Monday's Mourning Ministry - The Permanence of Your Absence - Here Comes Goodbye ~Rascal Flatts

Monday's Mourning Ministry

The Permanence of Your Absence

Here Comes Goodbye ~Rascal Flatts

"Which had just brought on a fresh bucket of sobs, both girls going to hell then, beginning to wail and hug each other and shake, mouths wide and oval and slightly skewered in the pantomime of grief Sean had seen time and time again, the moment when...the levee broke and

the permanence of the victim's absence truly hit home.

Times like that, there was nothing you could do but watch or leave."

~Dennis LeHane, Mystic River

*****

The Permanence of Your Absence

The family's together watching a comedy routine,

In the warmth of the company, we laugh till we cry

At comedians you laughed at in the very same scene,

But you're not here with us ~ O why baby why?

Each moment together, now there's a hole:

A presence is missing, an invaluable soul.

We've cancelled Christmas gatherings, birthdays too;

Our family's not a "family" without the presence of you.

After 4 1/2 years, it's beginning to sink in,

The permanence of your absence ~ you're "gone with the wind."

You wanted to be a comedian when you grew up:

You loved to crack us up ~ we laughed till we cried

At some of your antics since you were a wee pup...

You still leave us crying, but we're dying inside:

Our hearts broke apart on the day that you died.

Each moment together, there's a gaping hole

Until we reach Heaven, we'll no longer be whole;

Each moment together, now there's a hole,

Your presence is missing, sweet invaluable soul.

But sweet baby girl, God says you're nearby

In His cloud of witnesses who watch from the sky.

Please hover over, we need you nearby,

And bear with us baby as you live ~ yet we cry...

And your presence is with us through each mournful sigh...

May God send His comfort...that you live while we die...

Each moment together, now there's a hole:

Your presence is missing, sweet invaluable soul...

*****

Rascal Flatts was one of Merry Katherine's favorite country music groups, which makes the following music even more poignant than it already would be for me. Be sure to watch this video to the very end for a sweet surprise.

Here Comes Goodbye

Rascal Flatts

Written By: Chris Sligh, Clint Lagerberg

I can hear the truck tires coming up the gravel road
And it’s not like her to drive that slow, nothings on the radio
Footsteps on the front porch, I hear my doorbell
She usually comes right in, now I can tell

Here comes goodbye, here comes the last time
Here comes the start of every sleepless night
The first of every tear I’m gonna cry
Here comes the pain, Here comes me wishing things had never changed
She was right here in my arms tonight, but here comes goodbye

I can hear her say I love you like it was yesterday
And I can see it written on her face that she had never felt this way
One day I thought I’d see her with her daddy by her side
And violins would play here comes the bride

But here comes goodbye, here comes the last time
Here comes the start of every sleepless night,
The first of every tear I’m gonna cry
Here comes the pain, Here comes me wishing things had never changed
She was right here in my arms tonight, but here comes goodbye

Why's it have to go from to good to gone?
Before the lights turn on, yeah and you’re left alone
All alone, but here comes goodbye

Oh-oh-oh-oh-ohh

Here comes goodbye, here comes the last time
Here comes the start of every sleepless night
The first of every tear I’m gonna cry
Here comes the pain, Here comes me wishing things had never changed
She was right here in my arms tonight, but here comes goodbye

Picture thanks to FotoSearch.com

Poem - The Permanence of Your Absence" - Angie Bennett Prince - 3/5/2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Uq3nI11w4g&feature=related

Friday's Faith - Writing My Heart Out in Poetry or "Name It to Tame It" ~with Dr. Daniel J. Siegel

Friday's Faith

Writing My Heart Out in Poetry

or

"Name It to Tame It"

~with Dr. Daniel J. Siegel

There are so many things on this planet which are simply unbearable. Impossible to be borne.

Life isn’t fair. Innocents suffer. The wicked seem to prosper. All our “strutting and fretting” ends in death. As Paul puts it, “The whole world groans as in travail until now...” Centuries of flawed mankind screaming through the painful process of metamorphosis. Against such a flood of pain, such a collective cry of anguish that crescendos to unearthly roar, what can be the response? How are we to address so much suffering? We can’t fix it all. We can’t fix anybody, especially ourselves.

Platitudes don’t help much.

Sometimes words are not only inadequate, they are next to impossible.

~Kim Arnold, Katherine Arnold Wolfe's Mom

*****

Early on in my grief, I intuitively knew I needed to document my child-loss grief, so I attempted to journal. I tried it, but it felt too harsh, too graphic, too tormenting...having to d.o.c.u.m.e.n.t in cold hard data the one fact I never, ever wanted to happen?

I couldn't do it.

It was too stark, too traumatizing.

So I prayed and asked my Heavenly Father what I should do.

And He, very pointedly, whispered to my spirit,

"Write poetry."

I could not understand such a directive; it made no "sense" to me, but I started writing... I began writing out my anguished feelings through poetry.

