Grief to Gratitude

By Sherrie Cassel

Memories fascinate me, and how we evoke them based on where and how we are at any given moment. A song, a breeze, a scent, etc., can bring a memory wafting in like a feather, or crashing in like a wrecking ball – with intense force. This morning was the latter, but first it was the former. Memories over losses of great magnitude bring with them knee-jerk reactions in rapid succession: joy for the moment being remembered and then immediately, angst for the tremendous loss of a person with whom you had a profound relationship. We are interesting in our reactions to life-altering moments. We are an immensely creative species, for good, or – for ill.

I was speaking with my brother this morning. In two months, one year will have passed since our mother (my sweet and spicy Momma) died. I had a memory of her making tortillas and flipping them on the comal (the cast iron skillet – a family heirloom). I got the family molcajete, in which I learned to make super-hot salsa. Funny, the things we want from our deceased loved ones. There was a wooden spoon she would spank us with. I have it, mixed in our insanely disorganized large utensil drawer. I guess it’s my purple heart.

I told my brother that Mom used to make tiny tortillas for mine and my sister’s dolls. And once – she made ice cream out of snow. We didn’t know about acid rain back then, during the Peloponnesian War. I stole that analogy from my husband, who says he’s older than dirt. He’ll be seventy in November. Our clocks are ticking; no, seriously our hearts are still ticking away. Grateful to be alive. My son will never be sixty-two. I grieve this – so deeply, in a place where only the Holy Spirit, as I understand it, knows the depths of my pain. Saying I miss Rikki will never be an adequate description for the howling ache that I feel every single day – as I force functionality and work exhaustively to invite joy into my life.

I’m reading a book by James Hollis, Swamplands of the Soul, in which he says that the goal is not happiness, but rather it is meaning, making meaning, learning from meaning, assimilating the lessons and applying meaning to make the world a better place by effecting change in wherever your passions lie. For example, my goal is to offer hope to those who feel hopeless. My journey is compelling, and my warrior’s journey continues as I brave war and peace – in a complicated world.

My memories used to whip and bloody my back, and I crashed and burned many times during the most intense part of my grief process before I learned to carry grief, to shape into something manageable, to hold space for it, but to gain the resources I needed to begin to heal. I learned to navigate grief – and then, I learned to tame it. Does that mean I’m healed? I know there will always be an open wound; I don’t kid myself that there will come a day when I leap from bed and it doesn’t hurt when I’m once again hit with the reality that my son has died and I’m not to see him again in the flesh, to hear his laugh, to hug him, to say, “I love you, my precious and beautiful son.”

As I thought of how we used to savor our mother’s tortillas and her making us Easter baskets out of strawberry baskets, and then the memories of her manic depression and how she rapid cycled throughout my childhood, I flipped my memory to the other side, and directed my brain to remember the tiny tortillas, damn it! Don’t go down that road, which is so easy to do when we are not self-aware. Grief hurts like a Samuel L. Jackson word; trust me, I know. Sometimes you need a strong word, and a nice one won’t always do the trick.

How do you navigate grief from a loss that is attached to a complicated relationship? You will find ways. Again, we’re a creative species. Art often comes from a place of angst, and the deepest feelings, yet somehow, we each find there is a loss of some sort within us, and like leaves in the fall, there are seasons in which we blossom and there are seasons in which we die – to ego, or like grief, we learn to tame it.

Eight years and seven months ago, my world was shattered. I was at the mercy of intense grief; it would arise in my body, and I had no control over the deep, convulsive sobbing. The pain in my chest came on like a tsunami and I wept until my tear ducts were dry. I know the intensity of grief. I know that in the first few months, it takes every bit of strength you have to get through the day without searing pangs of grief surging through your being. Healing takes a lifetime. I used to think I was healed, and maybe I am because I now function really well in life. I experience moments of intense joy – and sometimes joy elicits sadness, a bittersweet memory. Does that mean I’m not healed?

