Thursday's Therapy - Relearning Life ~Tommy and Angie Prince

Thursday's Therapy

Relearning Life 

~Tommy and Angie Prince

A psychiatrist friend of mine, when he heard my child had died, looked me in the eyes, and said, "Learn something new!" I knew he was referring to the new research out that our brains have been traumatized due to the severe stress and trauma that Child-Loss puts parents through. (I just learned recently that my psychiatrist-friend's own wife had endured the loss of a child, so I assume his information had been well-researched by him.) 

So, what is it that we Child-Loss grievers could learn "new" at this particular time in our lives?

Last night we referred to a Child-Loss father having said that his daughter died instantly, but that the Child-Loss father himself believes he is dying a slow death. Perhaps our choice is either to die a slow death, or to "relearn life" as we are discovering that our lives as-we-once-knew-them no longer serve us well. 

Our lives have been compromised… emotionally, physically, spiritually, mentally, psychologically, relationally, and in many other ways we are sure. So perhaps "Relearning Life" is the biggest task at hand for us Child-Loss grievers. 

We cannot bring our deceased children back, or that would make up our largest effort, but since it seems we are here to stay a while longer on this earth without our precious deceased child, then learning how to do so in a way that serves us and our grief well may be the best way for us to "learn something new." Perhaps that is why we started this blog, for we knew early on, that this kind of loss was all-consuming and would require almost a whole new science to discover "how then we must live" because, as we all know, there is no "playbook" to follow; we must each create our own.

Graphic, thanks to ~Grieving Mothers

Wednesday's Woe - The Temporariness of Grief's Reprieve… ~Tommy and Angie Prince

Wednesday's Woe

The Temporariness of Grief's Reprieve…

~Tommy and Angie Prince

It has been 6 3/4 years… What is any different in our grief over the loss of our beloved nineteen-year-old daughter?

~Wings of Hope-Living Forward

Not much really. Yes, we can function a little better. And yet, we are forever different.

And we do have breaks away from the heaviness of our grief, but there will never be any such thing as any end to our grief!


We can catch temporary breaks away from our grief, like Angie and I do when we keep our grand-daughter Ellie. But… the next day, you can count on it; the grief will come back with a vengeance. Our tears will start flowing before we even realize the particulars of what our grief is about… 

~Wings of Hope-Living Forward

Early on in our grief, when we found we had at least enough attention-span to watch a movie, we would experience a momentary break away from grief once the movie started, but as soon as the music came on signaling the end of the movie, we both would start weeping. We could not face going back into a reality where our child was not…

~Wings of Hope-Living Forward

The difference between now and then? 

~Out of the Ashes 

The reprieves can be a little longer now…

~grieving mothers ~Sharon Lee Hoover and ~Jill Compton

but still they are just temporary reprieves from our life-long grief ...










Graphic of swing, thanks to ~Angels at My Door

Wednesday's Woe - Grief and Trauma's Toll ~Tommy and Angie Prince

Wednesday's Woe 

Grief and Trauma's Toll

~Tommy and Angie Prince

(Tommy) Once our child's death happens, notice the impact it has on you… physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, etc. Something that happened in an instant is going to affect us years from now.

For Angie, how long did it take her to get her digestive system straightened out? About 5 1/2 years…

6 1/2 years into it, we are still working out our sleep disturbance. For us, a good night's sleep is the exception rather than the norm.

Emotionally, how long does it take to re-enter society? You are rehabilitating everything: your emotional life, your physical life, your brain, your spiritual life. And the cause for this need for "rehab" is nothing you did to yourself; it was done to you, yet you still feel responsible for it!

In other words, you are hit with the same dynamics of someone who is into self-destructive behaviors: not eating right, not sleeping right, "holing up" away from society; yet you are doing nothing wrong!

(Angie) People seem to think they can "tell" you what you should be doing, but it simply doesn't work that way. In my seminar last week the speaker said to a room full of health-care therapists,

How many of you in this room know that it is healthy to 

• Eat proper nutrients.
• Get 8 hours of sleep at night.
• Exercise 4-6 days/week.
• Meditate daily.

