I have so much beauty in my life, yet still there is a constant sadness that has been with me my entire life. As I become more comfortable in feeling, I now understand what this is... it’s grief.
It’s strange to me that we all seem to assume that Mother’s Day and Father’s Day must be a joyous day for everyone. Yet, for most, it is a day of complexity with so many feelings that it may be difficult to distinguish them all.
I watch our world as it tells us that we “must forgive” because it is the answer, or to not be angry, and I realize that our fear of feeling is what is keeping us in these places. Demanding that we not feel what we are feeling keeps us from grieving all of our grief... we get stuck in our shame.
For some reason, we want people to be finished grieving in a set amount of time. Why is that? The truth seems to be that each of us are grieving every day in some way. How can we not be? Being a human is hard.
I’ve found that “forgiveness “ is not something that’s said one time and done like some want us to believe. True forgiveness comes to me in layers of grief that isn’t finite... it’s layers of feeling what needs to be felt with layers of different types of acceptance.
The next time you find yourself telling someone to forgive or not be angry, or whatever emotion it may be, I ask that you stop yourself and ask yourself why you are asking this of another person. Are you able to be with your own discomfort and find an understanding of it? Are you willing to understand your own discomfort and still choose to sit with someone without attempting to change it?
As I grieve my own mother-relationship and some people that I now recognize as extensions of a complex mother-daughter relationship for me, I feel into the love of what I have around me today while also feeling into ALL of the emotions that grief brings. I now know I no longer need to fill something undone in childhood. Instead, I now want something different ... something I’ve always wanted... and that’s for me to now embrace.
Wherever you are today, I am here with you.
—Lisa Pratt, May 2021
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