Wednesday's Woe - Sibling Grief Too Abides...

Wednesday's Woe

Sibling Grief Too Abides...

“When you add us up, you always have to carry the one.”

My son was recently at home for a week,

Spent sweet time with him that left my stomach weak:

Hearing his saga, so much like mine

Tales of the heart so hard to define

When you've lost your little sister

(or your child), and cannot get over daily missing her...

Protecting our hearts (as they're woefully broken),

from potential hard hearts who treat souls like a token,

a token which could prevail their own ends,

a token which has no worth till it mends...

a token which has only one dimension

with no need at all for soulful attention.

Where are we grievers now to go

to be blessed and attended versus merely add to our woe...

His heart's cry pierced anew this mother's broken heart

To see another beloved child... by death be ripped apart. 

I thought it cruel that my son too does own

Some of the same depths of hurt as his dad's and my own...

What will break through this terrible pain

As grief still floods this family with its torrential rain?

Grief Quote, from the novel, Carry the One

Poem - Sibling Grief Too Abides... - Angie Bennett Prince - 6/24/2012

Saturday's Sayings - Sorrow~A Gift? Focusing on What Matters Most

Saturday's Sayings

Sorrow ~ A Gift?

Focusing on What Matters Most

Sorrow, a gift? This counter-intuitive perspective is nicely elucidated by the psychotherapist and former Catholic monk Thomas Moore:

"Sorrow removes your attention from the active life and focuses it on the things that matter most. When you are going through a period of extreme loss or pain, you reflect on the people who mean the most to you instead of on personal success; and the deep design of your life, instead of distracting gadgets and entertainments. You may be more open to the beauty of your world as a relief from distress. Beauty is always present, but ordinarily you may not notice it because of your priorities or your absorption in other things."

~Thomas Moore

*****

In contrast, it is very rare, though not unheard of, that severely depressed individuals consider their depression per se a "gift." Some, however, have found spiritual meaning or sources of creativity in their depression. Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison, a psychologist who suffers from bipolar disorder, has observed that,

"Artistic expression can be the beneficiary of either visionary and ecstatic or, painful, frightening, and melancholic experiences. Even more important, however, it can derive great strength from the struggle to come to terms with such emotional extremes and from the attempt to derive from them some redemptive value."

~Kay Redfield Jamison, M.D.

*****

PROTECT YOU

Facing ones own fears are hard
If I face the fears of my loss I might
Lose control, I am afraid to lose control
Afraid I will have to feel pain
Rather than feeling nothing at all
It is easier to feel nothing, but the war
Rages on inside me trying to force my fears
The guilt that consumes my soul
Of that fateful day I wonder if it
Will ever go away..
Giving me the chance to go on.
To go on with my life in a positive and happy way
To smile from with in my heart and soul
And not just from my lips
I often hear the words echo in my head
Mom it was not your fault
But I am your mother I say I was to keep
You SAFE, to PROTECT you.
I could NOT do this, I could NOT SAVE YOUR LIFE
THAT DAY.
I kissed your wounds when you fell down
You got better, I held you when you were
Sad, you became happy.
I nursed you when you were sick, again you
Got better.
But I could not protect you that day.
I could not heal your wounds then.
I could not, no matter how hard I wanted to
Save your life that day, you died!
So the war of guilt, sorrow and pain
Rage with in my heart and soul
As your mother I tried to protect you
Keep you always safe, I always succeeded
Until that day.
So this war inside of me rages on and I wonder
Will it ever stop or ever go away??

~by Grieving Mother, Valene Valich Lafuenti,

shared with you by Valene's gracious consent

*****

I Will No Longer

Please share this, one more parent giving up is NOT OK! put it on your wall!

Things I will no longer do:

I will no longer hide my pain, even when you want me too.

I will no longer smile & pretend nothing is bothering me just to make you more comfortable.

I will no longer pretend like my son never existed, because you don't think I should be "back to normal."

I will no longer be who I was before so please don't expect it, this is my new normal.

I will no longer hide the tears because you don't understand.

I will no longer dishonor my son/daughter by never saying their name.

I will no longer apologize for my tears.

I will never "get over this."

Things I will do:

I will get through this with love & care from those around me.

I will always have a part of me missing.