Everyone in the room raised their hand. 

Now, how many of you can say then, that you do these things regularly?  

NO ONE raised their hand! 

(Bereaved parents can barely raise their head, much less their hand. I myself had had only 2 1/2 hours of sleep the night before this seminar!) 

The speaker's point is this: we don't need advice on what to do!  

We all know what to do, but somehow, we don't seem to be doing it. 

She suggested that what we need instead is a reframing of what we want in our life so that we can take ownership of what we want (to accomplish, achieve, etc.), and then we can help ourselves to take the necessary steps to become more resilient.

Let's consider now the life of a bereaved parent.

This week, I had a grieving mother write to me that she is up in the middle of the night, "seeing" her dead daughter who died in her crib with SIDS. Now, who in the world of otherwise "normal" people is having to deal with that trauma? We are not taking only weeks or months to deal with that problem; we are talking years that it takes to deal with such an assault on our being. This problem is all the result of being traumatized over a little one who means more than life itself to us! This requires understanding on the part of people around us, not condemnation because they only see the symptoms that are wreaking havoc in our lives. (They can't seem to "fix" us, and they feel helpless, so they start demanding superficial fixes for our symptoms!) Rather, we need them to attempt to 

"climb into" our reality, and love us in the midst of such debilitating pain, but who in our worlds are going to do that?!

So it starts with us, ourselves. Can we at least learn to have patience with ourselves and our complex grieving process? Can we begin to recognize and accept that it takes one little baby step at a time just to walk through each and every day? Can we have compassion on ourselves and give ourselves the support we need to walk through this incredible journey into which we have been unwittingly thrown?

For instance, Will we ever laugh again? What can you do to make that happen? Nothing! It's just that one day laughter does come back again! 

"Will I ever have a song going through my head again?" Tommy wondered.  

"I couldn't even listen to music, much less have a song going through my head at that time of my traumatized state!" he says. 

"There was nothing I could 'do' about that. It's just one day, it came back again!"

Could I (Angie) do anything about my digestive system straightening out? It's just one day, it seemed the time was right, so then my left brain was able to implement the normal steps toward stabilization, and it worked! But my emotions had to be at a place of better stabilization before any proper steps could be effective, or it would have all been dismantled again anyway!

All of this complexity is going on inside of us, but of course, no one can see that complexity working its way through our system.  

Something happened to all us that we didn't ask for, and it feels like it's going to take an eternity to walk through it all…

The speaker at the seminar ended her talk with this poem that encourages acceptance for some of this overwhelming complexity in our life:

The Guest House 

~Rumi, (born 1207 A.D.)

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

As an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

Picture, thanks to Huffington Post

Wednesday's Woe - The Query of a GrandChild that... Renders Us Speechless ~Tommy and Angie Prince

Wednesday's Woe

The Query of a GrandChild 

that...

Renders Us Speechless

~Tommy and Angie Prince

During the month of February, we had our 18-month-old grandbaby "Ellie" over for several hours at a time on several different days. One of the best ways to enjoy a new toddler while she is here with us is to wall off one room of the house that is fairly-well child-proofed and plant ourselves in the middle of the room in little Fisher Price chairs so we can be down on her level to play and watch her antics. For us, the best room for that is our kitchen.

As Ellie is exploring her way around the kitchen, when she doesn't know what something is, she will point and say, "Dat?"

Like a lot of families in America, we have pictures of our family up on our refrigerator. Mostly right now, it is limited to our family's three children's pictures. So when Ellie glances up to the top portion of the refrigerator after tiring of putting magnets in various places on the refrigerator that are at her eye-level, she will see these family pictures. 

She will then point up on the refrigerator to our son Rollin's picture and will exclaim, "Da-Da!!!" with a bright smile. We will smile back and say, "That's right!" 

Then she will point to our son Nathan's picture and say, "Na-Na!" and we will say, "That's right!" 

Then she will point to our deceased daughter Merry Katherine's picture, and she will say, "Dat?!" 

It's one of the few times we are both rendered speechless in trying to answer our 18-month-old grand baby's question of, "Dat?"

