Minefield of Grief Bombs and "Functional Grievers"

Merry Katherine Prince

(By Tommy Prince)

Journal

2/26/09, Thursday, 2 a.m.

We're in Athens, Georgia (Angie's hometown, staying with my in-laws) helping my handicapped brother-in-law Rick who is in the Intensive Care Unit trying to recover from Aspiration Pneumonia; the family is each taking shifts so someone can be with him 24/7; Angie and I have the midnight till 5 a.m. shifts.

I got out a little today to go by Rick's business and talk to (our nephew) Curt and observe the goings on.  While I was there (Curt's wife) Michelle brought their daughter (our six-year-old grand-niece) Meredith by to visit her daddy.  

When she came in, she walked over and gave me a hug and put her arms around my neck.  I came close to losing it right there in front of everyone.  I quickly suppressed the urge to cry.  I quickly turned the conversation back to the business . . . .

Last night during my nap before going to the hospital (at midnight), I dreamed about Merry Katherine and that she was little, and (that) Nathan had hurt her in the Bennetts' basement. 

She came running to me and I grabbed her up and held her.  She said she was okay, kissed me on my eye, which smudged my glasses, told me she loved me and ran off to play.  When I woke up at 10 p.m.,

 

I sat on the edge of the bed and had a prolonged gut-busting cry that gave me a whomping headache.

As I mentioned earlier, (my 6-year-old grand-niece) Meredith had come up and hugged me (today); that (hug) set off my emotional insides that took me totally by surprise.  Every time I dream about Merry Katherine, I have always been hugging her and don't want to let go.  

When that little Meredith hugged me, she was the first little girl to do that in over 2 1/2 years.  I found myself wanting to grab her up and hold her forever just like in my dreams of Merry Katherine, which always mess with me for several days.  

I found myself immediately taking my hands off her as though she was on fire and I was going to get badly burned.  I used all my energy to suppress the intense hurt that was boiling inside me.

The lava flow of pain surfaced after the nap and dream.  The rest of the night and today, I have felt out-of-it.

Journal

March 6, Friday, 6:30 a.m. (back home in Tennessee)

I didn't sleep as much today as yesterday but feel pretty rested.  (We'll see.)  

I am astounded at how much deep hurt and intense sorrow I carry around inside of me.  

I don't have an awareness of it until something like what happened in GA suddenly throws me into an uncontrollable, deep, long, crying spell.  

(Having intense grief inside) is something like being an epileptic; you don't really know when the next debilitating episode will hit.  Like an epileptic, you do have some awareness of what kinds of things or situations might trigger an episode that will resemble a "throw-down" in wrestling.  These are the very things and situations you stay away from.

As a "functional griever,"* over time I have learned some of what to avoid.  

Tragically, I will always be tiptoeing through a minefield of grief bombs.  -->     

Now I'm beginning to see why fatigue and exhaustion (have) become such a prevalent aspect of daily life.-->        

These external minefields can easily set off the internal hurt and sorrow.  -->        

This (struggle to avoid emotional minefields) in turn requires tension.-->

 

This (tension) itself is tiring enough; -->     

   

Add the internal turmoil of dealing with losing your baby girl, -->    

  

And you have one wasted son-of-a-gun. 

*(Functional griever" is a term Angie and I have given ourselves that describes our life--yes, we can get up every day and somewhat function, but most of our energies have to be dedicated to processing our manifold grief, so we just call ourselves "functional grievers.")

Projectile Grieving

Tommy's friend called him today. . . .I'll give a little background: Yesterday was Tommy's birthday, the third one after Merry Katherine's death. As Tommy says, "Now the numbness (of the first two and a half years) has worn off and the agitation and weepiness have set in."

After Tommy's birthday party last night with our family--our two sons, our daughter-in-law, and I were all present with him, yet . . . our baby girl was starkly absent . . . we sat down in the now-quiet den this morning. I took that opportunity to give Tommy a birthday card I had felt Merry Katherine wanted me to give him, and a present --two books, and a clear plastic teddy bear full of cotton-candy jelly beans which were always hers and her daddy's favorite-- When he saw the card that read, "DaDa" on the envelope, he thought it was a card from Nathan, our younger son. When he opened it, it took him totally off guard when he looked down and saw the card's picture of a little girl that looked just like Merry Katherine when she was little, and as he said it, "That was the end of being able to breathe normally for the next hour." He couldn't read the card.

