On Silence & Suffering

Following, is an article from a blog I follow called "Mitchell's Journey". They are a bit further ahead (it's been a little over 4 years for them) in the journey, but I found it to be a very good read. It explains very well what we want those we love to understand about our journey. Pay special attention to the paragraph in bold letters, it's an important one!!

It had only been a few hours since I knelt at this very bed and whispered into my son’s ear how proud I was to be his daddy and that he didn’t need to hold on any longer. I knew he was tired yet didn’t want to leave for fear of hurting us. I also believe part of him didn’t want to leave because he loved to be alive – I mean, he truly appreciated life. I told my little boy how much I would miss him but that he would be okay and he didn’t need to be afraid.

I often hear parents agonize over saying goodbye to their children at the airport as they go to college, serve missions, or move to some other place. Though I understand the sorrow of saying goodbye, temporarily, to a loved one … I’ve come to know a deeper, inescapable, nearly suffocating sorrow when you must say goodbye to a child for life.

The morning sun had broken and I was still in a state of shock. Incredulous, I went back to Mitchell’s room, wanting to see if it was all a bad dream hoping to discover my little boy was still with us. My heart broke as I saw my dear wife sitting where Mitch once giggled just a few days prior.

Natalie was surrounded by everything that gave Mitch comfort in hopes of feeling close to him. I knew how much she loved her son and how devastated she was to lose him. Little Marlie, sensing Natalie’s suffering, jumped on her lap in the same way she tried to comfort Mitch when he was dying. Natalie closed her eyes and wept. She had a profound spiritual experience earlier that morning, under to cover of a winter’s night sky – but that didn’t take away the pain of losing him.+

This sacred room had become a spiritual train station and my little son had departed on a one-way trip. Though I said goodbye, I remained unsettled that I didn’t say everything my heart wanted to say.

Our journey with grief was just beginning and things would get worse … much worse … before they would start to get better. This photo was taken a little over 4 years ago. We have healed a great deal since, but we still mourn the profound loss of Mitch. Not a day passes we don’t think of him a thousand times. However, behind our smiles and cheerful dispositions are hearts that are still tender … still mending.

It wasn’t long after the passing of Mitch from heart failure, a neighbor/friend down the street received a heart transplant. I remember visiting him at the hospital while he was in recovery, with some of our neighbors. At one point, I had to step into the hall to weep a little. I was sincerely grateful this good man had a second chance at life – in fact, I wept for his family and prayed fervently he’d survive his own struggle with heart failure. So, watching him smile softly in his recovery room brought me great joy. But, without warning, the pain of my son’s loss to heart failure overcame me and I struggled to catch my breath. In that moment, I felt like a young child who missed the bus as I saw it drive into the distance … that overwhelming sense of doom and panic that maybe I didn’t do enough to fight the system that denied my son a transplant. Agony coursed through my veins like a drug and I was in emotional hell. As my friends and I left the hospital, they were oblivious to my silent suffering – and it was then that I realized after all is said and done, the journey of grief is traveled by one.

At what point does grieving the loss of a child become decidedly sad, improper, or morose? On the surface, such a question seems unconscionable. Except, the hard truth is there is often an underlying expectation that those who grieve move on at some point. There comes a point where observers no longer feel sad with that person, and they begin to feel sad for that person.

So, what does moving on mean? I know what moving on looks like for observers … at first, they feel deeply for a season but then their mind and attention shifts to other matters in their own life. That is as it should be. Everyone has their own set of struggles and in time, those issues take center stage in their lives – especially as time passes. Moving on for the sufferer is not so easy – particularly when it comes to the loss of a child. When someone becomes a parent, they are changed forever in ways that are difficult to describe. That little soul we ushered to life becomes a deep part of our identity and whatever happens to them, happens to us. When we lose them, we lose a part of us we can’t get back.

Observing how others respond has been interesting:

As time passes, some of those closest to us avoid conversations about our fallen child for fear it would make us sad. (Don’t worry, we’re already sad.)

Some are uncomfortable because they don’t know what to say or how to say it. (I’ve found the most helpful thing to say is, “I want you to know I care.”)

Others worry they’ll say something wrong and offend. (Perhaps the most powerful thing you’ll ever say is, “I’m listening.”)

Still others avoid talking about pain because of their own struggles with pain.

On the other side of the spectrum are those who think they have all the answers … they say things like, “Don’t be sad. Your child wouldn’t want you to be sad.”

Some, foolishly, will square their shoulders, look you in the eye and tell you they think it’s time to move on – as if their bold, armchair counsel can do in a moment what psychologists can’t do for their patients in months or years.