How do we capture her Aunt Merry Katherine's personality in a few words? We will say, "That's Aunt Merry," but little Ellie has a blank look on her face… Fortunately for now, she is only 18-months-old and doesn't push it. Maybe we can buy some time and move beyond our being rendered speechless...

~Funny Status Updates, Daily Quotes, Words Of Inspiration And More

Right now there's a hole in our world we cannot even grapple with. How do we even begin to explain that to a child?

Suddenly, however, an otherwise delightful time is shattered by a simple one-word question from Ellie: "Dat?" 

It is like we are thrown back to square one: How are we going to say, "She is not here and never will be"? For one thing, it's difficult to talk and cry at the same time….

~Funny Status Updates, Daily Quotes, Words Of Inspiration And More

"In Limbo" Picture, thanks to ~Out of the Ashes

Tuesday's Trust - What's Behind the "Why?" ~Tommy and Angie Prince

I have been driven many times upon my knees

by the overwhelming conviction

that I had nowhere else to go.

~Abraham Lincoln

Tuesday's Trust

What's Behind the "Why?"

~Tommy and Angie Prince

What would knowing "Why" change in regard to our child's death?

If you knew "why" your child died, what difference would it make in how you're feeling now? Is asking, "Why?" an attempt to try to soothe our devastation and pain? It's not like any explanation would be good enough really. But we still push for "Why?" as if "knowing" would make some kind of positive difference.

Are we, in asking why, perhaps trying to protect our relationship with God?

There is a whole book of the Bible that was devoted to the question of "Why?" Severe tragedies happened in a certain man's life, one of which included the man's loss of all of his children; his heart was undone and he was questioning why. Even his friends were searching for the "Why?"  Is there something innate within us to ask "Why?" as a push to reconcile our understanding of God's heart and His actions? The book of Job in the Old Testament of the Bible addresses this question of "Why?" throughout, even to the point of God's responses to the victim and his friends many questions and accusations.

So when we question "Why?" amidst our child's death, perhaps we are trying to reconcile our understanding of who God really is, and how it is that His heart can allow something as unfathomable as our child's death. Jesus makes it clear in Scripture, that He Himself came to earth that we may have life, and have life more abundantly, but He also made it clear that it is Satan who comes to steal, kill, and destroy, not God. So our questioning "Why?" is perhaps a cry of "God help me understand how You love, but that Your love is expressed differently than the way my own love would have been expressed in regard to my child."

~~~

There are some who would adamantly proclaim that our cry of "Why?" IS actually a cry of faith. We will give an excerpt of a blog post we posted about a year ago addressing such a concept:

The cry of why is a cry of lament. This cry is good. It is necessary. It is a cry of protest to God, but also a cry of faith. Michael Card's book, A Sacred Sorrow, describes how lament is a biblical pattern for our lives. He states:

"When then, does God enshrine so many laments in His Word? Laments, we must realize are God's Word. Why are so many Biblical characters shown as disappointed and angry with God? Do we seek to learn from all the other facets of their lives but this? I would put it to you this way:

People like Job, David, Jeremiah, and even Jesus revealed to us that prayers of complaint can still be prayers of faith. 

They represent the last refusal to let go of the God who may seem to be absent or worse--uncaring. 

If this is true, then lament expresses one of the most intimate moments of faith--not a denial of it.

"It is supreme honesty before a God who my faith tells me I can trust. He encourages me to bring everything as an act of worship, my disappointment, frustration, and even my hate. Only lament uncovers this kind of new faith, a biblical faith that better understands God's heart as it is revealed through Jesus Christ."

See this entire post by clicking below. 

Friday's Faith - The Cry of "Why?" IS the Cry of Faith ~with H. Norman Wright and Michael Card

~~~~~

We close with a poem of an example of such a lament before God. This poem is provided by ~Wings of Hope~Living Forward.

AND GOD SAID

I said, "God, I hurt."

And God said, "I know."

I said, "God, I cry a lot."

And God said, "That is why I gave you tears."

I said "God, I am so depressed."

And God said, "That is why I gave you Sunshine."

I said, "God, life is so hard."

And God said, "That is why I gave you loved ones."

