My First Christmas…Without My Mom

Dave Begins: “I’m an addict, my problem is Dave and my drugs of choice are excessive food intake and exercise avoidance!!!”

Reader Responds: “Hi Dave and welcome!!!”

I want to take this opportunity to wish you a Blessed and Merry Christmas!  May your Christmas be full of joy and serenity and hope!

If you’ve read any of my journal entries from 2009, you know that it has been a really rough year for me and one that can’t end soon enough — one day at a time!  My mother died at 6:00am on New Year’s Day.  My closest female friend died on April 16th.  I nearly died of an allergic reaction that sent me into kidney failure in late June.  Then in mid-August I came down with the painful condition known as sciatica (on my left side).  I guess after a year like 2009 I at least deserve to be referred to as a “survivor”, huh?  😀

I thank God for the grace I’ve needed to cope with the drama of 2009 — one day at a time.  God’s grace is always a precious gift and I hope that I always feel gratitude when I experience it (not to mention always realize when God is pouring out His grace on me to begin with — rather than assuming I’m “making it” on my own, when indeed I’m not).

Because I’m afraid that the grief of my mother’s loss will be overwhelming on Christmas day, I’m going to PLAN (in writing) my food choices for tomorrow ahead of time.  I may need to revise my plan, but AT LEAST I’LL HAVE A PLAN. WHY is PLANNING IMPORTANT (especially at stressful times)?  Because “those who (consciously) fail to plan are actually (subconsciously) planning to fail” and (the bottom line is) I don’t think nearly as  clearly when I’m under stress (Who does?), especially when it comes to anything to do with food.

I love my momma and I miss her more than words can even begin to express!  But NO amount of insane eating will ever bring her back to life in this world.  She suffered much in the several years leading up to her death and I can find at least some sense of peace believing that my momma is no longer suffering.

 

Have You Ever Been “All Chewed Up…”?

Do you remember the moving eulogy that Earl Spencer, brother of Princess Diana, offered at her funeral?  Over the course of the many years since I first heard this this powerful speech, I’ve found myself fascinated by a short phrase that came near the conclusion of the eulogy that includes the words, “We are all chewed up with sadness…”.

Maybe it’s because I’m an addict for whom my drug of choice is food, but it doesn’t surprise me to me obsessing at times over this reference to chewing.

“All chewed up” is an appropriate way to describe what I’m feeling as I write this journal entry some 25 days after my mother passed away.  My momma died at 6:00am on January 1st at a hospital in south-central Indiana due to complications caused by (IMHO) nursing home neglect and neglegence. I also suspect her primary care doctor (who treated her at the nursing home and the hospital) and the hospital staff might not also be guilty of providing something far less than excellent care that contributed to my mother’s death.

Feeling "All Chewed Up" Is NOT A Valid Reason To Eat Everything In Sight! We are powerless over food, but NOT powerless over our choices!

So here I am “all chewed up” with grief while having strong feelings of resentment toward several of my later mother’s caregivers. I’m grateful to have a program of recovery that deals with these emotions (most especially resentment) — thus givng me a choice to NOT OVEReat to them.

I’m grateful that I’ve NOT put back on boatloads of weight that I’ve already lost. This is nothing short of a miracle!  I eat to my feelings (both negative and positive ones), and the overwhelming waves of feelings I’ve felt over the past several days could have given me more than enough of an excuse to binge and graze my way back so that at some point I would have ended up at the 510 pound misery that was once part of my life.

I dearly love my mother and miss her terribly, to be sure.   But NO amount of excess food will bring her back from the dead.  So why eat to grief?  Thankfully today my program of recovery gives me a choice: “Face your stuff or stuff your face”.  Indeed!

Even in the midst of my grief, I find that I’m NOT “powerless over my elbows” (i.e., I’m NOT powerless over my choices). Powerless over food?  Yes.  But I’m NEVER powerless over my choices!  This is why, when offered LOTS of leftovers from the lovely dinner that my church hosted immediately after my mom’s funeral, I said (and stuck with) NO to taking those leftovers home with me!  A few of my well-meaning “earth people” friends didn’t understand “Why” I made (and stuck with) this decision.  But that isn’t their business to understand, is it?  Nope.  I know why I didn’t want the food in my apartment.  By the grace of God I did “the next right thing”  by giving most of it away (including all of the junk food type items) to friends and others.

Thanks be to God for the gift of my precious mother!

Thanks be to God for the grace that sustains me in moments when I feel overwhelmed with facing life on life’s terms!

Thanks be to God for the more-than-adequate-grace to face and feel grief, resentment, guilt, shame and other emotions just 5 minutes at a time (and NEVER more than just ONE DAY at a time)!

Thanks to my many wonderful family and friends for offering their support during this painful time of my life!

Thanks to all who have remembered (and continue to remember) me in their prayers and I face my feelings 5 minutes at a time!