Thursday's Therapy - The Final Gift

Thursday's Therapy

The Final Gift

from

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

Part Eight of Eight

Sunday, July 6, 2003 - TCF National Conference Closing Speech by Charlie Walton

Part Eight

8. THE FINAL GIFT.

Finally, I want to tell you something that I have begun to realize as the years have passed since the night that Tim and Don, and Don's best friend, Bryan, died. I have realized that, by their deaths and the deep permanent scar it left in my life, they gave me a gift of immeasurable value.

The final gift bestowed by any loved one who is torn from your grasp is a clear and unforgettable awareness of what is permanent... and what is temporary.

My second book, which is called Packing for the Big Trip, was written because conversations I had with people about the first book made it so crystal clear that the reason we are all so completely blind-sided by death is that

we live in a "death-denying society," a society where the death rate is 100 percent, but where no one wants to mention it.

I wrote in Packing for the Big Trip, "Every person who dies gives a priceless gift to those who stay behind.

That gift is awareness of death and its manifold implications for our lives. Death awareness is about living. It brings the maturity we need to live our lives with wisdom and joy...to stop cringing at the thought of eventual death... and start living with the daily enthusiasm of those who are packing for the big trip."

Maybe you are still so close to your child's death that you are not ready to see that there could ever be anything good to come from it. That's fine. Maybe you are still wishing you could wring that kid's neck for leaving you here with all this pain. That's fine too. But maybe, you are beginning to realize that

you have new eyes for the upside down values of our culture, that your "death awareness" has given you greater "life wisdom," that your child's death has given you a gift of life.

CLOSING

Well. I could go on for a while but I was told years ago by a speech teacher that "the ear cannot hear what the seat cannot endure." So, let me encourage you to

One, recognize that you are stuck with this pain, but that the depth of your pain represents the extent of your tribute to the one that left you.

Two, understand that people just naturally say a lot of dumb stuff when they are trying to help, and try to be patient and hear what they mean instead of what they say.

Three, understand that you need to tell and re-tell your story a lot more times than you can expect family and friends to hear it, so be grateful for your Compassionate Friends who are willing to hear your story and even make it their own.

Four, give writing a try. It can really help to get some of that confusion out of your mind and onto paper where you can deal with it.

Five, get regular, strenuous exercise even when you don't feel like you can walk across the room.

Six, let people help you, for their benefit and yours.

Seven, watch out for "personality intensification" and give yourself time to become yourself again before you go making decisions while you are "out of your mind with grief."

And finally, recognize the abiding and valuable gift you have received from the person who went away. You have an understanding of life and its true values that you could never have had otherwise.

Let me close with the final words from When There Are No Words.

"My prayer for you is

that you will have peace,

that you will have good grief,

that you will be honest with yourself,

letting out what is within you,

and refusing to govern your ways of grieving by what you think others might be expecting that you ought to do,

that you will allow your loved ones the same right to their own ways of grieving, never assuming that they should want to cry when you feel like crying, or talk when you feel like talking, or sit and stare when you want to,

that both your life and your death will be greatly enhanced by the perspectives that enter your life when a loved one exits your life,

that you will become daily more comfortable with the realization that, as my son Don used to tell me, 'Death is just a part of living.'"

Thank you so much to Charlie Walton for his wise words as a grieving father and to Jayne Raines Newton, head of Atlanta's TCF (The Compassionate Friends) for sharing him with us!

May you all have a wonderful, God-blessed, God-comforted 2010!

Thursday's Therapy - Telling Your Story

Thursday's Therapy

Telling Your Story

from

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

Part Three of Eight

Jayne Raines Newton of The Atlanta Compassionate Friends mailed me this wonderfully therapeutic speech two weeks ago, and I'd like to pass it along to you!

Sunday, July 6, 2003 - TCF National Conference

Conference Closing Speech by Charlie Walton

Part Three

3. TELLING YOUR STORY

A third thing I have learned over the years is that grieving people need to tell their stories more times than their friends or family members are going to be willing to hear those stories.

That is perhaps the greatest value of The Compassionate Friends, a group of people who are not only willing to hear your story again and again but will sincerely cry with you the twentieth time you tell that story just as they cried the first time you told it.

