Tuesday's Trust - Never Letting Go...

Tuesday's Trust

Never Letting Go...

These were helpful readings as I read today from our Knoxville Compassionate Friends newsletter sent to us this month:

What I Need

A lot of time!

A little space,

A kind of quiet

Resting place,

Are what I need

At times like these

A special spot

Where I can

Grieve.

~Beth Pinion, TCF/Andalusia, AL

***

An important way to cope with grief

is having an outlet, be it interpersonal, be it artistic,

that will allow you to not have to contain your grief,

but will give you an opportunity to express it,

to externalize it to some degree. ~

~R, Benyamin Cirlin,

Grief Counselor

***

Comes the Dawn

After awhile you learn the subtle difference between holding a hand and chaining a soul, and you learn that love doesn't mean leaning and company doesn't mean security, and you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts, and presents aren't promises, and you begin to accept your defeats with your head up and your eyes open, with the strength of an adult, not the grief of a child, and learn to build all your roads on today because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain for plans, and futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.

After awhile you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much. So you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

And you learn that you really can endure ...

that you are really strong

and you really do have worth.

And you learn and learn ...

with every goodbye you learn.

~Dani Rohr

TCF/Ventura, CA

*****

After reading "Comes the Dawn," I wrote the following poem:

Never Letting Go...

Holding a hand, you never want to let go,

But bodies die, and they must go.

But what I have learned with my child's death

Is that Life doesn't end with her last breath...

Though she had to leave, and my heart has a hole,

She comes back, for there's still Life in her soul!

And to my Baby Girl, I say...

Though I held your hand, there were no guarantees,

And though I held you near, I couldn't chain your soul,

Though I kissed you and said, "I don't want you to go!"

Kisses aren't contracts, so I had to let go...

And though your life was taken two days later,

God didn't lose~He didn't let your soul die!

So you still come by

every now and then to visit me

And then I hear you say so familiarly...

"Don't worry Mommy...Always and forever, I'll see ya later, Alligator!"

So I choke back my tears and say,

"After awhile Crocodile..."

And then my heart warms as I see you smile.

~Poem - Never Letting Go... - Angie Bennett Prince, 8/23/10

Knoxville Chapter Compassionate Friends Newsletter, excerpts from August, 2010 edition

Poem - Never Letting Go - Angie Bennett Prince - 8/23/10

Friday's Faith - "A Dozen Roses" ~Alan Pedersen

Friday's Faith -

"A Dozen Roses"

~Alan Pedersen

After celebrating Valentine's Day this week...I want to share this poignant Valentine's poem that grieving-father Alan Pedersen wrote for his 18-year-old baby girl who has been in Heaven since August, 2001:

A Dozen Roses

By Alan Pedersen

If I had a dozen roses, I know just what I’d do

I’d give each one a name that reminded me of you

The first rose I’d call sunshine, because you brighten everyday

The second would be beauty, the kind that never goes away

The third rose would be priceless, like those hugs you gave to me

I’d name the fourth rose silly, oh how funny you could be

Rose five of course is patience, something you have helped me find

The sixth rose would be memories, the gift you left behind

The seventh and the eighth rose would for sure be faith and grace

Nine would be unique because no one can take your place

The tenth rose well that’s easy, I’d simply name it love

Eleven would be angel, I know you’re watching from above

I’d think about that twelfth rose, and I’d really take my time

After all these roses are for you my Valentine

I’m sending them to heaven in every color that I know

So twelve I’ll name forever, that’s how long I’ll love you so

Alan Pedersen has been performing for more than 25 years. An accomplished singer and award winning songwriter, he spent several years writing and recording music in Nashville, Tennessee. Alan has had several songs recorded by other artists. Alan has worked as an actor, stand-up comedian, keynote speaker/emcee, and in radio as a network news and sports reporter for Westwood One Communications. Currently living in Englewood, Colorado, Alan is the father of four boys and an angel. Reach him through? www.everashleymusic.com.

