Bereavement

I am actually looking at my Dad's Bday Monday, and going to do some grief and family trauma work this weekend to continue healing. We had a contentious relationship for much of my life, he was abrasive and moody, and I get a LOT of my personality traits from him, and passed them on to my son...hopefully we heal those issues.

One of the strange things that really helped my grief was seeing them as separate entities, with their own karma and lifepath that had nothing to do with me. It's gonna sound woo-woo, but I was able to see the separeteness of their life here and then have a 'spiritual' relationship with them as their infinite-souls who were free from all the bullshit now that they had crossed over. No more judgement, no more old anger, no more regrets. If I could see them as humans/souls with their own set of lessons, it made my stuff easier to handle...because I could see how we were necessary for eachother's growth. It also helped me do the deep trauma work of my childhood issues with them, because I was able to still love them and yet say "that was fucked up!"
It's bigger than that, but hopefully you kow what I mean.

As for the Obit. I wrote both my parents' because I'd been a news reporter and I actually worked obits. It was a whole different thinig to do it for my folks...and it was very difficult not getting flowery or creative abut the facts. The facts are like a resume, they don't tell the reality of the person's hardships and growth. It's a good excercise, and you have the added benefit of not writing it for the newspaper, so you CAN include stories or feelings in it.

If you get stuck or need any writing help, feel free to PM. Good for you for doing this grief work! It's not easy and so many people stuff it down instead of giving it light and air to dissapate...