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COMPASSION FOR MY CHILDREN

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7. BE COMPASSIONATE WITH YOUR SURVIVING CHILDREN

  • Grieving siblings are often “forgotten mourners”. This means that their parents and family as well as friends and society tend to overlook their ongoing grief or attempt to soothe it away.

CARPE DIEM: 

Hold a family meeting and talk to your children about their feelings since the death. Even if the death wasn’t recent, you may uncover lingering resentments, fears and regrets. Expressing these feelings may help bring your family closer together. (Alan D. Wolfelt, PhD, HEALING A PARENTS’S GRIEVING HEART: 100 PRACTICAL IDEAS AFTER YOUR CHILD DIES, 2005)

Sadly, it was a long time before I could look around and see how Joseph’s death affected my children. My youngest daughter is actively involved with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (https://afsp.org/). She is on the Board in our state and is their Social Media Ambassador, with a team of volunteers. She is very open, publicly, about how her brother’s death affected her. On the anniversary of his death, for the past few years, she, her daughter, and I have been going to the beach to watch the sun rise. Afterward, we go to breakfast. One year we threw flowers into the ocean. Another, shells marked with the names of others’ lost loved ones, from an Out of the Darkness Walk (https://afspwalks.donordrive.com/OOTDWalks). We talk about Joseph a lot, but I can’t say that we talk about our feelings. Our relationship has had its ups and downs. She was able to share with me some of the resentments she had toward me that had nothing to do with Joseph. I was able to apologize. Our relationship has gotten better. There is still room for improvement.

My eldest daughter has her own mental health struggles and carries a lot of resentment toward me. We have not had a conversation about it. She has levelled some pretty nasty words toward me. In the hospital emergency room last year, she told me to leave the room when the screener asked her if she would be admitted voluntarily. She then asked her husband to have me come back in and said to me, “My mother is fucking up my life again.” When she came home and I tried to explain to her how, by having the hospital staff give her the contract I drew up for her return to my home, my intention was to tell them she was homeless if she would not agree. Before I could finish my explanation, which was that the hospital would then have to find her an appropriate supportive place to stay, she looked me dead in the eye and said, with venom, “The last time you told someone they were homeless, they killed themselves. Is that what you want?”

When I later recounted this experience to her sister, she looked at me, shrugged and nodded. I remember her saying, “Well, yeah”, but that may just have been my impression from the nod and the shrug.

My other son, well, he has not spoken to me in ten years. Our last conversation was on Mother’s Day 2015, the year after Joseph’s death. I was having a tough day. I had not heard from any of my children, so when he called, I was crying. Trying to hide that fact from him, when he said, “Happy Mother’s Day…ok, gotta go”…or something like that, I said, “Okay”. He sounded surprised; and, we did hang up. If I remember correctly, I then went to the cemetery, where I found my younger daughter and granddaughter. I walked to the grave, crying, and my daughter hugged me. (I could be confusing this day with another…) 

I saw my son sometime after that at my granddaughter’s First Holy Communion. I may have put my hand on his shoulder as I passed him in the pew on my way to receive communion myself. At the end of the Mass, he was gone. The family went out to eat, but I went home. It was just too difficult.

My mother passed away in January, and I saw him at the wake and funeral. I met his girlfriend for the first time and gave her a hug. I said, “Hello, Son” to him. He looked like a deer in the headlights, eyes shifting back and forth. I just walked away, giving him space. I saw him again the next day, at the funeral. I gave him an icon I bought for him in Fatima, Portugal, and had blessed by the Archbishop for the Military. Again, I walked away. We did not sit together at the repast, but he stood with my younger daughter, granddaughter and me for a photo his girlfriend took. She sent me a copy. I am grateful.

So…sitting down for a family meeting with my children for a discussion of our feelings about Joseph’s death, or about anything, is out of the question for now. Maybe someday.