Whether people pull back or lean in, it seems to me all those things serve to further alienate the sufferer. They silence their pain and take it to a deeper place, far from view or criticism from others – often not knowing what to do or where to go. Sometimes that hidden pain becomes emotionally cancerous, other times it leads to deep depression, anxiety, or unspecified anger. This is can be a dangerous state of being.

I have discovered that for many who have lost a child, talking about them is a form of therapy. In part, it helps because we don’t get to make new memories with them – we only have yesterdays. Because memories are subject to fade, I’ve observed some parents want to talk about their loved one(s) – not so much that you won’t forget … but so they won’t. We cling to details because that’s all we’ve got and they are treasures beyond price.

Suffering is hard enough. Suffering in silence, harder still.

If you have a friend that suffers, lend an ear, a caring heart, and a soft shoulder to lean on. Even if their loss was years ago – no matter how well they hide their hurt, it is there. Letting them know they’re safe with you and that you care can help those who hurt work through their struggle. With your love and heaven’s help, perhaps they can put a few pieces back together.

I Just Miss You

What I wouldn’t give to go back in time to the moment where I last held you. Where I was able to kiss you and where I was forced to say goodbye. Because I would relive all the pain of what came after – for just one more moment with you. I would hold you close to my warm skin, with my arms wrapped tightly around you and I would breathe you in. I would soak in that moment all over again, even knowing it would be our last.

What I wouldn’t give to have a second chance. A chance to do things differently even though I know those things couldn’t change the outcome. But I’d do them anyway because I would do anything to try. There are a thousand different versions of how our story could have played out – and this version is the one I didn’t expect. I cannot undo what has already been done – but what I wouldn’t give to try just one more time.

I never knew missing someone could hurt so badly. I never knew that missing someone would change me so irrevocably. I never knew how deep and wide love could flood into my life. I never knew how precious this life was until I met you. I never knew just how much love could hurt until you left. And I never had a clue that the cause of insuperable pain could be narrowed down into four little words – I just miss you.

Your absence has flooded through every part of me. And like a flood, it has left cracks in my foundation. The flood of your absence has obliterated the core pieces of who I once was. It has cracked my heart wide open and my heart has bled with nothing but undying love. And it left me fighting to survive it all. But I would do it all over again.

Because our love is so much more than a flood of your absence. Our love is like a lighting that rushes through me. It has illuminated the darkest parts of me. It ignites my soul and has thundered through my life – pushing me to live a life full of you. For you. Because of you. You – the one who has changed me. The one who has taught me so much about this life and my ability to love with every cell in my body.

For you – I keep breathing, I keep fighting, I keep living. For you – I love more deeply and laugh more freely. For you- I cherish this one life I’ve been given. No matter the amount of pain and heartbreak. For you – because you exist in every corner of my soul. And your name has transcended from the title you were given while you were still here and into a feeling that describes your absence. Because on the days where I just miss you all I can do is utter your name. And when someone asks me what weighs heavy on my heart yours is the name that flows out. Nothing more is needed to describe what it is I am feeling because you are that feeling. The feeling of missing you, loving you, longing for you, and all the feelings in between. You are the reason they are there and you are the reason I feel them so profoundly.

I never wanted any of this. No one ever wants this. But I wanted you. And sometimes no matter how much we want – it isn’t enough to stop the waters from rising and the flood from sweeping into our lives.

So much time has passed and still some days there is a heaviness that weighs me down. I keep searching for the words to explain where it comes from or why it’s there. It feels so complicated yet the only words I can muster are – “I just miss you.” I miss you more than words can say and emotion can express. Everything I do has been washed by the waters of your absence. Even my heart beats to a steady rhythm of you and its echo rings through the space where you used to be. I have never known so much love, so much joy, and so much heartbreak, until you. And some days the only explanation for the suffocating pain that still lingers on is…

I just miss you.

-Still Standing Magazine-

Thoughts From a Grieving Mother

I need to say his name without bringing everyone to tears.

I need his life to be included in the count of children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews.

I need patience and understanding when a wave of grief brings me to my knees, even if you think it’s been “long enough”. . . . .

I need kindness on birthdays and understanding on holidays.

I need to stay in bed and a reason to get out of it.

I need an extra hug and respect for my space.

I need someone to ask how I am doing and want to know the real answer.

I need a “handle with care” sticker for my heart. My emotions have been fragile since the day I said goodbye.

I need patience and reminders for my mind, part of it will always be somewhere else.

I need patience when I’m not being the friend, sister, daughter and wife I used to be.

I need you to accept that my grief will last until I take my last breath.

