Reblogged from Living, Losing, and Laughing
“The miracle of gratitude is that it shifts your perception to such an extent that it changes the world you see.”
-Dr. Robert Holden
After we experience a loss, we tend to focus on what we no longer have. As a result we put our energy on the negative, or what is missing in our life, rather than on the positive, or all of those wonderful things we still have. One of my spiritual teachers once told me that when we want what we don't have, we waste what we do have. To translate that into loss-related situations—to want what is no longer in our life is to waste what still remains in our life.
We usually don’t think about giving thanks when someone dies. Yet gratitude can be one of the most healing tools we have.
I would therefore like to suggest that being grateful for what remains after you have experienced a loss can be a powerful way to deal with, and heal, that loss. Turning your attention on how your life was enriched because that person was in it, for example, rather than on the vacuum the loss created, might be one powerful and healthy approach to confronting grief.
After my wife died at the age of thirty-four, my thoughts, as often experienced by someone who is grieving, sometimes turned to darker questions like, “How can I go on with my life without her?” Grief also brought up a feeling of emptiness, depression, and hopelessness. Once I started to be thankful for all that remained in my life—my daughter, my friends, my work, etc.—I got a glimpse of why I could go on living and, in fact, fully enjoy life again.
Gratitude has the power to help those in mourning rise above their loss. It is life affirming. It can provide hope. And, perhaps most important, it can help us let go of the past and focus on the abundance that surrounds us now.
In my book, Learning to Laugh When You Feel Like Crying (Goodman Beck, 2011), I suggest a simple way to move towards being grateful after a loss:
Tomorrow morning, before you get out of bed, think of at least one thing that you are thankful for. And then, when you get out of bed, start writing down all the wonderful things in you life. You can be thankful for:
-a penny found on the street
-the cookies a neighbor brought you
-the friends you have
-a rainbow
-flowers in the park
-a cup of tea.
Those are just of few little gratitudes that can keep you afloat while you are in a sea of grief. But you might also want to note some of the bigger things for which you are grateful. For example:
-that the deceased was in your life
-the lessons you learned from them
-that their spirit still lives within you.
And, you can be grateful for life itself. As comedian Robin Williams discovered after his heart surgery: “When you have something like heart surgery, you appreciate the simple things, like breathing.”
Thanks to Jenny Hansen for this piece which was originally posted on her More Cowbell blog.)
No, I haven't fallen off my rocker on this fine Monday morning. I've got my mama on my mind. You see, I gardened over the weekend, putting in about 100 daffodil bulbs. Gardening and baking are inextricably tied to my mother, since she taught me to do both.
A quick run-down about my mom, who passed away at age 65 back in January of 2004…
- 3 words to describe her: compassionate, generous, irreverent.
- She was completely, incredibly awesome. Really.
- She was a tall woman (6’1″) and the first female to letter in 5 sports at her high school.
- A nurse for 43 years, she spent much of that time in Oncology.
- She was married to my father for less than 10 years and spent the rest of her life single.
- Maxine cartoons remind us all of her…in our family she was known as ”the Queen of the One-Liner.” My mama was a stitch.
The night she died, we all quibbled over her Xanax stash, knowing we'd need it to get some sleep before doing all the work death involves. Any of you who've done this know there’s a million important details to get through.
My brother and I had lots of help but some of the duties just naturally fell to us. We put my mom’s purse off for a day or so, but the time came to sort through it.
When we got to her wallet, we found all these slips of paper with beautiful quotes on friendship. Of course, I cried, so my brother patted me and kept going through all the other stuff she had tucked in there.
All of a sudden, he elbows me and says, “Sis…check this out,” and hands me a stack of bright orange cards.
“What is it?” I sniffled, not reaching to take them.
“Just read it!” I grabbed them, looked down, and burst out laughing (language alert here). In huge bold letters, they said:
If you fuck like you park,
you’ll never get it in.
“Oh my Jesus. She has a whole stash of these things?”
“Obviously she’s putting these on people’s cars when they piss her off.” My brother snatched them back. ”I could use these things. Do you mind if I keep ‘em?”
When I spoke to the minister later that day, he asked if I’d made decisions about what to include in my mom’s service.
I was telling him about the beautiful messages we’d found in her wallet when my brother started yelling from down the hall. “Are you going to tell him what ELSE you found in her wallet??!”
I covered the phone and yelled back. “No I'm not telling him! Are you crazy?”
I ignored all the choice comments from my Bag Whore brother and got back on the phone with the minister, apologizing for how loud my brother was.
His first words were, “So, you're not going to tell me??”
I blushed so hard, I thought I’d faint. “I’d rather not. There’s cursing involved.”
“Oh, come on… Your mom was a spicy lady. I’d love to hear.”
Obviously he missed her as much as we did, so I told him and he busted a gut laughing.
My aunts were horrified when I relayed the conversation. At the same time, they both wailed, “YOU TOLD THE MINISTER??!”
They all live in a fairly small town in mid-Missouri so I apologized and promised to mind my manners from there on out.
Then we got to the funeral parlor…
Like most of the big events in my family, we all showed up to offer support. I had aunts, uncles and cousins sitting alongside my brother and I. Plus, my mom’s best friend was there. We'd just gathered for my grandmother’s service the prior year, so we assumed the place was used to the likes of us.
Obviously, the previous funeral director had not shared with the new guy that we travel in packs during times of need. He looked at all 14 of us and said he'd be back with more chairs.
Once we were all seated in a circle, with my brother and I on either side of Mr. Funeral Director, we hashed out the service (which involves a lot of people shouting it out when they think of it).
When we got to the end, I said, ”I know it might sound kind of morbid, but if any of you would like some of her ashes, you may have them.”
My cousin, Aaron (who was an irrepressible 30 year old at the time), looked at Mr. Funeral Man and said, “So how many ashes are we talking about?”
The funeral director looked like he’d swallowed a toad.
“Um…well. Uh, they come in plastic bag inside a hard plastic case about this big by this big.” And he moved his hands to demonstrate a 10 x 14 x 4 inch bag.
My brother reared back, looking completely offended. “That’s IT?? That’s all we get!?! She was a BIG GIRL!”
The room went completely silent.
The funeral director’s mouth opened and closed like a guppy.
Then the snickers started…
They spread around the room until we were all laughing so hard we couldn't stop.
My uncle (who'd been in the restroom) came FLYING into the room. “You guys need to CUT IT OUT.There’s people crying and grieving out there and you're in here laughing and carrying on.”
He turned to the funeral director and shook his hand. “Thank you for your time. We need to GO.” He sent the lot of us a stern look that promised we'd be sorry if we didn’t STOP LAUGHING.
I swear, we tried. We just couldn't stop.
We stumbled out of the funeral home, clutching our sides and gasping for breath, running for our cars so we could collapse in private. Then we all toddled off to lunch at my mom’s favorite burger joint and laughed some more.
Here’s what I know, all these years later: My mother watched us giggle our way through most of her funeral arrangements and, wherever she was, she LOVED it. I wouldn't go back and change any of it.
Well, except for keeping her here so she could make me laugh that hard in person.
No comments:
Post a Comment