This morning, I was listening to my pop-py seventies music and feeling wonderful, having recently taken a giant step in self-care, and the song, “I Can See Clearly Now”, by Johnny Nash began to play on my iTunes; this song was played at his Celebration of Life; there is both a happy and a sad memory attached to the song now burned into my psyche. Memories – are not always “misty” or “water-colored.” When the sadness was darkening my morning, “Louie, Louie” began to play directly following — and I smiled. Our grandson, Rikki’s son’s, name is Louie. The full range of emotions, from joy to angst to homeostasis, in one fell swoop can cause emotional whiplash, for sure.

But like some arm themselves with their sacred scriptures, one can also be armed with the implements that will protect us from the perpetual and profound pain we feel in the early months of grief. Some people lapse into deep and what is called complicated grief – and some never are able to function well in life again. We each grieve differently, and one way is not better than another, more or less functional, maybe, but not better. I was tired of hurting, and when I realized the power to calm the raging waters of grief was within reach, I just had to grab hold of it and ride its dangerous crests – until I made my way to the shore, where I was finally able to catch my breath and begin to heal.

I’m not the same person I was before my son died. I’m not the same person I was before seminary. I’m  not the same person I was yesterday, and tomorrow, I won’t be same person I was the day before. We change every day. Our perceptions change our perspectives and our perspectives are the lenses through which we see the world – dynamic, not stagnant. I flip the memories back to those which bring a smile to my face – and I, with herculean effort, hold on tightly to the goodness of the memory – and I rest, for just a moment, in the part of my psyche where pleasance lies, a place that doesn’t lead to dysregulation.

There are days when Emerald City is preferable to the Tell-Tale Heart.

But each has its value.

By Sherrie Cassel

I caught myself dancing

this morning,

and for just a second. . . it was

an ordinary moment,

a moment like when you

                were still here.

I wanted to call you to tell

you the day started off

                without a hitch,

a precursor to a good day.

I wanted to sing you a song

                and have you dance with me

like we used to on our summit.

I stopped dancing as soon as I

realized I was moving on.

                No. Never.

And yet, the music played on and

even though my swaying slowed,

the joy did not dissipate

                entirely.

Wherever you are, I hope you caught

me being happy —

              for just a second,

for just a second.

By Sherrie Cassel

To Rikki

The sky opened up in a grand symphony

that played your name over and over again.

I listened for your voice in the choir, but

I couldn’t hear you through the joy

for your return.

The shaman said we spend our lives

trying to get back to the garden of Eden,

back to G_d, to a place where we are whole.

You’re whole now.

I’m bittersweetly at peace.

When once you were ravaged with pain,

you are now laughing in a healthy body,

whole, sharing that healed and beautiful mind with

the other angels.

If our journeys consist of returning to the

Origin of our existence, where G_d first

breathed life into us, then I will let it be enough,

even though  a mustard seed is too much to ask.

I miss you so much.

By Sherrie Cassel

I’m going to share something some, and sometimes I, consider to be woo woo, i.e., metaphysical and therefore, not grounded in “reality.” I love science, and there was a time I revered science and I thought of it as my Holy Grail filled with the answers to every question I would ever have; that was only thirty some odd years ago. Seems like time flies when you’re living your life, come what may, dreams fulfilled or disasters and deaths. Life is amazing and heartbreaking.

 I was with both my parents when they died. My dad had very shallow breath and I couldn’t stay with him until his last rattled breath, but we got to say goodbye. My mom died as elegantly as she tried to live; she fell asleep and stopped breathing. I held her hand until she died. I walked away from her body, just like I walked away from my son’s body – not knowing what happens after we die – and I desperately needed to know — for several years after my son died.

This is the freaky part, the what the heck mingled with whoa – who can explain this?! – I’m not so sure it’s about conceptualizing an afterlife, a banquet with Jesus, a conversation with Allah or the Buddha, or any number of expressions of, for lack of a better word, G_d, but it’s about answering the question for yourself, “What do I consider holy, or divine, or sacred?”  I’m sure we all remember the Joan Osborn song, “One of Us.” Radio stations (what’s that?) played it until it was a quick dial change (also, what’s that?). I still love the song, and her “St. Teresa” – is a masterpiece. Whose face do we see when we encounter a broken person, do we see ourselves, but for grace? Do you see the face of your entity of culture or do you see your most beloved dead person. I see my son, and I see Jesus who is the symbol I grew up with and whose image has transformed every time I do.

