Forgiveness and Cookies

I must now admit that I have gained too much weight since this time last year. I can no longer say that it is because I am off those horrid meds that suppressed my appetite. I could say that I have been "stress-eating," which would, in fact, be monumentally true. Since the death of my son, I have also not felt like hiking, snowshoeing, or cross-country skiing as much. The sky seems a little less blue; the neighborhood seems strange. Remember that song by Jim Morrison: "People are strange when you're a stranger, when you're a stranger people seem strange?" This is how I feel everyday when I wake up.

But this over-eating thing has got to stop. When I researched grief and eating on the internet, I could not find much. There are all kinds of topics that focus on the emotions. And, according to most of the "do's-and-don'ts," I am doing everything right.

Here are some of the tips that I paraphrased:
Keep to your routine
Express yourself through art, music, writing
Forgive yourself
Allow time to work its magic
Talk every feeling through
Seek counseling
Rest, get a massage, take a vacation, even if it is a mini-vacation.

Etc., etc. You get the picture. Nothing, however, about food!

Here's the problem: I am craving nothing but sweets! Coffee cakes, pies, cookies, brownies! The worst thing is, we live about a mile from a damn cherry pie company! They have everything and more that has to do with cherries and chocolate. Great!

One year, when I went to Haiti, we had along a lovely woman who had just lost her husband. At the time, I was still a young mother. My children were still at Sacred Heart of Jesus Elementary School. I remember being a little impatient with the woman because she was so slow about everything and seemed to be in a state of perpetual astonishment. How cruel I was back then!

Forgive, forgive, forgive myself I must. And my New Year's resolutions will be many: walk more and eat less and be kind. My Bryon was a big guy and he loved to eat. He had to constantly watch his weight. But, unlike me, he had such a big heart, such a big and loving heart. Those of you lucky enough to have met him, will remember how affable he was, how forgiving he was of everyone. If I could just be even a little like that, maybe, I think, this overeating thing would quit. Maybe that is just wishful thinking. Maybe I am just rambling. In the meantime, I will try to walk with my dog everyday and do sit-ups every morning, until I am back to the fine shape I was in before this nightmare began. I'll have to be like Bryon and overlook the strangeness of life in a universe that has a mother lode of grief to go around for everyone. If I ate a million varieties of cookies, I would still never remove the sting of that truth.