To Wear it well
We must let go of the life that we planned so as to accept the life that is waiting for us. – Joseph Campbell
This is the time of year of festivities. Parties, gifts and resolutions. And it is usually about this time of year that in addition to enjoying all that this happy season will bring, I start thinking about what I want to accomplish next year.
Most of the time, the things on my list are the usual: Travel more, spend less, smile more, loose that 10 lbs that has been on my hips for the last 5 years. For this next year though it is quite different. My goal for next year is quite simple: To wear it well.
I want simple things to not take so much energy. Things like putting on my pants, going through daily routines…breathing. To put it quite simply – grief is bitch. Grief is like that bad roommate you can’t get rid of.
But the fact is that Grief will be with me for quite a while. So I must learn to wear it well.
What exactly does that mean? It means that You hold your head high, smile anyway and get on with it. It doesn’t mean you still don’t feel it in every part of every bone, you just don’t let it wear you, you wear it. Right now, I feel like Grief is cutting off circulation, because it is a very ill-fitting outfit that is tight in all the wrong places and loose in all the wrong spots.
From all the research I have done, grief never really leaves you. So I have to learn to wear it well. And defiantly better than I have.
Ultimately, I would like to make this grief a place from where love can grow and prosper. I would like to make it a beautiful garden of compassion and goodness. I want to do more than wear it well; if it has to be with me for my life, then I want it to make me a better person. I just don’t know how to get there yet.
Grief can be the garden of compassion. If you keep your heart open through everything, your pain can become your greatest ally in your life’s search for love and wisdom. – Rumi
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The Smell of It
As a parent, it’s my responsibility to equip my child to do this – to grieve when grief is necessary and to realize that life is still profoundly beautiful and worth living despite the fact that we inevitably lose one another and that life ends, and we don’t know what happens after death. – Sam Harris
It is funny the things that you miss. And as cliché as it sounds, the laundry smelled so good when Mom did it. I never thought I would miss that smell so much. I cherish anything I find of her original laundry. And I finally found out her secret. I found her stash of fabric softener and smell good stuff. The one problem?
I cannot find it in any stores here in the Atlanta area. Seriously…in a city of millions…I can’t locate any of it. Dad and I are both searching for it. Where did she get this stuff? Did she ship it in from another country? Or planet? Because this stuff smells like Love.
It is somewhere, and somehow I will find it and get as many bottles of it as possible. Love in a bottle cannot be overrated, neither can the magical smell of laundry.
Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other. – Abraham Lincoln
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Hard Candy Christmas
Grief is in two parts. The first is loss. The second is the remaking of life. – Anne Roiphe
Tis the season for all the holiday festivities. It is also a very bad time for those who are grieving the loss of a loved one. And while the grief cannot be fixed or erased, we can, if we choose, still find the beauty in every day. We can, if we choose, appreciate the happiness and joy around us, and maybe even have some of it seep in.
And so it goes this holiday season. The Christmas tree is going up this weekend. A big real tree. I’ve never had a real Christmas tree but have been told that they smell wonderful. And there will be Christmas music and carols. And lots of Christmas lights. We are going to see a large light display, complete with hot chocolate and roasting marshmallows by a fire afterward. The house will have a lot of Christmas decorations, some old that have been passed down to me, and some new.
This Christmas will be hard, and that cannot be changed. It cannot be fixed. But. But, we do not have to drown in it either. We can still smile through tears, celebrate through grief and see joy in the world. A broken heart still beats. The world still turns and life goes on.
So, bring on the eggnog, Christmas carols and fires. Let’s light the house up with Christmas displays. Let the stockings be hung, the dancing Santa’s dance and the angels sing. No doubt my mother is one of those angels now. May we hear her voice this Christmas, and all others to come.
I think faith is incredibly important because you will become overwhelmed with what’s happening and you will have waves of grief, but when you turn to your faith, I believe God will give you waves of grace to get through it. – Joel Osteen
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