I will get stronger & I will honor my child by keeping him alive in my heart.

I will forgive you when you say stupid, & hurtful things I will realize that it is your ignorance of the pain.

I will be here if God forbid this pain ever visits you & I will never ask that you hide your pain, your loss, your grief.

I will honor my child's memory by living through this, in spite of people who think I am being melodramatic, self seeking, depressing to be around.

I have known Moms who could not handle the pain of loss & took their own lives, I ask that you realize that this pain needs to be acknowledged by me & those who love me & I refuse to allow you to take away what helps me deal with this & helps me to wake up every day for the rest of my life without my child.

Because by not sharing my pain & not acknowledging the hole in my life means it didn't matter & that hole matters to me & it should matter to you.

I understand you have no idea what I feel and will not hate you but I also will not accept that your feelings are more important than my going on.

If you don't like that I cry, that I am different than before & you cower or roll your eyes when I need to say my child's name then I will also understand that you are no longer a big part of my life,

When your child has a birthday party 5 years from now & I don't show I will expect you to excuse me & acknowledge my right to hurt & instead of being selfish & offended I expect you to love me any way & if you can't then please move on because this is who I am now my son will always be in my heart & on my mind.

I understand that you think "that is all I think about" but before he was gone I was like you, thinking he will always be here, I had more important things to do. Sure there were times I didn't hug him before he left the house, or times on the phone I missed saying I love you just like you do now, but I have also realized when I lost my child all of those opportunities are gone, so while you go ahead with your life with your children remember you could never just forget they existed so I will not either.

My life, my child, means more to me than your selfish feelings so I will not pretend that you care about me while you avoid my sons memory or my pain they are always in my heart.

Please all you Moms/Dads share this on your wall change whatever needs to be changed to make it yours, I refuse to believe other Moms & Dads will die because they have no support!

~By: Lynn Burnett Colicci

(provided by Jill Compton, grieving mother)

*****

Cherished Friends! God must have known there would be times We'd need a word of cheer, Someone to praise a triumph Or brush away a tear. He must have known we'd need to share The joy of "little things" In order to appreciate The happiness life brings. I think He knew our troubled hearts Would sometimes throb with pain, At trials and misfortunes, Or goals we can't attain. He knew we'd need the comfort Of an understanding heart To give us strength and courage To make a fresh, new start. He knew we'd need companionship, Unselfish... lasting... true, And so God answered the heart's great need With cherished friends... like you! By: Anytime You Need a Friend

Contributed by Kathy Coy-Hawley

Picture, thanks to Grieving Mothers

Wednesday's Woe - Looks Like You'll Have to Do Thanksgiving Without Us…

Wednesday's Woe

Looks Like You'll Have to Do

Thanksgiving Without Us…

We've just been invited to a family Thanksgiving.

Let's see… We're grieving our baby girl, and our hearts are pulverized. It is about all we can do to just walk through a "normal" day. Now, here come the holidays ~ If we can hardly do a normal day, what makes anyone think we can do a holiday when we would be…

• thrown into a room with a crowd of people with
• unresolved issues flying around, after
• recent irresponsible abuse has just been dumped on us, along with
• a multitude of signs of several persons involved despising us and/or our grief, all signals for
• toxic relationships abounding.

This has all the makings of a sure Thanksgiving recipe for disaster to my already grief-torn system.

No thank you. I think I'll decline.

Looks like you'll have to do Thanksgiving without us!

Thursday's Therapy - Child-Loss Grief Amidst Our Chauvinistic and Caustic Culture

Thursday's Therapy

Child-Loss Grief

Amidst Our

Chauvinistic and Caustic Culture

Let's face it. We traumatized child-loss grievers are not gonna get any help out there in the civilian world for our "grief war." We have a very chauvinistic and caustic culture when it comes to emotional pain. Not only are we NOT treated tenderly as any grieving parent would deserve, but we are treated downright coldly as my poem yesterday described.

What is behind this "Get Over It" mentality coming at us? Why the push for us to "Move on!"? Why the desire in the naive but "oh-so-wise" who think they need to give us some advice in how to handle our grief?