More than anything, I need you, your support (without judgment), your friendship, your understanding. . . . .

. . . . .a lifetime is an impossibly long time to wait to hold my child again.

-adapted from - fourplusanangel.com-

Please Don't Get Over It

A good read by rootsdowndeep.com

We sat with our friends exactly two weeks after they buried their firstborn son. Baby Ollie’s bouncy seat was empty by my feet as we looked through pictures of his gorgeous almond eyes and rose petal lips, and his daddy told stories about the two days they were face to face with him.
Ollie’s daddy talked and his mama smiled gently, and their faces looked changed from the last time we saw them. They’ll never be the same again.

Time heals, yes.

Life will continue and even be sweet again. They know this.

But their eyes will always hold shadows that weren’t there before.
As if they could be anything but different after laying a part of their hearts in the Indiana soil.
There are things about this world that knock dents in the core of us. Broken, terrible things like baby-sized coffins, and cancer that steals mamas, and conversations ended by old age, and unmendable relationships, and sin-wounds that breed more sin-wounds. There are things that upend us and shift our souls in ways that make it hard to recognize ourselves.

We grieve with hope.

Yes.

Yes, we do.

But that does not mean we get over it.
Please don’t get over it.

Grieving friend, dear friend whipped sideways by pain, those shadows are in your eyes because your soul is deepening, stretching, overlapping into eternity. That isn’t something to be gotten beyond.
Don’t get over it. Don’t get over the things that lean hard into your heart, those things that crush your ease and change the way you see. Don’t get over the ways your spirit is being moved and reshaped, pressed into the likeness of the One who carried His scars beyond the grave.

Grieve with hope, yes.

Not hope that things will ever be the way they were before, because they won’t.
Not hope that you will forget the ache of this season, because you won’t.
Grieve, friend, with the hope that the flimsy things of this world will never be enough to satisfy you, because you know there is something more. Weep, feel it deep, and trace the gentle face of the One who comes close to catch your tears. Cry with the hope that we are held firm, and none of this is wasted. Wrestle through it, talk it out, take the time to break open with hope, because the deepest healing comes to those who are broken all the way down.
Let hope strengthen your shivering bones, straighten your slumped shoulders, open your heavy eyes, and draw you forward into a story that’s wider and deeper than you ever knew was possible. Let hope quiet your soul so you can hear the bright echoes of eternity just around the corner.

It really is coming.

So please, please don’t get over it.
We’re not meant to stay the same, to carry on as we always have. What a tragedy that would be.
God is already picking up those shattered pieces of the you that was and putting them together in a new way, a breathtaking shape that catches His glory and flings shimmering hope into the dark corners of a grieving world.
Lift your changed eyes, friend. It’s beautiful.

“God blesses those who realize their need for him, for the Kingdom of Heaven is given to them. God blesses those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” ~Matthew 5:3-47

Why You Will Never Fully Understand My Grief Experience as a Bereaved Mother

(Still Standing Magazine)

The experience of every bereaved mother (or father) is unique and so is their grieving experience. You can never fully understand another bereaved mother’s experience, even if you sit with her through the dark of the night, talk to her for hours, cry endless tears in compassion. I’ve tried. And I might have one advantage: I myself am a bereaved mother.

Let go
As much I have been hoping that I could, I can’t fully understand what another bereaved parent is going through. I still do my best at understanding the bereaved families I’m working with and according to them, I’m doing a great job but I have let go of the unattainable: to totally and utterly understand their despair.

In that letting go, there is something else that opens up, something with far greater potential. Rather than trying to enter their experience and in that wondering how that would feel within me, I stay with them. It takes courage and compassion to totally be with someone else, without an ounce of the self who is ‘wanting to make it better for them’ or ‘helping’ them. After all that’s my job, supporting them in finding healing. But here is the thing: the pain of missing someone who is no longer physically present is not something that needs healing or fixing.

Grieving parents have something in common. They must continue their life without seeing their babies grow up to be children or their children to grow up to become adults. Grief is like unrequited love but one where the relationship hasn’t ended even though the person has left and is not contactable. That’s the paradox of child loss.

What if I’m not a bereaved mother?

As someone who hasn’t experienced the loss of a child, you can still be there for bereaved parents. You can walk side by side with them and support them with your love. You don’t need to understand their experience to accept how they express or live with it.

So, be there. Don’t try to fix them but stay with them through the darkness. The presence you show by your willingness to fully be there, is enough. You are enough, even if you don’t fully understand the grief experience.

