This month has been particularly helpful and timely for me. I’ve done the hard work and emotionally, I feel like I’ve come a long way, but I’m struggling with an upcoming event and how to write that story. Your coaching call last week, in particular, helped me release some hard thinking about my past marriage and I’ve re-written that past in a way that makes me happy. I’ve had several very vivid dreams about moving….boxing up the past and choosing what to keep in moving forward. It has helped heal the hardness in my heart from being a victim. I’m now able to say “Everything, even the bad and the ugly, happened just the way it was supposed to, and has created the beautiful strong reality of who I am today.” I feel empowered because I’ve taken back my power to choose how I write the story of my past and how I want to think about it moving forward.
Here’s what I need help with now. Since it’s about being a mom and helping my kids, I feel almost like I’m asking advice on how be a coach. I need to know how to help them through an upcoming event.
Here are the circumstances:
The 27th of this month is my son’s 17th birthday. It would have been his dad’s 53rd, also, but he passed away quite suddenly from a heart attack last year on the same day. So the 27th is a double birthday and the anniversary of my ex’s death.
I’m working on writing the story of that day for the future for myself, but also for helping my children.
I’ve booked a weekend beach trip with my parents and sister for the weekend. It’s a place that the kids (ages 15, 17, 19, and 20) and their dad and I have gone every year since they were very small. (With the exception that after our divorce, 6 years ago, my ex did not continue to go with us…) It’s a place of joy and great memories and healing for all of us.
I don’t want Ben’s birthday to be overtaken by the grief of their dad’s death. I want to help our family focus on life, and the living. The joy of being alive and with each other and their future. I’ve thought about separating out the remembrance of their dad to the day prior, (I’ve bought lanterns for them to write on and release out over the water) but as my 20-year-old daughter pointed out, the day is the day and nothing can erase that. Splitting it out to a different day will not change what is.
I want to honor their dad’s memory while at the same time celebrating my son’s birthday and not spending the weekend focusing on grief. I think there may be ways that I can help the kids think about the day and their dad that will write the story of that date to be healing and celebratory of what is/was good, rather than the loss and what isn’t anymore. I need some help with what those thoughts or actions could look like.
Do you have any ideas?