Commemoration by Elimination | Grace

I visited during the winter holidays. A fresh dusting of snow highlighted the hills outside. The sweet, familiar scent of the Christmas tree hung in the air as the multicolored lights cast a warm glow about the room. I lifted the spiced tea slowly to my lips, testing the temperature before letting it softly flow into my mouth.

“Do you have any powdered milk?” I asked while heading to join Sarah in the kitchen. As soon as the words left my mouth, I knew the answer.

“Oh, no,” she replied. And then the expected reason came, “That awful stuff reminds me of my mother.”

I opened the fridge, letting the comment pass. I added a splash of milk to my tea and returned to the dining room, noticing the festive container of potted plants at the center of the table. Sarah joined me.

“I don’t do much for Christmas like my mom did,” she explained, as though the idea represented something more profane and less like a family tradition. Nothing her mother did or enjoyed could be enjoyable or worth doing in her life.

No, she was different.

I took a sip of tea, glancing at the poinsettia, sadly wilting in the pot, perhaps letting my gaze linger a little too long.

“I can never seem to keep poinsettias alive,” she said while reaching for one of its remaining, forlorn leaves. “All the other plants are doing just fine.”

I already knew that poinsettias were her mother’s favorite, something she had looked forward to each holiday season. I was honestly surprised to see one here. That it was slowly dying amid healthy plants seemed fitting.

I took another sip and my gaze drifted out the window to the stumps of wild sumac cut severely back near the driveway. Another of her mother’s favorites, hacked back, though they returned and spread every year.

Since she had left home nearly fifty years ago, Sarah decidedly avoided anything her mother liked, stopped doing specific things she did, and created her own life with its own traditions as much as she could.

Sarah’s mother died nearly twenty years ago. By doggedly trying to snuff her mother’s memory out one plant at a time (and hopefully all bad recollections with it), she seemed to have mostly succeeded at keeping her mother’s memory alive.

What You Resist Persists

Sarah’s mother was flawed to be sure. Her childhood was significantly less than anyone would want. But here we were, decades later. Hurts done, never to be reversed. Acknowledgements and apologies never to be spoken.

Yet, to visit her home during the holidays was to witness a commemoration, even if only by elimination.

There was a tension between the desperate urge to be so much different and the thoughtful curation highlighting all that was intentionally omitted.

The plants she despised for their association reestablished each year outside her door. Maybe to offer her a different choice….

What You Embrace Moves Through with Grace

Another friend also remembers her mother. Luz lived a different yet similarly troubled childhood with many elements Sarah would recognize, including escaping at sixteen.

Each year on her deceased mother’s birthday, Luz posts something small she appreciates about her. “Happy birthday to my mother, who adored flowers,” she’d share with a photo of a bouquet.

It wasn’t warm, fuzzy, or deeply personal, but it was a kind remembrance. Nothing more and nothing less.

Luz told me she’d likely always remember her mother’s birthday each year, so she was faced with a decision: push it away or acknowledge it, small and simple as it might be.

She noticed that when she tried to dismiss the uninvited reminder, she was left with feelings of bitterness. When she acknowledged it, she felt lighter.

The memories remain. The hurts done. Apologies absent. But she chooses an action that feels more uplifting.

Ultimately, what you do is your choice for yourself.

Grace and Worthiness

Grace is a gift of forgiveness, even for those who may not deserve it. It’s an unmerited kindness. It’s offering generosity, respect, and compassion because it uplifts others and it uplifts you.

Grace is a gift to yourself because forgiveness is about freedom. It’s about the capacity of the hurt person to let go, to free themselves from painful emotions, and to elevate their experience.

It’s not about excusing the person who hurt.

I can’t help but wonder if all the pushing away and denying that I see Sarah doing about her mother is a statement of how she might view her own self worth.

What if she believed she was worthy of being uplifted? What if she recognized that she is already free from all that she resists if she simply chooses to be?

Everyone has been hurt, and everyone has hurt someone else. This is part of the human condition.

So is free will.

There is no “correct” choice here. No judgment for not letting go. We all carry patterns, perhaps not realizing that an alternative exists. Maybe not noticing that the actions we take can have an effect opposite of what we intend.

When uncomfortable memories or interactions or people arise in your life, what could grace look like for you?

Of course, it’s a practice. Start small, but start. You’re worth it.

Holding on to something? Hypnotherapy can help guide you to release and forgive if you’re ready.

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Image credits on Unsplash, in order: Dyane Topkin, Brian Yurasits, Niklas Ohlrogge, and Michael Olsen. Thank you.