I don’t know if there is a heaven. I don’t know if I’ll ever see my son again. I hope if there is a place, our deceased loved ones are whole and happy, no cares, no sicknesses,  no more heartache, and just eternally at peace. I used to weep because like a mother, after he died, I’d ask absurd questions, like “Rikki, do you have enough food?” “Are you warm?”, “Do you  miss me?” I have not received any confirmations one way or the other.

If one can suspend reason (WTF?) … not abandon reason, let’s just say there is a “spirit” that can exist between two people or a group of people, and the more intimate the relationship, the stronger the spiritual connection, or shared energy, or mirroring neurons, or…I had such a connection to my son. Our spirits and our biology swirled and created a relationship, come hell or highwater, that was as unique as a fingerprint, a spiritual fingerprint, dancing pneuma blowing through desert pines, invisible, but mighty.

On days when I’m in a good spot, I allow Rikki’s spirit to flow through me and I try to recall a memory that would make him smile or laugh and then I find myself smiling and laughing; it’s a delicate balance. I try. Navigating grief is a conscious effort – if one wants to heal. I wish I could explain it. Describing my spiritual experiences with grief is a little like trying to describe G_d to someone, as you look at me bewilderedly. I wonder if two minds can converge and achieve a cosmic affinity – or perfectly mirrored neurons – oneness, with rhythmic ephemera dancing all around us and through us. I wonder if my spirit – and Rikki’s dance together sometimes. Am I desperate to believe the connection between two souls never dies? Once touched two people can never be untouched, whether the experience was transcendent or droll.

I felt my dear, sweet momma’s spirit leave her body and I cried for a second and then I remembered I hadn’t eaten all day, and practical matters took precedence. I think I was able to more quickly put one foot in front of the other because I have lost a child, and I know with absolute certainty that healing is around the corner and up the hill, but unlike Sisyphus – there is an achievable peak upon which you can wave your victory flag. I feel Rikki’s essence in every victory I have. I feel his presence – quickly followed by his absence. There will never again be a moment that is not bittersweet. Thoughts of him make me smile, the happy ones, ~and~ they sometimes make me cry because it seems like a minute he’s been gone – and other times it feels like it’s been forever. Deep grief constantly pulls you in different directions. I’ve been stretched beyond recognition as I’ve used grief to redefine me through the fire. I won’t allow my son’s death to be in vain. He lived. He lived. He lived, and then – he died, but he did a lot of living in that time. I taught him how to celebrate life and he did too – until the addiction took over his beautiful mind.

I feel his spirit when I’m celebrating life, despite my losses. Once, shortly after he died, I took some of his ashes to sprinkle on a giant desert boulder and I lit some incense and said a rosary. No, I’m not Catholic (anymore), but I do still love the feel of the beads in my hand, the chanted prayers, and the active part I play in my own prayers as I advance on the string of beads. I don’t need to do peyote or any hallucinogens to have a mystical experience, no judgment. However, I had a mystical experience the day my husband and I were out in the desert. My son smoked cigars, wine-favored, wood-tipped, and as I cried through my rosary, needing a sign from the G_d of my understanding, across the chasm between us, life, death, belief, unbelief, I had a whiff of my son’s cigar and I saw him crouched down and writing something in the sand, reminiscent of the story about Jesus purposely not answering a question but rather silently writing something in the sand. Preachers for millennia have conjectured on the meaning of this passage of the Christian scripture. There have been many interpretations.

If there is an afterlife, it is impenetrable by the drama of our species. I explain it all away by saying the cigar scent was an olfactory memory, or the image of my son squatting down and writing something in the sand was the desperate imaginings of a grief-stricken parent. I so want to believe that after our time here is up, there is a place that makes all earthly experiences pale in comparison. Until then, I’ll take the wind blowing through the trees, an unexpected our song playing on SiriusXM, a moment alone with the majesty of my Creator/ix G_d, — but then with my son’s spirit – real or imagined – I’m never really alone, even if a memory is just a brain secretion.