I said, "God, my loved one died."

And God said, "So did mine."

I said, "God, it is such a loss."

And God said, "I saw mine nailed to a cross."

I said, "God, but your loved one lives."

And God said, "So does yours."

I said, "God, where are they now?"

And God said, "Mine is on My right and yours will be in the Light."

I said, "God, it hurts."

And God said, "I know."

~Author Unknown

Poem, via ~ Wings of Hope-Living Forward

But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren,

concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not,

even as others which have no hope.

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again,

even so them also which sleep in Jesus

will God bring with Him.

For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord,

that we which are alive and remain

unto the coming of the Lord

shall not prevent them which are asleep.

For the Lord Himself shall 

descend from Heaven with a shout,d

with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God;

and the dead in Christ shall rise first;

Then we which are alive and remain

shall be caught up together with them in the clouds,

to meet the Lord in the air;

and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

Wherefore comfort one another with these words.

~I Thessalonians 4:13-18

~~~~~

There are no easy answers

to what you now endure,

no ways to dull your sorrow

and no quick or simple cure.

You have lost

someone you cherished

and their passing brings such pain,

but God gives you His promise,

one day you'll meet again.

~Author Unknown

All pictures, thanks to ~Wings of Hope~Living Forward

Friday's Faith - How Do We Repair Our Grief "Damage"? ~Tommy and Angie Prince

I have had many losses throughout my lifetime

but never anything that felt like my heart was

shattered into a million tiny pieces and

changing everything about me and who I am…

Friday's Faith

How Do We Repair Our Grief "Damage"?

~Tommy and Angie Prince

Yesterday, I (Angie) went to settle up with a client after an insurance payment had come in… She (very graciously) asked me to recheck my figures as it didn't seem quite right to her, so I did. And to my dismay, I discovered (after five hours of rechecking all the figures) ~of course not able to find some of the critical paperwork that was needed that had just come in at the end of December mind you~ (I call it the "Grief-Stupor Syndrome"), that indeed, my figures were off by about a thousand dollars!!! My mathematical brain seems to me to be broken as what I once was able to do ~almost in my sleep~ now seems to be beyond me to accurately figure out. (Granted, even my billing practices have been compromised as paperwork just seems to be in that 10% of my life that gets impacted with some unwanted neglect by my seeming 90% consumption with my grief!) 

I am thankful to get the problem sorted out, but still, I somehow feel "broken" by my grief. . .

~~~~~

What do we do as Child-Loss Grievers when we see how strongly our child's death continually impacts us even 6 1/2 years into our grief?

A car gets wrecked, and you assess the damage to see if it can be fixed, and for how much, and is it worth it to be fixed. 

A child gets killed, and the parents are left behind with broken hearts shattered into a million tiny pieces. What do we do? Do we now have to just assess the damage, and see how much of this heart can be fixed, and how much of it is totaled? And, if some of it can be fixed, then how do we go about getting it fixed?

The cars in our neighborhood that were left out in the driveways during the hail storm were damaged - through no fault of our own. Some cars were able to be fixed, and some cars were totaled. Neighbors went to insurance adjusters, and the insurance adjusters determined whether or not their cars could be fixed; the insurance adjusters have certain standards they go by to determine whether or not a car can be fixed, or whether it should be totaled. 

Here we are as bereaved parents, walking around with a broken heart, wondering if we can be fixed, or how much of us can be fixed amidst our grief "damage." 

To whom do we go to assess the damage? Nobody "gets it" but us, yet we are broken. . .

Perhaps this is where we go to God. The only alternative we have is to go to God, and say, 

"Help! How can my heart, brain, body, and soul be fixed after my heart has been shattered into a million tiny pieces?"

It's so strange that those we need

…………And those we love the best

……………………Are just the ones God called away

………………………………And took them Home to rest

But every time I think of you

…………I seem to hear God say 

……………………have faith and trust My promise

………………………………You'll meet again someday…

~2013 Michele S.

