As I Live and Grieve®
It’s time for grief to come out of the basement, or wherever we have stuffed it to avoid talking about it. When you suffer a loss you need support, comfort, and a safe place to heal. What you are experiencing is painful but normal, unique but similar, surreal but very, very real. As grief advocates we understand and want to provide support, knowledge and comfort as you continue to live and grieve. Host, Kathy Gleason; Producer, Kelly Keck. www.asiliveandgrieve.com
As I Live and Grieve®
Holiday Reflections: A Message from Your Departed Loved One
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As we navigate the holiday season, I take a moment to share my personal reflections and explore how these times can stir both joy and heartache. This solo episode offers a heartfelt letter from an imagined perspective of our late loved ones, challenging the notion that the holidays must always be joyous and perfect.
Let this message be a gentle reminder that while the holidays may be tough, you're not alone. Together, we can honor our memories and embrace the possibility of creating new ones.
Bless you - and may your Holidays be full of happy memories.
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Credits:
Music by Kevin MacLeod
Copyright 2020, by As I Live and Grieve
The views expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent.
Welcome to as I Live and Grieve, a podcast that tells the truth about how hard this is. We're glad you joined us today. We know how hard it is to lose someone you love and how well-intentioned friends and family try so hard to comfort us. We created this podcast to provide you with comfort, knowledge and support. We are grief advocates, not professionals, not licensed therapists. We are you.
Speaker 2Hi everyone, welcome back again to another episode of as I Live in Grief. Today's episode is going to be a bit different. It's likely going to be a bit shorter, unless I get very chatty, and it's likely also going to have no guests. Today you're spending it just with me. Kelly's not even here. The reason? Because the holidays are approaching so fast. I can't believe how fast they are coming upon us Just 10 days away Today. I'm actually recording this on Sunday, december 15. So 10 days away until Christmas.
Speaker 2I don't know about you, but holidays continue to be a little problematic for me. Holidays tend to bring back memories. Memories are from the past and sometimes memories are from much happier times. However, I'm a firm believer in making new memories. I have a special message for you today. It's not my own creation, but something I found and something I want to read to you. I can't even tell you the author's name, because the author is unknown. However, the message it has is one that I think you need to hear. I know it hit me very, very hard, so I want to pass it along to you. You ready? Here's the message I want to share with you this year for the holidays. Hi, this is your late loved one speaking. I don't have long, so listen up because I have a lot I want to tell you. First off, I get it. Ever since I left this world, you have missed me and I know you're bracing for the holidays without me.
Speaker 2No matter what anyone says, this year's festivities are going to be really tough. In fact, let's be honest, this festive season will probably suck pond water. But then Thanksgiving and Christmas are tough holidays for a lot of people. You're not alone, see. The misconception about the holidays is that they are one big party. That's what every song on the radio claims. Each television commercial you see shows happy families clad in gaudy old navy sweaters carving up poultry, smiling their perfect Hollywood teeth at the camera. But that's not exactly reality. In reality, 58% of Americans admit to feeling severely depressed and anxious during November and December. In reality, many folks will cry throughout the most wonderful time of the year. Well, guess what? Nobody is crying up here in heaven. This place is unreal. There is literally too much beauty to take in Way, too much. For starters, get this Time doesn't even exist anymore, which I'm still getting used to Right now. For all I know, the calendar year down on Earth could be 1728, 4045, 1991, or 12 BC, it really wouldn't matter up here. This is a realm where there is no ticking clock, no schedule. Up here there is only this present moment, this here, now. That's all there has ever been and there is real comfort in this. I know this all seems hard to grasp, but if you were here, you'd get it Also.
Speaker 2For the first time I'm pain-free. I feel like a teenager again in my body. You probably don't realize how long I've lived with pain, because I never talked about it. I kept my problems to myself because I was your loved one and you needed me to be brave. But pain is a devious thing. It creeps up on even the strongest person, little by little, bit by bit, until pretty soon pain becomes a central feature of life. Sometimes my pain would get so bad it was all I thought about. No, I'm not saying that my life was miserable, far from it. I loved being on Earth. It's just that simply waking up each morning was getting exhausting. But you know what? Not anymore. In this new place I am wholly and thoroughly happy. But enough about me. I don't have room to describe all the terrific things I'm experiencing and you don't need to hear them. Right now you're grieving and what you need is a hug, which is why I'm writing to you. This is my hug to you, because you've lost sight of me and in fact, you've lost sight of several important things lately.
Speaker 2Death has a way of blinding us. It reorganizes the way you think. It changes you. You will never be the same after you lose someone. It messes with your inner psychology. It messes with your inner physiology. It reorganizes your neurons.
Speaker 2But then there's one teensy little thing you're forgetting I'm still around. Yes, that's correct, I'm right here with you. No, you can't see me. No, you can't reach out and hold me. But did you know that one of the things I'm allowed to do as a heavenly being is hang out with you? It's true, I'm never far away. I'm in the room with you now, along with a big cloud of ancestors, saints and witnesses. I'm shooting the breeze alongside you, watching you live your life, watching you raise your kids, watching your private moments of sorrow. Here, in this new realm, I am in the perfect position to help you learn things, which is what I vow to spend the rest of your earthly life doing teaching you little lessons, lending you a hand when you least expect it and desperately trying to make you smile. Actually, I've already been doing this stuff, you just don't realize it. What you don't believe, me.
Speaker 2Well, wake up. You know that tingle you get in your spine whenever you think of me. That's me. You know how, just yesterday, you had a beautiful memory when you were driving and it made you cry so hard that it actually felt good and you began to laugh through the tears Also me. You know how, sometimes, when you're all alone, preoccupied with something else, suddenly you get this faint feeling that someone is standing in the room with you. Hello Me, you're not alone on this earth. You never were, you never will be. So during this holiday season, when cheerful families are getting together and making merry and taking shots of eggnog, I'm going to be clinging to your shoulder, helping you muddle through. Somehow, I'll be making your spinal column tingle a lot and I'll be sending plenty of signs. Each of these signs, every single one, is code, for I love you. So start paying attention to these hints, because this was one.
Speaker 2I'm pausing to let that sink in. When I read this, it made a huge impact for me personally.
Speaker 2We all want signs from the loved ones we've lost. You hear me say on my podcast episodes many times to have an open mind and an open heart. In truth, I really believe now these signs are everywhere. We might wait for flickering light bulbs or a feather on the sidewalk or the cardinal to appear in the backyard, but sometimes it can be as ambiguous as your skin itching, as your ear itching, as a rogue tear that escapes your eye, as something that's said on a television show that suddenly makes you think or remind you of the person or people you have lost.
Speaker 2Signs are everywhere, and my wish for every one of you this holiday season, even though we may have to put on a brave face and get through it, because those we might be visiting or spending the day with you might think they've forgotten. They haven't. They get signs too, but they just don't recognize them for what they are. So the next time the oddest little thing happens to you, consider for just a moment that it might be a sign, a sign from your loved one reminding you and telling you that they love you and that they too miss you. Happy holidays, everyone. Tune in a little bit later this week for a bonus episode with some tips on how to get through the holidays when you're grieving. I love each and every one of you around the world. Bless you all and thank you for being a part of my healing too.
Speaker 1Thank you so much for listening with us today. Do you have a topic that you'd like us to cover or do you have a question from one of our episodes? Please email us at info at asiliveandgrievecom and let us know. We hope you will find a moment to leave a review, send an email and share with others. Join us next time as we continue to live and grieve together.