After Mother's Day... “Losing My Mind, or Minding My Loss?”

       “Losing My Mind, or Minding My Loss?”

One of my sons sat before me a few days ago (only days after Mother's Day), questioning, in essence, if I am losing my mind…??? 

I sat there, amazed at his impudence, but also amazed at my somber, sober reaction. Internally, I immediately felt, “Of course not!” (After all, I am a therapist who hears people’s hurts, and by necessity, I must be able to remember those vivid details of a person’s life who has risked sharing his or her very deep-seated horrors.) So I wasn’t much moved by his audacious question. I immediately said that if I had not remembered some things he had told me, it was more likely that I was feeling traumatized at the time and just couldn’t take in more information. He was not easily persuaded of this truth.

What is it that Trauma does to us? It can be downright horrific, and for me, especially around this Mother’s Day holiday, I am indeed traumatized by my loss of my precious daughter; to me there is absolutely nothing strange about my reactions to such loss. And when I am dealing with that deep degree of pain, I very likely will not be up to “taking in” everyday chitchat. And, for me, that is Okay.

Tommy and I have found it crucial that we process our ongoing loss; it is more painful than anything this world could throw in our path. Our loss of our child is absolutely the most devastating loss anyone could ever suffer, and the pain does not cease and desist just because time passes. This all-pervasive-loss occurs and re-occurs in our hearts and psyches, often when we very least expect it. Our loss must be allowed to process through whether we are “ready” or not, and it can feel downright horrific as we walk through it. 

But walking through such hurt can also be very healing. We are drawn closer to our child, and closer to our own broken hearts ~ all of which is crucial for our own healing, and for our own connecting with the precious child we lost. May our surviving family members accept our brokenness as part and parcel of the Love we must be allowed to continually pour out, not only for our precious living children, but also for the precious child we lost!

In His Love,

Angie

Poem to our precious child: August 2nd - Your Last Day on Earth...

August 2nd - Your Last Day on Earth...

Your last day on earth...

Your first day in Heaven!

Twas for us all darkness and dearth...

Yet for you, you saw God in His Heaven,

So all was right in your world!

For us, such a fateful night...

For you, all you saw was Goodness and Light!

Though 12-years out, we are still sad…

(And we’re sure we’ll continue to feel sad),

We are so thankful…

All is right in your world!

Happy Heavenly Birthday precious Merry Katherine, 

our forever-Teen-Angel…

And the dust returns to the ground it came from,

and the spirit returns to God who gave it.