~Picture, thanks to Grieving Mother, Pat Dattoli Wentworth

"Heart Shattered in a Million Tiny Pieces" Picture, thanks to "Grieving Mothers," Barbara J. Karrer

Tuesday's Trust - From Order to Chaos ~Tommy and Angie Prince

Tuesday's Trust

From Order to Chaos

~Tommy and Angie Prince

How disruptive it is to go against the order of things. It's disruptive of the order of things when your child dies. 

We see in Genesis the order God brought to the chaos. "And the world was without form and void…" He brings order into such chaos. He separates the heavens from the earth, land from the water, bringing order and substance to the "without form and void." In that world of order, there are certain truths: night and day, seasons of the year, gravity that keeps us on earth, water that runs downhill, flowers that come up in the spring from bulbs that were in the darkness of the underground, the sun that melts the snow, order. 

Everything on earth is designed around that order. Our plumbing is set up on the basis of water running downhill. Planting and harvesting are planned according to the seasons that steadily come and go. 

What if the sun didn't come up tomorrow? Like the lights going out at the Super Bowl, our lives would be thrown into disarray, wondering what is going on? What do we do in this state of helplessness? How do we put one foot in front of the next amidst such darkness and chaos?

When there is disruption at any level, look at what would happen in people's lives. There's supposedly an order that you will outlive your child. When that order is disrupted, it is catastrophic to parents' lives. 

Imagine a world then where that order is disrupted. A child is born; a child is raised; a child is about to be launched into adulthood, yet that child is killed. Gone. Life snuffed out. Light turns to Dark. Now the parents' lives become "without form and void." We're going backwards, from order back to chaos, from substance back to void. All amidst a world where everyone else's world is filled with life, and order, and prolific growth. 

Yet for the Child-Loss parent, all is dark, all is chaos, all is confusion… yet somehow we are to "trust"? Faith-and-Trust "is seeing light with your heart when all your eyes see is darkness." How is that to be done? It's a God-thing. It can only be done with that God who brings order out of the chaos, form out of the empty, substance out of the void. He is the Creator of the Universe. He is the Creator of our child. He is the Creator of our lives. Only He can show us how it's done. And we must ask and seek and remain open to His voice at the very time we may feel the least trusting. Only God can help us to have such trust amidst our abject chaos. Only God can put us back together again, one small step at a time, with darkness all around us while we lie buried in the rubble, merely hoping for Spring...

Picture, thanks to ~Grieving Mothers, Barbara J. Karrer

Wednesday's Woe - A Life Sentence: Death's Impact on the Victim's Family ~Tommy and Angie Prince

Wednesday's Woe

A Life Sentence: 

Death's Impact on the Victim's Family

~Tommy and Angie Prince

The child-loss family has been given a life sentence.  Some parents' children were murdered. The perpetrator may indeed be given a "life sentence" for having done something wrong, yet even then a life sentence does NOT mean a whole life-time. Some of these perpetrators are already out of prison, "going on" with their lives. Yet child-loss parents, no matter how our children have died or been killed, cannot "go on" with our lives for our sentence is indeed for a lifetime, and our only "crime" was to love their child with all of our heart. 

The general public on the other hand, does not "get it": not only can they be ignorant as to the multi-dimensional aspects of child-loss grief and trauma so that we receive little love and support in our "invisible disability." But on top of that, many are ready to unleash judgment on us because we can't seem to live our "normal" lives any more. So then what we receive is NOT support, but what we often DO receive is contempt. And this contempt is piled on top of our already Life-long sentence.

Picture, thanks to Grieving Mothers

Wednesday's Woe - Denial After 6 Years?! ~Tommy and Angie Prince

Every day since you've been gone, there's such an isolating loneliness and an aching so deep inside; it's a feeling that fills my head, my heart, my eyes and my ears, a feeling that steals away the joy, leaving only the torment of my tears. And every day when this feeling comes, the power and intensity is like a thousand drums pounding in my heart tearing me apart.

My heart and I will never get used to your being gone.

Wednesday's Woe

Denial After 6 Years?!