As I began writing the poetry, I began to recognize an interesting process. Poetry is like picking up a camera to take a snapshot of something important. The poetry, like the camera, "captures" just a moment in time of where you are in your emotional angst. So in writing poetry, what seemed to be called for was for me to

1) Feel the moment in as much fullness as I could in all of its vitality (a right-brain activity), and then try to

2) Capture that moment in words to describe it in its true nature to the best of my ability (a left-brain activity).

Through my study of trauma and child-loss grief, I began learning the scientific importance of right-brain exercises to "enter the back door" of the brain to grab hold of some of the volatile emotional material trapped in the limbic system of the brain in order to move it out and up into the other parts of the brain, like the pre-frontal cortex, for it to be processed on through the brain. In enabling the other parts of the brain to receive such poignant material, the language centers of the brain could help me begin the process of ultimately integrating such horrific and unwanted material into the rest of my life, exposing the new Angie amidst her child-loss, helping me somehow to accept the unacceptable I never wanted to accept.

I recognized at the time that I was able to feel the true depths of the emotion (giving release to my right brain), and then when I would try to find the appropriate (and rhyming) words to describe the emotion (working my left brain) in order to write a poem, I could feel a transition back and forth from the heavy emotions. So just taking a breather from my emotions then to try to write about them was providing a "space" in which I was able to take a break from the intensity of the pain!

So today, I was quite surprised as I was perusing a book I had gotten from the library called Mindsight by psychiatrist, Daniel J. Siegel, M.D., as I stumbled across a scientific description of the essence of what my writing my grief out through poetry was accomplishing in my grief-struck brain...

*****

Dr. Siegel says the traumatized person is

"needing to find a way to bring balance to over-active feelings."

He goes on to say, (when a person is experiencing such volatility of emotion...)

Such people have an excess of right mode (emotional) flow without enough linkage to the left (language/cognition mode) and may suffer from emotional dysregulation and chaotic outbursts.

They can become overwhelmed by fragmented autobiographical images, filled with bodily sensations, awash in emotions that overwhelm and confuse.

For these people, balance entails gaining some mental distance in the sanctuary of the left mode.

"Since the right hemisphere is more intimately linked to the emotion-generating subcortical areas, we can see why raw, spontaneous feeling is more fully and immediately felt in the right mode---and why it makes sense that linking the right and left modes through the left-hemisphere function of language might bring about the necessary balance.

And indeed, studies done by my colleagues at UCLA have actually shown that

(N)aming an affect soothes limbic firing.

Sometimes we need to

"Name It To Tame It."

We can use the left language centers to calm the excessively firing right emotional areas. But again, the key is to link left and right, not replace one imbalance with another.

~Dr. Daniel J. Siegel, in his book Mindsight, (highlights mine)

*****

What a sweet intervention given to me by my Heavenly Father without my even understanding cognitively nor emotionally what He was doing with such a directive! How sweet. How loving. How nurturing. How healing.

And how faith-building to know if He can gently guide in the raw depths of my grief when I don't even understand what He is up to, how comforting to know He can and will guide me each step of the way through the rest of my arduous grief journey of mourning my baby girl.

Picture thanks to FotoSearch.com

Kim Arnold's blog about Katherine's story is amazing ~ See http://katherineawolf.blogspot.com/

Daniel J. Siegel, M.D. from his book Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation, see Chapter Six

Thursday's Therapy - TRAUMA Therapy Toolbox - 14 Keys to Understanding Reactions to Child-Loss Grief + Trauma ~ Choosing Social Support Wisely

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Thursday's Therapy

TRAUMA Therapy Toolbox

14 Keys to Understanding Reactions

to Child-Loss Grief and Trauma

~

Choosing Social Support Wisely

• The ability to tolerate the plight of victims is, in part, a function of how well people have dealt with their own misfortunes.

~van der Kolk

Here's a clue. I have always known certain family members have not faced the hurts from their own childhood. And because of that, I have recognized they often become their own worst enemies. But they can't tolerate my plight because they cannot have love and mercy and comfort on their own poor hurt selves. As one family member says,

"We just take it" when there are hurtful things going on, in my opinion being so cruel to themselves in that way. And they think they do "just take it" in order to "love." In my opinion, that's not love; that's cowardice and not trusting that the other parties involved can "take" the hurt, face up to their hurtful behavior, in order for relationships to begin to heal. And yet certain family members just keep taking the pain and not speaking up, so the others often may not even know they are causing any pain.

• When they've confronted the reality of their own hurt and suffering and accepted their own pain, this translates into tolerance, even compassion for others.

~van der Kolk

There is no tolerance. There is no compassion. There is anger that I still think I have needs when these certain family members think I should be "done" with my grief by now.

• When people deny the impact of their own personal trauma, pretend it wasn't so bad, and make excuses for their abusers, they're likely to identify with the aggressors...

~van der Kolk

Oh yes! These family members indeed have become aggressive and cruel. They can't even see their behavior as abusive. Or if at times, they catch themselves being cruel, they decide that's what I deserve anyway. Unbelievable, until I stop to see -- they made excuses for their abusers, -- they've white-washed it away, -- and now they inadvertently "identify with" the aggressors. They have become the aggressors. It is really quite pitiful, so out of necessity,

I simply must avoid them, and pray for them. It truly hurts me that they are callous toward their own hurt hearts and souls, and yet in their doing so, they are becoming hard. And I cannot be around hard.