What Bereaved Parents and Those Who Care For Them Need to Know

The following is an article that I copied and pasted. The entire article is SPOT.ON. but pay special attention to paragraphs in bold print as those are the heart of the article.

What Bereaved Parents and Those Who Care for Them Need to Know

“It gets worse before it gets better.” Those were the words the pastor offered to a newly bereaved couple whose daughter had died unexpectedly.

And you should know that he is right.

Bereaved parents are stunned when four months, six month, nine months down the road they find their grief remains overwhelmingly raw.

The shock has worn off.

Their hearts have been flayed open and the wound is still bleeding.

It doesn’t help that those outside the loss community expect healing to be happening when the magnitude of the loss is still seeping into the soul.

The depth of loss has not been fully realized when the funeral is over. No, in the weeks and months and years ahead bereaved parents are confronted with the realization that they didn’t just lose their child but that they lost the hope, dreams and expectations they held for that child as well. They lost their child’s future, but they also lost their own future expectations (marriages and grand babies, to name a few) and they grieve for both what their child will never experience and what they themselves will miss out on.

Frequently bereaved parents squelch their grief as they try to remain strong for their surviving children. They can’t fall apart because they are so desperately needed by those too young to understand or to express their grief in healthy ways. That’s one reason why the average length of time it takes for parents to work through the grief process averages five years or more – the longest bereavement period of any loss known to man.

My daughter’s grief counselor told her that many teens don’t grieve over lost siblings for four or five years. They experience delayed grief which I think results from trying to be strong for their parents. The entire home is in upheaval. The sense of security that was taken for granted has been exposed for the fallacy that it is. Gone is the naïveté that we can protect those we love from harm. It’s a frightening experience.

It’s truly terrifying.

And parents and siblings are often left dealing with problems that arise in the wake of the death. Financial pressure, legal issues, spiritual, emotional and health problems assault the family. Marriages and family relationships quake in the aftermath.

While the outside world expects healing to begin, bereaved families are often sorting through compounding problems. They are reeling from the fallout and haven’t really begun the healing process.

Bereaved parents and the outside world need to know and understand that grieving the loss of a son or daughter – regardless of their age – is the most devastating and destructive loss experience. Both the bereaved and those who care for them need to anticipate and make accommodations for a long and drawn out grieving process, because it definitely gets exponentially worse before it gets better.

For those who care about the bereaved, grieve with those who grieve. Let go of the expected length of bereavement. Don’t reduce grief to a simple bid for sympathy or pity. And be ever aware that for the grief-stricken feeling bad feels bad, but feeling better feels bad too. It’s a psychological hurdle grieving families frequently face. There is a battle raging within the hearts and minds of loss parents. What they know to be true doesn’t “feel” true and they struggle to reconcile the conflicting messages received from the heart and mind. The solution is not as simple as mind over matter.

People often ask me what to say or do for someone who is grieving. So many times I’ve heard others advise just be present and listen. Both those things are helpful but not necessarily healing. In my experience validating feelings is the single most healing thing you can provide the bereaved.

Grief, for a bereaved parent can be likened to a pressure sore, more commonly known as a bedsore. Pressure sores develop when an individual stays in one position for too long. Unlike other wounds, a pressure sore grows deeper instead of spreading wider as other wounds do. They can be deceptively dangerous because they rapidly eat through layers of flesh below the affected skin to the tendons and the bones beneath if not treated promptly. Treatment involves the painful scraping away of the dead tissue to reach the healthy tissue below. Ointments is applied, the wound is packed and covered and daily cleaning is required to prevent the wound from getting deeper.

Likewise, grief gets worse and deeper when exposed to the pressure of society to project a positive outlook or to work through their grief in the timeframe others deem appropriate. Shaming and silencing the bereaved for failing to heal, wallowing in grief, or throwing a pity party deepens the wound by invalidating the worth of the loved one lost. Venting the negative feelings helps to clear away the infection but refusing to validate those feelings is tantamount to leaving the wound exposed to the dirt and debris floating in the air. The wound gets worse and healing takes longer as the grief-stricken seek the understanding of others.

Validation is the antibiotic ointment applied to promote healing. The presence of “safe friends” (those who don’t criticize or try to fix the broken) is the packing and covering which provides a barrier between the open wound and the influences of the outside world. Frequent validation and affirmation keep the emotional wound clean providing an environment that encourages healing. The bad must be flushed out before the good can replace it. Unfinished grief occurs when we slap a bandaid on without cleaning and disinfecting the wound. The wound may no longer be visible to the outside world but is quietly festering beneath the bandaid that it covers.

