Holiday Seasons and grief
Asleep in Heavenly Peace
After a lot of time and through the passing of time, along with therapy and sobriety, I am the happiest and most peaceful during this holiday season than I’ve ever been.
I used to loathe the holiday season. I would try to feign happiness for whomever I was around, never wanting to be the grinch and spoil others cheer, but inwardly, I would mourn the loss of my family and the loss of my babies and imagined life—
But I am thankful that I can happily enjoy my own existence now. I have even decorated my home for the holidays, which is huge for me.
It is strange though, the waves of grief.
I know this, in theory. After all, I have lived through these stages with family members passing, and I’ve read a lot about it, and written of it here, as well as tried to offer support to others who now ‘get it’ because they have lost parents and family members—
But still, the waves in which grief may suddenly and unexpectedly emerge, and it still shocks me.
Today I was flipping through Instagram and saw a beautiful knotted bracelet, a mother/daughter present for Christmas.
The Caption read—the mother-daughter relationship is knotted by the angels.
And I teared up and a tiny sob came out—
That was it. A few tears rolled down my cheeks and I was done—
But wtf- out of nowhere.
Grief is strange.
My experience with grieving my mother is complicated in that—I know she suffered for a long time, at the end of her life. Both mentally and physically. I know that had she lived she may have experienced the suicide of my brother, and I’m glad she didn’t have to live through that.
I also grieve a mother who no longer existed. Much like folks with dementia, I caught glimpsed of my mother, the woman who raised me, but she had become a shadow of her former self, especially in the years after my father’s suicide.
I can’t entirely grieve her because I am glad that she is finally at peace. No longer suffering. She earned her rest; her life was so challenging in so many ways.
I miss her, certainly.
But in grieving her, and wishing she were here—
I don’t. I saw what it was like for her, especially at the end.
Grieving that, wanting her here, feels too selfish. I miss my mommy, sure, but—
Mostly, where my family is concerned, I grieve not their deaths, but the hypotheticals—of what could have been.
If my father had stayed sober. Or, if he hadn’t drank/developed alcoholism. If he hadn’t completed suicide but died a natural death, even in 2013. If he hadn’t smoked and developed COPD, unable to breathe. If he had gotten mental health help that he needed.
If my mother had gotten the mental health help she so desperately needed. If she could have trauma-healing-body work to free to the trauma from her body. To calm her nervous system down, so she could sleep. Or, if she could’ve found some medicine that could’ve helped her to sleep to improve her quality of life. If she hadn’t smoked and developed COPD. Hadn’t exacerbated her genetic cardiac disease.
If my brother had gotten mental health help. If he didn’t make the choice to end his life.
All the what-ifs. All the as-ifs.
I mourn family members and relationships and a reality that was never was. But one that I wish could have been. That may have been able to be—under different circumstances, allowed to be.
Perhaps in some other alternative reality or existence, parallel universe, my family members and I, and my babies, exist in a happier and more functional realm.
Sometimes, quite honestly, that’s what I envision [a part of]my Heaven to be.
And that’s what gets me all up in the feels and grieving them on the holidays—
Not, what I wish that they were here. But—I wish that things had been different.
However, I’m enough of a pragmatist that I know that it never could’ve been. And in light of that hard truth, even when I feel lonely, I also relieved that they are gone. Their suffering and tortured existences finished. I believe them to be at peace. And when I stop and pray and ask for perspective that is beyond my own understanding of this earthly realm, I get/feel glimpses of their spiritual realm, where they are no longer trapped in bodies and minds of sickness.
They are at peace.
In this season, where we celebrate Christmas and love—it is my pray and sad comfort that they are alas asleep in heavenly peace.
Amen.
I will add that my three daughters have not recovered from the trauma(s) associated with our broken family and sudden loss of their mother to this day. My son had made great gains through the twelve step program though. That’s the nature of trauma. There’s no telling if and when recovery and/or healing will happen.
AMEN!
Thank you (once again) for sharing the feelings that I find difficult to express in
the wake of a broken family (by divorce) resulting from my own alcoholism (like my dad’s) the sudden and unexpected death of my former wife in a head on collision when our children were just teens, the death of my granddaughter by cancer 7 years ago and most recently the death of my grandson by suicide this past June. While holidays are still very difficult for me, at the very least I try my best not to be the grinch for others. I do find solace and peace with the holidays by way of my relationship with God which is a direct result of the “gift” of sobriety that I’d been given nearly 34 years ago that coming New Year’s Day. 🙏