I’ve had a couple of dreams about him – and I generally don’t remember my dreams. The dreams have been powerful and very life-affirming. Is that his spirit flowing through my being – distributing fairy dust to my skepticism? Or is it as the Temptations sang, “[…] just my ‘magination”? I don’t mind being of double mind, or triple, or quadruple, ad infinitum. As I grow, I pare away, or life does, things that hurt or hinder me and I sculpt what’s left into a masterful work, Henley’s poem rings true, I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.

I have memories of my son and I dancing together, from birth to death. Those memories bring both smiles and sadness. Forever a perfectly choreographed dance, sometimes with with allegria and sometimes, danced to a dirge. I reach to the sky in worship of what may lie ahead and where the G_d of wholeness and completion holds my son tucked safely away from the wounds he incurred while he was here – until such a time as I can join him.

I believe; help my unbelief.

By Sherrie Cassel

He was a war hero. He served in the Korean War, a war for which there was no rhyme nor reason, and for a confused Marine who was already experiencing posttraumatic stress disorder from an abusive childhood, this war seemed better than the one he fought at home – daily. I get it. I know he spent a few seasons in hell himself. My father was an exhaustingly hard worker. He’d routinely work two or three jobs to put food on the table. I see now the sacrifices (all of which he told us about often) he made for our family. He was broken before he became a father, to two sets of children from different wives. He abandoned his first family and had no relationship with his kids from either set. He stayed for my family — and routinely beat us.

I’ve had the benefit of therapy and inner work to have moved past my father’s abuses and I’ve determined that none of us is perfect — I have a mirror too. There are some things which are unforgiveable, in my opinion, but for me and for my father, I’ve found that understanding has been more healing for me than forgiveness. I understand why my father was such an abusive asshole. I get that too. I was reading, Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz” – which I highly recommend; it is an astonishing poem, and as I was reading it, I was reminded of the chaotic and confusing relationship I had with my father. Was there ever tenderness? Not until he was an old man.

During my developmental years when attachment was vital, we did not have a successful one. In his old age, when he became a grandfather to my son, an incredible transformation took place in this old guy, and he became human. Too little, too late for his kids, but not too late to pour his penance into his grandson; it was a beautiful and bittersweet thing to behold. He knew he fucked up with his kids, so as much as he tried to bridge the gap with us, there were times the gap was impassable. There are some things that are unforgiveable.

I don’t ruminate on the abuses I’ve incurred at the hands of my father anymore. He’s dead, and I no longer have to pretend to my oblivious family members that he was even a decent father; he wasn’t. Was he a good grandfather to my son? The best. My son adored him and the feeling was mutual. I asked my dad one time if he could do his life over again would he have chosen to have children. His answer did not surprise me. He said no. I was in my thirties, and I had some significant therapy under my belt, and I’d researched the dysfunctions in my family and was healing in great leaps and bounds. Therapy and education lead to self-awareness and then we get to choose what we do with the benefits, find purpose and live your calling; it’s possible, please believe me. Wherever and whatever you’ve come from are not our final destinations. We have opportunities all the time to dissect and dissolve the shit we’ve endured in our life.

My father was as broken as he made me for many years. None of that excuses his behaviors and brutality toward his families. But –

I finally am able to understand that it was not I who was unlovable, who deserved angry words, slaps, and fists. I can relinquish the feeling that I was at fault for the abuses. I didn’t deserve them, not even when I really blew it as a kid. No one does.

However, to see the relationship between my son and his grandfather was remarkably healing for me. I got to see my father be tender for the first time in my life, in my early twenties. He changed over the years, but not before his terrifying tyranny in my family. Despite the abuses, the terror, the neglect, I love my father – and I hate him too. Grief is very complicated with an abuser, especially one who reformed after therapy, or AA, or a come to Jesus moment, whatever it takes. My father surrendered his self-destructive relationship with alcohol – and the transformation was miraculous. I still had anger to work through before I could begin to see his sincerity. He knew he didn’t have a leg to stand on with his kids – and sometimes he had such a sense of entitlement to his kids’ love, like it was a filial duty to love – even when that love was not warranted.