~Tommy and Angie Prince

To deal with the reality of what happened to our child, we could not function with such reality "in our face" all the time. As psychoanalyst Otto Rank describes, it is neurotic to not face our live's truths, but it is also neurotic to face our harsh truths at all times. We do need to process the death of our child into our brains, our psyches, our bodies, our souls, etc. But we also need to take some breaks from such harsh reality at times to give our poor systems a breather. We have to face death and yet live at the same time, so it becomes a living nightmare.

We talk about life's rhythms. One thing that can stop our life's rhythm in its tracks is to momentarily "set aside" your child's death by becoming busy with life, then happen to glance at a picture of her you haven't seen in a long time ~ a flash of normalcy at some other time in your life comes face to face with the harsh reality of her death. What???! NOOO!!!! That couldn't have happened to my baby, not that!!! Not in her young life!!! The very striking picture of her screams out "Beautiful Life in All its Normalcy." But, No!!! You're "Chutes and Laddered" back down to 'Start" in a second's time. Square One. Day One of your grief. And the pain comes tumbling down over your heart like a freight train to where you wonder if you will survive...

Tuesday's Trust - How Much We Suffer... ~Tommy and Angie Prince

Tuesday's Trust

How Much We Suffer...

~Tommy and Angie Prince

How many of us have really been taught that life would include such harsh reality?

But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is a chosen instrument of Mine, to bear My name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel; for I will show him how much he must suffer for My name’s sake.”

~Acts 9:15-16 (highlights, mine)

When they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned..., strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.

~Acts 14:21-22 (highlights, mine)

Pictures, thanks to Grieving Mother Jill C., and Barbara of Grieving Mothers

Thursday's Therapy - Undone… by Traumatic Grief - 9 Descriptors of What Can Bring on Traumatic Grief Reactions ~Tommy and Angie Prince with H. Norman Wright

Thursday's Therapy

Undone… by Traumatic Grief

9 Descriptors of What Can Bring on Traumatic Grief Reactions

~Tommy and Angie Prince

with H. Norman Wright, Grief & Trauma Therapist

Tommy and I have always maintained Child-Loss Grief is not just about the grief, but it is primarily about the trauma. Yes, we miss our child, and our world will never be the same, but somehow we always thought we would be able to trust our bodies to be there for us, our spirituality to always be secure -- especially when we most need it, our minds to be mentally stable, our trust in God to be secure, our relationship with one another to be stable--especially in a crisis, our peace of mind to be present when everything around us may be falling apart. We, after all, were trained to deal with crisis. To lose all sense of judgment when a client is in crisis would be disastrous for all… 

But here we are in the crisis, and instead of thinking sanely, we have to question our own judgment, our own ability to think clearly enough to make wise decisions, our own stability when all alarms are going off inside as if disaster were around every corner. As if the loss of our child were not enough, we have had all our props knocked out from under us -- and that, when we most need them! 

Our family members and friends on whom we could always count, desert us from their own insecurities and fears of death. Our churches are exposed to be more about the programs we are expected to attend than to be about the tremendous love of God that can carry us through all, and we cannot bear such true message of God's character being blurred by any non-necessities at a time when everything about us is thrown into major crisis. 

Our health can be accosted. Our bodies are so steeped in grief that they cannot take in all the cues around us so that we become uncharacteristically accident prone. Our jobs can become albatrosses around our neck instead of the secure rhythms of life they have always been, for our job now --our main job-- is our grief and trauma that we need every focus we have available to be able to navigate the extremely rugged terrain on which we find ourselves. Our sleep is wrecked to where we have nightmares or insomnia such that we aren't even rested when we face the next day when we must again navigate and tread through the hazardous, yet slow-as-molasses terrain for another day. Our world-as-we-knew it seems to be crumbling down all around us, and this at a time when everyone in our "support" system thinks we should surely be doing well by now shouldn't we?!

We have always contended that in Child-Loss, we have not only the world's worst grief to deal with, but added to that the most unexpected, continuous serving of trauma we ever would have expected to have to cope with!

As Norm Wright, a Christian psychotherapist specializing in grief, and also a child-loss parent, says in his book, Helping Those in Grief:

Traumatic grief lengthens and multiplies every aspect of the grief process.  Traumatic grief is a direct response to disastrous events that threaten safety, security and beliefs around which we structure and order our lives. It can happen directly to the person or to a family member.