Our society doesn't want to recognize that death really happens. Our culture and even our churches (or should I say, especially our churches) do not want to recognize that death happens. Or if it does happen, you should be over it in a week or so, so that they won't have to think about it any more.

People in our society would rather deny, minimize, or blow off the death of a child; it hurts too much for them to even think about it ~ so, for sure they don't want us to "make" them climb down in that pain with us. So we get the message,

"You just need to get over it and be happy like I am. (Then I won't have to feel bad for you anymore, and I can get on with my life.)"

Our society also is full of people who do everything they know to avoid dealing with emotional pain in general. We have workaholics, frenetic activity seekers, thrill seekers, or any of a number of obsessive activities in which we can distract ourselves to death. Anything to keep from feeling emotional pain.

From sex addicts to alcoholics, gamblers to those exhibiting eating disorders, to those addicted to drugs of all kinds, it seems we are always finding novel ways to self-destruct, even sniffing glue, sniffing paint, or playing what some call "the choking game"! A case could be made for all of these destructive behaviors being utilized for the purpose of numbing ourselves from emotional pain.

Many even have a blatant and abject disgust for anyone going through a weakened state of any kind. It is like our t.v. mentality has set us up to think that anything bad or painful someone is enduring should be resolved within thirty minutes or less!

Tommy and I are at a Trauma Seminar in Atlanta, Georgia for several days. Today, we heard from Colin Ross, M.D., a premier expert on dissociation, which is the "disorder" that comes when many of us have been exposed to severe trauma such that our systems are so overwhelmed, they have to essentially "run away" from the painful reality just to be able to cope with life itself. Though this "disorder" can be a God-send for the victim of major trauma, there comes a time when we need to put the pieces back together, facing them one by one so that we may become whole again.

Many psychological disorders, Ross says, are the subconscious attempt of our "wounded inner child" to distract us, numb us, even fill our minds with "magical thinking" so that what was evil and bad in our lives can be white-washed into "what we wish the outcome could be" instead of having to face the vile reality into which we often have been thrown. So, unwittingly, we oft may be making ourselves emotionally ill just to avoid the inevitable pain we must face in our lives!

Ross says, like the alcoholic who finally realizes he must "say 'no' to his drug" and set about working through his "12 steps," so too, we must give up, or "say 'no' to" whatever has become our "numbing" agent, and do the real work to grapple with that evil reality which has intruded upon our lives, whatever it is.

We have to learn to rescue ourselves. As he says, the problem with any addiction or numbing agent is that it is essentially an avoidant strategy. And as long as we are suppressing the truth and not dealing with it, there is no "cure." If we suppress the truth, shut it down, and put a lid on it, it cannot come out into the light where it could be healed. Then there is no comfort for it. There is no healing pathway. There is no help to be found.

And it is going to be the rare and exceptional person who can face these toxic realities head on, learn to accept them, and learn to get genuine comfort for our wounded selves.

And it will be the even more exceptional and rare person indeed who can be supportive of, and tender to us in our grappling with the hell into which we have been thrown with our severe circumstances that come with our child-loss.

Picture, thanks to FotoSearch.com

Wednesday's Woe - Is It Asking Too Much...?

Wednesday's Woe

Is It Asking Too Much...?

We are grieving over the loss of our child.

We are grieving over something we didn't ask for. Then is it too much to ask ~ for a little understanding?

A little understanding...from our families?

A little understanding...from our friends?

A little understanding...from our churches?

A little understanding...from our employers?

A little understanding...from our colleagues?

To better help you understand,

Do you not understand that the loss of my child broke my heart ~ forever until I see her again?

Do you not know that the trauma of losing my child...

damaged my brain?

affected my confidence?

impaired my memory?

made me accident-prone?

compromised my immune system?

Emotionally, I feel like I am walking around with no skin on.

Did you know that if I detect toxicity in another person, it will send me running in the opposite direction?

Did you know that when my phone rings, I cannot answer?

Did you know that when I am invited to a party, I cannot attend? I cannot even respond to tell you that I cannot attend.

Did you know that I cannot be around crowds?

Do you realize that I'm doing the best that I can with something I will never find peace with, this side of Heaven?

So please, is it too much to ask ~ for a little understanding?

