Why can't we just skip this Christmas, I'm really not feeling it this year.....
A few days before we sit in a doctors office, trying to decide the next course of treatment for an illness, despite all our efforts refuses to stay in check...No quick fixes and side affects limiting many other options, one option given down right scary...I leave in tears feeling down right defeated. What are we supposed to do?
Why??? Is Christmas time always so hard? We are supposed to be happy, grateful, joyful...
The grief of being an "orphan" only compounds my heartache. I am grateful my parents are at peace, but I can't explain how much I miss them, how much I would give for one more phone call, one more Merry Christmas....One more time hearing my Dad play Silent Night on his guitar or my mom accompany the Alleluia chorus on the organ....
The music of the season brings both comfort and heartache....
From December first I'm on auto-pilot going through the motions, doing what we do. I refuse to let myself feel anything for fear I'll simply lose it. The shopping gets done, the cookies are made and all the family traditions happen and I feel nothing...I see happy ,"perfect", your-parents-are still- alive families all around me and it just makes me angry. Why didn't I have that? I'm not even doing so well with coping with the husband and teenagers I do have.
Despite all my wishing and praying Christmas morning still comes (dang-it). My kids are bouncing off the walls with excitement...And I feel nothing. Christmas and grief and an audience, feeling nothing is easier...
That afternoon Superman heads to work and everybody else is down for a long winter's nap. The house is still and dark, except for the lights of the Christmas tree...I sit by the tree... tears run down my cheeks before I even realise I'm crying...The heartaches of this difficult year flood my mind....for the first time all month I let myself feel the sadness, the grief and the tears flow freely....
I was reminded of a newspaper article, my cousin had shared the week prior....Called the Healing Powers of the Dalai Lama
A man from Utah shares his experience in meeting His Holiness...
Looking intently at the couple that had joined us that morning, and with no visible cue from anyone he said, "You are sad."
Our new friends broke down. Through gentle sobs, they explained their young son had recently committed suicide. A pause hung in the air. The Dalai Lama simply waited. And waited.
As we muffled sobs, His Holiness slid across the couch and reached for the couple’s faces. Grasping their cheeks, he pulled their faces next to his. He held them for perhaps a minute, an eternity for such an intimacy. And then he said — softly, simply — "sad." He offered no other words, no assurance of heaven, as we Westerners have come to expect when dissecting death. He explained nothing. There was no utterance of "time heals," no nicety that "God needed him elsewhere." Nothing.
There is goodness in letting the pain flow and of not explaining away another’s grief. In allowing for "sad."
It was good to cry and not talk myself out of it. Sad, even on Christmas is okay. After I sat there for a very long time, the tears stopped and the thought came. "It wont always be this hard. Don't give up just yet. There is joy ahead, I promise"....
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