Death and Relations Can be Painful

The Ennead Letting Go (of a Family Member)

Letting go of a Family Member

Lord, how am I to go on.  Why did you allow men and women to create families. Love our children and dedicate our lives to making a close knit bond between us, to have them die.  What do we do when one of us transition over into a world that we only have heard about/  How do we say goodbye?  How do we let go?

These questions have haunted me for most of my life.  The first poem I ever wrote had to do with the death of a love one.  The pain was so strong.  The darkness of the moment overwhelmed me.  Life as I knew it changed forever.  Death had made itself known to me and it was real.

The icy cold body of the dead, is not like anything else in the world.  People are supposed to be warm and have their on personal smell.  Yet death takes all of that away leaving behind an awful funk.  You look at the person who you love and have loved for as long as you can remember, and you can't recognize him.  You know that is your loved one, but your heart, eyes, and mind cannot cope with this person.  Yes, you still love, but you can't love what is in front you.  It is not my brother.  He's not laughing or smiling or standing on his crutches.  Instead he is lying there so still.  So stiff, and so missing from his body.  You want to cry, you want to stop crying, you want to run, you want to stand still, but instead, you freeze in time.

Letting go of my brother was hard, but a few years earlier, I had taken some very serious steps in learning how to let go.  After eighteen years, I finally began the journey of letting go of my Mother.  This journey started with a visit to a nutritionist.  As a way to move toward a more healthier me, I joined one of my co-workers on a visit to see her nutritionist.  I was joined by my daughter.  The session was for one hour.  In the session, I was asked to just talk about me and why I was there.  Of course, my reason was to lose weight.

After listening to me for about forty five minutes, the nutritionist decided to give me some feedback before ending the session and next steps.  What she said during her fifteen (15) minutes rocked my soul for months and months later.  She said, 'The reason you cannot lose weight is not because of what you are eating, but what is eating you!"  What?

A few months later I took my trip to Massanutten.  As I spent my relaxing time gathering my thoughts, and enjoying the scenery, I had time to ponder the nutritionist statement.  I finally agreed with her statement.  After crying my eyes out about the death of my Mother, I started thinking why am I crying, and the answer was just as instant.  You are finally grieving the death of your Mother.  For the past eighteen years, you have been angry, and upset over her death.  You did not grove her death, you got mad at her and stayed mad.  You never let her go.

Yes, I was able to move through life and put on a perfect facade of having gotten over her death.  I finished raising my children.  I spent lots of time with my grandchildren.  I went to work every day.  I got re-elected to the City Council; ran for state senator and county council member, and I participated in a host of community activities and held many high powered positions.  Everyone would believe that I was living the good life, and at the top of my game.  No one suspected that  I was in such a turmoil.