These are people who understand, people who listen intently, people who will even help you tell your story. I don't know if you have noticed it but, if you are sitting in a circle telling what happened to you, those who have heard the story lots of times will actually jump in and add a detail you might be leaving out. If there is a first-timer in the circle, the veterans may add explanations and clarifications for them.

It has become their story too. They have suffered your loss. They repeatedly provide the exact response you expected from the whole world. Do you remember your outrage at the world for continuing as though nothing had happened? Do you remember the urge to scream,

"How can you go on like this? Don't you realize that my world has ended?"

So, I praise The Compassionate Friends. a group that meets a vital and normal need, the need for someone to listen with sincere interest as we tell and re-tell our stories again and again.

On the other hand, knowing that we need to tell our stories so many times should help us be a little more understanding toward friends and relatives who are reluctant to hear our stories again and again.

They don't know that each re-telling is helping to heal.

They don't know that each re-telling is therapy.

All they know is that you keep repeating things that make them hurt and they worry that you might be stuck in that story forever.

People who have not been where you have been have no concept of how long grief takes.

They think it should end in some "respectably short time" after the funeral.

Kay and I still have some understanding, supportive friends who will come to us as December 15th approaches and say,

"I remember that it was about this time of year that Tim and Don died, and I want you to know that I am praying for your comfort, and I want you to know that those two guys are very much remembered and missed."

These are wonderful friends who have learned... sometimes with a little training from us... that

"Grief takes longer than one year."

Thank you again to Charlie Walton, and to Jayne Raines Newton who shared this speech with me, both of The Atlanta Compassionate Friends.

Stay tuned next week for Point Four of Charlie's speech!

Thursday's Therapy – People Say a Lot of Dumb Stuff

Thursday's Therapy

People Say a Lot of Dumb Stuff

from

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

Part Two of Eight

Jayne Raines Newton of The Atlanta Compassionate Friends mailed me this wonderfully therapeutic speech last week, and I'd like to pass it along to you!

2. PEOPLE SAY A LOT OF DUMB STUFF.

Two: Some of the things I have learned have turned up as chapter headings in some of my books. Maybe the one chapter heading that has spoken to more readers is the one that says. "People Are Going to Say a Lot of Dumb Stuff."

Somehow we expect people to have thought about the words that come out of their mouths as they gather around and try to help.

Actually, very few of us ever really examine the words we say.

We just sort of just open mouth, and spit out some cliché that we once heard, and assume that it will work.

We also start from the mistaken assumption that our job when we speak to a grieving person is

To fix things.

To solve their problem.

To say some magic set of words that will help them "snap out of it."

It works on television – why won't it work in the funeral home?

If you want to see a real "spitting contest," just start any group of Compassionate Friends to sharing some of the idiotic things people might have said to them to try and make them feel better…

The stupidity ranges all the way from

"God must have needed another angel in heaven."

To

"You're still young – so you can have other children."

To the absolutely abominable –

"I know exactly how you feel because my pet died."

Probably the only thing that will keep you from punching out a long-time friend who says one of those dumb things is to make yourself hear what they mean instead of what they say.

People just say dumb stuff. But they mean well. You gotta cut them some slack even though you're the one who is in need.

For what it's worth: You are probably now permanently cured from saying dumb stuff when you go to try and comfort a bereaved friend. For starters: If they know what you've been through, they are going to get all kinds of helpful, unspoken messages the minute you walk in the door.

You also now know... that hugs say things better than words. I find that looks and hugs are far more eloquent than any words I might put together.

You have before you if you choose to accept it, a tremendous opportunity to be a lifetime servant of grieving people.

You now hold the hard-won credentials of a person who can truly help... because you know all the dumb stuff not to say.

A little while back, I got word that the grown daughter of one of my closest friends had been raped. She was a single parent. A guy with a crowbar pried open the back door in the middle of the night, came in and raped her... with her children in the next room. When I got the news, I went straight to my car... straight to my friend's house, knocked on the front door.

My friend and his wife opened the door and I said,

"I'm here to hurt with you."

We hugged and cried together in their front hall.

There were no words to say.

I knew better than to come with encouragement.

I wasn't there to try and cheer them up.

Or distract them from the pain.