Certain events are more likely to precipitate traumatic grief reactions and share some uncommon themes. Here is a list of descriptors that identify what can bring on Traumatic Grief Reactions:

• Unexpected--The surprise elements stun and shock. We feel dazed and disoriented. 
• Uncontrollable--The event is beyond our abilities to change it. We feel powerless and vulnerable.
• Unimaginable--The horrific elements are not familiar to our way of life. Our frame of reference does not include what we are witnessing. We feel appalled and horrified.
• Unreal--The event is too strange to process. We see but do not comprehend what we are seeing. We feel confused and disoriented.
• Unfair--We feel like victims who have done nothing to deserve this tragedy. We feel hurt, puzzled, angry or fearful.
• Unforgivable--We need to blame someone or something. What do we do with our anger, rage and urge to punish? We feel powerless. 
• Unprecedented--Nothing like this has happened before. We don't have a script to follow. We feel directionless.
• Unprepared--We haven't perceived a reason to ready ourselves for an unimaginable catastrophe. Our defense mechanisms may be inadequate to handle the demand. We feel overwhelmed.
• Uncertainty--We don't fully know the long-range effect on ourselves, our families, our jobs, our future and the future of our offspring. We feel ambivalent and torn between hope and fear.

Picture, thanks to Barbara Kerrer, Grieving Mothers

Tuesday's Trust - The Grace Card ~Tommy and Angie Prince

Tuesday's Trust

The Grace Card

~Tommy and Angie Prince

Tonight, Tommy and I watched a movie... about what you ask? Just ask our two sons -- What do we do to take a break away from our grief and trauma? You probably guessed it ~ we watch a movie about grief or trauma!

We entered into watching this movie tonight with fear and trepidation as we've watched our share of "somewhat hoaky" to "pretty hoaky" movies about grief. We all know it is pretty hard to show what a child-loss parent's grief looks like...

And here comes this dvd that is made up of mostly volunteers... {We don't mind that of course ~ our nephew was an actor volunteer in "We Are Marshall" (he was the kicker on the football team), and our own son Rollin recently has been cast in one of these types of movies, one called "Laughing at the Moon," but this movie has not yet been released. (I'm sure you'll hear more about that later!)}

We were teasing each other before watching this particular grief movie, called "The Grace Card" by saying:

"We'll give it ten minutes...!"

We seem to have this need to check out all the movies we can about child-loss. 

Another movie we recently checked out was, "The Other Woman" ~ another movie about child-loss. Though it had a famous actress (Natalie Portman) starring in it, it seemed to fall flat to us. But then our standards are pretty high about whether people can "capture" such a grief as the one we are living out day by day, hour by grief-struck hour.

In the movie tonight, "The Grace Card," fortunately we were pleasantly surprised (if you can be pleasantly surprised about grief). The "grieving family" members were continuing to show the pain and struggle that I'm sure can still be with you after 17 years of grieving, complete with the toll such grief takes upon every family member, each feeling grief's pain and chaos in their own unique way. The main character, the "father" in particular (who is a Christian stand-up comedian by trade) did an excellent job of portraying the angst of a child-loss father: with the soul-searching questions, the guilt, the isolating oneself from others who don't or can't "get it," the power of life-stopping triggering moments, the guilt, the anger, the repulsion over "God-talk" when it is plastic, cliche, cheesy, or a quick cop-out versus the authentic experience of God that can be loving, comforting, challenging, growth-producing, and life-transforming. 

How many of us secretly harbor that self-blame still? How many of us feel the continued raw anger and wonder where is this coming from, and is this perhaps the start of bitterness, or is the anger mere self-protection needed to survive another day? This movie showed a simple but powerful concept of grace ~ grace toward others, and grace toward yourself amidst such grief. 

This movie seems to stand alone in showing the transcending quality that the spiritual component can bring to one's grief. The movie aptly captured both the angst of child-loss, but also the redemptive component that can come in child-loss as you learn to extend grace to yourself (and others) amidst your pain. 

And "The Grace Card" didn't show this redemptive quality in a cheap way, but in an authentic-enough way that we were right in the pain with the parent. And we were right there in the grace with him too. 

