Pre-Grieving Is A Gift From Life

“I can’t believe you feel nothing for her,” Nola complained.

“I know she wasn’t the best but show some respect for the dead.”

“Especially since she is your mother,” Francine adds.

“I am your oldest sister, I am sorry for all of the cruelty she has done to you and us,” Nola pleads.

“I am too,” Francine adds.

Nodding, shoving away years of abuse in all areas and forms of her life, Ajee stared at her two siblings and said, “I am not sorry for all of the cruel and inhumane things she, you, and our world did to me.”

Shock muted her sibling’s tongue for a few seconds.

“Why aren’t you?” Francine quests, fighting her pain and tears.

Breathing slowly for a few seconds, Ajee shares, “I can’t explain it to you. The pain and viciousness of a childhood that refuses to release me from its grasp and robs me of my ability to grieve have no answers right now. But I have three tickets to see Grace Linton. She will explain it better and provide answers too.”

Silence gave consent as the three siblings fought to forgive the ruthless heart of a mother who couldn’t show her children love and compassion.

Sitting in the front row on the left aisle in the Lenora Wills Hall in the Middletown Hills Hotel, Ajee and her siblings anxiously await Grace.

She entered the stage dressed in green shoes, yellow pants, a pink top, and a red hat. All eyes covered her in curiosity.

She read their emotion and enlightens, “tomorrow is Mother’s Day. Green is for her protective nature. Yellow is her positive outlook on life and her children. Pink is for love and how she nurtures. Red is for her passion and how she strengthens.”

https://www.pantone.com/articles/case-studies/the-colour-of-mothers-day

Many in the audience clapped.

Francine dives in, “I was told you have the answers to my question.”

Someone handed her a microphone and Grace said, “I must know the question before I can provide answers.”

“My mother is dead, and her children can’t grieve for her,” Francine shares.

“Was she a kind and loving mother?” Grace asked. Reading the pain in her eyes as her body trembled.

Grace stared at her as she eased back into the past, glancing to her left and right.

Both females beside her stood up and said in unison, “No.”

“That bad?” Grace asked.

They nod.

Breathing heavily, Grace signaled them, and they sat down.

“All of us have people in our lives so brutish to us, that when they die, we can’t grieve,” she notified.

“Yes,” Someone in the audience agrees.

“I was raised to respect the dead no matter what,” another voice informs.

“Does that include Hitler, Putin, and the other dictators that murder innocent children?” a very angry voice asked.

“Yea,” someone else adds. “And those who bomb and murder innocent people?”

Grace waited for a response; the audience waited for her to respond.

“I had a parent I couldn’t grieve for. For ten years I tortured myself, trying to figure out why,” she shared, covering her sorrow with a smile. “I was listening to a preacher preaching about grieving for the unknown of a newborn. But being joyful for the deceased that we know. Digging deeper I realized that the callousness done to me while that parent was alive, I was already grieving. So, when the reason for my pain can no longer cause me harm, it was time to rejoice and let happiness in.”

“So, you are saying that the pain we endure because of what was done to us as children, we were already grieving?” Nola asked.

“Death often gives us that choice to stop grieving and start living,” she notified.

“That’s what I told my brother when our deadbeat father died,” a voice to Grace’s left shared.

“I am trying to let my sisters understand, that I am not sorry for the viciousness of humanity,” Ajee shares.

The audience gasps.

Ajee went on, “I am glad because their acts of brutality and thoughtlessness are saving me future pain. Your heartlessness towards me tells me a lot about you, preventing me from making future mistakes. I will forgive you, but I also must be happy because your demise means the end of my agony. It also prevents more hatred from destroying our world.”

“Damn!” someone in the audience shouts.

Francine and Nola began to weep from the touch of reality and understanding.

The entire hall was struck in awe until Grace enlightened, wiping away tears, “we knew who has left this earth. Life will give some of us reasons to be happy and others, reasons to be sad.”

“So that’s why I couldn’t grieve when certain people in my life die. The pain and agony they put me through in the past I was already grieving and that saved me in the future,” another voice to Grace’s right shares.

“So, the pain from the abuse that we endured as children, was pre-grieving?” someone asked.

“Life was just saving us from the consequences of more loss in the future?” Another voice said.

Grace smiled and educated, “isn’t life amazing? Life will show us so much if we pay attention!”

Francine and Nola, both hugged Ajee, crying, then said, “finally, we have something to thank her for.”

Easing out of their embrace, Ajee asked, “what is that?”

“Freedom to live without grief and regrets,” Nola enlightens.

“And happiness too,” Francine adds.

It’s been twelve years since my mother died. I can’t grieve. I battled with my emotions and reasons. She was my mother. I should be sad. Then I realized that the trauma I endured for more than thirty years, I spent it grieving. Her death ended my grief.

The Bible is right. We should rejoice for the dead.

Sometimes the cruelty of humanity allows many of us to pre-grieve so their death doesn’t have damaging effects upon us. But instead opens the door to freedom and the opportunity to move on stronger.

Life also adds its reasons why we should or shouldn’t grief and who we should grieve for.

Isn’t life amazing?”

Mother’s Day is coming up. Please, mothers, give your children a reason to be happy for you.

Thank you for reading this piece. I hope you enjoy it.