It's been a minute, or two, or 1,686,204-ish since my last post. 

I didn't remember it yesterday, last night, or even this morning. I got up, used the bathroom, washed my face, and did my morning workout. I got my old cat some food and helped him up on the counter for a drink from the tap. He can't jump up anymore, so we always lift him and make airplane sounds. He seems to like it. Then, I helped him back down and we went to the couch for some morning cuddles.

I scrolled through my phone, and looked at pet drinking fountains on Amazon. I scrolled through my emails, and cleared out all the junk. I've had that email address for 20 years now, and it is just 99.999% junk, at this point. I discovered the Foo Fighters are putting out a new album, the first since their drummer died, so I went to their site and pre-ordered the white vinyl version. Colored vinyl is better than black vinyl. It's fact. I looked up their concert tickets, to see if I'd missed my opportunity to buy them for this summer. Too bad for me, I had.

I researched new non-stick pans since ours are old and losing their surface. I'm still undecided. Then, I opened Instagram. The first Instagram story it was recommending to me was from your foreign exchange daughter that stayed with you the last year you were healthy. You guys hit it off, and you were quickly very attached to each other. I clicked to watch her stories, and it was her memories of you.

Then I remembered.

Last night, after ditching out on the date night Justin and I had planned, I got in bed at 9pm. I messed around on my computer, aimlessly online shopping, and working on a few small writing projects. I was all sorts of distracted and couldn't focus, but I felt fine. I didn't remember yet.

Justin climbed into bed around 10:30 and we talked about our lives together. Nothing came up about you or your death. Neither of us remembered.

Perhaps this is what our brains do after 9 years apart from the ones we've lost. Maybe our brains do the subconscious work of not reminding us anymore, since we seem to be doing decently. They preserve us, in a way.

I laid there in the dim light of the morning, stretched out on one side of our L-shaped couch. My cat was curled up next to my head, on his favorite flannel blanket. I stuck my hand under his head, a favorite form of touch for him, and felt the small vibrations of his sleeping purr. I listened to his tiny snores that have gotten much louder in his old age. Through our living room window, I watched the sky turn from gray to periwinkle and then to blue, behind the trees across the street. When I lay on the couch in that direction, I can't see the houses, just the beautiful tree tops. Sometimes, I imagine that we live in the forest, surrounded by nature, instead of the middle of the city.

Tears started to stream from the outside corners of my eyes, across my temples, and into my ears and hair, as I remembered all the years I had with you, and the last day I saw you alive.

I hate that I can't call you. I hate that everything changed after you left. I hate that you haven't seen any of my thirties, and how I overcame massive mountains I never thought I would. I hate that you didn't get to go on wildflower hikes with me, or play guitar duets with me (or even piano duets, even though I never wanted to before). I hate that you didn't get to hear me sing a solo on a video posted to my Instagram page. You know how big of a deal that was for me to do. I hate that you aren't here to talk about my small patch of gray hairs, or the fact that you were a grandma at my age, and I'm not a mom, and how different our lives are. I hate what cancer did to you. I hate that it took your beautiful vibrant personality and locked it into a dying shell. I hate that I only speak of you in past tense, and there are no new photos of us together. I hate that the last photos of us together are the ones of you on your way out of this world. I hate that the last time I touched you, I was kissing your cold forehead, and telling you goodbye.

I hate that it's been 9 years. But, I'm also happy it has. Those first few were some of the most painful of my life to date. I still miss you always, but this year, as well as the last few, it seems like I'm forgetting about the bad parts of it all. I seem to be that way more and more, living without all of the sadness. I guess that's what moving on with life looks like. I guess that's what healing looks like. One of our last real conversations before cancer took your conversational abilities from you, you told me that you weren't worried about me and you were proud of me.

Your actual last words to me, a couple days before you were gone, were:

"Am I ok?"

"Yes." I said. I lied, sort of.

"Are you ok?" You said.

"I will be," I said, but not certain of the truth of it.

I am ok, now, Mom.

And... I miss and love you.


Love always,

Your Daughter

Magical thinking is defined as the belief that one’s thoughts or actions can influence the course of events in the material world.

When my mom got sick, I tested this very theory. For my entire life, I had been told that prayer moves mountains. This is exactly what magical thinking is. It is the belief that if I pray fervently enough, if I am dedicated enough to my cause, if I stay true to the practice of faith, if I appeal to god enough, god will change the course of the future.

I tested this with every fiber of my being. I was the literal definition of magical thinking. If I accepted any part of reality -- the fact that she had a terminal diagnosis -- I was failing at my task. I was laser-focused on somehow convincing the god of the universe to save her life. In essence, I was trying to save her life. As a result, I felt excruciating pain and anxiety over her impending death, believing that any setback meant I just had to have more faith and try harder. This self-assumed responsibility meant that I wasn't as present as I could have been during the last year of her life.

Without me saying anything else, you can be certain what came next. But, I'll proceed anyway.

Mom died 13 months after diagnosis. It was the Saturday of Easter weekend. Everyone said it was a perfect symbiosis of her devout life and the Savior's. God was calling her home, her work was finished. People found peace in that coincidence.

I didn't see it like that.

God had disregarded the most faith I had ever given him. God took my magical thinking, my whole-body faith, my incessant pleas to save my mother from this fate and ignored it. God even ignored my nights of sheer agony when I parked my car in an empty temple parking lot, looked up at the brilliantly lit building that was his literal house on earth, and screamed with everything I had just for him to hear me. My tears filled up canyons of my grief and fear.

