Tuesday's Trust - A Child-Loss Griever's Version of "Just As I Am"

Tuesday's Trust

A Child-Loss Griever's Version of

"Just As I Am"

Just as I am without one plea

But that Thy blood was shed for me

And that Thou bidst me come to Thee

O Lamb of God, I come, I come…

Just as I was before her death

I could do this ~now, I can't do that!

I'm doing good to catch my breath;

O Lamb of God: my heart… went… splat!

Just as I am without my child,

More burdens on my heart are piled,

And now with life, I feel beguiled

O Lamb of God, I've come… undone…

So, here I present myself to Thee

With so little have I to offer Thee

But that Thou bidst me come to Thee,

O Lamb of God, I come, I come...

Picture, Some Glad Morning by http://stealmysoule.blogspot.com/

Wednesday's Woe - The.Four.Dreaded.Words. ~Tommy Prince

Wednesday's Woe

The.Four.Dreaded.Words.

~Tommy Prince

Coming out of the holiday season, The.Four.Dreaded.Words I hate to hear amidst our immediate family:

"Let's all get together."

It seems I can function okay until I hear these words, and it stops me in my tracks. All the wheels lock up. Everything stops. And I cannot function.

For example: We go into a restaurant.

"How many are in your party?"

The number 5 comes to mind... Then once again, I'm stopped in my tracks. Someone's missing. This isn't right. I must say, "4."

Take last week, last Thursday. We are walking into Angie's mother's funeral. I am walking down the aisle, seeing the crowd of people, hearing the music, smelling the flowers, seeing the casket... and being directed to sit on the front row. I almost keep going...back down the aisle...and out the door.

But I don't. I stop and sit down.

About the time I regain my composure, I look up at the stage. Angie is up on the stage to speak at her mother's funeral, but only two of our three children are standing with her... It is almost more than I can take. Here come the tears...

Now, we're back home and are anticipating two family birthdays coming up - Nathan's, then mine. It is something I should look forward to, but I don't. I dread it. It is now impossible for "all" of us to Get.Together.Ever.Again.

picture: http://www.northrup.org/photos/quebec/pink-flower-missing-petal.htm

Wednesday's Woe - Overcome by "Weeds" in Grief ~by Tommy and Angie Prince

Wednesday's Woe

Overcome by "Weeds" in Grief

~by Tommy and Angie Prince

"Weeds" in our child's life took her life

as the driver of the crashed car was drugged.

Unable to kill the "weeds" in her life cuts like a knife:

Our daughter was killed soon after we last hugged.

Mowing the grass is now a chore since the day

the policeman dropped by, coming into

my backyard as I was mowing my grass

with the devastating words he would say...

We had burned our grass to destroy our weeds

so the yard was burned black like our hearts

as the people came by to do condolence-deeds

on the blackest day Heaven imparts...

A month to kill weeds,

Two weeks to till the dirt,

Then we plant the seeds,

All the while we hurt.

The grass came up so pretty

Just like once did our beautiful child...

Now with a summer of drought

Weeds overtake and destroy,

...Just as they did our child.

Picture - Thanks to @LillyAnn

Poem - Overcome by "Weeds" in Grief - Angie Bennett Prince - 9/14/10

Tuesday's Trust - Summer from Grief's Well

Tuesday's Trust

Summer from Grief's Well

"Your front yard has gone to hell,"

Said a neighbor to us today...

Such is life from th' pit of Grief's Well,

Trying to hold Grief's "weeds" at bay:

Trauma's grief, Grief's trauma ~ When

Is there time to maintain a yard?

Drought is here. Which to water then...

Drought of the yard, or Drought of th' heart

When both the yard – and our grief – be hard?

*****

I was talking to a client today who said she was memorizing some scripture verses. Imagine my surprise when I looked the scripture up and found God's sweet confirmation that as we trust in Him,

He ministers to us even in whatever "drought" in which we may find ourselves:

But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in Him.

He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes, its leaves are always green.

It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.

~Jeremiah 17:7

Or, in the Message...

But blessed is the man who trusts Me, GOD, the woman who sticks with GOD. They're like trees replanted in Eden, putting down roots near the rivers– Never a worry through the hottest of summers, never dropping a leaf, Serene and calm through droughts, bearing fresh fruit every season.

~Jeremiah 17:7 The Message

*****

Also...

The poor and needy search for water, but there is none, their tongues are parched with thirst. But I the Lord will answer them; I, the God of Israel will not forsake them.

~Isaiah 41:17

Let my teaching fall like rain and my words descend like dew, like showers on new grass, like abundant rain on tender plants.

~Deuteronomy 32:2

The poor and homeless are desperate for water, their tongues parched and no water to be found. But I'm there to be found, I'm there for them, and I, God of Israel, will not leave them thirsty. I'll open up rivers for them on the barren hills, spout fountains in the valleys. I'll turn the baked-clay badlands into a cool pond, the waterless waste into splashing creeks.

~Isaiah 41:17-18 The Message

I will bless them.... I will send down showers in season; there will be showers of blessing.

~Ezekiel 34:26b

Let us acknowledge the LORD; let us press on to acknowledge Him. As surely as the sun rises, He will appear;

He will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth.

~Hosea 6:3

Picture: Thank you to Eva Soulu for her amazing art... http://soulu.cgsociety.org/gallery/

Poem - Summer from Grief's Well - Angie Bennett Prince - 9/13/10

Thursday's Therapy - “Personality Intensification”

Thursday's Therapy

“Personality Intensification”

from

A TCF Speech – 8 Things I’ve Learned About the Grief of a Grieving Parent

Part Seven of Eight

Sunday, July 6, 2003 - TCF National Conference

Closing Speech by Charlie Walton

Part Seven

7. "PERSONALITY INTENSIFICATION"

I learned a new term recently that helped give a name to something I had observed that happens when sudden grief occurs. A gerontologist at our church was conducting a class on the problems of aging, and specifically, how to deal with aging parents. One of the things he said is that, as people get older,

a phenomenon occurs which is called

"personality intensification."

