Wednesday's Woe Some of the Ways My Life Has Not Been the Same … ~by Tommy Prince

Wednesday's Woe

Some of the Ways 

My Life 

Has Not Been the Same …

~by Tommy Prince

I know my life will never be the same. I felt that immediately the day I saw the policeman walk into my back yard while I was cutting the grass. Some ways it is not the same are obvious as I lost my 19-year-old baby girl, and my heart is forever broken until I see her again One Day.

There are other unexpected ways that my life has changed over these past years. I notice there is a cap on my positive emotions now. Yet…there is an unlimited depth to my pain.

It is almost like I have a restrainer on my positive emotions. It's as if something were always commanding, "Don't let your positive emotions get beyond a certain point." I guess it's kind of a reverse self-protection program.

Two of the areas that have greatly changed for me are Playing Music, and Politics.

Before my child's death, if I had drum sticks in my hand and was in a band, I was happy. As an avocation, I played in several church orchestras. I also played with several bands at churches, jazz clubs, country clubs, private parties and restaurants with other musicians who created and played their original music. Since my child's death, I've tried playing with some bands, and it is not the same. The joy is not there when I'm playing. I find myself just going through the motions of the music, just trying to make it through each song.

With politics, before her death, I had served eight years on our local school board. A former colleague who had served with me on the school board later lost his child, about five years before we lost Merry Katherine. After Merry Katherine's death, in talking with him and his wife, my former colleague decided to run for office in the state legislature. Several people had been encouraging me to run for representative to our state legislature as well. Since I had enjoyed politics so much before and seemed to be fairly good at it, I began to entertain the notion. Angie and I met with a good friend of ours who is a lobbyist in the state legislature, and who has managed campaigns for several people over the years. We discussed the possibility in great detail with him. Then we went to a seminar that taught us how to run a campaign at the state level. 

In an attempt to get back out in the political world, I then attended a local political meeting and found myself so disgusted, I ended up walking out. I couldn't deal with the pettiness that I was hearing. I now know what is important and that stuff wasn't important. We Child-Loss Grievers know what is really important, and such pettiness that is so typical of constituents is just not important.

I found my enthusiasms changing. Too often, what once interested me and engaged me on many different levels, now, I find disgusts me. Now, as I approach any situation, I internally react, saying to myself, "No good can come from this," and typically that has been true for me since my child's death. I either get triggered by something or I get disgusted with the nonsense other people get so caught up in. The things I used to find great joy in, I no longer find joy in them at all.

Picture, thanks to Google Images