Pictures, thanks to FotoSearch

Saturday's Sayings - Over Time... ~Our Heart's Still in Shattered Pieces

Saturday's Sayings

Over Time... ~Our Heart's Still in Shattered Pieces

(N)one of us "choose" to remain in grief. It is not a choice. It might be nice if we could just turn it on and off at a whim but it doesn't work like that. Grief becomes a part of the fiber of our being. We don't want it to be. We hate feeling like we do. It just is and there is nothing, absolutely nothing, we can do to change it.

~Linda Verity Dubous

*****

I don't know where else to post this....when does my heart stop feeling like shattered glass? When am I able to look at the future in more than terms of tomorrow without worry, fear or guilt? When does this hole in my heart stop feeling like it is going to swallow me whole? My Zach has been gone for almost 10 months and I feel weaker now, more scared to think about a future and more tearful (if that's even possible) than I did when he died. Everyone keeps saying we get "stronger" as time passes and what scares me is that I actually feel weaker and more unsure than I ever have in my entire life.

~Grieving Mother, Meliassa Pieper,

TCF, USA

*****

• "We all miss our children.....no matter how long or how little they have been gone. We will always miss and remember them. They are a part of us. Love endures.....think how much love they left behind."
• 
  
• ~Jane Reiss
• 
  
• Yes! Just think how much love they left behind ~ is it any wonder Scripture says,
• "Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot wash it away."
• 
  
• ~Song of Solomon 8:7a
• 
  
• And William Penn says it so well,
• "In the end, love is stronger than death.
• They that love beyond the world
• cannot be separated by it.
• Death cannot kill what never dies.

~Angie

*****

• 
  A Mother's Grief
  
  You ask me how I'm feeling,
  but do you really want to know?
  The moment I try telling you,
  You say you have to go.
  
  How can I tell you,
  what it's been like for me?
  I am haunted, I am broken
  By things that you don't see
  
  You ask me how I'm holding up,
  but do you really care?
  The moment I start to speak my heart,
  You start squirming in your chair.
  
  But because I am so lonely,
  you see, friends no longer come around,
  I will take the words I want to say
  And quietly choke them down.
  
  Everyone avoids me now,
  I guess they don't know what to say,
  They told me "I'll be there for you,"
  but then turned and walked away.
  
  Call me if you need me,
  (that's what everybody said),
  But how can I call you and scream
  into the phone,
  My God, my child is dead?
  
  No one will let me
  say the words I need to say-
  Why does a mothers grief
  scare everyone away?
  
  I am tired of pretending,
  my heart hammers in my chest,
  I say things to make you comfortable,
  but my soul finds no rest.
  
  How can I tell you things
  that are too sad to be told,
  of the helplessness of holding a child
  who in your arms grows cold?
  
  Maybe you can tell me,
  How should one behave,
  who's had to follow their childs casket-
  watched it perched above a grave?
  
  You cannot imagine
  what it was like for me that day-
  to place a final kiss upon that box,
  and have to turn and walk away.
  
  If you really love me,
  and I believe you do,
  if you really want to help me,
  here is what I need from you.
  
  Sit down beside me,
  reach out and take my hand,
  Say "My friend, I've come to listen,
  I want to understand."
  
  Just hold my hand and listen
  that's all you need to do,
  And if by chance I shed a tear,
  it's alright if you do to.
  
  I swear that I'll remember
  till the day I'm very old,
  the friend who sat and held my hand
  and let me bare my soul.
• ~A Poem by Kelly Cummings

  
  

*****

There are days when troubles fall all around.

When dark clouds bring hope crashing to the ground.

The road once easy turns rugged and steep.

Weary, bruised and broken you can only weep.

But during these storms that life will send,

God is with you to the very end.

~Jimmy McClendon

*****

He heals the broken hearted and bandages their wounds. Psalm 147: 3 Lord, I claim this promise for all those with broken pieces and pain right now. Bandage those wounds that can only be healed by the touch of your hand. Amen.

~Leslie Nelson Martin

Girl at Heaven's Steps Picture, contributed by Angela Nesbitt-Kennett

Dark Clouds Picture, contributed by Debra Tuohy

Poem, thanks to Joanne Bailey Tinkham's contribution - also found at https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=158904482758 (Thank you to my blog commenter Dawn Wilson for this correction!)