It was the day before Thanksgiving in 2007 that my parents told my brother and I that Mom’s prognosis was going from having a terminal illness to being in hospice care. Of course, that changed everything.
BTW, there seems to be some confusion about hospice. Hospice is a type of care. You can have hospice care at home or in a hospice care facility. It means that the medical professionals will no longer be looking for how to heal you because they’ve decided that you cannot be healed and you are definitely in the dying stage of life.
Hospice focuses on palliative care, which means they’re doing everything they can to make you feel comfortable and avoid discomfort. It’s often about pain relief, and it’s definitely not about healing.
Because the doctors and nurses who attended my mother decided she was now in hospice, we knew that Thanksgiving would be our last with her.
Then, the following week it was my last birthday with mom.
A month later it was the last Christmas.
Then the last new year’s.
Then in January it was my Dad’s last birthday with her.
February was the last Valentine’s day.
And on March 10 it was the last morning.
And then it became the first time we celebrated her birthday without Mom, and the first easter, the first mother’s day, etc.
First there were the lasts and then there were the firsts.
I think anyone who’s had an beloved member of their immediate family make their transition knows what I’m saying.
Everybody experiences grief differently.
And many people don’t know how to handle someone else’s grief, let alone their own.
Their own grief is a mystery and a challenge for which they have no training or preparation.
Grief can be grueling and it can be incredibly stressful.
Stress is intensely disorienting.
The grief and stress around someone going through final weeks and days can be the most intense thing someone ever experiences. It can feel like trying to run a marathon without preparation.
If we’re going to run a marathon, we train for it.
Most of us are completely unprepared for the strain of grief and stress of loss.
There’s a lot we can do to make it easier for ourselves and for others, but how many of us even know someone who has a clue what those things are?
When our loved ones make their transition in the holiday season, and the darkest month of the year – and, it’s a statistical fact around the entire world, in all populations, that significantly more people leave the planet in winter – then it’s common for people to now become sad or depressed at the holidays.
All of the decorating, the food, the music, the movies, the ceremonies, and rituals – all of it, becomes a reminder of both what has been “lost” and when it was lost.
In other words, many folks get triggered every year at the holidays.
And what do we do with it when we have no training?
When someone wishes us a merry Christmas, a happy Hanukkah or a happy holidays, if we’re grieving we don’t feel comfortable telling the truth, “it’s not happy for me. I find all of this depressing and I can’t wait for it to be over. I get triggered into self-medication. I want to isolate and eat more, drink more, hide more. There’s no part of this that I like anymore. This is now my nightmare.”
No, we don’t say those things.
Do we pretend?
How do we make it through and have some real healing instead of just repeating the same despair and depression each year?
Well, that’s where spiritual practice comes in.
This end of the year time, Christmas, is the time of Christ.
More people are focused on Christ Light at this time than any other time of year.
Christ IS the Light that shines away the illusion of darkness.
If we’re willing, we can have profound, life-changing healing that brings benefit to everyone at this time of year. That’s what I feel called to focus on.
The darkness has no power, it cannot consume the Light.
The Light is simply itself and the darkness isn’t possible.
We ARE the Light. Our willingness to remember that is all that’s required.
It’s not hard to be willing.
It’s hard to live in darkness.
A little over a week ago I got the intuition to offer support for folks who are going through what I went through, and for those who would like to support others. And, of course, there are many things that we grieve when it seems like there’s a loss of health, wealth, home, friendships, pets, jobs and other precious parts of our life.
If you or someone you know might like some loving support for grief and stress right now, consider joining me! This will be a different kind of class with tools for moving through the season. Grieving Through the Holidays is my workshop this Saturday on Zoom.