Tuesday's Trust - If I Could Visit Heaven ~with my added verses

Tuesday's Trust

If I Could Visit Heaven

If I could visit Heaven, Lord, I'd come up there and see

Why it was so urgent to take my child away from me.

I'd ask a million questions. There would be no lies.

I'd take in all the beauty of the never ending skies.

But most of all I'd sit and talk to my baby one more time.

I'd ask him what he does all day, he'd tell me that he's fine.

He'd tell me that he's happy and no longer has any pain.

He'd tell me that he loves me and we'll be together again.

If I could visit Heaven, Lord, It would help me deal.

It would help each day go by, It would help me heal.

But I can't visit Heaven, Lord. I'll have to wait and see.

I know you know I miss my child. I have to let it be.

So will You tell him that I miss him? And will You hug him tight?

And tell him that I see him, in the stars at night?

And will You tell him that I love him more than eyes can see...

Oh, if I could only visit Heaven, Lord,

How blessed my life would be.

~facebook.com/Ihaveaspecialangel

 ~ with my added verses...

If I Could Visit Heaven, Lord...

If I could visit Heaven Lord, I know that I would see…

My baby is so happy, happier than, here, she could ever be.

I'd wrap my arms around her and hold her O so tight,

Similar to the way I did---in what turned out to be---our last night…

I'd catch her up on how her friends are doing, and all earth's goings on,

We'd sit and talk, and laugh and play, we'd sing Heavn's latest song,

She'd take me all 'round Heaven, and lovingly make me for It, long…

I'd rest my heart knowing all her latest Life-filled activities 

As if she were just away at camp, filled with its festivities.

I wouldn't want to bring her home; that would be cruelty;

To return her to this fallen world would not be loving of me,

But Lord, it would help me to know what her life's like in the Divine;

You know a mother always longs to know her baby is quite fine…

But I'll stay here, and let You help me ever build my faith

For by it You will carry me up to Your Home some Day,

And I will trust that every day You'll love and hug my child,

Reminding her Mommy misses her, and longs to see that smile...

Thank You God for saving her, and keeping her safe with You,

Life with You must be wonderful though I can't see beyond these skies of blue.

I do know she ever basks in Your deep abiding love 

And You sing and rejoice over her, and quiet her by Your love.

Quiet me too now my Father, wrap Your arms around me so tight.

Help me get through these days, and this seemingly never-ending Night.

Comfort this grieving mommy's heart while separated from my child,

And when I slip and think she's gone, let me again glimpse 

her bright and lively smile…

~Angie

~~~~~

lThe Lord your God is in your midst,

na Mighty One who will save;

oHe will rejoice over you with gladness;

He will quiet you by His love;

He will exult over you with loud singing.

~Zephaniah 3:17, ESV

Indeed, everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. (~Jesus)

~John 11:26a International Standard Version (©2012)

(Some capitalizations, mine)

Graphic with poem, thanks to facebook.com/Ihaveaspecialangel
ESV = English Standard Version of The Holy Bible
Poem - If I Could Visit Heaven, Lord... - Angie Bennett Prince - January 7, 2012

Thursday's Therapy "Recovery" from Child-Loss...Are You Kidding? ~ Part Two

Thursday's Therapy

"Recovery" from Child-Loss...Are You Kidding? ~ Part Two

Continuing from our Thursday’s Therapy post of two weeks ago, we hear more from Dr. Judith R. Berstein about why the expectation for child-loss grievers to “recover” is cruel:

(If child-loss grievers) are expected to recover by friends, family, experts, and ultimately by themselves, and they cannot do so, they wind up with additional self-doubt or worse.

(Again, Dr. Bernstein's premise) is that the word recovery is a misnomer and creates a fictitious mind-set: that major loss is ultimately wrapped in a neat package and segregated from the rest of experience until it goes away.

This (so-called recovery process), we know, does not happen without serious psychological consequences.

Major loss needs not to be overcome but rather to be put into context.

People don't recover; they adapt. They alter their values, attitudes, perceptions, relationships, and beliefs, with the result that they are substantially different from the people they once were.

Mourning, integration, adaptation.

These are learning processes. Rape victims need to learn to live in a world in which rapists exist. They need to learn how to live with vulnerability, relearn how to trust, and so on.... The bereaved parent has to come to terms with a world in which it is possible for children to die, a world of different hopes and dreams, a world of muted sunsets. The victim never sees life through the same lens again. If you look at it that way, it becomes foolish to ask when victims of trauma should be over it.

If we are to help and understand trauma victims, should we not ask instead where they are in the process of learning to live with what has happened?

Where is that process in five, ten, thirty-years?

*****

{Excuse me while I rant...

I am so proud of Dr. Bernstein as she takes a complete departure from the style of the psychologists who are devising our new diagnostic manual... The pitiable psychologists who are developing the new DSM-V (Diagnostic and Statistic Manual V, the psychologists' "Bible" for how they determine appropriate diagnoses for their clients) are devising ridiculous terms for grievers (which of course includes THE worst-case grieving one can have - that of child-loss grieving) such as

~ If your sadness does not disappear after two weeks, your diagnosis will be MAJOR DEPRESSION ~

THAT IS NONSENSE! I can guarantee you no child-loss griever's sadness will be done in two weeks, and most of us DO NOT have MAJOR DEPRESSION!

NO! WE HAVE MAJOR GRIEF AND MAJOR TRAUMA, BUT NOT NECESSARILY MAJOR DEPRESSION! }

Dr. Bernstein, in contrast, said that when her research team

"embarked on this study of what happens to people in the aftermath of the trauma of intense grief, we decided that the only way we would gain any knowledge of the moonscape of mourning was to ask those who had traveled to that barren, inhospitable wasteland."

The DSM-V devisers ~to my knowledge~ have never yet had ANY research study consisting of ONLY child-loss grievers.

How, I ask, can you devise diagnoses for grievers when you haven't even studied the most severe grief known to mankind, that of child-loss grief?

Ranting closed. Thank you for your indulgence!}

*****

Dr. Bernstein also quotes a wise researcher:

Ronald J. Knapp, in his scholarly book Beyond Endurance, noted what most bereaved parents actually need to do in their child-loss grief:

All parents eventually develop a primary and fundamental need

• to talk about this tragic experience and about what they can remember about their child,
• to reveal their sadness,
• to release their anger,
• to allay their guilt,
• and to have others understand their reactions.
• (Talking about their grief) is how they remember;
• (Talking about their grief) is also how they confront the reality of what has happened to them.

Today's content from Dr. Judith Bernstein can be found in her Prologue, pages xvi to xix from her book When the Bough Breaks: Forever After the Death of a Son or Daughter.