As I sit here in front of my computer and think ahead to this New Year, I admit, I feel a little shell-shocked. I am relieved that last year now lies in the past. It was a year of devastating changes for me. I lost three jobs to budget cuts, a relationship, and the horrific shock of losing my mother to a massive heart attack. I want my mother. I am financially stressed, lonely, and grieving. Not much to wave a banner about.
So, I’m looking ahead to the future. My mother wrote in a poem “Looking ahead to a doubtful future, to some means childbirth, to others, the child…” {Helen Price). I can still look to her for encouragement and find it. I’m usually a pretty optimistic person, but I can tell right now I am going to have to work a little harder at it.
It is said that there are four stages of grief: Denial, anger, depression, acceptance and hope. Currently, I would have to say I am in the third stage. I am really sad. Talking about it is very important. I am very blessed that I have my sisters and friends. Withdrawing is the wrong choice. I am trying to make positive choices. I am going to the YMCA three times per week swimming, yoga, and the treadmill. I am back at church. I am working on another Master’s Degree, writing for this web site, and writing my novel. Also, I have put my name on the list for substitute teaching. As it is, I am a teacher without students and daughter without a mother. I vacillate between sadness and trying to be busy. On the brighter side, I am the student, and I am the mother to my children. The great circle of life. Life will move on, and I will go with it.
In time, I know I will reach the stage of acceptance and hope. I will buck up. I know my mother is happy and dancing in heaven. I will acquire another Master’s Degree. There will be a new job, new relationship, and I will finish my novel. I have my beautiful children and am blessed to see my grandchildren grow. This process of hope and acceptance is going to take time. Right now, I am just a girl who wants her mother.
Sharon Robinson
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