Generational abuse/trauma is more common than our society chooses to address. My good friend and I were discussing the state of our world, and we decided the whole world is dysregulated from trauma, big T or little one. I’m of the opinion that trauma is relative and what might seem like a little t might be a giant one for the survivor of abuse/trauma. All things being relative, I suppose. My friend and I also said, “When we stop hurting our children, our world will change for the better.” We won’t get the kind of leadership that emerges out of pits of generational abuse – that shit trickles down too. Pardon my graphic illustration here, but I’m ready to tell the truth about what I see, hear, and experience with full confidence, not meanly or vindictively. Life is too short to seek revenge for things that happened in the past. I don’t mean this dismissively, but – get into therapy, educate yourselves about trauma, PTSD, and posttraumatic growth, and heal yourselves.

My father died surrounded by his victims – all who had achieved a level of grace toward him as he lay dying. How do you grieve your abuser, a parent who you both loved and wished death upon so the abuses would stop. I won’t pretend my father was a lovable man. He wasn’t. When he got old and unable to take care of himself, I stepped up and did my filial duty toward him. I suppose there were moments in our life together when he allowed himself to see his family’s humanity and he behaved appropriately. We never knew from one drunk to the next, but he didn’t have to be drunk to be abusive. He was a rageful man, and I learned that trait well. You must have an idea by now how important therapy and education are to me, and their messages have become my respective gospel. Preach it, Sista!

I went into the field to heal myself. I’m now at a place in my life where the past is shelved in a very deep recess of my brain, and I get to choose when it emerges and for what purposes. Was my father a good person in any way? No, not until his grandson was born. How does one reconcile love and hate that fluctuates through one’s life? My journey to do so began forty years ago when my son arrived into our dysregulated world and dysregulated family. I had conflicted emotions about being in relationship with my father. There were days I wanted to bail and say, “I’m done.”, and walk away forever. He was so good with my son, whose own father had bailed on him, I wanted my son to have a male role model who adored him, and he found that in my father. They adored each other – and there were days when I hated my father so much, I agonized over letting him be around my son out of sheer revenge, because he loved my son so much, and I knew it would hurt my father.

I let it ride and they had a magical and loving relationship. I’m glad I was able to see what was best for my son and not what would have been best for me. When my father died, my son took it very hard. He was sixteen. He called my father Dad because his own father was like my father in that he could abandon his children without ever batting an eye. History repeats itself. My mom chose a loser and so did I. I didn’t think my father could ever change, but he did. My ex-husband has not.

The saying, “Being angry with someone is like drinking one’s own poison” – or something to that effect is true. I carried that anger with me for far longer than was beneficial. I have victims of my rage left in its wake. I have relationships that never got off the ground because I was a bundle of rage and revenge – along with a self-image that had been born in abuse, shame, and terror.

I remember once my father and I planted strawberries under mine and my sister’s bedroom window, and we watched them grow and produce fruit. I was enthralled with the daily development and when the scent of the strawberries wafted in through my window, I felt at peace, and I loved my father for bringing something beautiful to my life.

He really didn’t do it all that often.

But as we pick and choose the memories that bring us joy instead of added sorrow, rage, shame, or self-loathing, we have the opportunity to exchange some ugliness for some joy, peace, understanding, and maybe even a little grace.

My father was a war hero; his greatest war was the one he waged against himself.

I’m fine now.

By Sherrie Cassel

The song, “Icicle” by Tori Amos begins with the sound of the chaotic beginning of a melting icicle, until the pattern of order begins to emerge through the notes on Tori’s piano. Order is always underneath chaos. I read once that behind every insane person is a sane person watching the chaos of her life, unable to change the outcome of each day in which she continues to spiral out of control, beyond the reach of that sane person.

