Grief and Recovery

As I sit here in Edinburgh, IN while attending the Region 5 Assembly, I reflect on the year 2023. This year has been particularly difficult for me. The year began with my oldest niece going into a coma, after a cardiac event, from which she never recovered! My niece passed away in August. She was just 56, and I had been there when she was a newborn. I literally used to change her diapers! In June, I lost one of my closest friends, a woman I used to play piano for, over the phone, as she lived in New Jersey while I live in Kentucky. She called it ” Piano Night with Ed! Since her passing, I have only sat down to the piano a couple of times. The night before I was scheduled to come to Region, my sister in Ohio called to inform me that my mom had passed! Just as OA has become my family of choice, my mom in Ohio was also my family of choice! She wasn’t my biological mom I lost my biological mom when I was 15. My mom in Ohio became my mom when I went to Xenia, Ohio to go to college in 1976. I was a scared, lonely kid from the streets of Philadelphia; I met my mom and sister, and my brothers while they worked in my school cafeteria. The family adopted me and treated me like I was part of their family! OA adopted me as well! I came to OA with a great deal of grief; still grieving my biological mom’s passing. I wasn’t able to cry about her death until a year after being in recovery. I made a trip to South Carolina where she is buried, and cried over her grave, asking her to forgive me for all the foolish things I did when she was alive. Recovery has been my outlet for dealing with grief; in the past, any form of grief was usually dealt with in excess food. Now I know that the only way to deal with grief is with the principles of the program. One of those principles is gratitude. I am grateful that God put a woman in my life that served as a beacon for my hopes and dreams. For 47 years, my mom in Ohio motivated me to do the best I can do, and to be the best person I could be! I am grateful that my lost friend from piano night, shared so much of her life with me, including both of our love for music, and appreciation for life in general. I am grateful that my niece was able to grow up and see her children become adults and start families of their own. OA has taught me that a pain shared, is a pain halved, and a joy shared, is a joy doubled! The pain of my lost loved ones have been halved in my sharing, and I thank God for the doubling of the joy I have in their memories. Thank God for OA, and thank God for all the memories!