Her death showed me this: God either can't do it for any number of reasons - one being that he's not all powerful, another being that he doesn't exist in the way I was taught, or at all; or he is there, but he won't do it. In this life, I will never truly know the answer to that.

I heard a quote by Walt Whitman years later, after I'd grieved myself into full blown major depression and panic disorder, that said, "These are the days that must happen to you." It spoke the whole truth in just 9 words. This is life. All of it. The love, the joy, the trial, the error, the life, the death, the heart ache, the loss of faith. This is what it means to love. This is what it means to be alive.

I had taken to gardening instead of going to church, and in the process I had witnessed similar things to Walt Whitman. There are rules of nature. There are births, deaths, seasons, years that nothing works, years that are abundant, sometimes because of me, sometimes in spite of me. Everything had a time, and then it ended. There was so much beauty and healing in that realization.

I lost myself and my religion the day I kissed my mother goodbye for the final time. I fell apart in the aftermath not understanding anything because what had happened was not what I was told would. I lost my footing, and had to ultimately climb out of the deepest hole I've ever been in. For a time, I thought I would never be ok again. In the process, I had to completely rebuild myself, but what I found in the breakdown?

A different sort of magic. 

It's been a decade since I walked the cobblestone streets of Florence, Italy and heard the bells of the Duomo ringing out under the heavy winter rain clouds above. The cool air blew against my cheeks, and I buttoned up my new black wool coat and wrapped my flowing wool scarf around my neck, both I'd picked up while shopping in Italy. I'd laughed as I picked them out, because, not only were they cute, but they'd both said 100% Lana on the tags. It was kismet. Despite the fact that Lana is Wool in Italian, I jokingly played along with the stars aligning. I'd never felt more free in my entire life. 

If you clicked to read this article, chances are you've lost someone in your life that meant everything to you. First, I'm so sorry you've had to endure that type of loss. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. Second, I get your pain. You are in good company here. I'm feeling a little of the re-opened wound right now as well. The holidays really do dredge up those feelings again, don't they? I know my first few holidays without my mom made the grief feel as fresh as the weeks right after she died.

Grief is cyclical, and anything can trigger a renewal of your grief. Major milestones, family get togethers, activities they once did with you, holidays, birthdays, all of these tend to be bittersweet because you once shared them with your loved one, and they are now gone. Or, they were things you were looking forward to with your loved one, and they aren't here to do them.

With all that being said, let's talk about how you can get through the holidays like a pro.

1 // HAVE ZERO EXPECTATIONS FOR YOUR FEELINGS & ACCEPT THEM AS THEY COME

I don't mean have no goals the entire season and turn into a giant couch sloth. I mean make plans, do all the things you want to, but have zero expectations of how you're going to feel at any point this month. Just focus on the present (ha! Christmas pun) and enjoy yourself when you feel happy, and if you are at an event, and feel the tears welling up, allow them to exist. If you can't or don't want to cry in front of people, take a small walk and let it come out, and then rejoin your party.

Allow your heart to feel that pain. It's likely you're going to be at a family or friends event where your loved one always was before. It's also likely someone else there is feeling the loss. It's totally normal to have those moments where you feel your heart start to ache because you can't kiss them under the mistletoe, or hug them and say Merry Christmas, or get your obligatory family photo with them, or just because they're not there and they always were before.

Remember, love doesn't end when a person dies, it just has nowhere to go anymore, so you have to feel both sides of it instead.

2 // CONTINUE OLD TRADITIONS AND/OR START NEW ONES

One thing I noticed when my mom died is we all kind of scattered and didn't come together for the holidays like we used to. Moms really are the glue, aren't they? As a result, the holidays felt much more lonely and chaotic. Some holidays I just stayed home wallowing about it all, others I tried to do new things and had fun but still felt like something wasn't right.

This year, I'm attempting to create new similar traditions that will remind me of old times. This is something we all can do. Did you used to get together in one big house, making food, playing games, etc? Did you always go to a Christmas concert, bake cookies, go caroling, or do some other meaningful event? Continue doing that. And, while you're there, think of your person and mentally, or audibly, tell them you love them. Include them in a way. Start a new tradition in their honor. It can help bring some normalcy into your season and help you honor your grief as well.

3 // THERE IS NO RIGHT ANSWER

I can give you all this advice, and hope that it works, but the truth is, there really is no magic formula here. I think we're all just learning to live without our loved ones. Over time, we adjust and get back to life, and have way more good days than bad, and find our meaningful holidays again. It's ok if you need to set aside some time to feel your grief during the holidays. Forgive yourself for being human. Trying to handle the holidays perfectly is just more added pressure and can actually trigger worse feelings than by just letting them happen.


Be good to your heart. Say what you'd say to a grieving friend, but say it to yourself. Do what you'd do for a grieving friend, but do it for yourself. It is tough work trying to make sense of how people can just be gone one day. It takes time and special times of year are a little trickier. That is 100% ok. I hope this helps, and I hope your holiday season is full of all of the good stuff.

Happy Holidays!

Love,
A Fellow Griever

++ What are you scared to do that you really want to?

Have you heard about this new type of self-care that's being talked about? It's called Shinrin-yoku, which roughly translated from Japanese is Forest Bathing, and it's not what you think. It's not taking a bath in the forest, although, I bet that would be nice as well. It's about wandering aimlessly through a forest, and being present in the moment. Paying attention to the sights, sounds, smells, and the energy present there.

+ Please comment below!