Saturday's Sayings - Progress in the Healing Journey… - Part Eight

Until you're broken
You don't know
what you're made of.

Saturday's Sayings

Progress in the Healing Journey…

Part Eight

Broken things have been on my mind as the year lurches to an end, because so much broke and broke down this year in my life, and in the lives of the people I love. Lives broke, hearts broke, health broke, minds broke. On the first Sunday of Advent our preacher, Veronica, said that this is life’s nature, that lives and hearts get broken, those of people we love, those of people we’ll never meet.

She said the world sometimes feels like the waiting room of the emergency ward, and that we, who are more or less OK for now, need to take the tenderest possible care of the more wounded people in the waiting room, until the healer comes. 

~Ann Lamott

~~~

I don't like to hear/read '...it's what your child would want.'

I really believe she would want to be grieved relentlessly; yearned for desperately; unreservedly loved, even beyond the grave. Never forgotten or 'gotten over.'"

~Grieving Mother, Marsha Bell

~~~

Amidst our Child-Loss Grief and Trauma, when you think about it, we have been assaulted emotionally, physically, and spiritually! We never really "heal" from Child-Loss Grief and Trauma, but we're always in recovery. We can be in a process of healing, but healing will not completely happen this side of Heaven.

~Angie and Tommy Prince

~~~

"The case of a parent losing a child is very special because the most deep-seated protective and nurturant emotions are brutalized. Because this “injury” is so severe to such primitive emotional processes, the grieving parent is likely to feel and express the pain associated with it for the rest of his or her life."

~Dr Joanne Cacciatore

~~~~~

Don't hold in your emotion

during 

Grief

Most of us have heard the term "emotional baggage," and admittedly carry some around. We spend our time keeping busy with work, friends, socializing, cleaning, daily tasks, shopping--anything to avoid having to face or feel our emotions that we are carrying around from past painful experiences, death of loved one or traumas. The problem with this, according to mind/body medical experts, is that repressed feelings don't just go away. They actually remain in the body, taking up our energy and laying the groundwork for physical ailments, illnesses and disease.

"Many illnesses are quite simply the end result of emotions that have been stuffed, unacknowledged, and unexperienced for years," says Christiane Northrup, specialist in women's health and author of Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom. "Unexpressed emotions tend to 'stay' in the body like small ticking time bombs," she says. "They are illnesses in incubation." 

According to experts in mind/body medicine, our emotions have a profound effect on us because they are physically linked to our bodies via our immune, endocrine, and central nervous systems. These experts agree that often the seeds for a patient's physical problems were planted by the patient's earlier emotional traumas.

~via Death of a Loved one: Quotes, Poems, and Resources

~~~~~

Words of Comfort 

mean the world to me 

when they come from another 

Grieving Mother.

~Joy Bowman

~via Grieving Mothers

~~~

We become so thankful for our fellow Child-Loss Grievers… who ofttimes become more like family to us than family…

~Angie Prince

~~~~~

I had my own idea of grief.

I thought it was the sad time

that followed the death of someone you love

and you had to push through it

to get to the other side.

I am learning that there is no other side.

There is no pushing through anything,

but rather, an absorption,

adjustment and acceptance.

Grief is not something you complete,

but rather endure.

Grief is not a task to finish and move on,

but an element of yourself.

~via Grieving Mother Jill Compton shared ~Wings of Hope-Living Forward

~~~~~

Oh My God! I never knew
it could hurt so deep.
Feels like a living nightmare
holding onto my mind as I weep.

I don't know how anybody

can be the same after all of this;
The pain is so gut wrenching,
will it ever be dismissed?
I lay awake thinking of everything
I could have done,

thinking about your life;

seems like sanity has gone.
I feel so tired

yet my mind wants to keep me up

With painful memories.

I just never thought it could be this tough.

