Yesterday's Therapy (FUN STUFF!)

I went to my therapist yesterday. We discussed my current planning for grad school and a teaching license. We even found that we know someone in common - a little odd for me. I don't really want to go up to my friend and say, "Hey, I hear you know my therapist...." Incidentally, it's the same friend who likes to wield our hatchets when I answer the door. Maybe their connection is just the obvious one....

We also discussed my continuing grief for my mother and the fact that even after three years (THREE YEARS!!) I am still actively grieving her. I long to be done with this part of the process. I have come to accept that I will always be sad, for the rest of my life, that she's not here to share this with me, but I want to reach some level of happiness regarding her passing and her memory. Jo (my therapist) has helped in telling me to be mindful that I am grieving only my loss and not trying to grieve for my brothers, their wives or my father. At first I thought she had found my smoking stash, but when I told myself that I didn't need to grieve on behalf of anyone else, my whole body just sighed. Apparently, emotional members of families (me) tend to take on the emotions of other people. Yea -- good times. As if I didn't have enough baggage of my own!

I do long to talk to someone about her but I find it awkward with my father (he's remarried), my older brother (he's the most unemotional person I know) and my little brother (he shares everything with his wife and she, in turn, shares everything with others). Everyone I know down south barely knew my mother and there are no shared memories of her. Also, I'm not sure how to bring up the conversation (again with this theme). I have talked some with Mia but I'm never quite sure what to say. When I think about my mother, it's not as though certain stories come to mind; it is just this overwhelming ache in my core that I miss her. How do you share that, short of just sobbing in someone's ear? (And, yes, I have done that as well.)

Good news, though. Jo said, in response to my yet again plaintive cries, that I was working on graduate level stuff and that I was moving along in the grief process. Yea me!

My current assignment? I need to create a comforting story about where my mother is now. This creates a few dilemmas for me. One, while the LDS faith teaches about the afterlife, so much of it is vague and I'm uncertain of the realities of heaven. Second, I do picture my mother very happy in heaven. She gets to see her Savior - I imagine her touching the prints in His hands and feet and worshiping and praising Him; she gets to see her parents (her own mother died when she was just 1.5 years old); she is without pain; I imagine her weight at a more manageable level; she gets to talk - a lot - and preach the gospel; oh, yeah, and I imagine her singing. All lovely images. I am certain of her happiness. But in a way, that breaks my heart. I want her to miss me. I want her to weep over our separation as much as I have.

My father tells me that he thinks she misses me. I think that she may miss me, but I'm afraid to embrace this idea as that means there is sorrow in heaven. And then I spiral downward from there: if my mom misses me (and the rest of her friends and family), then she is full of grief and sorrow; when I die, I will miss all those I leave behind and instead of passing onto a world without grief, I will continue in sadness. Add this to my concerns about exaltation [if I become like Heavenly Father/Mother (Mormon theology) and have spirit children of my own who then need to experience their own earth life, then I will have to watch my own children become Hitler and other horrible humans - how does God not spend His days weeping over His children?] and I begin to have an image of myself sobbing throughout the eternities. I'm so sick of sorrow in this life. I'm so sick of crying. I can't stand this idea that I will be sad in the next life. So I return to happier thoughts: we will receive a fullness of joy; there will be much happiness and rejoicing in heaven. But like a vicious circle I return to, "Then does my mom miss me?" I can't reconcile the idea of being sublimely happy with experiencing loss or any kind of sadness. I think, really, this is where I stand in the grieving process: I can't reconcile my deep grief and sorrow with being able to be happy and while I find moments of happiness, there seems to be a great underlying sorrow about the loss of my mother and the fear that this sorrow will grow as I lose other people in the course of my life.