Welcome! I am Angie B. Prince, child of God, wife of Tommy, mother of 3, Grief and Trauma Life Coach, Psychotherapist, and Mother Grieving. On 8/2/2006, our precious 19-yr-old daughter Merry Katherine was killed along w/ 2 other teens via vehicular manslaughter. Here I share as we agonizingly process our grief and trauma. Email: MotherGrieving(at)gmail(dot)com. Coaching (Tommy or Angie): Call 865-548-4four3four / Counseling (Angie in TN) 865-604-9nine9two. I pray God will minister to you here.
Welcome! I am Angie B. Prince, child of God, wife of Tommy, mother of 3, psychotherapist and Mother Grieving.
Tommy and I met in graduate school in Atlanta, then married in 1979 and started a Christian Counseling/Coaching practice in Knoxville, TN where we still live. We have 1 daughter Merry Katherine, forever-19 in Heaven, 2 sons, Nathan (age 34) (wife Ashley), and Rollin (age 37) (wife Stephanie), and two granddaughters, Ellie and Penny.
In this blog, we process our grief over our Merry Katherine who was killed along with two other teens in a brutal car crash while on the way to the beach on 8/2/2006 (two teens survived). Having lost our daughter suddenly and violently on the cusp of launching her into adulthood, we were thrown into Complicated and Traumatic Grief. We share here our agonizing process of wading through the multiple twists and turns of shattered assumptions, challenged faith, traumatized body-soul-and-spirts, and devastated hearts. May our grief touch some of your own pain as we walk through this difficult but sacred ground together.
"Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted" Scientifically Documented!
1) Copy the http: address above the line below. . . .
2) Paste it into your web browser's address bar. . .
3) Hit Enter to find the article below.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080620195446.htm
___________________"Addicted To Grief? Chronic Grief Activates Pleasure Areas Of The Brain"
OR "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted" Has Now Been Scientifically Documented!
. . . . . We now have physiological evidence via Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) that such "comfort" is indeed, a fact! In debilitating, complicated grief after the sudden death of a loved one, "comfort" was shown by significant nucleus accumbens activation in the brain's reward network!
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Showing posts with label A Brother's Grief. Show all posts
Showing posts with label A Brother's Grief. Show all posts
Nathan had been visiting his cousins down in Georgia, staying with one cousin's family of four girls. He said the visit had the impact on him of getting to be an "older brother" again, and it felt so good. Nathan said getting to be like a big brother again felt like a little bit of Heaven on earth. When he returned home to Tennessee, he dreamed about Merry Katherine, that she was alive again! In this dream, he didn't try to talk her out of her existence as he had done in other dreams by explaining to her that she is dead, so is she really back now, and if so, they had better contact all her friends to tell them she was alive. No, in this dream, he just began celebrating with her that after "16 months," she was resurrected! It has actually been 59 months, but to his subconscious it must seem much closer in time that almost five years now.
Though it has been almost five years since our precious 19-year old daughter was killed, somehow it seems like her death happened just last year. It's almost like time stands still amidst our deep grief. Sometimes it feels like I'm back on day one. And then again, when I am suddenly shocked once again with the stark reality of her death, it feels like I am facing her death all over again for the very first time - like I haven't been processing it or dealing with it for all these five years which I have!
I think a reality like a child's death, whether by the parents or by the big brother of the child, can never be fully accepted here on this earth. It's just too unreal, so it seems our minds play games with us of going in and out of that stark reality, but never really integrating her death into our everyday existence. I guess it's like trying to mix oil and water, trying to mix our life with her death. It just can't happen.
Our son Nathan told us of an amazing dream he had last night... He came into our den today and said,
"Merry Katherine visited me last night."
Nathan is our middle child having one older brother, Rollin and one baby sister, Merry Katherine. He is two years older than his "baby" sister, and they were always extremely close. Their senses of humor were very much alike, and their hearts could also go very deep. They were able to share all their secrets with one another. When Merry Katherine died, Nathan exclaimed over the casket, "I have lost my best friend!"
So Nathan was sharing with us today that he is always sad and has grown accustomed to his sadness, figuring that's just the way life will be from here on. Sometimes he doesn't realize that his sadness is playing out when he talks to a younger female second cousin and finds himself torn up over one of her misadventures. He later will realize he is unconsciously missing his baby sister when things like this happen... So he had one of those occasions last night and realized he had better remove himself from the situation, recognizing it probably had to do with missing Merry Katherine, and just sort of left it at that.