• (These folks steeped in such denial) treat others with the same harshness with which they treat the wounded parts of themselves.

~van der Kolk

Yes, I have seen that ~ when they hurt me deeply, I see they have that same harsh attitude toward their own woundedness too. And so, how will it ever heal for them? It won't at this rate.

So they just keep running...into the same old rat races that keep them distracted, but unfortunately never heal them. It is so regrettable, and I hate it for them because I love them. But I cannot fix them.

And I cannot allow myself to be harmed needlessly when I am in the deepest pain of my life. So, much to their chagrin, I must stay away from them for my own self-protection. There are consequences to bad behavior, and as a wise person once said, "Once you have damaged someone, you don't get to pick the consequences that follow your bad behavior."

• Identification with the aggressor makes it possible (for those in denial) to bypass empathy for themselves and secondarily for others.

~van der Kolk

Yes. And so to them, I do not exist, not as a vulnerable human being anyway who needs tenderness and compassion.. Or if I do, it seems it is only for them to berate, chastise, control, manipulate, and pull power plays on. (Things I once thought people do only when they're in high school. Surely not in their more "mature" years. But these family members do.) It seems they can only relate to me through manipulations, criticisms, and many other power plays.

• Ironically, both the victims of PTSD, and the larger society that is asked to respond with compassion, forbearance, or financial sacrifices, have a stake in believing that the trauma is not really the cause of the victims' suffering.

• On the one hand, society becomes resentful about having its illusions of safety and predictability ruffled by people who remind them how fragile security can be.

• On the other hand, many victims suffer from an impaired capacity to translate their intense emotions and perceptions related to the trauma into communicable language.

• Society, therefore, is often resistant to recognizing the effects of trauma and inclined to engage in victim-blaming in order to maintain basic assumptions.

• (It is) the deeply held feeling of many victims (of trauma such as our childloss) that they no longer fit in, that they are aliens belonging to a lost world.

• Victims (of trauma such as our childloss) constitute an insult to (western) society's belief that human beings are essentially the masters of their fate.

• Victims (of trauma such as our child-loss) are the members of society whose problems represent the memory of suffering, rage, and pain in a world that longs to forget.

• Many victims quietly acquiesce in their suffering; they are contained by their sense of shame and helplessness, as well as a need to maintain their self-respect and independence.

• ...Society's reactions seem to be primarily conservative impulses in the service of maintaining the beliefs that the world is fundamentally just, that people can be in charge of their lives, and that bad things only happen to people who deserve them.

~Quotes from Bessel A. van der Kolk, M.D.

Such a defensive environment is oppressive to us childloss victims and can interfere with our very rigorous healing demands. Therefore, we need to use great discernment in regard to who is safe and who is not so that our social support may be an adjunct to our healing not a detriment to it.

Pictures thanks to FotoSearch.com

Wednesday's Woe - Boomeranged Back to Square One...

Wednesday's Woe

Boomeranged Back to Square One...

~Angie and Tommy Prince

Tommy:

I took a nap on Saturday and dreamed about Merry Katherine. Unlike other recent dreams, the "world" in my dream was normal ~ Merry Katherine was here; she was sitting at our large desk in the den, on the computer where she often listened to music and/or recorded music to listen to later. I felt good. Life was good.

Then I woke up and was hit with the stark reality that none of what I just experienced in my dream was even remotely true. I went from a good feeling to a despairing sigh -- "Crap. That wasn't real..."

Having good feelings (like I'd had in my dream) are not there any more. The reality is the bad, and I have to come back down to the reality -- Bad feelings are here to stay...

Angie:

I dreamed about Merry Katherine Sunday night after Tommy had told me about his dream of her the night before. When he described his dream to me, I got triggered to her life when she was walking the tightrope of loving her family to searching for her next fix. I was afraid to ask Tommy when she was sitting at the desk in his dream, "Were things going well, or was she in a 'bad' place?" I didn't want to know. I couldn't go there. So I didn't dare ask.

So that night, I guess my subconscious was seeking resolution as I dreamed about her too. She was back home, but in the stage of her acting out. Our lives too were contorted around this tightrope in the form of wanting to have a normal, loving relationship with her versus (in my dream) hiding things that might be a temptation for her (such as money, credit cards, or even an adult I.D.) for her to supply her next fix. (She never once stole from us, but we knew things could easily deteriorate to that point.) It was very depressing to me in my dream because I didn't want to be in that defensive mode around her. I just wanted to love her and be a healthy part of her life. I was so frustrated at the push/pull of the relationship at the same time I was missing her ~ and our intimacy with her ~ dearly. And then I woke up...

Tommy and I were talking later...

And this is what we get for trying to take care of ourselves by getting good rest!

We always know after these dreams and nightmares: Now we're in for the boomerang effect of being thrown back to square one ~ She is not here, and our lives are changed forever...

Bad feelings are here to stay, and Merry Katherine is not...

Picture: Thanks to FotoSearch.com