April 6, 2025
Grief is a bugger. It robs you of energy, fills you with uncomfortable and inconvenient emotions at highly inopportune moments and steals your ability to feel happy. Anyone who knew me before my eldest son died in 2023 would have described me as an optimist. I could always see the positive in even tough circumstances. For me, there was always hope that things would get better. My writing instructor once commented that she never ceased to be amazed by my ability to see silver linings, even as I wrote about horrible things I experienced. I was always looking for the lesson or the insight that came after a period of reflection. Alex’s death robbed me of his presence in my life and my ability to feel joy.
Grief doesn’t have a clear timeline. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross was famous for her writings on the stages of grief, but there is no specified time that anyone will stay in each stage. The truth is, there is a lot of spiraling back and forth between denial and acceptance, bargaining, anger and depression. From what I have learned from other grieving parents, grief doesn’t go away. It simply becomes more manageable over time. Slowly and haltingly, there have been moments of happiness that have crept back into my life. I don’t think I laughed for at least a year after Alex died, but occasionally now, I hear myself laugh at a comedy or once in awhile at a silly or ridiculous circumstance that would have made me laugh in the past. The happiness I feel now is fleeting, but at least there are moments of it between sadness and despair.
As I heal, I am returning to activities that I used to enjoy. Traveling and learning about cultures outside of my own has always been a passion of mine, but I have not had a lot of opportunities to take many trips outside of the US. For years I have tried to satisfy my travel bug with museum visits, beach sojourns or trips to National Parks. Books have been my window into varied cultures and historical landmarks around the world. Largely because of my extensive reading, my list of places I want to see is huge. Finally, this year I have been able to travel more and in March Nick and I traveled to Egypt. I had wanted to see the pyramids since I learned about them in 4th grade, and this was a dream for nearly 50 years.
So, you can imagine, I was very excited to see the pyramids, to touch them and to explore one of the step pyramids. What I had not expected was the intense feeling of joy that I experienced as I rode atop a camel for 30 minutes in view of the great pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx. Wow! I may not feel joy again daily, but I will be glad to welcome it back into my range of emotions. Perhaps what I need is to keep working on those “bucket list” trips and experiences that fill me with awe and wonder? Who knows? Perhaps my optimism will return, too?
Mindful Musings 