“May the worst day in 2006 be better
than the best day in 2005.”
-from Father Charles Rubey, LOSS
lifted with love from Obelisk, Jan. 1994.
YEAR END THANKS…. FROM STEPHANIE:
Let your New Year begin, remembering that the best tomorrows are built with better todays and good tomorrows. (Not my quote, someone else’s).
You all survived the holidays. I’m proud of you. Be pleased. Give yourself a hug and don’t ask (as one survivor recently did) “How will next Christmas be?” WHO CARES? NEXT YEAR???
There were 37 survivors at our December Memorial meeting. Our candlelight memorial was beautiful and touching. The simplicity and beauty of the candles was awesome. 37 grieving people stood in a circle and were close enough to each other to touch elbows. The pictures of those who have gone on before us looked out at their grieving loved ones from central table. Twenty-nine candles were lit. A central candle sat amongst the pictures while 37 others surrounded it.
One by one, we said something a good-bye, a shared memory, a Merry Christmas. One by one we cried: one by one we blew out our candle, until only the central, centered candle remained lit.
“They say it is better to light just one little candle than to stumble in the dark. Tonight 37 candles were lit. As you leave this room and go out into the cold, dark evening, carry the light of this person with you. For if you carry the light that was the life of your loved one within you, that person will not have gone out of your memory.”
It is my fervent hope that as we enter January, that light remains burning within us.
You have survived: Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve and Day, New Year’s Eve and Day.
While many people say that they “hate January,” let us remember that the days are now getting longer, spring seeds can be ordered, and SOS is January 15th.
I offer you the following survivor New Year’s resolutions:
- I resolve to live one day at a time.
- I resolve to put myself and my health first.
- I resolve to look at the nice things I did for (insert loved one’s name).
- I resolve to look for three good qualities in each person I deal with (including myself).
- I resolve to work on my grief (remember: grief work I work).
- I resolve to balance each piece of grief work with something fun or nice. (It need not cost money, i.e., a walk alone, 15 minutes of quiet time, a phone call to a friend).
- I resolve to cry when I feel like crying and not apologize for those tears.
- I resolve to treat myself with the same respect I give others.
We have entered a new year. Some of you are still in the first year of your grief, when life seems so uncertain, and you are hit on a daily basis with waves of grief.
Some of you are on the middle road of grief- 2 or 3 or 4 years have passed. Waves of grief may overtake you on a regular basis, but you are feeling more in control of your life.
Some of you, (like myself), are back in the fast lane. We turn the calendar to a new year and marvel that it has been 8 or 10 or 12 years. We haven’t forgotten… we never will/ Though we remain forever changed, we reach out to pull the newly grieving to us… we educate, we teach, we support. For us, at this point, it is not enough to be a survivor. We have to thrive. As we reach back to help one who is stumbling.
It is important to remember that life is always changing. The uncertainty of life is what puts lots of people off, but we accept that uncertainty is part of the foundation of life, we can roll on from there. No one knows better than those of us who have survived a sudden death, that the cold winds of change move quickly.
None of us needs to beat ourselves up with “I should have said,” or “Why didn’t I do.” Let us begin today to remember that “the best tomorrows are built are better todays.” You can’t change what happened. You can’t change what you did or did not do. You can change how you will behave from today on out. You can decide to focus on today… and on you…
“Let your New Year begin…