Later that night, when he went to bed, he ended up dreaming about Merry Katherine. He said that in his dream, they were looking for movies together at Blockbuster, and he felt so happy to be with her that he just kept hugging her and kissing her. (He said this differs from most dreams that he has about her in which he is explaining to her that she is dead and how can she be here? But he said he didn't do that in this dream.) So in the dream, he says, she "took" his affection for a little bit, then began pushing him away like, enough already. He looked at her in his dream and said, "You just have NO idea what it's like to lose your best friend," and began trying to explain it to her.
The Merry Katherine that he had been hugging on that was somewhat aloof from his affection all of a sudden transformed and looked at him and hugged him tight, and very tenderly said, "I know." The change in her persona was so sudden and so vivid that he knew --even as he was still in his dream-- that this was her spirit, and he woke up. Nathan's voice was quivering and he was tearing up as he haltingly described this very poignant part of the dream. He said often when he's upset as he was last night, she will come to him in his dream. But it seems this time was very different because he had both the old and the new Merry Katherine with him in his dream.
I was amazed. Right there, in his dream, was played out in its vivid reality the entire integration process that is supposed to take place in our lifetime of grief work! We are walking through a transformation of our relationship with our child, from one of her
her being physically present, available, and accessible to touch in the here-and-now
to
her being absent-in-body yet present-in-spirit, not available and accessible in the here-and-now in bodily form, yet in some ways even more available, accessible, and more a part of our lives in her spirit form.
What a jolt for our trust as we come more and more into the acceptance of this new avenue of relationship we are to move into with our child who is still very present with us, but in spirit form!
Nathan and Merry Katherine, Fall, 2004
Thank you to Nathan for allowing us to share his dream/visit here with you tonight.
Pictures, Nathan and Merry Katherine, Fall of 2004, Nathan's first semester at Lee University
I wanted to share with you, my readers, my son Nathan's words on his blog this past week, describing his devastation from his loss of his sister, his best friend:
...(I)t is just...different when you lose a part of yourself. Didn't realize how MUCH she was a part of me, but it's just this gaping hole that has remained, and the harsh realization that not only has it not gone away, it has disabled my ability to brush things off calously like I used to easily do, to now, where
my sheer existence is like I am made of glass.
I picture myself as a vase, which not only is empty and the once beautiful designs that made it unique have worn off. It has been chipped around the edges, and has cracks all throughout its once unbroken structure, and even the slightest bump up against the table it rests on will send it crashing to the ground.
This is not to say that this vase is irrepairable, it is actually impossible to restore an actual broken vase to what it once was.
But the Potter that made this vase created it in such a way that only He can pick up the shattered vase lying helplessly and hopelessly broken, and restore it back to the way He originally designed it,
and through the compassion He has on it as His prized creation, He makes it even more beautiful and unique than before.
It now has a peaceful security in knowing how much care the Potter has for it, and has more joy than ever because while it was shattered on the ground, useless and forgotten, He stooped down and picked up every piece and made it anew.
The display of the love and compassion of the Potter toward His vase in this story shows the beauty of God's grace, and
how much compassion and understanding He has on this fragile vase I have become.
You should know that this story just flowed out of me from the Holy Spirit, not myself.
I'm in a Fight against Grief, and I'm Wearing Glass Armor:
A Brother's Grief
~by Nathan Prince
I asked my son tonight what he meant a few nights ago when he said he was so wounded, and that he was afraid he might shatter. I wasn't sure if he was alluding to grief over his sister, or problems he ran into in graduate school, or attempts at getting a job in a strained economy.
Here is his answer:
I have found that the 3 1/2-year mark has been the hardest for me in my grief --
The pain is not as fresh as at first, but the Void is greater.
Death is no longer something shocking or hard to grasp. It's a full reality, and (I'm) not having to cry over it, but
Feeling the Voided Emptiness I have found makes grief harder than ever.
And yet the pain is so perpetual --there is always a sadness there that has not gone away-- I know it will never truly end.
And because the pain is not as fresh, there's "nothing" to cry over.
And with no tears, there's no healing.
And with no tears, I forget how much I'm hurting.
From the unawareness of the pain, I no longer manage the pain ~ the pain manages me.
I walk around mad and upset, and I don't know why. I find myself crying over anything or any one who is precious to me like she was. I forget that it is Grief that I am reacting to. It always lurks beneath the surface.
I have always said if you don't cry, Grief is going to control you. It eats away at you on the inside.
