Wednesday's Woe - "A Missing": Living with the Permanent Gap ~Tommy and Angie Prince

"You think that their 
dying is the worst 
thing that could happen.

Then they stay dead.

~Donald Hall, poet, from "Distressed Haiku"

Wednesday's Woe

"A Missing": Living with the Permanent Gap

~Tommy and Angie Prince

We have mentioned before the impact on parents of losing a child is so strong and so wrong that it would be like a law of physics being altered, and then trying to continue to live with that law of physics no longer being true. For example, what would happen if the gravitational pull on earth were to change, how would we then live? What if the availability of oxygen in the atmosphere were suddenly to change, would we be so shocked that everybody's lives would be turned upside down? Welcome to the world of a parent losing a child.

There is an ever-present sense of a gap in my life. There is this whole sense of wrongness that I carry around with my sadness. Now, continue to live, and I feel like I am up against something as strong as a violation of a natural law. How do you live when a natural law has been violated?

What drives Angie to look at artwork during any available free time? For now, she says that is one of the few things that soothes her. She also wonders if it is another way to "find" her baby girl for she finds herself looking for artwork that captures Merry Katherine, or for pictures that could at least pass for Merry Katherine at any and all ages, from baby to young child, and so on up to age nineteen. Or at least pictures that represent the vibrant lifestyle that was unique to her while she was here on this earth.

There is "A Missing" that is ever present and that demands to be soothed. It is an active, living thing that seeks to be fed, if not on a daily basis, at least on an every-other day basis. 

There is something that is so wrong that has happened. How do we right that wrong? 

It's like everybody else gets to live on earth and flourish in the current laws of nature and physics, but a bereaved parent has been moved onto the moon where all the oxygen has been sucked out of the atmosphere. The gravitational pull is non-existent; it alters everything about how you live. You cannot go out unless you are in a self-contained spacesuit. The liveable temperature, the oxygen, the gravitational pull are all missing. 

Such an environment demands change, and no one would fault the person who makes those changes. They wouldn't accuse such a person of "not moving on." 

It is not that there's a "new normal" for a grieving parent; it is a "new reality"! It is as though the laws of physics and nature no longer apply. We are upside down in an uprighted world, and we find we cannot breathe. Our hearts are not at rest without a soothing and gentle atmosphere that allows time for our grief. What is important to everyone else is not important to us. Our hearts now take first-place, no matter what else is going on. Our hearts have been devastated, and they must be soothed, nurtured, and protected.

There is a total reconstruction of reality with which we must contend. And we are still trying to find out:

What are the laws of  this Child-Loss land? 

What should they be so that we can survive in this now-ravaged land?

"My grief lies all within,

And these external manners of lament 

Are merely shadows to the unseen grief

That swells with silence in the tortured soul."

~William Shakespeare

Picture of Donald Hall's excerpt from "Distressed Haiku" and Excerpt from William Shakespeare: thanks to ~M for the Survivors on Pinterest 

Saturday's Sayings - Always Close . . .

Saturday's Sayings

Always Close . . .

~Grieving Mother, TeriAnn Sargent

~~~

~2012: Love and Loss

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~Out of the Ashes

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~Out of the Ashes

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~St. Paul Chapter of The Compassionate Friends

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~Out of the Ashes

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~Hope for the Broken Hearted

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~The Grief Toolbox

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~The Far Side of the Rainbow, thanks to TeriAnn Sargent

When those we love have left this earth, 

we still can feel them near. 

We'll see a picture, hear a song, 

and it's just like they are here. 

And when we call upon our faith, 

when we believe and trust, 

We know the ones we care about are always close to us.

~ Constance Parker Graham

~~~

~Out of the Ashes

Angel picture and poem shared by 

Conversations of my heart & other serendipitous stuff who shared 

The Far Side of the Rainbow's photo

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