Saturday's Sayings - Looking Up Amidst Grief

"You look in front of you and there is drama;

You look behind you there's (chaos);

You look to your right and there's anger;

You look to your left there's pain;

Which way do you look?

You look UP;

You look up drawing faith and courage to soar above it all."

~Grieving Mothers

Saturday's Sayings

Looking Up Amidst Grief

Be cautious of the word (and concept) of 'closure'. While there are levels of healing, I do not believe that full closure is possible. We are always connected to our loved ones in obvious and mysterious ways. Closure is not for the human heart . . . it is for business transactions! Learning to live with loss means staying connected to your loved one even as you begin to move forward into a new chapter of living and loving.

~from Wall photos of the late Debra Tuohy, grieving mother

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A Memory Hug

Your loss has left a hold in our heart

That hole never goes away...

We learn to live with it

With acceptance of the loss

and changes in our lives, the pain lessens.

Eventually memories fill up the space,

BUT IT NEVER GOES AWAY.

Then, when you least expect,

a memory spills out of the hole in your heart

and washes your (heart) clean again with tears.

Think of it as a

"MEMORY HUG"

~by grieving mother, Lois Baker

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‎12 long years and I long to see your face
to hold you in my arms again to feel your sweet embrace.
Not a day passes that you (aren't) on my mind, and in my heart
12 long years and I still grieve for you sweetheart.

~by grieving mother, Sheila Simmons regarding her son Steven

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You are forever changed after a major loss. You cannot expect to be the same person any longer. If people ask when you'll be your 'old self' again, you need to let them know that a new self is emerging. You might not know yet who that new self is, but you will gradually live into the answer. Know that even as you're changed by loss, you have also been changed by a profound love that lives within you still.

~GrievingMothers

******

So You Want to Understand?

You say to me, "It's been a year,

When will your grieving end?

Why can't you be like once you were,

my smiling and happy friend?"

If you really want an answer,

though I wonder if you do,

I'll take you deep inside me

where sadness dims the view.

First, my friend, for your sake,

come close and take my hand,

and we will pray that what I share,

you won't ever have to understand.

The "me" you once knew is no more,

it died right with my child,

a voice was stilled forever,

yet the echo drives me wild.

You say you lost Aunt Bertha,

so you have known death too,

Aunt Bertha, however, was not your child,

and she was 80, not 22.

I barely survived those first few months,

coping was a dreadful task,

I'd tell you I was doing fine

while sobbing behind my mask.

If I talked about my precious child

you turned away in fear,

you couldn't stand to see me cry,

nor would you share my tear.

I wanted you to speak of him,

please, won't you say his name?

But you pretended he never was,

so he died over and over again.

Oh, I see that you're uncomfortable,

you no longer want my hand,

so as it was before we talked, my friend,

you don't want to understand.

Author Unknown

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I align myself with people who support my growth. If you meet someone whose soul is not aligned with yours, send them love and move along. ♥

~Dr. Wayne Dyer, contributed by ♥•*´¨♥¸.• ♥ ´*.*♥¸.•dotsie

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"The death of a child is the single most traumatic even in medicine. To lose a child is to lose a piece of yourself."

~Dr. Burton Grebin

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Resilience refers to the ability to be able to cope with adversity. The human spirit is quite resilient naturally. Although you may be feeling exhausted, weak, and broken, those experiences are actually a form of strength. Letting yourself grieve takes tremendous courage. And then . . . you keep getting up and doing what needs to be done. Try thinking of yourself as resilient, knowing that the entire up and down process of living with loss is contained in that word.

~GrievingMothers

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I came to believe

As bereaved parents, one of the hardest things there is to accept is that our child is really gone. He or she won’t come home again, won’t walk through that door, yelling, “What’s for dinner?” It’s hard to get to the point at which we believe that we can go on living or that we can even believe they are really, finally gone from this plane of existence. Personally, I don’t believe they are ever really “gone” from us. I’ve seen too much to the contrary. But we certainly can’t put our hands on them.

I saw an affirmation the other day for a 12-step program that said:

• We came
• We came to
• We came to believe

This set of statements roughly conforms to the first three steps in AA and Al-Anon:

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

We can substitute our situation in this set of statements like so:

1. We admitted we were powerless over our child’s death–that our lives had become unmanageable
2. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him

What does this mean? It means that eventually, out of our abject and intractable grief, we will find that we are still living, still breathing, still waking up every day. We have to then make the decision that we will look around us and see the mess that has happened since the worst day of our lives. No blame here. It’s just the way it is. Our lives fell apart that day, and rightfully so. Who ever expects to lose a child when we first seek to conceive one? None of us. But we do carry on. We do wake up, and we have to deal with the unmanageable state of our lives.

Finally, regardless of what you believe, whether your higher power is an all-knowing, omnipotent God..., you will look somewhere for help. You will look to a sane being for some sanity. You will realize that this problem is bigger than you are and that you need to talk to someone, pray to someone, or just walk out in nature and breathe in the scent of the rain.

Those first simple steps are your road back to sanity. Nothing is as painful or as insane as losing your child, but (there) is life after loss. We didn’t die. It’s the truth. And we will go on until it is our time to go. Taking a few steps in the right direction, even dancing around them, will lead you back to a good place.

Peace and love, D

~by grieving mother Doris E. Pavlichek, posted 9/15/2011

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You are more than your grief. It is overwhelming at times, yes. It is all consuming at times, yes. And then a wave passes. Grief is part of your life experience now, but it is not the whole of you. You are a deep and vast Spirit who knows love and has been shaped by sorrow. You are more than your grief.

~GrievingMothers

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It takes enormous strength and courage to walk into the valley of the shadow of grief. Even as you are broken by your sorrow, you are whole in your brokenness. Tears, grieving, moving on day after day, bearing heartbreak, choosing life -- each of these experiences makes you stronger. You may feel weak as you crumble, but in truth, you are strong as you dare to touch the tender center of living and loving.

~By Transcending Loss: Understanding the lifelong impact of grief

contributed by grieving mother, Samantha Hart Tripp

http://waythrough.org/2011/09/15/i-came-to-believe/