As a result, I feel like the slightest prick of pain could shatter this very fragile heart. I isolate myself from the world because I know I'm made of glass now and the world has handfuls of rocks it's just dying to throw. And now I'm walking around with a target on my chest. I feel like if someone were to throw a rock, I would just shatter.
Today, I had a wonderful Mother's Day with my hubby Tommy, my two sons Rollin and Nathan, and Rollin's wife of two years now, Stephanie. After Rollin and Stephanie left a few hours ago, I was reminded of this song that Rollin picked out soon after Merry Katherine was killed... But first, some background so you can better understand the song's significance.
***
Rollin is Merry Katherine's older brother. As children, with him the oldest, and her the youngest and both having very strong personalities, there were a lot of clashes. Nathan was the middle child and being close to both of them, was usually their peacemaker. There were probably quite a few hurtful things that transpired between Rollin and Merry Katherine over the years, a few of which I know about from what they have shared.
But when Rollin started high school, he began going to the youth group of the same church in which his daddy had gone as a child/growing teen. As Rollin began to faithfully attend all aspects of the youth group, appropriately called "Journey," his faith took on a more personal and deeper note with His Lord. He seemed to be growing by leaps and bounds, surrounded with good friends who were growing in the Lord too, as they honestly challenged one another, growing as they were being discipled by one another as well as under some great youth leaders.
Rollin's brother and sister watched skeptically, not sure they could trust such a major change in his life, but they began to see a real difference in him day-in and day-out. Merry Katherine, meanwhile, was beginning to stretch her wings and try new things in her then middle-school years, but her brothers were faithful to talk to her about their concerns and prodded her to join them in their youth group as she was leaving middle school and entering high school. So she did join them her freshman year.
Rollin was so precious to take the songs that had ministered so much to his heart, and introduce those songs to Merry Katherine so that they might minister to her as well. They had a very similar taste in music of all the pop culture songs anyway, but these songs were songs that seemed to penetrate the heart and soul. The songs gradually pierced her in a way too that began drawing her heart ever closer to the Lord.
It was so sweet watching both this transformation in the two siblings that fought the most with one another, and the transformations in their hearts as God was getting ahold of them with His amazing life-transforming love.
(Nathan was also growing tremendously in the Lord in their same group.) Merry Katherine continued to struggle off and on with her sin nature, and the tug-of-war between God and Satan, but God's hold on her was real. Her heart was so tender toward Him, and she too began to grow and be discipled by her friends in the youth group and by her own amazing youth group leaders.
We would often hear her belting out the songs Rollin had been sharing with her as she would sing along with her loudly-playing stereo from her bedroom, or with headphones while mowing the grass, singing out above the noise...
***
So after her death, it really touched me when Rollin came to me a couple of weeks after her funeral with the following song that he found, saying that this was the song he felt he most wanted to share with Merry Katherine, expressing his heart's sentiments in the way that he typically did with her...through song.
The song just seems to capture their personalities and their adventuresome spirits along with their newfound (over those past six years) tenderness with one another, their hearts' desire for God, and their growing relationships with Him...
Breakfast Table
Chris Rice
Was it a million miles to Heaven,
Too far to hear my lonely song?
Or is it just my imagination...I hear you humming along
I only hold you in my dreams now
I wake up with cold and empty arms
Lord help me get through this long night without you
And soon as the morning comes...
Soon as the morning comes...
Save me a seat at the breakfast table
Save me a dance around the Milky Way
And save me a thousand years to whisper in your ears
All I've wanted to say
Save me a smile and an angel's feather
Save me a walk down the streets of gold
And maybe, we'll change our minds just like old times
And maybe we'll just fly away...
Or maybe we'll stay!
You lucky dog, you're in heaven before me...
You were my taste of Heaven here
Remember we loved to talk about it, we couldn't wait to get there
So you go on and find your way around now
But remember I'm here missing you...
Do me a favor and say 'Hey' to Jesus
And tell him I'm missing Him too
Tell him I'm missing Him too
Then save me a seat at the breakfast table
Save me a dance around the Milky Way
And save me a thousand years to whisper in your ears
All I've wanted to say
Save me a smile and an angel's feather
Save me a walk down the streets of gold
And maybe, we'll change our minds just like old times
And maybe we'll just fly away!
Save me a seat at the breakfast table
Save me a dance around The Milky Way
Save me a thousand years to whisper in your ears
All I've wanted to say
Save me a smile and an angel's feather
Save me a walk down the streets of Gold
Maybe we'll change our minds just like old times
Or maybe we'll just fly away...
Maybe we'll fly away...we'll fly away...
'Cause I miss you, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you!
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