Missing My Favorite Things

I wrote the following on December 23, 2009. I find it's still true for me today. I still feel the grief over the loss of my favorite things.

This Yuletide, I find myself waxing nostalgic for reasons I can't explain. Maybe it's because I'm growing more fully aware of the passage of time. Battling health issues - even relatively minor ones - has a way of making you look at your own mortality. Maybe as the world seems to grow larger and darker and more sinister, I wish for the return of a simpler, brighter, and more innocent time.

Whatever the reason, it makes me think back to my childhood with a mix of sweet and of bitter. There was a purity of heart, a sense of astonished wonder, that I had as a child. Magick was real, and it was all around. Children can feel this magick. Their hearts are unburdened and open and exquisitely naive. The cynicism that comes with age hasn't touched them yet - cynicism that blinds adults to elves spying through windows and makes them feel foolish for looking for reindeer or sleigh tracks in the snow on Christmas Eve.

I remember the feelings of anticipation and excitement I had, knowing Santa was coming, wondering what would be in the wrapped packages beneath the tree. I can remember the feelings but I can't touch them anymore, can't taste them. When I was an age I can't quite remember, my cousin told me that Santa wasn't real. I didn't want to believe it but eventually, the facade fell, and I couldn't go back, couldn't un-learn, and the magick was lost to me. The part of my heart that believed in the jolly old elf who delivered presents to children swung shut.

Little by little, the simple joys of the season began to be lost. The unbridled glee of flying down a slippery hill on a sled or a saucer or even on a plastic garbage bag, tumbling to a halt at the foot of the slope only to climb up and do it all over again. Sitting by the radio early on a snowy morning, listening intently to the school closings, silently hurrying the announcers through their alphabetic list, ecstatic when they reached the B's and said, "Big Lake." Bundling up in snow pants and coat and scarf and hat and mittens and boots to conquer the drifts, building structures that were castles or forts or houses or, one year, even a dragon. Helping Mom make spritz cookies, using the copper and white cookie press, eating more dough than finished product. Being amused when Dad tried to sneak his gifts open out of turn, looking like a naughty child all the while, perhaps even thinking he was getting away with it without us noticing.

Time has a way of stripping the bad from a remembrance, creating a selective amnesia that allows only the good to flow through the filter. Sometimes a flight down the hill resulted in a bloody nose or other slight injury. Sometimes the announcers never said "Big Lake." The dragon melted away into a slushy pile on the lawn. Too much raw dough caused a stomachache. Dad hasn't been with us for six Christmases now.

Memories can be tarnished but, as with a cherished antique, the burnishing and imperfections can be what makes something valuable and loved. As the Skin Horse said in The Velveteen Rabbit: "Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

I don't mind the nicks and dings. What I miss is the heart-magick that seems to be inherent in us as children. The sweet innocence that lets us believe - TRULY believe, without reservation - there are toy-making elves and flying reindeer. The uninhibited spirit that allows us to get fully, totally, blissfully lost in the sensation as we fly down an icy hill or birth mystical creatures from snow.

I want to peel away the hardening of adulthood. I want to again know the joy of listening for sleigh bells and reindeer hooves on a cold December night. To experience the nearly painful anticipation of lying in bed, waiting as long as possible before rushing down the stairs to open presents. To fall back into the snow and make an angel and stare up at the sky, pondering the impossible number of possibilities.

I want the return of my favorite things.

Christmas Stocking Ideas

If you've lost a family member, putting out their stocking during the holidays can be a painful reminder of their absence. ⁠Here are some creative ideas from What's Your Grief on how to honor their memory through their stocking:

Put out a pen and paper and ask people to fill the stocking with their favorite memory of the person.

Fill it with gifts that you would have given the person. Give the gifts to other friends of family members who you know would also appreciate the gift with a note about why your loved one would have loved it.

Fill it with gifts you think they would have gotten for you and or for other family members if they were still here.

Put out a pen and paper and ask people to write down one “gift” (physical or not physical!) that the person gave them that they will always remember and cherish.

Fill it with gifts that you would have given the person. After the holidays, donate the gifts to a shelter or other organization. Alternatively, each make a donation in their memory and fill the stocking with info about the organizations to share on Christmas.

If the stocking doesn’t feel good to keep/hang, cut a small star or heart shape piece out of the fabric to put in a small frame, turn into an ornament, or to otherwise repurpose as a memorial keepsake.

Hang their stocking with a candle above/below it to light in their memory on Christmas day (or whenever!). In future years you might keep the stocking or transition to just a candle.