I was there to hurt with them.

******

Thank you again to Charlie Walton, and to Jayne Raines Newton who shared this speech with me, both of The Atlanta Compassionate Friends.

Stay tuned next week for Point Three of Charlie's speech!

Thursday's Therapy - Tears: You're Stuck With This Pain

Thursday's Therapy

Tears: "You're Stuck With This Pain"

from

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

Part One of Eight

Jayne Raines Newton of The Atlanta Compassionate Friends mailed me this wonderfully therapeutic speech this week, and I'd like to pass it along to you!

Jayne’s words:

Charlie Walton and his wife Kay joined us in Marietta last night to hear Alan Pedersen perform. Charlie is near and dear to me. He was the first person who introduced me to TCF in Nov 1996..two months after my son had died. Thank you Charlie for all you do for bereaved parents.

******

Sunday, July 6, 2003 - TCF National Conference

Conference Closing Speech by Charlie Walton

Charlie’s words:

Thank you for the kind introduction... and for the invitation to speak to this audience of "reluctant heroes." I clearly remember sitting where you are sitting, watching some poor guy step to a microphone like this, and mentally daring him to try and say anything that would make a difference for me.

One of the real downsides of writing a few books about anything is that people get the idea that you know the answers. But the most important thing I have learned in these years of talking with people in grief is that

The world's leading expert on your grief...is sitting right there in your chair.

Human grief has no easy answers.

I named my first book When There Are No Words... because that is exactly the situation when your child dies. There are no words that help.

The pain comes to stay and. no matter how much people want to kiss it and make it well, grief runs on its own timetable.

Your kid... was like no other. Your grief... is like no other. And the gradual easing of your pain is not going to happen by anybody else's formula.

Maybe the most liberating thing that first book did was to give its readers permission to grieve in their own time and in their own ways.

SOME THINGS I'VE LEARNED:

I'd like to spend a little time with you this morning talking about a few things I have learned during the past seventeen years since two of our three sons died. These are personal observations based on, first, being a bereaved parent, and then drawing on a lot of conversations... and emails... and letters that have come as a result of my books.

Let me emphasize that

This list of "things I have learned"... did not "drop from heaven."

So, some of what I say may be the absolute opposite of what you have experienced. But. like your mama told you... "If you don't like it, just leave it on the plate."

1. YOU'RE STUCK WITH THIS PAIN.

The first thing I want to tell you is that...

You are stuck with this pain. You are going to hurt. real bad. for a long time.

And even though everybody around you is going to be wishing your pain away, you're gonna keep on hurting for a long time.

There will come a day when you will have longer periods between the pains but, at least in my experience, when the memories do come flooding back, even after seventeen years, they are going to hurt just as much as the first day you got the news.

But the surprising thing is, that's the way it ought to be. Just think about it. If I told you that I have the power to wave a magic wand and instantly remove the pain you are feeling, and if you really thought about it for a bit, I think you would say, "Well thanks, Charlie, but I guess maybe I better go ahead and hurt a little while longer."

Even though your first thought might be "I cannot stand this pain any longer!" your second and third thoughts would reveal to you that the unprecedented, unequalled pain that you are enduring is actually your tribute to what you have lost.

What would it say if you had a most precious person torn from your life, and you continued along in your life as if nothing had happened?

Pain is lousy, and it hurts, but the depth of your pain testifies to the depth of your love, and the significance of your loss.

You know, nothing gives me more pleasure in life than to hear that something I have written has helped somebody. I've tried to analyze why my book has helped. And beyond the basic fact that I have personally sat where my reader is sitting, there is also the fact that the book does not promise that everything is going to be all right. I didn't want anybody to tell me "What has happened to you is terrible, but it's gonna be alright!" I know now that that was true, but I didn't want to hear it then.

So, I tried to write a book that said, "What has happened to you is terrible" and stop at that, leaving the words about healing until much later when they might be more useful.

So, "thing one" that I have learned.

Enjoy the pain. Appreciate it. Savor it. It hurts, but it is the appropriate response to overwhelming loss.

Your tears are your tribute to one who has been taken from you.

******

Thank you to Charlie Walton, and to Jayne Raines Newton, both of The Atlanta Compassionate Friends.

