There are many New Year traditions in which I take part. I do make resolutions – well, mine are more like intentions and plans. Leave me alone too long and I’ll break them down into quarterly goals and objectives and action steps. But I try not to over-think them. For many years, I was at church bringing in watch night service at midnight. I make black-eyed peas and greens. And then you may as well add cornbread, rice and yams. I hold Kwanzaa Karamus (feasts) in my home. And I clean the house from top to bottom – even the baseboards. Many of these traditions are cultural or religio-cultural, and I’m here for all of it. I find the familiarity of it all quite calming.
Many of us “clean house” at the new year. Sometimes because we have guest over. Other times, we are thinking about how to clean our emotional houses. What needs to stay, what needs to go, what I should stop doing, what I should do next.
As I made my way around the house this year, I went to my mom’s room, as usual. I usually dust, vacuum and keep it moving. This time, as I opened the closet, I began to naturally sort through the things I knew I wanted to keep and what I would give away. For the first time since my mom became an ancestor, it didn’t ache to go through her things. I know that this is something I can do this year.
This year – almost four years after she passed. I’ve given myself time. I didn’t feel a need to rush to sort through all my mom’s belongings or files. I knew I would get to it when I got to it. It would be fine. I know that grief takes time, it cycles in and out, and it wouldn’t always feel horribly empty and painful.
Because in the immediate days and months following my mom’s passing, I settled her financial and legal affairs. And I took time – a lot of time – to be tearily sad. I am grateful for that gift of grieving. Don’t get me wrong, I’d take my mom here on this earth with me if ever given the choice. But I’m grateful that I had the time and space to feel bereft, hold my daughter and miss her.
One reason I had this space is because my mom was really good about making sure I wouldn’t have any financial or legal worries. My grandparents came of age in the Jim Crow South during the Great Depression. They were various levels of poor and even as they migrated north for a better future, they didn’t trust banks – or most institutions. I was a teenager when my maternal grandmother became an ancestor and I well remember my mom talking about the various places where my grandmother had money – in jewelry boxes, under the mattress, four different banks. This was typical of her generation. My mom didn’t want me to have to go on a scavenger hunt. When she was strong and healthy, she made plans. She sat me down with her attorney, made sure I knew where her paperwork was, and when she became ill, all the paperwork and finances were in place for her care, her estate and her intentions. She trusted me to help her where I needed to because I knew what she wanted. All of this was the case for years before she passed. So when she was no longer with me in body, I had the space to be sad because I didn’t have any legal or financial headaches. It was yet another gift she gave to me.
I wish this for everyone. Because illness and loss and love are hard enough by themselves. There’s absolutely no short cut through grief. I want everyone to only have grief to wrangle.
Dr. Monica