You may not want to hang their stocking and that is more than okay. Remember that your connection to them lives in your memories and heart, not in physical objects. It is okay to give it a squeeze (maybe with some tears) and then put it in a donation bag or fabric recycling bin.

 

 

 

 

When October Goes

This was one of Lissa's favorite songs.  It's always felt very melancholy to me, but now I find it outright sad.  I played it this morning and sobbed.

"I turn my head away to hide the helpless tears

Oh, how I hate to see October go...."

When October Goes - Barry Manilow - YouTube

 

 

 

 

 

Autumn Leaves

Since you went away the days grow long

And soon I'll hear old winter's song
But I miss you most of all my darling
When autumn leaves start to fall.

("Autumn Leaves" - Nat King Cole)

The Wheel has turned, bringing Autumn to our doorstep once again.

Autumn was Lissa's favorite season.  She adored the rich colors, the snap of cooler air, warm beverages.  Her wedding, held in October, featured many autumnal touches.

I used to love this time of year.  My birthday falls just a couple days before the equinox.  I never had the sense of existential dread that some people feel around their birthday - but now, knowing I'll never again see birthday wishes or a fun gift from my best friend has made me grow sorrowful as the day approaches.

My "worst first" Autumn was last year, and I cried all day.  Today is the second Autumn without her, and I feel blue.

I want to enjoy this time of year on her behalf.  But all I keep thinking is that she should still be here to experience it herself.

I will never have an answer that explains why she had to die so young.  Questions without answers don't sit well with me - I need every puzzle to have a solution, every lock to have a key.

I can't find peace with the fact that there's no answer to my question, so I'll have to somehow find peace with the fact that I'll never truly find peace.

 

Look at the Stars

We lost the great James Earl Jones.  Between the "Star Wars" saga and "The Lion King," he had been a part of my life for decades.  It hurts that he's gone.

 

Children and Grief

Children are not immune to grief.  Losing a pet, moving to a different place, going to a new school - these things can be scary and upsetting for a child.

It's important to listen to how they feel and to not try to "fix" it.  Loss and change is a part of life, and it's good for kids to know it may not be pleasant but it's a normal aspect of being human.

 

 

 

Leavin' on a Jet Plane

My husband and I (and two cats) made the move from Minnesota to Ireland on Friday.  His position at work had been transferred to Ireland, and we decided to go for it.  Ireland has long called to me, and I never thought I'd be able to visit, much less live here.

The grief over losing the home I'd known for 50 years hasn't hit me yet.  I was too consumed by stress during the move; and, during the flight on Thursday night, I was too worried how the cats would weather the experience to think about anything else.

But I know that homesickness will hit me at some point.  Now, when it's quiet in our new apartment, I can feel little flashes of sadness.  I unsubscribed to some US-based or local business emails and even something that seemingly innocuous caused a pang of grief.  I love Minnesota, which made leaving for an entirely different country even harder.

A few years ago, I had re-started writing letters to Lissa.  In my last letter to her (one she never answered), I mentioned to her that she and I should visit Ireland one day.  We never got a chance to even talk about it, much less make it happen.  So being here, that weighs on me.

As with everything else in life, there is a balance between gain and loss, between joy and sorrow.  I will shed tears for the things I left behind, but I will also look ahead with pleasure over the new things I will experience in this unfamiliar country.

 

 

You Can't Go Home Again

My dad died in November 2004, nearly 20 years ago now.  He was 70 years old.

For much of his adult life, he lived on the family farm - 60-odd acres of land with a two-story farmhouse that was built at least a century ago.  I think the living room was a claim shack - not sure when it was built - and the rest of the house sprung up around it at some point.

There were many summer days when he practically lived in the seat of his beloved red tractor, harvesting rye, mowing alfalfa, plowing the fields in anticipation of planting.  I remember one year, the entire field to the south of the house was filled with neat lines of huge sunflowers that towered over me, huge yellow-feathered heads following the track of the sun.  One day, he stopped the tractor in the middle of the field and came walking back toward the house.  I ran out to meet him, and he was holding two baby bunnies in his hands.  He had accidentally plowed up a rabbit burrow and was able to rescue two of them.  I can't remember what happened to those bunnies.  I think we tried to raise them but I don't recall if they lived or not.

He had a bloodhound named Princess Anne that he adored.  She lived in a fenced-in kennel but Dad would bring her out sometimes and let her run.  We had a game where the kids - me and the cousins - would hide in the surrounding woods, and he'd set her to finding us.  I was young so I didn't go too far.  I hid once in the huge steel wheel of some type of old farm machine, fairly close to the house, and she found me first, knocking me down and slobbering on me.  I still vividly remember when we had to bring her to the vet or something.  Dad was driving his pick-up truck, and Mom and I were following behind in the car.  It was pretty funny to see him sitting in the driver's seat with Princess' knobby bloodhound head rising up from the seat next to him.