~Ecclesiastes 12:7, New International Version

~~~

Thank You God for Your Word, Your precious promise to our grieving hearts. 

Thank You that You are taking wonderful care of our precious child.

What a Wonderful Father You are!

Please continue to hold our hearts close to You on this side of Heaven.

❤️❤️❤️

May God bless you all,

Angie

1st picture, thanks to artist Loui Jover


2nd picture, thanks to artist,Maria Magdalena Oosthuizen


3rd post, Pinterest entry from
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/785807834953900845/

Monday's Mourning Ministry - Since I Lost My Baby ~Luther Vandross / Blessed Veterans' Day!

That dreaded moment when you lose your loved one

the worst heartache you will ever feel with them gone

your whole world comes crashing down around you

You become very depressed; you feel your life is through

feelings of hopelessness feeling dreadfully alone and sd

Sleepless nights unable to eat, panic attacks feeling very bad

Waling around in a world of your own not knowing what to do

hiding away wanting to be alone unable to believe it's true

Crying all the time, confused, unable to think straight

Dark lonely nights by yourself; staying up very late

Losing interest in daily activities; staying away from friends

and family feeling as if your heartache will never end

Everything changes from your job, money, nothing but stress

In the grip of depression nothing but overwhelming loneliness

Christmases birthdays holidays anniversaries all gone

Grief! This is what it is like when you lose your loved one.

~Debbie Bellis

Monday's Mourning Ministry

Since I Lost My Baby

~Luther Vandross

~

Blessed Veterans' Day!

Since I Lost My Baby

~Luther Vandross

The sun is shinin', there's plenty of light

A new day is dawnin', sunny and bright

But after I've been cryin' all night

The sun is cold, and the new day seems old

Since I lost my baby

Oh, since I lost my baby, ooh

The birds are singin' and the children are playin'

There's plenty of work and the bosses are payin'

Not a sad word should a young heart be sayin'

But fun is a bore and with money I'm poor

Since I lost my baby

(Since I lost my baby)

Oh, since I lost my baby, my baby

(My baby, my baby)

Next time I'll be kinder to my baby

Won't you please help me find her

(Just help me to find my girl)

Someone just remind her

(Someone just remind her)

(Someone just remind her)

Of this love she left behind her

'Til I find her I'll be tryin' ta

('Til I find her I'll be tryin' ta)

Everyday I'm growin' kinder, kinder,

Been tryin' ta, been tryin' ta...

Find her, to find her, ta

Been trying to find my baby

Find her, been tryin' ta find my baby

(Baby)

I've been looking everywhere

(My baby)

Yeah, baby, I really, really care, I care, I care

My determination is fading fast, so fast, so fast

Inspiration is a thing of the past, oh

I can't see how my hope's gonna last

But good things are bad (so bad)

and what's happy is sad, so sad, so sad

I'm sad, so sad, so sad

Since I lost my baby

(Since I lost my girl)

Oh, since I lost my baby

(Since I lost my baby)

I feel so bad

(Gotta find that girl, I've got to find my girl)

I'm really so sad, Yeah

(Since I lost my, since I lost my, my, my, my, my baby)

Cause everything 

(Gotta find that girl, I've got to find my girl)

I feel so sad

(Since I lost my, since I lost my, my, my, my, my baby)

I know I got to, ooooh

I know without you

(Gotta find that girl, I've got to find my girl)

My baby

(Since I lost my baby)

What's gonna happen to me

I don't know, I don't know

What I'm gonna do now, no, no, no

I don't know

Since I lost my baby, yeah

I don't know, I don't know

What to do without my girl, my girl, my girl

I don't know

Since I lost my baby, yeah

(Don't know, Don't know)

I can't find her nowhere,

Nowhere, nowhere, nowhere, nowhere, oh no

(Since I lost my baby)

Oh no

I can't find her nowhere, 

Nowhere, nowhere, nowhere, nowhere, oh no

(I don't know, I don't know)

(Since I lost my baby)

Yeah, I can't find her nowhere

Nowhere, nowhere, nowhere, nowhere

(I don't know, I don't know)

(Since I lost my baby)

I can't find her nowhere

Nowhere, nowhere, nowhere

(I don't know)

(Since I lost my baby, yeah)

I can't find her nowhere

Nowhere, nowhere, nowhere, nowhere

(I don't know)

(Since I lost my baby, yeah)

(I don't know, I don't know)

I can't find her nowhere

Nowhere, nowhere, nowhere, nowhere

~~~~~

And, with special Thank You's on this Veterans' Day... 

May each of you have a Blessed Veterans' Day!

"Grieving" Picture, thanks to "Death of a Loved One"




Picture, thanks to The Compassionate Friends
Video: http://youtu.be/xPmOXIE-6gs

Wednesday's Woe - She is Everywhere… ~Tommy Prince

Wednesday's Woe

She is Everywhere…

~Tommy Prince

I saw her everywhere today but I didn't see her… 

College girls were everywhere today in Walmart preparing for Halloween maybe, and so many of them "were" her…

I saw her height. I saw her hair...

I heard her laugh. I saw her outfits. 

I smelled her fragrance. I saw her festive personality.

I saw little bits of her all over the place.

I wasn't undone by it today ~ that was different. I was startled; I did have to do some deep breathing to stay present. We are going into the sixth year, but in the past ~over the past 5 years~ I would have broken down, would have had to go out to the car and cry for an hour; and then I would have been ruined for the next two to three days. 

But today… I saw her everywhere.

