After your parent dies special dates like Father’s Day and Mother’s Day feel so very different. They hold history, traditions and memories that are special, sacred and now feel very different than in years past. It’s all changed when that parent is… missing.
Often, regardless of your age as an adult, when your parent dies it feels too soon. For some, that loss occurs at a young age. For others, they are blessed to have their parents longer. Age doesn’t seem to count when you’re grieving such an important person in your life. Grieving can be complicated when we’re adults. Somehow, at that time, we often feel “little” again inside.
What hurts is that they are gone. Our lives with all its traditions and rituals have suddenly changed. No more holidays at mom’s house or no running to dad for help when needed. The map of your life has changed. Without a “map” it’s sometimes hard to know which direction to follow.
Those traditions and life lessons of the past now come vitally to life in your present. What do you do? Keep the same traditions — or create new ones? Creating new traditions will create new memories. You can honor your parent as you begin to redefine you and your life. You’ll remember and hold onto the rituals and traditions that help you to honor and carry them with you into your life going forward.
Grief and the changes in your life and connections push you to redefine yourself. You’re not the same after such a big loss. Your parent was significant in shaping your identity and sense of stability. Memories of them and lessons learned may also be significant in shaping who you are now and will become. It may seem like a betrayal to think you would redefine yourself. Yet, it’s not. It’s the natural course of life — we continue to grow throughout our lifetimes. You have been evolving and redefining yourself throughout your life to become… you. And you will continue to do so.
As you grew and watched and listened to your parent, you learned lessons and messages about how to live. Simple rituals like watching them do things like cooking, teaching you to ride a bike or attending your ball game or concert were important parts of growing and learning how to be. There were times your parent may have said, “You got this, keep going.” These are special times that stay with you and can be viewed as an inheritance of life lessons that you can make your own as you go forward.
For some, going forward may have different life lessons that came from a parent who may not have been as empathetic at certain times, or were gone a lot or, worse, was abusive. There may still be grief associated with what you didn’t have and wanted so much to have. We learn lessons about “how to be” and sometimes lessons about “how not to be.”
There are many ways to remember and use those life lessons as part of the grief process. Such as:
- Journal about life lessons to keep them memorialized and how you remember them on your journey forward.
- Create an album of photos that are memories full of those special life-lesson moments.
- Listen in your heart for the voice that said, “You got this, keep going” and what else that voice says that guides you even now.
- Forgiveness — working on forgiveness for your imperfect parent and understanding their humanity. Without forgiveness, only you carry the burden.
- Self-care, is so important, especially if you were a caregiver for your parent; you may have put your needs aside. Thinking of yourself now might feel foreign and new. Like so many other changes, you can do this.
- Sharing with others what you learned and why it means so much now. A lot of healing occurs in the process of sharing those life lessons.
What Life Lessons are you remembering? What have you learned from your parent(s) about how to be or not be in your life? What traditions and lessons will you carry forward? You can learn to love and be grateful while you grieve and heal.