Grief Group…

A therapist I went to for a while is having a free grief group. I am not sure why it is free…perhaps the church it is being held at is paying for it. Or, maybe he is just giving something free out of gratitude for how blessed he has been in his practice. I just know that price is right and I am signed up. He needs a minimum of 5 people and I hope he gets them.

So…why am I going? Because of my mom. There are so many issues I am facing surrounding her death. I may not even be told that she when she dies…although I think my father probably would tell me by throwing it in my face. Actually, I can see him writing and telling me that I need to call him in order to find out how she is doing. I just cannot believe he won’t pull some kind of power play.

Her death will mean the finality of so many things…a loss of little girl dreams that never really do die. There are so many levels of grief. Grief that I am not being kept up to date. Grief that I will most likely never be able to have a connection with my mother. I can live without it, but I do want it.

On another level, her death will mean a releasing. There will be no more chances to think about or even try for. It will be time to grieve and move on in a different way than I have moved on so far. There is a separation and yet a connection right now. Like it or not, she is my parent. Although I am not holding my breath, I cannot ignore the hope that we will be able to at least talk about some things.

I have thought many times over the years about how I would respond to news of the deaths of either or both of my parents. It is one of those things that I think you just cannot know until it happens. Their deaths will mean the loss of so many possibilities…so many things that could have been. The fact that they were among my abusers does not change that. I have found freedom and I so wish they could, too. I have heard of such things happening and I know that nothing is impossible with G-d.

So, I think it will do me good to be able to voice some of this in a group. At least, I hope it will. I also hope we can afford the gas, but I will just have to trust my heavenly Abba for that just as I do for everything else.

Yikes!…

OK…I admit it…I am getting a bit nervous…about the upcoming webinar. I am not sure why. I mean…it is not like there is some specific way that I must do it. It is totally up to me. However, I do have some minor dilemmas.

For one, I have a laptop coming. It is supposed to be here by the 19th. The webinar is on the 21st. So…I switched from the old dinosaur laptop that I was using previously to a better one that was given to us. It is just as old…but still better. It has its own issues, but is alright for the most part. It will certainly work until the other one gets in. I was hoping to jump from one right into the other without having to switch for a week.

Yet…there is a blessing in this. This laptop has Power Point on it. I was having to use Open Office on the other one. I had never used PP. It is definitely better than OO…much easier to work with…and, therefore, faster. So, that helps remove some of my nervousness.

It is also very difficult to know how to organize the art pieces. There are too many options. Date. Style. Event. Type of processing. Symbolism. I finally decided to do a general date order with a bit of batching by type. There may even be some grouping by the event being processed. It has been difficult to know how to do it. There is still much work to be done, but at least I now have a basic idea of what I am doing…a week before the webinar. I kept feeling it would come together it…but still…I find myself starting to sweat it as the day draws closer.

It does feel good to have been able to make a decision, of sorts, regarding organization. I still have to decide which (and how many) of the remaining pieces I am going to include. It is entirely likely that I will not get through all the pieces. I am including many more than I think we will be able to go through, but I figure that will give me some leeway as people ask questions. I may jump around a bit to share examples that might fit.

I really hope that I will be able to share something that will help someone else.