Walking the Fine Line During the Holidays

Since I can remember, I've always loved Christmas. It wasn't just about receiving gifts, but much deeper than that. Family and the Coming together with with all the cousins and uncles enjoying playing games and stuffing ourselves with the once of year tamales, atole, and bunuelos. You would leave with a full and happy stomach but also a bit horse from losing your voice from trying to speak up and be heard amongst all the family. This was what's it's always been about. The joy Christmas brought and the deep deep connection with something bigger than myself or family that I never really thought about until after Elyce passed away.

After Elyce was born, I remember going to church and listening to the holiday music during mass. I would have too hold back from crying, because the music would just affect my core deep inside my soul and I would get so emotional listening to this beautiful music. I'm not sure that I do know, but I feel it's my connection with the divine.

This year has been the hardest by far. It's been 4 years and 5 months since Elyce has passed and this is the 5th Christmas she has missed. I passed down the love for Christmas to Elyce. This was her favorite holiday and she loved like I loved. We both enjoying the giving part of Christmas...I taught her well. This is why this time of the year is so hard on me. I have so much anger and resentment watching other perfect family pictures on facebook enjoying the holidays and I cringe. I'm just counting the days till it's over, but down deep inside I wish I too can enjoy these holidays like I once did. But I can't! The anger and resentment take hold of me and I try to put on the mask so others don't feel uncomfortable when in reality I just want to stay in my bed and cry. This isn't a choice that I'm making, but it's survival. I wish this would be different.....but it's not. That's the reality! But I continue with just a little bit of hope that maybe next year will be better and maybe in the near future I too will be able to celebrate it, instead of waiting for the holidays to be over with.

I realize that the people around me, especially my husband, have to walk a fine line with me during these holidays. He usually will ask to see what I expect or want to do during the holidays and that in itself upsets me. But I get why he is asking. I've never been adventurous where I can get up and go somewhere. I'm more of a planner, so feeling the way I do at times, is difficult in all aspects, because there are times that I feel ok and other times that I'm not. It's the times when I feel ok that I expect others to know I'm ok and to help me plan, but that doesn't work that way. It takes a lot of courage to speak up and state it, but even with that, it's still a fine line that one can go too far and back we go into that funk.

I've always said mourning the loss of your daughter is being in survival mode every single day. You don't know what you are going to feel until it's too late and you feel it. My new co-worker who fought cancer and is a believer in the word "believe". She told me she wanted me to know that she knows it's a hard time of the year for me and that she wants me to know she is thinking about me and hoping the best. She didn't expect to make me cry, but I did. I am not one to cry at work or if I do feel it coming, I close my office door. She felt horrible and I even felt angry at her for disrupting me by asking me or telling me how she felt. She meant well and I know that without a doubt, but I couldn't help to get upset. How dare she talk to me about something so sensitive and at work?? She was yet another person meaning well and having to walk that fine line.

As I sit here and write, I see how difficult it must be for others to know what to do when they don't know what to do and all they want to do is to help! I get that....I'm a helper and I know I would want to comfort them. But please don't give up on us people....we are trying the best way we know how and we do appreciate all the support you have given us. That support alone had kept me here instead of wanting to dig a hole and crawling in it! So I thank all of you for hanging in there with me through my journey. I hope one day to help those behind me, as I continue doing the work and trying to not just survive but to soar!

Much love to all including my beautiful daughter Elyce, who continues guiding me from above 💜💜

Almost Four Years Ago - Flashbacks to That Day

It will be 4 years on July 20, 2016 that Elyce crossed over and left us. I flashback to the day she died and leaving the room when it was time to remove her from life support. My mom, sister, and a few family members that I trusted stayed in the room to watch the last seconds of her life. Shane and I couldn't bear to watch her last heartbeat, so we stayed and waited for the node from the nurse to tell us she was gone. I flashback and recall walking out of the ICU and turning back to see her laying on the hospital bed alone. I was leaving her all alone! How could I leave her alone? There’s never been a time I left her all alone without anyone watching over her and now I'm just walking away from her. I think to myself, will the nurses take good care of her? Where are they moving her to? Will she feel alone and scared when they move her to the morgue. This is the grief I deal with every single day. I don't always allow myself to go to this place, but there are times that I probably should so I can allow myself to let the tears flow as they may. It just hurts.....hurts so much that I get stomach pains from the sinking feeling.

Another vivid flashback I have was after I got home from the hospital. As you can imagine, I was exhausted and extremely sad that I couldn't stop crying. I finally laid down in bed and tried to close my eyes, but that's when I felt the overwhelming feeling of energy and I knew it was Elyce. In the past, I have only felt this feeling once before and it was shortly after my great aunt passed away. It's a feeling that is hard to explain, but I can describe it as the sensation you feel when someone walks in the house and you can feel them before you can see them. It's like that. When my great aunt passed away, I felt that same feeling and ignorantly thought she was going to show up in front of me. In Elyce's case, I felt as if she was actually laying on top of me. It was her...I knew it was her. We had such an amazing strong bond since she was born and I'm sure she wasn't ready to leave me as I wasn't ready for her to leave. Her soul was so powerful it scared me. I was afraid if I opened my eye, she would be standing in front of me. Strangely enough, when Rose (my ex-mother-in-law) passed away, I couldn’t feel her presence. Who knows....Rose was probably busy being with Elyce and It wouldn't surprise me if Elyce was able to feel her energy.