Picture of roses from http://bit.ly/atu5V7

Alan Pedersen's website: www.everashleymusic.com

Thursday's Therapy - Writing Sometimes Helps

Thursday's Therapy

Writing Sometimes Helps

from

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

Part Four of Eight

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

Part Four

4. WRITING SOMETIMES HELPS

Number four... writing sometimes helps. I have been amazed through the years that people who, way back in elementary school, were traumatized by some English teacher with a merciless red grading pencil, traumatized into thinking that they could never write anything, will suddenly produce beautiful poems and other written sentiments in the process of remembering their children.

There is something therapeutic about putting things on paper, reading them over, changing a word here, adjusting an emphasis there, that really helps to focus the mind and get some of those inner feelings out where we can deal with them more effectively.

It works by the same principle as making a list when you've got more to do than you can hold in your mind. You know, when you think you have a hundred things to do, and then you put that list down on paper, and suddenly realized that you really only had seven things to do. It's just that they were swirling around in your head so fast that seven things looked like a hundred things.

So, consider writing down your feelings if you haven't already.

Don't worry about phrasing things for others to read. You don't need to start out shooting for publication. Just put some words on paper that work for you, words that feel good when you read them over to yourself. Later, if your words help others when they are shared, that's good too. But, for starters, just dump some of what's in your mind onto paper. Read it over, work it over, bathe it in tears until it feels good.

Writing doesn't necessarily work for everybody, but maybe pulling things out of your weary mind and onto a defenseless piece of paper can work for you.

************

More quotes regarding the helpfulness of writing amidst your grief:

"The mind-shift between pain and possibility depends on your willingness to feel, to become vulnerable."

Rico believes this is done

"by focusing on whatever you are feeling here and now, this very moment, and giving it your words on a page."

Telling a story about these feelings takes the process one step further and allows even more healing to take place.

~Gabriele Rico, Pain and Possibility

One must tell it slowly and carefully; how his son fell ill, how he suffered, what he said before he died, how he died. One must describe every detail of the funeral, and the journey to the hospital to fetch the defunct’s clothes. His daughter Anissia remained in the village—one must talk about her too. Was it nothing he had to tell? Surely the listener would gasp and sigh, and sympathize with him?

~Anton Chekhov

******

And from www.oneyearofwritingandhealing.com comes the following inspirational saga of how one mother grappled with her deep grief:

One particular article that caught my attention is one entitled “Healing Power of the Pen” …a moving article by a woman, Alice J. Wisler, written four years after the death of her four-year-old son, Daniel.

The first year after the death of a child is like having the worst noise possible running through your head each day and night. There is no way to turn the horrendous sounds off because there is no off button. I wrote through that noise. . .

She writes of carrying her journal to a particular spot beneath weeping willows at a local park and writing there. She did this, she says, over the course of many months, and she observes, with the benefit of hindsight, how her writing moved along a progression

similar to that of many of the psalms:

“starting with anger and agony and, gradually, ending with hope.”

She writes of how writing can begin the process of transforming devastation:

We enter into our devastation, get a good grip on what our struggles are and something about seeing them on paper causes us to realize the pain is not only within us anymore. It is shared, even if only on a sheet of notebook paper.

It is documented and the more we write, the better we are able to understand and deal with our intense sorrow.

Ms. Wisler offers such a deeply felt and hard-earned template of what is possible:

Moving from the inarticulate—the worst noise possible—those horrendous sounds inside her head with no off button—to the articulate. Moving from noise to words.

Moving, over the course of many months—and perhaps years—from a place of devastation to a place where she is able to understand and deal with intense sorrow.

Perhaps what grief requires, as much as anything, is that the process not be interrupted. That it find a time and a place in which to unfold--with a companion (when possible) and without (too much) interruption.

And, perhaps, at least for some of us, writing can play a role in this process.

******

Thank you to D. Morrow of http:// bit.ly/6VCdeb of www.oneyearofwritingandhealing.com