You must have asked this a million times, I know I have.
You may have had expected others to feel the same as you, I know I did.
But it is not so.
Members of the family grieve different ways, some heal
faster. Some friends slowly disappear because they don't want to
talk about it or face their own mortality. You fail to
to accept the new friends that came in to your life. You feel a sense of abandonment.
Your behavior pattern changes and at times you don't know who you are anymore.
You have a hard time focusing into daily routines, you develop a sense of not caring anymore
and even abandon your other children, your husband and friends.
You feel as God has punished you, you feel all sorts of guilt and go through the mode of
"what if's".
You carry images in your mind of your child in the morgue, at the funeral, and that becomes your main focus
where you fall apart a million times over. Smiling, sleeping, eating becomes the
forbidden territory, and if you catch yourself doing it you feel as you have betrayed your child.
You get into silly arguments with your husband or friends, and the arguments are frustrating,
in reality it is a way to develop and feel anger.
You feel more guilt, now accompanied with anger. You pour into your child's photo album,
create shrines at home, you simply are in a desperate need to have that child close to you,
and not to forget the child for one moment. Your dreams are of dying, and the thought at times
are of total bliss.If you awake from this bliss, you are angry that you are alive.
If your child was murdered such as mine was, you are plagued with revenge, you actually
envision yourself killing or maiming your child's murderer in torturous means and that gives you pleasure,
but at the same time, horror of being, in this thought, a cruel person. You feed on the hate so you can go on,
and yet, despise the way hate makes you feel.
Yes you are a stranger to yourself and others, but this is all part of the healing which
is a long road ahead. You pray for peace within, and the peace does not come,
God will become another target of your anger
but at the same time, the only comfort that your child is safe in His home.
NO YOU ARE NOT GOING CRAZY !
I questioned my sanity, the grief is a black void I can't escape from.
It has been a year since Karen's death, and it only seems like yesterday.
Perhaps it will feel like yesterday many years to come, but I learned to be kind
to myself and not question my emotions. I am blessed to have many means to cope
with the absence of my daughter. One of them, is to Fight for a change in our present DWI Laws,
and the other is to accept my grief but not to become a victim without a choice.
I learned to allow myself to feel the void and to remember I am blessed with my three
sons and it is OK to be in that void
but to get out from it, for them and myself as well.
I learned to cry with my husband and not exclude him from my "bad" days. There is a statistic that claims
grief can destroy a marriage, and I certainly don't want to break my spiritual union with
my other blessing in life... my husband.
I learned I can still run my BUSINESS
and still perform at the highest level. Before I start a job I think of Karen being at my side
still saying the little things that made me laugh, and remembering this I go through my working hours.
I learned to take time off the grief and take a hiking trip with my sons, OUCH, they had no mercy
on me.
I learned to listen to my friends that also lost their children, and somehow I am able to
comfort them without burdening them with my own grief.
I learned that I have to accept a long term counseling, and truly vent out
my feelings, no matter how horrible they are. At my therapist
I have the right to curse, scream and cry and accept that the anger will always be
present in my heart. Religion preaches forgiving, but sometimes not forgiving is a force
that drives my existence.
I learned not to keep busy 18 hours a day, and scrub at the house to vent anger, instead
I watch a movie, read a book or chat with my husband and sons.
I learned to walk in my daughter's room and change it to a library
and computer room where all of us can congregate.
I have pictures of Karen on the wall and decorated the room with angels,
as if to really say it aloud..."An Angel once lived here". That made me accept
her absence from life and remember her place in Heaven.
I learned that finding time to join the fight against DUI is a positive force,
and try to get lots of people involved, therefore fighting the System with numbers and not
along with my anger.
I learned that making a memorial garden with plants and flowers for Karen in
my backyard does not make me fall apart, it is a place to sit and remember how she
filled my life with her sunshine. In her garden the warm sun feels me with her warmth
and I don't feel the loneliness. I watch the flowers bloom and understand the concept of life.
