Tiny Buddha

Author: Jackie Honey

  • Being Grateful for the Peaceful Coexistence of Joy and Pain

    Being Grateful for the Peaceful Coexistence of Joy and Pain

    “It’s a gift to exist, and with existence comes suffering. There’s no escaping that, but if you are grateful for your life, then you must be grateful for all of it.” ~Stephen Colbert

    Life is not a war; you do not conquer it, nor do you overcome it. You simply accept that suffering is an inevitable and necessary rite of passage on our paths throughout life.

    No one is immune to pain; it is only dished out at different levels, and our own internal experience is incomparable. We share similar human experiences—that is the tie that binds us all together—but we cannot compare one’s suffering to the next because we are all individuals.

    We exist in a world filled with duality—light and darkness, good and bad, right and wrong as well as joy and suffering. One cannot survive without the other, so to embrace both wholly and have gratitude for their existence is essential to move forward beyond our hard times to a place of peace.

    The darkness will always be there, but to what degree we allow it to exist is up to us. We decide if it defines us, we decide if it controls our emotions, and we decide whether we peacefully cohabitate with it.

    For years I felt that I had been given an unfair shake in life. I watched and held together the people I love the most when they were broken in pieces on the floor. I gently picked them up and held them together until they healed, often sacrificing myself in the process.

    Some of my life’s challenges have resolved themselves completely, but some struggles will last a lifetime.

    My youngest son was diagnosed with autism at three and a half years old. I am incredibly grateful for his existence. I wouldn’t be who I am without him. The lifelong advocacy, care, and responsibility make you an especially hardy breed of mother.

    I struggled with tremendous guilt for so long when feeling burdened by his diagnosis and the impact it had on our family. Many parents of special needs kids suffer burnout, marriage failures, and depression at a much higher rate than other parents. It has been a constant fight for his education and social services, which created the warrior in me, but the right to exist in a world that doesn’t appreciate diversity shattered my heart.

    I struggled for so long trying to be less resentful and more positive. As much as possible, I fought to keep at bay the deep depression and PTSD I carried silently on my shoulders for years. I kept it hidden, as I never wanted my innocent son to sense my sadness that life wasn’t what I had expected and over how unfair it was to him and to our family.

    One morning, I stumbled upon Anderson Cooper’s podcast. Stephen Colbert was a guest, and Cooper discussed the lasting impact the death of Cooper’s father and brother had had on him at a young age. Cooper went on to ask Colbert about something he had previously said:

    “It’s a gift to exist, and with existence comes suffering. There’s no escaping that, but if you are grateful for your life, then you must be grateful for all of it.”

    As the interview progressed, Cooper started to cry, as this conversation resonated with him deeply. I replayed this conversation many times over and cried even more. It was very apparent that it had moved Cooper emotionally and gave light to a subject that had daunted him (and me) for many years.

    How do we come to be at peace with both the hardships in life, especially when they are continuous, and the better times?

    The interaction between these two men was profound, and it inspired me to embrace my pain as a gift.

    It’s an anointment and a difficult, precious task we must all embrace wholeheartedly. Life becomes far more peaceful when we find a way to be grateful for both the hard moments and the joy in our lives.

    To exist is to live in both realities, and there’s something to be gained from both, so we need to honor and respect both equally. One cannot exist without the other. We would never know love if we never experienced grief; they are intrinsically intertwined.

    It was a significant moment for me when I realized this; and it unravelled years of trying to compartmentalize my darker emotions away from my family and the world.

    Seeing my pain as a gift enabled me to fully embrace it. It wasn’t about suppressing my emotions or pretending the hard things don’t hurt; it was about allowing them to hurt with a new sense of perspective—recognizing that pain serves a purpose, and it means I’m alive.

    I started to realize that I did not have to feel guilty for being overwhelmed some days. That it’s okay to cry and there is no shame in feeling defeated because acknowledging the hard times is just as important as celebrating the triumphs.

    I felt the strength to push past those heavy emotions because of the good in my life. The moments when my son laughs, smiles, or hugs me are so incredibly uplifting. Those times would not feel so sweet if not for the days when I feel physically depleted and mentally lost.

