We’ll Meet Again

My wife and I were in a large shop in Glasgow the other day and joined what appeared to be a whole city full of people looking for gifts and presents. We were ticking off our list of names and ideas making sure everyone was covered when we realised that, for the first year since we became a couple over 10 years ago, one name was now missing from our list.

This festive time of year brings many aspects of our life into sharp focus, doesn’t it; the quality of our family relationships, our financial position, the depth of our network of friends, our health & wellbeing and many other things that, as we near the turning of the year, we spend time thinking about.

It’s also at this time of year that we are reminded of those that will not be with us (physically anyway!) around our festive dinner tables. I know that many people reading this have loved ones, parents, friends, children, relatives or even beloved pets who have passed away this year and who will be dearly missed as we enter this time of family and togetherness.

As we go about buying for family and friends the fact that this person is missing is all the more apparent and that makes it easy to spend the coming weeks noticing they are not where they used to be. I want to tell you that you have a choice as to whether to spend this next couple of weeks sad as you continually mourn their loss or smiling as you periodically remember their life.

When someone close to you passes away it can be really tough, I’m not denying it. When my dad passed away in 2003 it was a difficult time for the whole family but, and this is a big but, I made a choice at that time to look back on his life with a pride and a happiness about who he was. It didn’t stop me being sad sometimes when he wasn’t there, it doesn’t stop me missing him sometimes when a big family occasion happens and it doesn’t stop me just wanting to hear his voice or his words of wisdom (that in reality I’d probably ignore anyway!!) but it does allow me to feel happy for what I have had rather than what I have lost. Do you see the difference yet?

When we grieve for something or someone, we are focusing on wanting what we have lost. Wanting ‘them’, whoever that is, to be there when they aren’t, imagining how much they would have enjoyed <insert name of event here> but they can’t, basically wishing that they were still with us. But, and this is just the reality of the situation, they aren’t.

Before I go on, I positively encourage you to sometimes miss that person and to sometimes feel sad that they are not with you, this is a sign of how much you loved them, how much you cared for them and how big a part of your life they were. I just don’t want you to live there. One person has already died, there is no point in making it two.

So what do you do? Well there are many things we can do but here are just 2 simple things we can focus on that will conquer any of the negative feelings we have talked about and I urge you over this festive period to fill yourself to the brim with both of these about those that are here physically and those that aren’t..

Firstly, Gratitude. Be grateful for everything you experienced with this person, no matter how long or brief a period they were a part of your life.

Try it now. Inside your mind and your heart remember a time that now, as you go back, if you could, you want to say ‘Thank You’ for. A happy time, a funny time, a tiny thing, a big thing, a quiet time or maybe an exciting time. Whatever comes to mind. And inside you, in the most caring and loving voice you can muster, say ‘Thank You’ to yourself, to that special person, to the world! Now how does that feel to do? How does it feel just to say ‘Thank You’?.

Yeah, there may be a tear or two but they will be tears of gratitude, not loss or grief. And grateful tears are tears worth shedding!

Now anytime you feel that dark blanket of grief coming on, recall another time and another time and another time with that person and inside, from deep down in your heart, say ‘Thank You’ and mean it.

Secondly Love. Love is a funny emotion because the right kind of love will stay with you forever. If you have loved you can always love again. The fact that the person you loved is no longer here physically doesn’t change that.

Let’s do it again; Remember a time now - it can be a tiny time that just meant something to you or something huge that almost made your heart explode with love or even somewhere in between - but remember that time vividly in your mind and in your heart and remember what that person’s love feels like. Wallow in it, recall it, be Grateful for it and live with it in your heart.

That feeling of love is just as real as when they were here, it isn’t in your imagination. It isn’t a fake feeling just because you can’t touch them or tell them that you have felt it. These feelings of love are as alive today as they ever were and while those feelings are alive, so are they.

My mission to you is to make this festive period a time filled with Gratitude and Love. That is your choice. Do you choose the path that smiles or the path that mourns? Well, when I put it like that surely there is no choice! Is there?

I hope you have a lovely Christmas period whatever your beliefs and I urge you to spend the next couple of weeks remembering the joy, love and laughter that you have experienced in your life and vowing to get more of it next year.

Happy Xmas, Slainte, here’s to your whole family and let’s go get an amazing 2010

PS The name that was missing from my list? My wife’s best, furry feline buddy Worf (yes, after the Star Trek Character!) passed away in July this year. He’s missed but remembered with a smile. Always there when he’s needed.