Wednesday's Woe - Who Are We Now? ~Angie and Tommy Prince

Wednesday's Woe

Who Are We Now?

~Angie and Tommy Prince

We are almost seven years into our Child-Loss Grief and Trauma, yet we are still discovering who we are.

In Child-Loss, you lose more than just your child.

I've lost being able to relate to my family the way I used to, as some family members have gotten so toxic that I had to remove myself from any interaction with them. As I always say, "Trauma Mamas (and Papas) must avoid Drama Mamas (and Papas) at all costs!!!"

I've lost the ability to get a good, full-night's sleep within a consecutive number of hours; I can get the needed amount now, but I can count on there being breaks in between when I will need to process my grief over my child, or the grief caused by my secondary injuries (e.g., toxic family members saying hateful things because they totally misrepresent my grief and what it takes out of me.)

Assumptive beliefs have been challenged, and they have to be faced, re-worked and worked through so  as to discern which beliefs are true and which were a bill-of-goods that we unwittingly bought into but ultimately would yield us no good fruit. For instance, there are different translations of the Bible, God's Holy Word. Generally, that is a good thing, to be able to look at His Word from different perspectives. But there can be error swallowed without realizing it if we don't read carefully and within the context of the passage's original meaning. 

Look at any one version of the Bible, let's take The Message for example: Eugene Peterson wrote it, and the tome is an amazing accomplishment. Peterson seems to be an authentic Christian, loving God and living in a sweet personal relationship with Him, but when I as a griever read his translation of 1 John 5, as I read "the Evil One cannot touch" (our child), I was infuriated! 

Read this excerpt from The Message, out of 1 John 5:18-21:

"The God-begotten are also the God-protected. The Evil One can’t lay a hand on them. We know that we are held firm by God; it’s only the people of the world who continue in the grip of the Evil One."

Of course the Evil One can touch our child; she is dead because of him! The Evil One touched me because he killed my child! But I think the real meaning of God's Word is that the Enemy cannot touch my child's soul: once she belongs to God, which she does, she is His, and Satan cannot touch that relationship enough to destroy it forever. She is God's, and God protects the eternal soul of my child such that Satan cannot "touch" it, in an eternal sense anyway. 

We have made adjustments without really knowing… to try to survive, but the need for these adjustments really come to light when there's a "have-to" out there like a professional seminar that one MUST go to for professional ethics requirements to be met, or a living child's birthday that you don't want to miss just because of your grief and its constraints upon the body. These events, though wonderful opportunities in and of themselves, can at times be very destructive to the equilibrium we have striven to develop. 

For example, I got to the professional seminar today, and realized very soon into it (since I was able to get zero hours of sleep last night) that I could not concentrate to the degree I needed to retain the invaluable information, so I talked with the instructor. The instructor was very kind and compassionate and showed me some online options that have just opened up for this particular seminar which provide a way for me to achieve this professional continuing-education requirement within the confines of my own home!

Child-Loss presents us with many losses. There is the inordinate loss that comes just from the physical loss of our child that seems to throw all of our lives upside down, and turn them inside out. Then we have what we call the "Invisible Disability" that comes with such an inordinate loss with which we must continually grapple to undergo the "normal" constraints of life. Our health becomes compromised. Our daily functions become challenges. Our belief-systems have run amuck, but they are crucial to our facing our grief, finding our comfort, knowing who we are despite our shortcomings, and to receiving our most basic needs for God's love and involvement in our lives, so we find we must expend the necessary energy for our compromised belief systems to be overhauled and reworked. Life itself can be hard enough, but when you throw in all these complications, life itself becomes almost overwhelming.

"The tears flow from my heart and turn into a river.

The river has many bends, rocks and jagged

edges, waves, and reflections.

It reveals to me strength and surrender,

love never-ending,

and the new person emerging 

from this thing called grief.

Grief does not define me but 

it has transformed me."

~Shannon Brooks, grieving mother

~~~

Dear Lord

Posted on June 4, 2013 by Shannon

Dear Lord,

Please teach me how to be a mother to a child that is no longer in my arms but in yours. Teach me how to send sweet kisses up to the heavens to my beautiful baby. Let her feel my love and know how much she is missed.

Lord, please teach me to embrace my child when there is nothing here for me to hold except the memories and dreams for the future that have been shattered.

Lord, please teach me how to release my anger into the wind and let the rage echo into the night until it dissolves into the darkness, so I can sleep and wake with peace instead of pain.

Lord, please teach me how to release my guilt and struggle with my thoughts of what should have been. My thoughts have imprisoned me and taken me captive but I am ready to be freed to begin to allow love back into my life.

Lord, please teach me how to find the strength, to be patient with people when they say things that are so hurtful about my loss. Hopefully, they will never feel this anguish but maybe I can teach them the words that would allow me to feel embraced instead of attacked.

Lord, please teach me to discover the beauty that has been overgrown with pain. Please help me touch the beautiful roses without being pierced by the thorns. Allow me to see the beauty of heaven reflected in my daughter’s eyes.

Lord, please help me to let the tears fall until they form a river which can bring me to a new place of hope and renewal. Please show me how to open my heart and let love from friends and family pour in to display a rainbow of comfort, light, and support.

Lord, please send me sweet dreams where I can hear her sweet laughter tickling the air, where I can look deep into her beautiful eyes filled with pure joy, I can feel her arms wrap around my neck tightly, and I can whisper softly in her ear, “I Love you my sweet baby girl.”

Amen

~Written by Shannon Brooks in loving memory of Skylar Tianna Brooks

1st graphic, thanks to ~ 24.media.tumblr.com
2nd graphic, thanks to ~Grief - How Do We Go On?, and SeasonsOfGrief.com
3rd graphic, thanks to ~ SeasonsOfGrief.com