Grieving For All Souls

It’s Halloween. My first Halloween since my parents died. For someone who, for most of her life, has loved Halloween and what this time of year represents, it has been a very weird and surreal day for me. I was able to have some alone time today and work through some emotions that have been there for quite a few months now that I obviously needed to release. I know one of the normal stages of grief is anger and for me I feel like that has been there very deep, especially since Momma passed away.

In the spirit of keeping things real on this journey, I feel like my dad had been checked out for the last few years, so his passing has been different for me than my mom’s. Dad had been ready to meet his maker for a while. I feel that his passing was something that he had been wanting so it felt more peaceful and what dad had been yearning for for a while. Because of that fact, there’s just so much more acceptance in that situation - for myself personally.

With my mom‘s death - which I know I haven’t gone into detail yet on this blog because it is it’s just very difficult for me to still process it, if I’m being completely honest with myself - I feel her passing was unexpected. Not that dad‘s wasn’t unexpected as well but Momma’s was different. We all believed even though she had not been doing well with fighting Covid that she would still recover. We believed that she would make it through regardless of any limitations on how long the rehabilitation from this awful disease would be for her. We felt like she was going to make it. We had to believe that. So when that did not happen, there was a lot of anger there for me. Not anger at my mom but anger at the situation and how it played out not to my expectations.

I know my mom was suffering there in those last 48 hours of her life and so in that regard, I am grateful that she was able to know from her kids that we were OK with her choosing to go if that was what she wanted to do. I’m glad she was able to go in that way and on her terms. But it doesn’t negate the fact that she’s no longer here.

I can’t speak for my siblings, but for me I was excited to have mom without dad around because I believe that mom spent so much of her life taking care of dad, especially these last 10 years of their lives. I was excited for Momma to be able to live a life that she wanted, to be where she wanted to be and not have the responsibility of being at dad’s every beck and call as she had lived her whole life that way. I was excited for Momma‘s freedom.

And maybe that in and of itself was something she wasn’t ready for, I don’t know. I know she was heartbroken after daddy died. Even if it was something that he had talked about for a while, it doesn’t make it any easier. They had been married for over 50 years. They were high school sweethearts. Momma’s life was my father. So I was excited for her to live the life that she never got the chance to have and I was excited to hopefully be a part of that and to be able to see her more and make new memories. Help keep life fun for her despite not having dad there. But we never got that chance. We were robbed of that as a family and that made me very angry. It still makes me very angry.

Yet for me to be able to sit here and have some alone time on a day such as today being Halloween - It’s a full blue moon and it’s the first Halloween without my parents - It was just impeccable timing to be able to process through some of this anger that I have been holding onto since Momma died and release it because it’s not serving me anymore.

I think as a grievers, and society in general, we have a hard time wanting to face our anger because, in reality, anger is just a form of fear and nobody wants to face their fears. But holding onto it just depletes your life source so much. I feel so much lighter now that I have let some of that anger go. Being able to do so has helped me realize I’m angry because my expectations were not met. My expectation was my mom was going to survive Covid. She was not going to be a statistic. But life does not always work out the way we want. Realizing this fact by releasing the fear surrounding it has enabled me to accept it.

I know I still have lots of work ahead of me to work through the anger I still have over losing my parents. But I’m grateful for this breakthrough and insight I had today. I’m thankful to have shed these things because I feel they were hindering me from connecting with my mom. On some level, I know she’s always with me and I will see her again. Most days, that sentiment doesn’t override the pain of Momma not being here anymore. But today, releasing the anger surrounding the pain helped it all not feel so overwhelming.

Sending my love and holding space for those of you who need it today. 🖤