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January 1st, Restart on 2025

January 1st, Restart on 2025

Last updated on: January 1, 2025 at 10:59 pm by Sherry Antonetti

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January 1st, Restart on 2025 2025-01-01T22:59:49-05:00 Sherry Antonetti

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So I just came back from a ten day trek to Texas and back to say goodbye to my mom. My sister, brothers, their spouses, all of our children, all of us came to bury Mom. It hurt. It still hurts. I’ve tried writing. Nothing stops the hurt or distracts for long. I’ve woken at three in the morning for an ugly cry, and found myself short of breath in the midst of opening Christmas presents. Grief will be a companion for 2025 and beyond.

Photo by Cintia Bianco

But so far, every mass, at some point I sob. At least once a day someone says to me, “What’s wrong” before recognizing my heart has visited with grief. Every hug, every prayer, every card, every person who came to each event to remember my mom, helps. I am holding on second by second.

Time keeps speeding through, it’s been twenty-eight days. The minutes crawl but the weeks fly. I didn’t post anything when we traveled because the internet is not a safe place to announce, “we’ll be away for these days.” Also, I’m still mulling over the assignment given to us at my mother’s gravesite. “Write a letter to your mom. Later, write a letter from your mom back to you.”

Dear Mom,

I know it’s beautiful there, here. Having an infinite amount of time to discuss and hear all the stories of eveyone, I’m sure one day, you’ll take me by the arm and tell me about all of them. The funeral was lovely, and somehow, the mass felt too short.

We’re all beat here –it was a long drive down and back up and I’m not sure how I’m going to muster the spark to get through two school days plus getting the car inspected. Stopping for death is right and good and necessary. Unfortunatley, bills and papers and laundry don’t wait.

However, you would have loved listening to your granddaughters singing karyoke today. It was delightful hearing them belt out, “Sweet Child of Mine.” Their singing made even paying the bills better.

Photo by Pixabay

Your death reminded me of my cousin’s talk at another relative’s death, about losing the Pillars. We stayed at a beach house on pillars. I could feel the waves of the ocean cutting away at the house in my mind, there are only a few left from the generation before me.

The beach has always been my prayer place. I longed to go out to the ocean and throw shells, one for each year I’ve been given, both to say thank you and to tell God how much it hurt to have the veil between me and Mom. While even in my imagination, I knew God knew and could take the shells. But at some point, throwing the shells no longer felt satisfying. Not because I didn’t feel all of it but because at the heart of our faith is the cross.

At mass today, I stared at the crucifix, considering how we are all the Body of Christ, and the very real reality that in our lives we are always offered the opportunity to be either the body of Christ or the cross itself. Christ loves us and so embraces the cross. Surrendering our suffering to God is doing the same thing, deciding to be in this world but not of it.

So I asked Mom to be with me, to help me offer the tears for one child, and the aches that come unbidden for another.
Photo by Arina Krasnikova
My new year’s resolution is to spend an hour with God every day –either in adoration, through mass, or through prayer. Yes we do the rest of life –how we live, how we serve, so that grief becomes a companion in prayer, and not merely a haunter of time and stealer of smiles. And yes, I hope to write more, get published more, read a book a month and lose about 30 pounds. It’s the year of hope, and hope is erquired when fifty-eight years of experience say, “Yeah, that’s not happening.” Still able to laugh about all of it, and that’s a sign Mom’s with me, and hope (no surprise) is too.

Happy New Year everyone!

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