2 weeks following Elyce's death, I continued feeling Elyce's energy when I laid down to sleep and when I would awaken. It felt as if she was sitting on the edge of my bed watching over me. The first couple of nights, I turned my back to the window, because I had a chair next to my bed where I kept Elyce’s last clothes she wore. I literally would jump into bed, turn my back to the chair and close my eyes without opening them. As soon as I closed my eyes, I can feel her presence. Then I was able to feel the heaviness of her soul. Little by little I started opening my eyes and talking to her as if she was present. I would tell her that I wasn't scared and that I knew she was there to help me get through the first couple of months of this agonizing pain.

I remember when I first started meditating and how Elyce's energy wouldn’t allow me to settle into my meditation. At one of my meditation seminars, that was held at the Chopra Center, I met a monk that really spoke to me and asked him what I should do about Elycse's energy that was distracting me. He told me to just talk to her. He said, "Talk to her. She can hear you. Set up a pillow for her to sit and ask her to sit there and meditate with you. Tell her it's time to mediate and you will watch that she will settle down". So I did what I was told and purchased a pillow for her and told her it was time to meditate and she needs to settle in and meditate with me. I also told her that if she doesn't settle down, it would distract me. Sure enough, it worked.

Trust me when I say that I would have been the first one to judge this experience. In my analytical mind, things need to make sense and everything has a place and things fit in their place. Not in this case, right? But after going through this experience, I am now a BELIEVER. It took this horrifying event and pain to understand and accept that there is much more to this world as I know it. We all get signs, but we will never be able to see them if we aren't open to them. If we judge rather than accept there is "something" more; even if we can't pinpoint what that "something" is, then we won't be able to truly experience this wonderful gift we are all given.

Elyce's energy stayed with me for a bit over a year. I finally had to let her know that I would be ok and it was time for her to go on her way and continue her journey. It was difficult for me to do, but I didn't want to be the one keeping her from her other obligations. I do miss feeling her energy, but she hasn't stopped sending me signs. Those signs are always there and I thank you Elyce for all those messages. You send them when I most need them and for that I am very grateful!!

Mother's Day Manifesto

Read this on FB and thought is was very fitting and I know this speaks my truth!

Mother's Day Manifesto

by Dr. Joanne Cacciatore

I am a mother. I am a bereaved mother. My child died, and this is my reluctant path. It is not a path of my choice, but it is a path I must walk mindfully and with intention. It is a journey through the darkest night of my soul and it will take time to wind through the places that scare me. 

Every cell in my body aches and longs to be with my beloved child. On days when grief is loud, I may be impatient, distracted, frustrated, and unfocused. I may get angry more easily, or I may seem hopeless. I will shed many, many, many tears. I won’t smile as often as my old self. Smiling hurts now. Most everything hurts some days, even breathing.

But please, just sit beside me. 

Say nothing. 

Do not offer a cure. 

Or a pill, or a word, or a potion.

Witness my suffering and don't turn away from me.

Please be gentle with me.

And I will try to be gentle with me too.

I will not ever "get over" my child's death so please don’t urge me down that path. 

Even on days when grief is quiescent, when it isn't standing loudly in the foreground, even on days when  I am even able to smile again, the pain is just beneath the surface. 

There are day when I still feel paralyzed. My chest feels the sinking weight of your absence and, sometimes, I feel as if I will explode from the grief. 

Losing my child affects me in so many ways: as a woman, a mother, a human being. It affects every aspect of me: spiritually, physically, mentally, and emotionally. There are days when I barely recognize myself in the mirror anymore.

Grief is as personal to me as my fingerprint. Don't tell me how I should or shouldn’t be grieving or that I should or shouldn’t “feel better by now.” Don't tell me what's right or wrong. I'm doing it my way, in my time. If I am to survive this, I must do what is best for me.

My understanding of life will change and a different meaning of life will slowly evolve. What I knew to be true or absolute or real or fair about the world has been challenged so I'm finding my way, moment-to-moment in this new place. Things that once seemed important to me are barely thoughts any longer. I notice life's suffering more- hungry children, the homeless and the destitute, a mother’s harsh voice toward her young child- or an elderly person struggling with the door. There are so many things about the world which I now struggle to understand: Why do children die? There are some questions, I've learned, which are simply unanswerable.

So please don’t tell me that “ God has a plan ” for me. This, my friend, is between me and my God. Those platitudes slip far too easily from the mouths of those who tuck their own child into a safe, warm bed at night: Can you begin to imagine your own child, flesh of your flesh, lying lifeless in a casket, when “goodbye” means you’ll never see them on this Earth again? Grieving mothers- and fathers- and grandparents- and siblings won’t wake up one day with everything ’okay’ and life back to normal. I have a new normal now.

As time passes, I may gain gifts, and treasures, and insights but anything gained was too high a cost when compared to what was lost. Perhaps, one day, when I am very, very old, I will say that time has truly helped to heal my broken heart. But always remember that not a second of any minute of any hour of any day passes when I am not aware of the presence of my child's absence, no matter how many years lurk over my shoulder.

So this year, on Mother’s Day, don’t forget that I have another one, another child, whose absence, like the sky, is spread over everything as C.S. Lewis said.

Don’t forget to say, “How are you really feeling this Mother’s Day?” Don’t forget that even if I have living children, my heart still aches for the one who is not here —for I am never quite complete without my child. 

My child may have died; but my love - and my motherhood - never will.

******

Learn more about how to find - or become - help:

certification.missfoundation.org

joannecacciatore.com