A Message From Your Loved One
As we come up on the holiday season I saw this thoughtful post that really caught my eye and mind. It was a very long post, so I’ll summarize below the main point I got out of it…
Candles can represent memories of passed loved ones.
A message from a late loved one-
I know you’ve missed me since I have been gone and you’re bracing for the holidays without me.
It went on to uncover this “ideal” holiday season that we have all been shown for years how it’s supposed to be, happy, fun-filled, families getting together laughing as the younger generation opens up gifts, everyone has a table full of food perfectly cooked. Which is so true, we have really been brainwashed into thinking that the holiday season is just this perfect time of year where we are supposed to be happy all the time.
The post goes on to explain how the late loved one is now no longer in pain and suffering, there is no time as we know it here on this plane. And circles back around to the feelings we all go through when we lose a loved one and have the first year of “firsts” without them. For those going through this, I’m sure most would admit that the holiday season is the hardest time to get through.
The coolest part of this post, that really resonated with me, and hopefully does with you too is that it goes on to say that the lost loved one is actually still here. That they are very close by and are now able to help us in ways they couldn’t while they were alive. It explains how it can be in a song that brings up a memory, may make you cry, but you feel better afterwards, or if you ever sense that someone is in a room when there is no one you can see.
I get this all the time it seems with my friend Burke, and now even my Step Father Fred who passed in April. I have other angels looking out for me I am sure, but these are the 2 most recent losses I have experienced so perhaps I am more open to seeing and feeling their presence. For example, whenever I hear a Tom Petty song (not on the Tom Petty XM chanel of course), but randomly like in the casino the other night, in the grocery store etc. or someone who does a cover of his song at a concert, I take that as a sign, a little nudge from Fred saying hey…I’m still here.
Even the irony of this post coming up on my feed as it was not posted by any of my friends, but at this perfect time as my mom was expressing to me recently that she has “cancelled Christmas” because she just doesn’t feel like it because this is her first Christmas in 38 years that she will not have her husband with her. He was always there to help her when she needed it, whether it was putting together our toys when we were much younger, or running to the store for anything she needed last minute, putting up lights on the house….whatever it was that she needed, he did.
And ya know what I told her? That’s totally understandable, and yes, feel free to “cancel” Christmas, you don’t have to go to anyone’s house, pretend to be okay, laugh etc and watch as other families gather and share stories, hug and kiss their loved ones. Take the day, spend it with you, for all I know she may go to the cemetery to visit him. She may not leave the house, she may just snuggle with her dogs and sit and watch TV. Whatever she feels like doing in the moment, and whatever you feel like doing in that moment, it’s okay. It gets to really be okay for us to start doing what we really feel like doing, instead of what others “expect” us to do.
Fake smiles drain energy, denying sadness or any other emotion is tiring. It is resistance to what is, and anytime we do that, we are “fighting against” what is and what needs to be. And for what? If your family and friends really loved you, wouldn’t they be able to understand and support your decision? Shouldn’t they?
So where is the music in all this? Well, lets look at Broken Halos by Chris Stapleton…
“Angels come down From the heavens just to help us on our way
Come to teach us, then they leave us.
My very favorite lyrics are:
“Don’t go looking for the reasons, don’t go asking Jesus why We’re not meant to know the answers, they belong to the by and by.”
That’s a hard thing to do, but I have found that once I learned to accept the time they were here was the perfect amount of time, the more at peace I became about their departure from the physical world. They are not gone, we just can’t see them anymore, but if we listen with our heart, we will always be able to feel them close by.
If you are missing someone during this holiday season, I hope that you will allow yourself space to miss them, feel those feelings and move to acceptance of what is. It’s okay to be sad, it’s okay to be mad, it’s okay to be happy too. Whatever YOU feel, it’s okay. No one else has to understand.