In the early months and, even years, following the death of a loved one with whom we had an intense and intimate relationship, there is a period of chaos. I spun out of control when Rikki died. I was the chaos and dissonance of the notes in Tori’s icicle; it’s taken me eight years to develop a song in my perpetually-healing heart.

I want to share with you this morning how the music from the icicle of my heart began to thaw in tinkles and peals dancing around each other, until the basso profundo of thundering chaos transitioned to a lovely consonance of balance, of harmony.

I had a slumber party with some of my girlfriends over the weekend. One of them, A., said that “Life is lived on a spectrum.” I am grateful for her operationalizing for me another dimension of grief. Life is lived on a spectrum, so is grief. One day it is summer and the next it is fall. One short season of spring where death and life come together, and one season says goodbye while the other rushes in to say hello.

Grief has been the chisel that has shaped me more than any other experience in my life thus far. Losing my son was the event that hurled me into grief. I felt like I was drowning in grief. There were days I cried until I couldn’t breathe. I slept to avoid the utter pain. The melting drops of whatever frozen hardness I had around my heart, mind, soul, dripped frenetically for a few years.

I’ve always enjoyed pendulums. I love how beholden they are to gravity. Pull one away from its center, and watch it sway chaotically, and then return to balance, harmonious with the gravitational pull. Grief pulls you away from your center, whatever that means to you. Grief rearranges your perception about everything. From confusion to clarity is a wild ride as you swing to and fro and your soul within you fights for you to return to it.

I met a shaman who spoke of “soul retrieval” –. I admit; I’m a skeptic, but as I write this morning, and I think about the gradations of grief, I’m in touch with my soul after some time of alienation from it. I have some life stressors I’m working through, but where I am on the spectrum now is smack dab in the middle. Grief is in the center with me where all things harmonize into a unified field, where I sit with my lump of clay creating from the center, something beautiful.

Eight months ago, my mother died. I’ve been spinning out of control for just about a minute. I haven’t had time to grieve because of an internship and because of life on its own spectrum. I should be looking at retirement, chronologically, and there are days when I’m tired of the busyness, but I know I will never be satisfied retiring into my geranium garden. I’ll need intellectual stimulation and the sense that I’m contributing until … I’m no longer finding purpose for my life.

I took a moment to feel the losses of my mom and my son today. I closed my eyes and just felt the loss and I rocked back and forth and held my hands to my tender heart. Grief is processed on a spectrum. Eight years have passed since I lost my beautiful Rikki. I languished in the darkest night of my soul until it became an impediment to my life. My pendulum swung chaotically – while the whole person longing to be born watched, powerless to steady it; it takes time to normalize pain.

I simply did not have the internal resources to tame the wild beast that grief was in the early days following Rikki’s death. I was exhausted down to the marrow of my bones; this is not hyperbole. Those of you who have lost someone very close to you know how tired grief makes you. There were days when taking a shower was more than I could manage. Order had been annihilated in my life. I couldn’t think; grief fog is real.

When my mom died, it made sense; she was eighty-one. She lived a long life and when she began to feel purposeless, she died. When Rikki died at thirty-two, it was not the natural order of things. I don’t mean this self-sacrificially, but I should have gone before him. Right? I truly did wander aimlessly in my world, my very small world, when Rikki died. I had no purpose other than to mourn my days and nights away. My pendulum was swinging frantically as I tried to find my North Star in the most dense fog.

I’m thinking of a color spectrum, and the varying shades as they transform into the next color in the frequency. My pain feels like the faintest pink, like a pretty blossom that lasts for a day to remind me that life is short, and as I navigate the different spectra in my life, I sit dead center held together by gravity, the bonding agent of the universe, as it expands and contracts, never the same, just like we are never the same from day to day.

I’m grateful for Tori’s musical interpretation of a melting icicle. I’m grateful for Christiaan Huygens for the beauty of the pendulum. I’m grateful for A. for bringing me to the awareness the reality that not only is life lived on a spectrum, but so too is grief.

A tinge of pink to remind me the loss is always there, the tinkle of a frenetically melting icicle, and a pendulum that compels me toward the center of wholeness are my healers today.

May your healers be present today and may you continue to heal.