As the good doctor struggled to explain the meaning of "personality intensification," someone in the class spoke up and said, "Oh, you mean that, as you get older, you just get more like you have always been." The doctor had to agree that that was a pretty good definition.

You've probably seen this in older people. If they were grumpy as young people, they are going to be even more cantankerous as they get older. If they were sweet and loving and forgiving all their lives, they are probably going to be folks who grow old gracefully.

It's just that aging removes some of the motivation to hide our natural characteristics, and "personality intensification" is the result.

Well, I think the same thing happens when grief enters your life.

The motivation to monitor and adjust the way you behave just kind of melts away and your personality characteristics intensify.

For some people, that can be a blessing - they may have needed to open up and be less careful about life. For others, it can be really disastrous.

Sometimes you hear folks say that the death of a child is likely to cause the death of the marriage of that child's parents. That's just not true.

What happens is personality intensification. If there were cracks in that marriage relationship, the stress on those cracks will be intensified by the child's death. On the other hand, if that marriage relationship was a strong one, it will grow even stronger.

It is important for us just to know about "personality intensification," to know that it occurs naturally, and to recognize it when the added stress of grief is making it happen to us. It's not by accident that the customary wisdom of the ages is "Don't make any major life decisions for a whole year after the loss of a loved one."

You are not yourself, and you shouldn't expect yourself to be yourself. You just gotta tell the world to wait.

Thank you Charlie Walton for your insightful observations! May we use these insights to better understand our complicated grief and to take steps to make our lives healthier in the midst of them.

******

Another way to define Charlie’s phrase of “personality intensification”:

Personality Intensification –

What happens in the volatility of grief over your child’s death is that

· Whatever strengths you had before become stronger.

· Whatever weaknesses you had before become weaker.

· Whatever fault-lines were present in your life before, whether in your personality, or in your relationships, or both, those fault-lines become heightened or more intense, and thus your life feels more unstable.

· Sometimes your own intensified strengths and weakness work counter to one another and collide. For instance, your naturally compassionate heart becomes more compassionate so that you begin to help others in their grief, but if you have difficulty with boundaries or with time management, your once-positive work can become overly stressful and at times disruptive. Your strengths and weaknesses, at that point, have collided.

· Other times, your fault-lines are exacerbated by the intensive and pervasive grief process to the point of cracking and creating more chaos in your already over-stressed life. These added stressors effectively create more disruption in your already stressful life.

Stress can create either negative or positive changes in a person. Although

"personality intensification" can create more challenges to our system, even if

those challenges temporarily create chaos, ideally, those challenges can create

a new, positive growth in a grieving mommy or daddy. That is certainly my

hope for you!

Wednesday's Woe - My Fears in the Dead of Night

Wednesday's Woe

What Do I Do With

My Fears in the Dead of Night?

If You can clothe my child in a robe of light,

You can care for me in the dead of night...

Of all Your creation, we hold Your passion;

Your heart, Your fire, in us You did fashion!

Heart to heart, Fire to fire, speak to me Lord;

Your pow'r o'ercomes the Fowler's evil hoard—

Your children made from Your image will take

Your hand in ours; Your child You'll n'er forsake...

Give us Your faith, Your vision~sustenance—

E'er does Your passionate Love hover on us!

Poem - What Do I Do With My Fears in the Dead of Night? - Angie Bennett Prince - 12/2/09

Wednesday's Woe - What is Normal Now?

Wednesday's Woe

What is Normal Now?

from http://missingevan.blogspot.com/2009/09/what-is-normal.html

What Is Normal?

(A) mom in (the) SUDC online support group posted this. It is so true in the lives of all of us who have lost our precious children...

What is normal now?

NORMAL is trying to decide what to take to the cemetery for Christmas, birthdays, Valentine's day and Easter.

NORMAL is feeling like you know how to act and are more comfortable with a funeral than a wedding or a birthday party. Yet, feeling a stab of pain in your heart when you smell the flowers, see the casket, and all the crying people.

NORMAL is feeling like you can't sit through another minute without screaming because you just don't like to sit through church anymore. And yet at the same time feeling like you have more faith in God than you ever had before.

NORMAL is having tears waiting behind every smile when you realize someone important is missing from all the important events in your family’s life.

NORMAL is not sleeping because a thousand "what ifs" go through your head constantly.

NORMAL is having the TV on the minute you walk into the house to have some "noise" because the silence is deafening.

NORMAL is telling the story of your child's death as if it were an everyday common event and then gasping in horror at how awful it sounds. And yet realizing it has become part of normal conversation.

NORMAL is each year coming up with the difficult task of how to honour your child's memory and their birthday and surviving those days. And trying to find a balloon or flag that fits the occasion, "Happy Birthday"? Not really!

NORMAL is a new friendship with another bereaved parent and meeting over coffee and talking and crying together over your children and worrying together over the surviving children.

NORMAL is being too tired to care if you paid your bills, cleaned your house, did the laundry or if there is food in the house.

NORMAL is wondering this time whether you are going to say you have 4 or 5 children because you will never see this person again, and is it worth explaining that one of them has passed away. And yet, when you say 4 children to avoid the problem you feel horrible as if you have betrayed your child.

NORMAL is hiding all the things that have become "normal" for you to feel, so that everyone around you will think you are "NORMAL".

"What is Normal Now" quoted in http://missingevan.blogspot.com/2009/09/what-is-normal.html

Picture: Quiet Sadness http://picasaweb.google.com/