TCF = The Compassionate Friends

Wednesday's Woe - “How Many of You Wanted to Die?”

Wednesday's Woe

“How Many of You Wanted to Die?”

A couple of months ago, at The Compassionate Friends (or TCF, a group for parents who have lost a child in death) meeting, the group leader asked a room full of about 25 people, “How many of you in here, at some point, wanted to die? Or maybe you just wouldn’t mind if God would take you on Home to be with Him?" The entire room of grieving parents raised their hands…

**********

Tommy:

This time last year, a darkness came over me I couldn’t shake. The pain that came over me was a sadness and despair that was so consuming, it felt to me that the only relief from it would be just to go ahead and die. I didn’t seem to have the ability to bounce back; I wasn’t able to come out of the hole.

The grief had been to this degree for two years, and I had not been able to counter the sadness, despair, and depression. After these first two years of grief over losing Merry Katherine, the sadness was getting worse, not better. At that time, I opted to go on an anti-depressant which I continue to this day, a year later. If I miss my medication for a few days, the sadness and despair return with a vengeance.

Angie:

I didn’t actually want to die. I felt dead already (from the heavy toll grief was having on me) and wondered how I would ever live again. I do remember thinking if God wanted to take me on Home, that would be fine with me.

All I could do was cry, grieve, pray, read my Bible, be with my husband or other intimate family. A year ago, to compound this emotional devastation, I had a serious bike wreck. I probably would not have survived had I not had a helmet on as I was traveling quite fast down a rough mountain trail, hit a root with my wet tires, and my bike threw me off face-first. I did not have time even to break the fall with my hands. As it turned out, sharp rocks gashed a hole in my face. I also broke my shoulder blade (which I’ve been told only happens in severe crashes). However, I was very thankful to be alive and to be able to walk to meet the ambulance as far as it could come down the rough trail.

But the shock of such a fall sent shots of cortisol through my system. Cortisol is a stress hormone that can wreak havoc with you physically and/or emotionally. Emotionally, I regressed. Any medications I was already on to manage depression and hormone swings were nullified. I had a severe setback emotionally.

My setback seemed to trigger a correlating setback in my husband, on top of the severe darkness he was already experiencing. And of course, when my husband saw blood streaming down my face with a gash over my right eye, and then saw the cracked helmet, he too had cortisol shooting through his system. And riding his bike behind me, watching me as I was thrown face-first onto the rocky path with other bikers riding fast behind us, he thought he was losing me right before his eyes. He was traumatized to say the least.

We were a mess. We had gone on the bike trip to try to soothe some of our hurt, and now our emotional pain was compounded severely. God had to take us by the hand to walk us through the morass. We could barely be there for one another, we were both in so much agony! Somehow, with God’s help, we made it through, though still quite shaken that we could have such a setback in the middle of already devastating grief.

I too make sure I don’t miss any of my medications, or I know I’ll be thrown headlong into dysfunction...

**********

In the words of a fellow-griever in last Sunday’s TCF meeting,

I was unprepared for “the long insanity” that grief (over the loss of one’s child) throws you into. Grief impacts every way you function; everything is now on shaky ground. I never imagined it would be so painful that grief even would impact normal behavior (normal day-t0-day routines).

**********

A "New Normal"?

So, during this same meeting, I asked our leader,

What do you mean when you say we will (over time) find our "new normal"?

Can you tell us what a "new normal" would look like?

Our TCF leader’s description of a “New Normal” for grieving parents who have lost a child included these dynamics:

Ø When you wake up in the morning, you no longer want to die.

Ø You accept – the old you is gone; it will never be back.

Ø You accept that grief’s pain will always be a part of your life now.

Ø You are able to set some goals in your life versus not really caring what you do.

Ø You can laugh again and not feel you are being disrespectful to your child.

Ø You find some meaning in your child’s death and your resulting grief.

Ø You realize you could not control the loss that happened to you, but you can decide what you want to do with what happened to you. (Our leader and his wife decided they wanted to help other grieving parents, and so they are here faithfully, graciously helping us grieving parents month-after-month.)

May God bless each of you as you work through your potentially-debilitating child-loss grief…

TCF - The Compassionate Friends