For the bereaved, be gentle and patient with yourself. You’ve been deeply wounded and deep wounds heal slowly. As the old song says, “The road is long with many a winding curve.” Grief isn’t supposed to feel good.
It gets worse before it gets better; but it can and does get better.

“What I Wish Everyone Understood About Child Loss”

Nobody ever plans on child loss becoming part of their life, yet the sad fact is that every day children die and parents are left grieving the loss of their child. This journey of grief is not an easy one. In fact, this is the most difficult path a parent will ever walk. The journey is long, lasting a lifetime. There’s no way to get off of this road. It is now the road that must be traveled every day for as long as a parent of child loss remains alive.

My life has been turned upside down and inside out by child loss and like so many others I was naïve enough to think it wouldn’t happen. Yet, it did. My son was snatched away without warning and now there are only memories to fill the huge hole that has been left in the center of my heart and soul. Child loss is such a misunderstood loss by the majority of people. Truthfully, I’m a bit tired of saying, “Unless you’ve walked in these shoes, you’ll never know what it feels like.” While that’s true, others can at least get a good grasp on what this void feels like if they really sit down and try to imagine what one day would be without the life of their own child.

I wish others understood the magnitude of this loss. I wish they understood that losing a child causes permanent changes to the very core of a parent. I wish they understood that you can have a rock solid faith and still cry yourself to sleep every night because the hole in your heart hurts so bad.

Oh, how much I wish others could grasp what it means to know with absolute certainty that your child will never appear on this earth again. Never again will we, the parents of child loss, get to see or touch our child again. We will never see life in our child’s eyes again. We will never be able to share any laughter with our child. We will never………….do anything with our child ever again.

Our child is now a memory living within our heart and our fear is that the memory of our child will fade over time.

One of the most difficult moments I had was seeing my son shortly before he was buried. I know that this is the tradition we have practiced in this country for years, but in a lot of ways it is brutally cruel.

I wanted “one last time” with my son, yet there were people standing around. Why can’t people understand that a mother needs one final moment all alone with her child?

I wish I would have screamed, “Get out. This is MY son. I gave birth to him, and I want to be the very last person to see him now that he’s gone!” , but I was polite instead. Oh, how much I wish I had tossed aside my manners and climbed up close to Mike and cried for hours and hours while holding him “one last time.”

"I wish others understood not to ever rush a mother at the funeral home. The clock means nothing to a mother anymore. She simply wants “one last time” with her child.

I ran my fingers across his face, his lips, his hair. My son. My beautiful son. There was so much left that I wanted to tell him. I wanted it to be just me and him. A mother and her son.

My tears drenched the shirt he was wearing as he laid so stoically in the casket. I wanted to yell out in fear and anger, “Why did you do this? Why did you leave like this? Didn’t you know I wanted to be with you when you died? I’m your mother! I wanted to be the one with you, not the EMT’s — strangers pounding on your heart trying to get your heart to beat one more time.”

I want others to know that I wanted to be the one to say, “He’s gone.”

I’m Mike’s mother. I want others to know that I wanted to be the one with him when he left this earth.

I want others to know that mothers have different feelings about child loss than anyone else. We carried our child’s body inside of us. We gave life to our child. We felt the miracle of life happening in every cell within us. We lived and breathed with our child for nine months. Our body sheltered our child, fed our child, nurtured our child.

I want the world to know that when a child dies, part of a mother dies, too, and that part that died cannot be revived ever again. Oh, she can fake it, but a mother knows that part of her died the very moment her child died. That’s what I’d like others to know.

I wish others knew how important it is to have our child remembered. I’m finding one of my biggest fears is Mike being forgotten. I’m so afraid his memory will fade each year until I’m the only one who remembers.

I’m so afraid my son’s life no longer counts……………

I want others to know that even though life goes on, it will never go on the same for a mother of child loss. Mike is forever forty-two. He will never grow older, and that saddens me so much. I found some emails Mike had sent to me shortly before his death. He was planning a way to move his family “back home.” He wanted me to keep it a secret until he could get the details worked out. He knew he could sell his three children on the idea, but he was going to have a harder time convincing his wife to move from Tennessee to Pennsylvania.

I want others to know that my son had plans but he didn’t get to see them carried out. His life ended far too soon.

Life is going on all about us, and every parent of child loss realizes that. But, we want YOU to realize that life isn’t going on for us as easily. Every day without our child is a struggle. Living with part of yourself gone isn’t easy. We fight hard every day to find a reason to smile about the future and most days it’s so very difficult.

I want others to know that the pain of child loss never goes away.

The. Pain. Never. Goes. Away."

A recent post on a blog by Clara Hinton, a fellow loss-mom.