    I’ve also learned to appreciate the many gifts his diagnosis has given me. I would not be the person I am today without suffering to create this unstoppable warrior, leader, mother, and human rights activist that is driven by purpose.

    It has made me an incredibly strong person mentally, as we have overcome so many obstacles as a family. I’ve learned to always forge forward and never go back; that life is many problems that just need solving.

    Nowadays, I don’t have to hide my struggles but embrace them and accept them as a part of the grand scheme of life. Recognizing my pain allowed me to release it instead of burying it in a dark, inaccessible place only to grow by the day.

    The greatest gift I bestowed on myself was realizing that I needed to look at life through a different lens by challenging my current beliefs system. My known coping mechanism, tucking heavy emotions neatly away in the back of my mind, wasn’t working. I was slowly coming apart, and I needed to redirect.

    Listening to the conversation between Colbert and Cooper was the catalyst for change inside me. And with that came rebirth. I started to slowly open up about my struggles and connect with other parents, not as an advocate ready to tackle the next fight but as a person struggling in my daily life with a child with disabilities.

    I felt more authentic in that I didn’t have to hide my grief; it was okay to not be this impenetrable positive fortress 24/7. I felt more connected to other parents in our shared pain, challenges, and celebrating our children’s achievements. Expressing all of it, not just the parts I wanted to project out to the world, helped me to live in my truth.

    There is a particular sense of freedom in accepting that our hardships are necessary parts of our beautiful existence. Our pain strengthens us and, collectively, we are bonded by it. I am now at peace with all life has given me, and I am grateful for every moment.

  • The Chaos of Life After Loss and the Love That Never Dies

    The Chaos of Life After Loss and the Love That Never Dies

    “We need to grieve the ones we’ve lost—not to sustain our connection to suffering, but to sustain our connection to love.” ~Jennifer Williamson

    Ken was only forty-seven years old when he met his untimely death.

    It was surreal, my brother-in-law was gone from our physical world.

    As a family, we felt the motions moving through the initial telephone call summoning us to the hospital to the time we surrounded him as he took his last breath. It was if we were all caught between two worlds, one of cruel reality and one of complete disbelief. You read about it happening to other people, not to us.

    My chest felt like a dense, cold stone had been dropped abruptly on it aimed at my heart after hearing those words hit my ears: “He’s not going to make it…”

    When it’s your family lying in the wake of such a painful experience, you soon realize the profound effect that death has. It causes an enormous ripple in all our lives that reaches out for miles, days, weeks, and years.

    It’s such a deep wound for an entire community that surrounded him—his young family left behind, extended family at work, concert traveling buddies, camping friends, and countless other people who enjoyed his presence.

    Ken embraced fun, passion, and laughter, whether he was tearing up the dance floor, creating his culinary signature dishes for our family gatherings, harvesting his perfect tomatoes, or taking pictures of his lovely wife, kids, and all their adventures with his “fancy camera”. Ken was such an amazing soul that brought light wherever he shone.

    A fall down a set of stairs changed our world completely. Ken suffered multiple bruises on the front and back of his brain as well as a significant fracture to the base of his skull. Black circles surrounded his eyes that look liked two large shiners. Contusions littered his arms and head.

    The next week was steady but slow progress. His alertness grew and conscious awareness slowly trickled back. A conversation with the physician’s assistant was frank. Despite the best-case scenario, it would be a long recovery.

    Questions loomed in the back of our minds. If he recovers, will our Ken ever be whole again? What challenges will this new version of himself present for our family?

    It was clear that Ken would more than likely suffer from cognitive behavior issues associated with a traumatic brain injury. While in the hospital, some of his behavior was unusual but typical of a patient with his condition and prognosis. Initially, he had to be restrained to ensure he wouldn’t pull out his vital monitors or attempt to leave the hospital.

    Eventually, he became calmer and more stable. A couple of days before he died was the last time my husband and I saw him smile and laugh again. A little of Ken was still in there, and it gave us hope.

    We soon learned that brain injuries are unpredictable. Twelve days in and without warning, Ken suffered a massive stroke. The night before, he sat and watched the Jets hockey game with his son and wife. The next morning changed everything.

