in high school and I totally got busted talking smack about her. The sad thing was, I really liked her, but the consensus of our little clique was she was not welcome. I felt bad, but I fell prey to hurting someone because I had not yet learned to honor my own convictions with integrity. I’m sad and I’ve always regretted my behavior, but I was fifteen years old; I’ve forgiven myself.

My son was the most forgiving person I’ve ever known. He loved with reckless abandonment. He gave all of himself. I’m grieving him today. The holidays are upon us. My husband turns seventy, the big seven-oh next week. I have a semester and an academic year to wrap up. My last semester will begin in January and I’ll have only four months to go in my master’s program. I’m jamming now to Jethro Tull…and I remember my son’s sporadic and eclectic taste in music. The love of music is something I gave to him, and he chose the music that best suited his personality. Insane Clown Posse had a nice beat but some of the most vulgar language, and I’m NO prude. He also loved Kris Kristofferson and had as spastic choices of music as the woman who modeled for him how to be human.

I regret all the mistakes I made, and I used to obsess over them after my son died. I was obsessed until I could barely function. My son was gone I and a few others were responsible for his death. I don’t let my son off the hook for turning to drugs, but the fact of the matter is, people don’t turn to self-destruction unless they’re very broken, and there are degrees of self-destruction. Some overeat. Some starve themselves. Some shoot up. Some stay in abusive relationships. Some keep choosing partners who only hurt them through verbal abuse or neglecting the relationship – over and over again.

Grief and I wrestled with each other until I emerged with the victory, a life of quality, complete with joy, and the strengthened ability to handle whatever life hands me. Maybe grief is like a near-death experience; it catapults you into another level of consciousness, maybe away from one in which you were stuck. I’m NOT saying “all things happen for a reason.” I believe that’s a hurtful perspective. I’d still be begging God to raise my son from the dead if I believed there was some purpose for his death. There isn’t. And my son certainly did not die so I could find my purpose. Seminary had been brewing in my mind for a few years before my son died. I’d always been fascinated by theology; it just made sense, even if my son hadn’t died.

But what has happened through the greatest loss of my life is a transformation toward a victory, a transcendent experience over grief. I can’t raise my son from the dead. No one can. But…I can and have raised myself from the dead. Some of the ways I’ve been able to do that is because I read so much. I work so hard to heal. I speak and write my pain, my grief, my joy, my confusion, and I share from the depths of my heart and from the parts of my consciousness I feel safe sharing, and I share a lot. I don’t have as much time to write on my blogs as I would love to, but the internship is almost over and my life can be mine again, until the Ph.D. program.

I ruminated myself into taking time away from homework and doing laundry today. I ruminated all the way into writing about rumination which led to musings about all kinds of things that explain grief from the perspective of a woman who’s grieved for nearly nine years. Am I healed? Not entirely, and maybe I never will be entirely healed. But I am healing, and I’ve healed in ways I never dreamed possible when I was dying a little at a time with grief. There is dancing in the morning after a long dark night of the Soul.

See, sometimes ruminating can yield good fruit too. I was prepared to be bumming all day and into the night, but I’m okay now. I’m revving up to read some articles for my process theology class, and then watching a show called, Lost, with my husband. My son always wanted me to watch it, but I rarely have time for television, so I’m watching it now, and I hope Rikki is smiling somewhere saying to himself, “I told you you’d like it, Mom!”

He did, indeed. I miss him to the ends of the expanding and contracting universe. In the interim, between now and my last breath, I must grab hold of life. As Rikki’s death at thirty-two years old shows us, life flies by in a flash. Ruminating too long takes away valuable time from living fully. Tears and grief are givens as long as we’re alive. We will lose loved ones. We will be disappointed and disillusioned. Shit will go down that levels us, and then, we will all ask the question, “Why me?” We will ruminate on that question until we arrive at an answer that satisfies our mind and our soul.

May we find that answer quickly. Life flies by so dreadfully fast.

80,000 years

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.