Welcome! I am Angie B. Prince, child of God, wife of Tommy, mother of 3, Grief and Trauma Life Coach, Psychotherapist, and Mother Grieving. On 8/2/2006, our precious 19-yr-old daughter Merry Katherine was killed along w/ 2 other teens via vehicular manslaughter. Here I share as we agonizingly process our grief and trauma. Email: MotherGrieving(at)gmail(dot)com. Coaching (Tommy or Angie): Call 865-548-4four3four / Counseling (Angie in TN) 865-604-9nine9two. I pray God will minister to you here.
Welcome! I am Angie B. Prince, child of God, wife of Tommy, mother of 3, psychotherapist and Mother Grieving.
Tommy and I met in graduate school in Atlanta, then married in 1979 and started a Christian Counseling/Coaching practice in Knoxville, TN where we still live. We have 1 daughter Merry Katherine, forever-19 in Heaven, 2 sons, Nathan (age 34) (wife Ashley), and Rollin (age 37) (wife Stephanie), and two granddaughters, Ellie and Penny.
In this blog, we process our grief over our Merry Katherine who was killed along with two other teens in a brutal car crash while on the way to the beach on 8/2/2006 (two teens survived). Having lost our daughter suddenly and violently on the cusp of launching her into adulthood, we were thrown into Complicated and Traumatic Grief. We share here our agonizing process of wading through the multiple twists and turns of shattered assumptions, challenged faith, traumatized body-soul-and-spirts, and devastated hearts. May our grief touch some of your own pain as we walk through this difficult but sacred ground together.
"Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted" Scientifically Documented!
1) Copy the http: address above the line below. . . .
2) Paste it into your web browser's address bar. . .
3) Hit Enter to find the article below.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080620195446.htm
___________________"Addicted To Grief? Chronic Grief Activates Pleasure Areas Of The Brain"
OR "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted" Has Now Been Scientifically Documented!
. . . . . We now have physiological evidence via Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) that such "comfort" is indeed, a fact! In debilitating, complicated grief after the sudden death of a loved one, "comfort" was shown by significant nucleus accumbens activation in the brain's reward network!
The first thing that grief needs is a safe place. People rarely grieve in a foxhole or when under pressure/stress. There are exceptions such as when our grief is so overwhelming that it comes pouring out whenever it wishes. But most times our grief seeks a place where we have a sense of safety. Children often will find their grief when they are "tucked in" and ready to go to sleep. At that moment they sense a certain safety and when this is combined with a loving presence from a parent their grief can often flow.
Think about your own safe places. Where does your grief flow? Where do you feel safe? In your bedroom? With a close friend? Talking with others? Alone in a quiet place? At the cemetery?
You can be pretty sure that where ever your grief flows freely you likely feel safe.
It is important to point out that we all find safety in very different places.
Differences in Men and Women's Grief, generally:
Recent research has helped us to understand that men and women tend to have very different safe places. The work of Shelly Taylor, Ph.D. of UCLA has shown that under stress women will be more likely to move towards interaction with others while men will be more likely to move towards taking an action or moving towards inaction and self-reflection. The women seem to prefer a face-to-face mode while the men are more likely to prefer a shoulder-to-shoulder or solitary approach.
Knowing our loved one's safe places can be a big help in being sensitive to their grief and paths to work with it.
Once we have a safe place we then find a way to tell our story within that safety.
~Tom Golden (highlights and subtitle, mine)
~Tom Golden - http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=139007132785721
We know that our grief will never end. We will mourn for our children every day for the rest of our lives. We will never return to normal. But we will live again... Life will be forever colored by what has happened. For every parent who loses a child, one life ended and another life is indelibly changed...
Events of bone-crunching intensity inevitably leave us different. The emotional journey people take to regain equilibrium, to be able once again to feel good and value life, to reform themselves so that their loss is somehow integrated into the fiber of their existence--that is the process of mourning.
~Judith R. Bernstein, When the Bough Breaks, (highlights mine)
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And that process of mourning for us child-loss parents will look similar to one another in some ways, and very different from one another in other ways.
Some of the differing variables in the ways our unique grief may impact us child-loss parents:
Length of time of grief
Intensity of grief
Impacts of grief on one's coping methods (For example, some parents feel compelled to move from their house in which they raised their deceased child, while other parents may feel compelled to stay in the same house in which they raised their child after the child's death.)
Behaviors by which one prefers to express the deep grief (For example, some parents like to frequent the cemetery to do much of their mourning there. Others prefer the privacy of their home, or in their car.)
Unique details of the child's particular death
Uniqueness of one's relationship to the child
Age of the child at the time of death and the degree of dependence on the parents
Degree of closeness of parent to the child
Intensity of the relationship between the parent and the child
Developmental age of the child, and what particular dynamics were going on relationally between the parent and child in regard to that time in the child's life. (Our child was going into her junior year in college, the time that is typical developmentally for establishing more and more independence and decision-making apart from the parents even though still greatly dependent on them in many ways.)
▪Degree of Functioning (Some people cannot do their life's work at all anymore or may be able to do only a small percentage of it. Others may find work a relief and almost are able to escape into it.)
Physiological Differences - Some parents who were dealing with a challenging medical condition before their child's death may find their condition worsened or more debilitating with the added stressors of their child's death. Some parents may be accident prone after their child's death.
Types of emotions parents experience, how these are exhibited, and how they are processed may differ. We were expecting sadness and depression, and those we got, but along for the grief ride around year two of our grief came the unexpected emotions... agitation, anger, and anxiety ... or as Tommy calls it "The Triple-A Emotional Club." (Such emotions are very common to PTSD.)
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Trauma as shattering and cataclysmic as losing a child...leaves indelible imprints on our lives. We are not the same having traveled that road as we would have been had we been spared that journey.