After he saw the picture, Tommy's three-day agitation--like deep-freezer ice--went through an instant melt-down. Here came the gut-wrenching sobs that needed to come but had been put "on ice" to be able to get through his birthday party the night before in a pleasant way for his family's sake.

Tommy described this sobbing phenomenon in his own inimitable way this afternoon when I overheard him talking to a friend who had called him on the phone to talk and to check on him. (This friend has also lost a child):

His friend asked, "How are you doing?"

Tommy candidly stated, "It's been a rough day. It's twice as bad as the last one when you saw me so upset."

His friend then responded, "I'm sorry you're feeling bad."

Then Tommy said,

(Grief's) just one of those things that's gotta run its course. It's just like being nauseated; you can try to talk yourself out of throwing up, but you're gonna throw up anyway.

I thought boy that captures it, the inevitability of sorrow. . .that it's got to flow, or it will come out one way or another eventually! I think he was then greatly relieved to have been able to finally "feel" those pent-up feelings in a warm, safe, and private environment. The rest of the day today, he says he has felt some relief yet is also emotionally spent.

Then, to top it all off, we found out later in the day that a girl in our neighborhood (who had been a friend to our three children) was found--murdered . . . .

It's affected his ability to talk the rest of the day. And I am not doing so well either. . .

The Stone

Angie Bennett Prince July, 2007

We go today to plan your stone.
We don't want to go there--it chills us to the bone.
We miss you and want you here;
We think of you and shed more tears.

The funeral home wonders where we've been;
Eleven months now--will our hearts ever mend?
I tried to explain the difficulty one day on the phone:
The last thing we ever wanted to happen--
We now have to carve in stone?!

So we go there today in God's strength alone
To carve your precious name upon that stone
Only because we know for you death is not the end;
On that fateful day, your life in Heaven did just begin!

And since for your sins and ours Christ did atone,
We know we will join you in Heaven
To worship our Lord around His throne.
Because some day, just as He did for Jesus
When the disciples thought He was gone,
For those of us who know Him, and by Him are known,
God--in His resurrection power--will come down
Himself to earth again to roll back all the stones!


Be sure to listen to "Then Came the Morning" (see the sidebar to the left) before or after reading my poem!

Parents Losing a Teenager to Death - A Glimpse of Grief After Two and a Half Years

“I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief.” C. S. Lewis ...

My husband and I have been grieving now for two and a half years. Grief is so painful! I have to continually get in touch (emotionally, mentally, and spiritually) with my grief to get it "exhumed" from the inside to come to the consciousness and be expressed out so that it doesn't just build up (to later come out when I least expect it or to get expressed inappropriately). [I have a counseling practice, so I have to keep my grief flowing for this reason as well, or any unresolved "counter-transference" might affect my clients negatively.]

Grief without rest doesn't mix well. Grieving is exhausting work--I'm facing the deepest loss possible--every parent's worst nightmare--so it is not easy to do; it therefore takes a toll on my body physically. But rest, eating well, taking vitamins, exercising (which I am now starting to do a little more of), and anti-depressants if necessary, are crucial to supporting my over-stressed system. Talking to a safe person about my grief is also critical; for me, my safe person is my husband--he is very tender, patient, and accepting plus he knows the grief as well; he is going through his own! We try to support one another which works fairly well (until our timing collides, and we're both down at the same times. Those are times when it's especially important to have a close relationship with our Heavenly Father!)

Which brings me to--what helps me THE most in processing my grief--is the continuous presence of my Heavenly Father who is carrying me through this grief on a daily, moment-by-moment basis. One tool He has given me as I walk through my grief is to continually write out my grief -- in prayers to Him, poetry, essays, etc. The pain is there, but it is poignant in the writing, and then God's Holy Spirit comes into the process to bring His perspective and His comfort -- and His challenging my faulty thinking when appropriate!-- and there is a relief after the intense outpouring of hurt, pain, questions, confusion, etc. Over time, you can see the healing as you are writing, plus, the former writings continue to be a therapeutic tool to review and grieve through as necessary! I tell people, yes God is IN the grief; God is not an anesthetic to numb the grief--the pain is still there-- but He meets me IN the grief, and walks through it WITH me.

May God bless you in your grief, or in your concern for a beloved griever.