~via Death of a Loved One 

~

This week, I seemed to have spent many nights doing this, "lying awake thinking of everything I could have done." I remember even ruminating to Tommy about this (and ruining his good night's sleep!) around 3:00 a.m. one night this week… Other people just cannot imagine the traumatizing effects of going through losing our child… But we Child-Loss Grievers simply have to walk through it, and over time learn to manage the severe pain.

~Angie Prince

~~~~~

~Grieving Grandmother Faye Marie Miller's provided this picture

Child loss creates sorrow that is all-consuming. It's difficult enough to get through today, let alone planning for the future. Most days it's all we can do to get out bed, get dressed, and go through the basics of the day. Please, family and friends, don't expect us to plan holidays, vacations, and special outings months in advance. Once you lose a child, time takes on a different meaning. Our focus is getting through "today" -- the future is way too far away for us to handle. We know all too personally how uncertain the future really is!

~via Silent Grief - Child Loss Support

~~~~~

~Grieving Mother Ce Thibodeau 

There is no right or wrong way to grieve the loss of a child. The only thing for certain that we know when a child dies is that our heart will be broken, and we will never be put back together the same as before our loss. We are left to travel this uncharted path that is now ours. We are like wanderers without a map facing the most treacherous storm of all -- child loss. A note to every loved one grieving the loss of a child: do what is best for YOU, do not listen to criticisms of others, and be kind to yourself!

~via Silent Grief - Child Loss Support

~~~~~

~Grieving Mother Jill Compton shared ~Grieving Mothers (Barbara J. Karrer's) picture

Child loss leaves us feeling hollow, empty, and wounded. We're left feeling so "breakable" following the loss of a child. Any word of encouragement, any extra hug, a listening ear, or the mention of our child means SO much to us! So many times people ask, "What can I do to help?" Just care. And, continue to care. Don't forget us. Please, don't forget us because every day without our child is a struggle.

~via Silent Grief - Child Loss Support

~~~~~

~via Death of a Loved one 

There is a new appreciation of all the tender moments of life so that you find yourself basking in the sweet things that you find around you, knowing that the self-care of the meditation, comfort and hope therein are critical to your survival of this deep grief.

When I was at my conference this week, a man managing the "book table" commented as he saw me coming and going amidst all the breaks of the day, "You are always smiling!" (Can you imagine a grieving mother ever hearing these words, but I realized I was indeed… smiling!) I quickly said to him, "It's just so nice to get out of the house!" 

I know I was in my element, getting to learn ways to be a better therapist to my clients, but there was also that element of just the simple joy of getting out of my house! As a Child-Loss Griever, I find myself "holing up" a lot, I guess to nurture my broken heart, and protect it from being any further accosted. Maybe a better phrase for that should be: "Wholing Up" as I ever work on my grieving heart in the hopes of receiving comfort upon comfort upon comfort for my multi-faceted wounds of grief.

~Angie Prince

~~~~~

“Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.” Psalm 30:56

To me, this is a most precious promise from God. For although we are in pain, although we may weep, although we grieve, we are reassured that joy will return, we will be happy again, we will smile again… joy will return.

~via Sweet to the Soul

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GOD BLESS THE HURTING HEARTS

(Author Unknown)

God bless the wounded hearts

the walking wounded souls

Bring peace unto them Lord,

with graciousness untold.

Let them mend in such a way

their lives will overcome

the pain & suffering they know

the desperateness of some.

Let Your angels kiss the wounds

and bring them peace again

Bless the hearts who cry at night

allow the healing to begin...

Hold those hearts within Your hands

that feel so tossed & torn

The helpless and the hopeless

let spirits be reborn.

Bless the hurting hearts, My Lord,

bless souls so wracked with pain,

too overcome with weariness

to try to start again...

Let them see Your sunset

with faith enough to try

to find the answers that they seek

when teardrops have run dry.

Hold them in Your gentle hands

and wipe away their tears

give them comfort, will to know,

You're there when they have fears.

God bless the hurting hearts 

the souls in so much pain,

Let them see the sunrise

with faith to start again.

~via In Memory of Lost Loved Ones