He enjoyed grilling.  Even in the dead of winter, he'd be out on the open porch in his winter coat, tending to hamburgers and hot dogs.  Mom and I liked our hot dogs burnt and crunchy.  He'd bring in the plate, and we'd send him back out into the cold because they weren't burnt enough.

At Christmas, his company would give employees two pounds of Abdallah chocolates, and we would nearly pounce on him when he came through the door holding that box.  Once, they gave employees one pound of chocolates and one pound of mixed nuts.  There was almost a riot in our house that year.

He was cremated, and Mom buried him on the property.  When it became apparent that she couldn't financially afford to live there by herself and had to move in with us, she dug up his ashes and brought them with her.  She nearly lost the property to foreclosure; someone she knew stepped in to buy it so at least it didn't go to the bank.

My husband Eli and I went to the property this afternoon.  We will be moving to Ireland in three weeks - I had planned to bring Dad's ashes with me, but it never felt "right."  I told Eli this morning that I wanted to commit a bit of light trespassing and scatter Dad's ashes in the place he called home for so many years.  That felt more fitting than taking him across the pond with us.

We pulled into the driveway and walked into the field where Dad used to cut the clover and alfalfa that grew there.  I said, "Welcome home, Dad" and took off the urn top, preparing to return him to the land.  Unfortunately, his ashes had absorbed some moisture over the years and were hard-packed and refusing to budge.  Through my tears, I said, "C'mon, Dad, work with me here."  I took a stick and eventually was able to loosen the ashes enough to pour them beneath a tree.**

I stood for a moment and looked at the place I myself called home for many years.  The house was no longer there, torn down because I'm sure it was falling down.  I don't know what would've been worse - seeing it in terrible disrepair or seeing that it was gone as if it never existed.  The ancient oak tree in the front yard was still standing, looking hale and healthy, and I was heartened to see it.  Eli and I exchanged our vows beneath the branches of that wise soul, surrounded by his parents, my mom, my friend Lissa, and her husband Dan.

I felt a pang - his father and my best friend are gone now, the house where I grew up is gone, no more fields of sunflowers, no more burnt hot dogs in the middle of a Minnesota winter, no more running around in the woods, inventing games and being cornered by a rheumy-eyed scent-hound.

Memories are all I have to sustain me, all I have to give me that sense of home and belonging, because the physical pieces of the past, the things that viscerally linked me to home, are gone. 

**I saved a small bit of the ashes.  When Dad would be sitting in his recliner, our dear black cat Duncan (who left us in 2012) would look up hopefully at him and Dad would say, "Don't come up here, Old Cat" or some variation in which he expressed a desire for Duncan to stay down.  A little time later, you'd look over and Duncan would be in Dad's lap, both of them quietly asleep.  I mixed Dad's ashes with Duncan's and told Eli that now they can nap together like old times.

Emotional Landmines

We'll be moving soon, so I've been sorting through boxes, determining what to purge and what to save.

I've been encountering emotional landmines.  I'll open a box and find a handful of letters, a gift, or some other reminder of Lissa.  Some of those things will make me smile; some of them will make me sob.

Yesterday, I opened a box and found an adorable scrapbook that Lissa made me back in 2003.  Throughout the pages were photos of us together with handwritten memories or quotes.  The first photo below is the cover; the second photo is the last page.

Reading the last page made me break apart.  I started to cry, and I said, "She should still be here. Why isn't she here? It's not right that she's gone!" It felt like being kicked in the heart.

My friend Janet said, "I think seeing this reminded you of what you're missing." And it's true. I grieve more keenly for all of the times she and I WON'T spend together, all of the memories we WON'T have the chance to make.

I will carry on and carry her with me. But it will never be okay with me that she's missing from my side and from my life.

Pet Loss Grief is Valid and Normal

 

 

 

 

Remembrance

I wrote this on June 11, 2023 - Lissa's birthday and the first after her death.

I got hot chocolate and a muffin and planned to go to a park to sit near the water and eat my treats. As I was nearly there, “Close to You” by Maxi Priest came on the radio – Lissa and I used to sing that song and chuckle over the “huh huh huh huh” part near the end. I pulled into the parking space at 6:11 a.m.