~Judith R. Bernstein
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Everybody is different. Everybody's grief is different. We each find our own ways to navigate through our unique grief. Being able to establish the necessary boundaries and actions needed to attain safety are crucial. Having the freedom, the support, and the ability to accommodate our limitations is crucial. Respecting one another's uniqueness in processing grief is critical.
Love, respect, and support for one another in any ways we can, will go a long way in supporting one another in grief. Showing care and concern for the other's unique needs in expressing grief can effectively "lift just a corner" of one another's grief burden. Such love and support is an incredible gift amidst our grief and will facilitate our bonding to one another even, and especially, amidst our differences in the ways we find we need to grieve.
*****
When a child dies, the very ground on which we depend for stability heaves and quakes and the rightness and orderliness of our existence are destroyed. Nothing in life prepares us; no coping skills were learned. Parents who lose children are thrown into chaos. The loss of a child is shattering, unique among losses.
~Judith R. Bernstein
Picture thanks to FotoSearch.com
Quotes by Judith R. Bernstein, Ph.D. were taken from her book, When the Bough Breaks: Forever After the Death of a Son or Daughter
...But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.
~Matthew 22:31-32, KJV
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses...
~Hebrews 12:1a, NIV
--Jesus, according to John in The New International Version of the Bible, and to Matthew in the King James Bible (22:31.32)
The following essay I had posted on 2/22/11, but today, the day after Easter as we continue to celebrate Christ's resurrection, I felt this essay would be a nice reminder of where grief fits in for a Christian, that even though we KNOW Christ conquered death, and God resurrects life, and that for these gifts we are forever grateful, there is still a place for grieving for our loved one while we are here on earth, ripped apart from one another for this while.
Grieving Like a Christian
We have had two losses among our Christian friends and acquaintances recently. One was a teenage boy who drowned while canoeing, leaving his recently widowed mother and six siblings. Another was a thirty-four year-old mother of two young children who died after a long battle with cancer. Losses like these leave us saddened, stunned, and sometimes even angry. As Christians, though, we can face death and suffering without despair, for our hope is in Jesus Christ, the Giver of Life, the Conqueror of Death.
Yet it seems that Christians sometimes think that if we outwardly show the sorrows we feel, we are somehow demonstrating a lack of faith. In order to honor God, we reason, we must accept His frowning providences without even a flinch, like an abused boy accepts his whippings. This stoicism can become a mere exercise of will, so that what appears to be piety and faith is actually a work of prideful flesh.
God loves life and hates death. He is sovereign over death, and He ordains it, yet He made the ultimate sacrifice--Himself--to secure its ultimate destruction. If we love Him, we should love what He loves and hate what He hates. When we love life, we mourn the loss of it. When we hate death, we are angered by its destructive force.
Grieving like a Christian does not mean we do not grieve. It means we grieve without despair. We crawl into our Father's lap and lay our tear-stained cheeks on His shoulder, and trust that what He ordains is always right, will always work out well in the end, and that all our losses will one day be restored to us. It is running to Him and asking, "Tell me again the story of what You have done and what You will do to destroy this enemy." It is going to Him and asking for the strength and comfort we need to face the new reality of our temporary, mortal lives--a reality without someone we have grown to love, without someone we are used to having as a part of our lives and perhaps mistakenly assumed would always be there. It is knowing that although there is loss, all is not lost.
God does not tell us we will not have sorrows. He tells us that He will be our comfort in sorrow. He does not tell us we will not have tears. He tells us He will be there with us to wipe our tears away. He does not tell us there will not be times to mourn. He tells us that on the other side of that mourning is the promise of joy indescribable.
~Dory, wife and mother, and principal of a classical Christian school
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Casting Crowns was one of the first of Merry Katherine's favorite Christian bands in her high school years. Her church youth group often used Casting Crowns' music for their worship time at Sunday School, on retreats, and at their summer camps. The song by Casting Crowns for today's post is a re-make of a hymn that gives a great summary of exactly what Jesus Christ did for us when He came to earth, witnessed to people about His Father~the Living God, then later was killed, buried, raised from the dead, then appeared to many people, and later ascended back to Heaven. He also will come back for us, for all those of us who love Him and trust Him to be our Savior. His death and resurrection effectively conquer eternal death ensure ultimate resurrection for each person who repents of his/her sins and shortcomings and who believes by faith in Jesus as his/her Savior. Each of these actions in Jesus' life provides for us to be saved for all eternity, and thus to be with Him in Heaven as fellow "brothers" and "sisters" in God's family. Casting Crowns has the reputation of sharing such important Biblical truths through music that appeals to young people. I know all three of my children enjoyed them, so I am so very grateful for their ministry.
Glorious Day (Living He Loved Me)
~Casting Crowns
Easter Crucifixion Resurrection Video
One day when Heaven was filled with His praises
One day when sin was as black as could be
Jesus came forth to be born of a virgin
Dwelt among men, my example is He
Word became flesh and the light shined among us
His glory revealed
Living, He loved me
Dying, He saved me
Buried, He carried my sins far away
Rising, He justified freely forever
One day He’s coming
Oh glorious day, oh glorious day
One day they led Him up Calvary’s mountain
One day they nailed Him to die on a tree
Suffering anguish, despised and rejected
Bearing our sins, my Redeemer is He
Hands that healed nations, stretched out on a tree
And took the nails for me
Living, He loved me
Dying, He saved me
Buried, He carried my sins far away
Rising, He justified freely forever
One day He’s coming
Oh glorious day, oh glorious day
One day the grave could conceal Him no longer
One day the stone rolled away from the door
Then He arose, over death He had conquered
Now He’s ascended, my Lord evermore
Death could not hold Him, the grave could not keep Him
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