Yes! This is a beautiful story that speaks to how grief transforms itself into a celebration and remembrance of life.
Grief and Renewal: One Mother's Story
The next day Rachel approached her parents as they were sitting on the deck. She told them that she and her siblings had had a meeting. "We want to have a party to celebrate Rose's birthday," Rachel said.
Tom and Debbie had grieved their daughter's loss, of course. They had even tried to replace her--three times over. But the one thing they had never done was to celebrate her life. When talking about Rachel's desire to celebrate her dead sister's life, Debbie thought it was important for parents to understand that while the pain they feel over their loss may never fully dissipate, the experience of celebrating a child's life, however short it may have been, can go a long way to balance their grief.
Together Debbie and Rachel came up with a simple tradition that the family then celebrated every year on Rose's birthday. The tradition was simple but poignant. Each year Rachel would go with Debbie and order a birthday cake--decorated, of course, with roses. The family would share the cake, and Tom and Debbie would tell a couple of stories about Rose. One year Tom told a story about taking Rose sledding when she was five and how the two of them had gone so fast that their sled toppled, sending them rolling across the snow-covered slope. Everyone laughed.
After the cake was eaten and the stories were told, each child would get a small gift--from Rose.
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