    The nurse found him unresponsive. The doctors advised us that they would have to place Ken into a medically induced coma for three days.

    The next morning our immediate family was summoned to the ICU. For reasons unknown, the pressure on his brain suddenly escalated. Medical intervention could not save him. Ken would have to be taken off life support. The doctors ensured us that he would pass peacefully.

    All our family rushed to be by his side for his last moments. That day was the toughest day of my life. I witnessed the life leave his body as his skin turned from a beigy pink hue to a flush of gray in an instant when death gently urged life to leave him. We said goodbye to Ken as he took his last breath on this earth.

    The hospital was a stark reminder of the gravity of our situation. Patients and families in intensive care. The noises of the machines and sight of numerous tubes. The nurses and doctors. Conversations and updates. Decisions. Sandpaper Kleenex from the waiting room. The beeps and syringes. It was so much to soak in with your eyes and ears.

    The hospital is not a pleasant and serene place to die. It was out of medical necessity. For his children’s sake, it was a bitter lesson of mortality. There was no real goodbye. Memories of their father motionless, tubes parading from his body surrounded by an army of machines. My heart sank for them. It was their dad’s final moment of life, and unfortunately death doesn’t let us choose our departure.

    The next day after he had passed, we gathered at my mother-in-law’s house. A service needed to be planned. Food was ordered, notice in the paper submitted, cremation arrangements and so many other details were handled in a few short hours. A celebration of life at the local community center, where my husband’s family grew up.

    Simple and incredibly warm would be his final goodbye to everyone. It told a story of his passionate essence that was his life. There was an incredible outpouring of support by those that attended and were touched by Ken’s being.

    A collection of Ken’s favorite things and pictures of precious moments throughout his life was on display. His fishing rod, lures made from his daughter’s nail polish, guitar, sport jerseys, and the leg lamp Christmas Story movie lights I gave him for his birthday, among other things, were included.

    Ken’s wife gave the eulogy (the only speech), and it was moving. He was the love of her life since she was eighteen years old, father of her children, and the guy that was supposed to be alongside her till they were both old and grey.

    Despite the sorrow, she spoke of the time they had and her gratitude for having found her soul mate. I was held back by the shimmer she refused to let go, despite the world she knew was crumbling all around her. I expected that the service would provide some closure, but despite the reality growing around his death, it made it harder to accept that he was really gone.

    The wave of responsibilities in the aftermath of death is overwhelming. It is astonishing the volume of family and friends that contacted my sister-in-law, his mother and father, my husband. It left little time to feel lonely let alone mourn. Constant phone calls, food deliveries, visits.

    My sister-in-law knew that it was an unavoidable truth to the whole situation. People mean well; it’s the process that follows that is daunting. Paperwork, death certificate, cremation, insurance, calling the kids’ schools, and all the little things tacked on create an enormous to-do list.

    You steadily move without pausing and push through during the most profoundly impacting moment of your life. I’m still amazed at how well she pulled it all together. I knew in my heart she wanted to just collapse once all of this chaos settled. Once the mayhem calmed, the mounting grief would follow in its footsteps.

    I watched my family fall apart and try to make sense of it all. The cruelty of holding onto the idea of someone that once was. Hope heartlessly taken abruptly away from us.

    It wasn’t just his death alone; it was the rollercoaster of preceding events in the hospital that would damage us. Desperately holding onto the side of a boat without paddles, helplessly letting the river take us down its path etched into the earth. It is futile to stop it, you have to let it to carry you along its rough waters till they are calm once again. Like the river, living is really just control relinquished. It was never our duty to try and harness it.

    The heavy gravity of loss and pain we all felt was slightly dissipated as we reminisced about Ken. Our faces would be painted with smiles amid a round of laughter as we fondly remembered his antics and told stories amongst ourselves.

    We would be delicately reminded of how much we love him and his incredible passion for living. Death may take our physical being, but his memory and energy will live on within each of us.

    Grief and love are so intimately intertwined. Without grieving we would never know love so deeply. It’s the beauty of love and sorrow twirling around us in this constant dance we call life. I realized that our hearts are meant to be broken only to be reborn and rise time and time again.