After eating, I walked down near the water and wrote “Happy Birthday, Lissa. I miss you” in the sand, knowing it will be washed away as the waves lap closer to the shore. I saw a duck family with a bunch of young ones paddling in the shallow water. I went over to the play area and sat on a swing for a few minutes. But I couldn't relax.

I drove to a nearby cemetery, which overlooks the lake. I walked a bit, and settled on a bench on the hill, looking out at the sparkling water. It was wonderfully cool after the heat we've had recently; I had to wear my hoodie because it was chilly with the wind off the water.

I talked to Lissa and cried. I told her I missed her and that I hoped her energy was dancing on the water somewhere. I told her Janet and I want to do something in her honor. She had so much more love to give, and we want to continue to share her love. I told her that I wished she were still here.

I walked around a bit, looking at the headstones and grave markers. It's a peaceful place. All I could hear were birds and the rustle of the wind through the leaves. I noticed that someone had a bunny lawn statue near their marker – bunnies will always remind me of Lissa since she was so tickled by the baby bunnies in the flower pot near her house. I found two feathers – one white, which is supposedly a sign of encouragement or hope or a sign from a passed loved one.

I am not alright. I will be better at some point, but for today, my heart is breaking all over again.

 

 

 

Grief Bursts

A grief burst is something that occurs when the loss is no longer new, the acute pain of grief has subsided, and the pain is no longer an all-consuming reality from minute to minute. Grief attacks occur out of the blue and feel like a sudden blow to the body. In the moment, it feels overwhelming and as if it may never end. Grief bursts hit with take-your-breath away intensity. It can feel like our feet have been taken out from under us or that a wave has knocked us over. 

Read more about grief bursts:  https://www.strongwinds.ca/blog/what-is-a-grief-burst 

 

Grief is Not Linear

 

"People are afraid of themselves, of their own reality - their feelings most of all.  People are taught that pain is evil and dangerous.  People try to hide their pain.  But they're wrong.  You feel your strength in the experience of pain.  Pain is a feeling.  Your feelings are a part of you.  If you feel ashamed of them, and hide them, you're letting society destroy your reality.  You should stand up for your right to feel your pain."

Jim Morrison

 

Worst Firsts

Lissa died March 6, 2023 so I recently experienced one of the "worst firsts" after you lose someone - that one-year anniversary of their death.

There are dates scattered throughout the year that will bring a renewed sense of grief after you've suffered a loss - birthdays, holidays, anniversaries.

June 2023 was a bad month for me.  Lissa's birthday, our friend anniversary, Best Friends Day, and the death anniversary of our beloved cat Oliver (who died in 2019) all fell within those 30 days.  I limped through as best I could.  There were a lot of tears.

In September 2023, I endured my first birthday without seeing well wishes from her, and that stung.  Lissa's favorite season was autumn - on the first day of Fall, I cried all day.

She loved the song "When October Goes," so the end of October was painful.  Christmas was rough as she loved decorating for the season and spoiling people with gifts.

New Years Day 2024 was difficult.  I had read somewhere that people have a hard time with January 1 as it's the start of a year without their loved one.  My friend Janet said that 2024 was the first year in over three decades where Lissa wasn't a physical part of our lives.

What were some of your "worst firsts"?  Were any of them surprising?

Different Grief Triggers

 

Death is Nothing At All - Poem by Henry Scott Holland

Death is nothing at all.

I have only slipped away to the next room.
I am I and you are you.
Whatever we were to each other,
That, we still are.

Call me by my old familiar name.
Speak to me in the easy way
which you always used.
Put no difference into your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.

Laugh as we always laughed
at the little jokes we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me. Pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word
that it always was.
Let it be spoken without effect.
Without the trace of a shadow on it.

Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same that it ever was.
There is absolute unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind
because I am out of sight?

I am but waiting for you.
For an interval.
Somewhere. Very near.
Just around the corner.

All is well.

Welcome!

Welcome to Silver Linings.

We're sorry that you have a reason to be here, but glad you're visiting all the same.

No matter what type of loss you've suffered (death of a friend/family member/pet, loss of a career or home or friendship/relationship), you are grieving.

We hope you'll be able to find some comfort and healing here.  We have set up pages related to specific kinds of loss where you can tell your story and read stories from others.  It helps to know you're not alone in what you feel.  Even though we all experience grief in our own way, the pain we endure is universal.

We will also share grief resources and things we've found that have helped ease our sorrow.

Please always remember that it's okay to not be okay.  Please always remember that your grief journey is your own, and no one can tell you how to process your feelings or when you should be "done" with grief.

And please know that one day, you will be able to dance again, even if you dance with a limp.

“You will lose someone you can’t live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.”   ― Anne Lamott