In my grief I had to re-invent myself, I know I am not the same and will never be,
yet I am not a lonely stranger either. I am a Parent that has lost a child, but the child
is alive in my heart. In life we have to let our children go to their future,
in death we also have to let them go to their Spiritual rest.
I remembered that since I was young life had many twists and turns, sometimes I
got lost but was able to find my way. If I fell at a little stone in my path, I would get up
and keep going. When Karen died my life stopped, I fell face down and did not want to get up.
It seemed life had no more meaning to me. How wrong I was, there were so many hands to pick me up
the only trouble was wanting to get up. My blessings came from the support of my immediate family
and very persistent friends that refused to let me stay down. I learned that friends are a blessing
and even the friends I correspond with through the Internet saved me from total despair. How grateful I am,
In my darkest moment there was a light for me to see.
I also found comfort building this web site for Karen, perhaps in some way the message of drunk
and drug driving can come across and save a life. Perhaps sharing my pain with others can also help others
deal with all the confused emotions we go through. Sharing Karen's life with others is also a way to show
how much pride she gave me and continue still, as I share my dear daughter with others.
If you feel lonely and need some stranger to talk to, write to me. No need to have hidden emotions,
all emotions are part of grief.
BOOKS THAT HELPS COPING WITH GRIEF.
(1) How to survive the loss of a child - (Filling the emptiness, Rebuilding your Life)
By Catherine M. Sanders PH.D.
(2) Finding Hope when a child dies - (What other cultures can teach
us) By Sukie Miller PH.D.
TIPS FOR CREATIVE COPING
1. Identify specific feelings. Do not generalize.
2. Acknowledge your thoughts. Accept both the positive and negative
3. Make a conscious attempt to regain a sense of humor, a desire for living.
Focusing in the rest of the family helps.
4. Figure out exactly what you want to do...DO IT.
5. Become as informed and knowledgeable as possible, Knowledge is power.
6. Assert yourself. Ask what you need.
7. Believe in yourself.
8. Listen to yourself.
9. Engaging in whatever activity is possible. Get moving.
10. Set small goals first. Accomplish them. Set bigger goals.
11. Set a specific date with yourself to do something you like. It helps you out
of depression.
12. Reach out to others, it helps healing.
13. Focus on only one worry at a time.
14. Search for joy in the smallest of things. Insist on it !
15. Try to retain a sense of perspective.
16. Pick your worries. Don't worry about worrying.
17. Remember that life requires effort on your part.
Work at lifting depression.
18. ONE DAY AT A TIME...know some days all you
can manage is...ONE MINUTE AT A TIME.
19. Don't wait for happiness...Make it happen, slowly but surely.
20. Realize that love isn't enough, but nothing works without it.
21. Don't forget to dream. Practice it often.
22. Be kind to yourself. Learn to forgive yourself.
23. Laugh at least once a day.
24. Listen to everyone...But follow your own music.
25. Hug someone often, praise your efforts.
By Doris Sims, The Compassionate Friends Inc.
THIS IS A POWERFUL MESSAGE
By Norma Cordell - 1998
The idea that those whose love forms the center of our lives
will simply abandon us forever at some unknowable date is not only
terrifying, it is insupportable. Surely our loving deserves to come to something better
than that. I personally believe that it does. An African poet writes: " Those who have
died have never left. The dead are not under the earth. They are in the rustling trees.
They are growing in the woods."
Our lives are continually shaped by those who are no longer physically with us; what we believe,
what we know, our choices and our dreams are shaped by those whom we knew and loved, and by those
who we knew only by their words and works. The lives they lived holds us steady. Their words
remind us and call us back to ourselves. Their courage and love evoke our own.
We, the living, carry them with us. We are their voices, their hands and their hearts.
We take them with us, and with them choose the path of deeper living.
Norma Cordell was a Unitarian minister and practicing Buddhist until her death.
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