This movie is one that seemed to come close to capturing some of the real agony of a child-loss griever, and that of the other child-loss family members. And yet, it also presented a fairly authentic portrait of the grace that we trust is also an important aspect of our healing as God, by His tender mercy, enables us to learn ways to transcend our terrible angst and pain.

Picture, thanks to Amazon.com 

Wednesday's Woe - Grief's Always There... ~Tommy and Angie Prince

Wednesday's Woe

Grief's Always There...

~Tommy and Angie Prince

I was reading a grief book tonight in which the author chastisingly says, "One of the most damaging pieces of misinformation is the idea that you can 'never get over' the death of a child." He chastised a grieving mother whose child had completed suicide when she said, "My heart is permanently broken." He used semantics to try to convince her that when she has sweet memories of that child, her heart is not broken, it just "feels" broken when she remembers her child's struggles and remembers her child's death...

Oh please. NEVER should a person who hasn't lost a child pontificate their "positivity"-spin for a precious child-loss griever. When I read the entry in this man's book to Tommy tonight, I loved my husband's "shoot from the hip" response. He said,

"Oh that's just a bunch of Cognitive Behavioral nonsense that's trying to reframe her reality."

There is a time and place for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and reframing, but to try to talk a grieving mother out of her broken heart is just nonsense to me, and to Tommy...

I also mentioned to Tommy as we were contemplating what we wanted to write in today's "Wednesday Woe" ~ Do we have anything we want to say in regard to our grief woes that might relate to Easter or Good Friday? I loved Tommy's response:

"When you read the gospel and see how Jesus behaved, there was always the (harsh reality of) 'I've got to go to the cross' hanging over His head..."

So true. Jesus did not try to deny His own harsh reality. He kept His feet based in reality, but kept His eyes and heart set on God.

Tommy continued,

"And when His followers didn't want to hear His concerns, He would try to bring them back to reality..."

Yes, one of His closest followers, Peter, cried out, "No Lord, You shouldn't have to suffer!" Jesus chastised him saying, "Get behind Me Satan; you have in mind the interests of man, not the interests of God."

In our child-loss grief, we are always going to be undone at some level. It seems to me if we "fight" that reality, we actually become worse ~ we just set ourselves up for a fall when the next grief wave takes us by surprise.

On the other hand, If we bear in mind that, at some level, this grief is always with us, we tend to have more grace toward ourselves and can better care for our broken hearts. It seems we would then do a better job of taking into consideration our new limitations when we begin to make plans for our lives.

Yes, our reality is harsh. But to "wish it away" with positive thinking (in our minds anyway) is just a cruel set-up. Because for us, the reality is, at some level...

Our Hearts Are Always Broken This Side Of Heaven.

Yes, we will have many delightful times, even celebrations, but a part of our heart was killed at the time of our baby's death such that we will ever long for God's completion of His destruction of sin, death, and evil on the Other Side.

In fact, God's Word even says, that we ALL grieve, waiting for God's complete redemption for His creation. I believe God's acknowledging our grief, and even helping us accept that such grief is there for a reason, is one of His many loving graces.

I want to embrace truth, not positivity spins to try to "wish away" our harsh reality; those spins do us no real favors in the long run.

Notice in these verses all the different types of "groans" we will have...

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing withe the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.

We know that the whole creation HAS BEEN GROANING as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, GROAN INWARDLY as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with GROANS that words cannot express. And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will.

~Romans 8: 18-27 NIV*

We believe our Grief will always be with us, this side of Heaven. God doesn't tell us to deny our harsh reality. He tells us to remember Who is standing with us amidst such harsh reality, for nothing and no one can separate us from God's love for us:

What then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all--how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is He that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died--more than that, who was raised to life--is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:

"For Your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered."

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the LOVE OF GOD THAT IS IN CHRIST JESUS OUR LORD.

~Romans 8:31-39 NIV*

Picture, thanks to http://picturesofjesus4you.com

*Within these Scriptures, I capitalize all references to God (God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit) for ease in recognizing any direct references to or about Him.