She was everywhere, but she was nowhere…

Pictures, thanks to Google Images

Tuesday's Trust - The Silent Sobbing: Whom Can You Trust to Understand Your Grief? ~by Angie and Tommy Prince

Tuesday's Trust

The Silent Sobbing:

Whom Can You Trust to Understand Your Grief?

~by Angie and Tommy Prince

"What time was this?" he asks, and his voice is kind, as it has been throughout this interview, but I can't answer him. The day you were found, time went demented; a minute lasted half a day, an hour went past in seconds. Like a children's storybook, I flew in and out of weeks and through the years---second star to the right and straight on to a morning that would never arrive. I was in a Dali painting of drooping clocks, a Mad-Hatter's tea party time. No wonder Auden said, "Stop all the clocks"; it was a desperate grab for sanity.

"I don't know what time it was," I reply…. "Time didn't mean anything to me anymore. Usually time alters and affects everything, but when someone you love dies, time cannot change that---no amount of time will ever change that---so time stops having any meaning.

"(G)rief is love turned into an eternal missing."

~page 55, Sister: A Novel, by Rosamund Lupton (2010)

Rita Coolidge sings,

"I can tell by your eyes that you've probably been crying forever."

Why can other people not see that? That's what Tommy and I see every time we look into our mirror... Losing a child, we face the ultimate terror of the foreverness of never seeing that child again. And the amazing thing is that the psychological defenses go to work. Otherwise, you would never be able to function. Who can bear the loss of a child? You could never function under such pain.

So what happens is that the pain goes underground. There is always a silent sobbing going on with a bereaved parent. So how can you really be expected to function like you used to when you are crying all the time inside?

When you read about a mother losing two (2) children as I just did in an e-mail, your insides are crying out such that it opens up that deep well of grief. How can you speak and weep at the same time? So I don't even try. I may have to let days, sometimes even weeks pass before I can speak to such deep pain.

So you can imagine my dismay when I was talking on the phone to a close relative, one of the few left that I think I can trust emotionally as she too has experienced deep grief, when I heard her say to me the hackneyed phrase,

"You need to be here for those still here rather than for those who aren't."

As if I wouldn't love to do both!!!

Why do people think "logic" is going to prevail in a battle with the emotions??? Logic cannot capture our deep grief; it cannot even come close. It certainly cannot overcome our grief, nor our great love for our child, whether she is in Heaven or still on earth. She cannot and will not be dismissed so lightly, nor should she even be put in such a position! She is my child and always will be whether you accept it or not. She will always hold my heart, in many ways even more now than when she was here. Do you really think I could make a logical decision to "move on" away from my child? Never in a million years! My heart is ingrained with hers; it is longing for her. The world is not as it should be, and I am groaning. Even my God has said I would groan until the day of redemption of all His children. Who are you to defy God? What selfish wish are you trying to project on this broken heart? Keep it to yourself, or better yet work through it; don't pawn it off on me!

All I said to her was,

"That sounds real good in theory, but it just doesn't work that way."

(Who ARE these people who think they can counsel someone in Child-Loss when they've never been there themselves?) She had lost a brother when he was only eleven years old---perhaps she was wanting me to correct her own mother's grief. NO CAN DO! Each mother's grief is her own, and each person grapples with such disaster the best they can. The living children around that grief-struck mother will doubtless be affected; how could they not? But don't think a grieving mother can compromise her grieving heart just to make you feel that life can still be idyllic when that mother now knows, really knows, different.

There's a brokenness and a weeping always going on in a grieving parent. Where do I go with my brokenness? NO ONE seems to understand unless they've truly been there. And even then…we may be rendered speechless by one another's pain.

Who can you trust to understand these things about your grief? Is it any wonder I tend to hibernate with my husband who "gets it" with his own broken heart, with my sons who too are still so broken-hearted over losing their only sister who was so lively, so radiant, so full of love and laughter..., with you, my readers---likewise grieving parents, or those who humbly want to understand us, with my clients who also are dealing with their own hurts and losses in life, and with my Lord who knows my pain by His own Child-loss pain. My silent sobbing is, thankfully, understood deeply by these...