BE COMPASSIONATE WITH OTHERS

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6. BE COMPASSIONATE WITH YOUR SPOUSE

  • Someone else is grieving this death as deeply as you are. Unless you are widowed or a single parent, the child’s other parent is also mired in grief. Be as compassionate and nonjudgmental as you can be about your partner’s reactions to the death. Give each other permission to mourn differently. (Alan D. Wolfelt, PhD, HEALING A PARENT’S GRIEVING HEART: 100 PRACTICAL IDEAS AFTER YOUR CHILD DIES, 2005)

I was tempted to skip this activity as I do not have a spouse, nor did I have one at the time of my son’s death; but, there are things I can explore here. The night my son died, I called his father and his siblings. I left messages for his dad and one sister to call me back. I reached one sister, who asked how he died and hung up when I told her. I reached his brother, who called me back a couple of times to check on me. I called a neighbor, looking for some kind of support, someplace to go, and left a message there too. I called my parish priest, who told me the funeral home would get in touch with them to make arrangements…no offer to come to my home, which was what I was hoping for, I guess. I was unable to ask for it. Granted it was midnight, but still…I called my dearest friend, Elizabeth, who lived in Maine, and she said she would head down in the morning. Finally, I reached out to my ex-boyfriend, John, who was at his job as a police dispatcher, an hour away. He dropped everything and came to the house. The police asked if I wanted them to get me when he arrived, so I could leave. I did not want to leave until Joseph’s body was gone. Elizabeth called back and said she was on her way. She could not sleep.

Once all the police activity was over and the body removed, John took me to his apartment, where I spent the night. I did not think I would ever be able to return to my house. The next morning, my younger daughter called me. She had gotten the news from her siblings, I guess. John and I went to her apartment. I was expecting my kids, my ex-husband and all of his family, especially his mother, to blame me. After all, I blamed myself. When we arrived at my daughter’s apartment, she took me by the hands, looked me in the eyes and said, “It’s not your fault; and, you’re going to need a lot of therapy.” My ex-husband came over and he was gracious to me as well. I felt some relief. 

Finally, I was ready to go home. When John and I arrived at the house, Elizabeth was waiting in the driveway. That is the way our friendship was. (Side note:  Once we met in Massachusetts; she drove from Maine, I from New Jersey. She pulled into the hotel drive right behind me.) She stayed for a few days, while we got through the arrangements. My sister came and stayed with me for a few days after that. John stuck by me throughout; and, we rekindled our relationship for a time. I crashed and burned almost three years later for a period of about nine months (gestational correlation?). Our relationship did not survive. He and I did not talk about grief. I do not really know how he was impacted. When I would have periods of wailing, weeping and moaning, it made him uncomfortable. I remember once, after watching “The Passion” and identifying with Mary’s loss of her Son, kneeling on the floor on the spot where I had laid Joseph’s body, wailing. He left the room. That is not to say that there were not times that he did, indeed, comfort me. Sadly, I was completely oblivious to how Joseph’s loss affected him.

I was in shock, traumatized. I think I am finally coming out of the shock, more than eleven years later, which is why I am willing to do this work now.

GRIEF VS MOURNING

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UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GRIEF AND MOURNING

  • Grief is the constellation of internal thoughts and feelings we have when someone loved dies. Grief is the weight in the chest, the churning in the gut, the unspeakable thoughts and feelings.
  • Mourning is the outward expression of grief. Mourning is crying, journaling, creating artwork, talking to others about the death, telling the story, speaking the unspeakable.
  • Everyone grieves when someone loved dies, but if we are to heal, we must also mourn.

CARPE DIEM:

Ask yourself this: Have I truly been mourning the death of my child or have I restricted myself to grieving? (Alan D. Wolfelt, PhD, HEALING A PARENT’S GRIEVING HEART: 100 PRACTICAL IDEAS AFTER YOUR CHILD DIES, 2005)

Ugh…by this definition, it would appear that I have done both. But, sometimes, I feel like I have done neither. Sometimes I feel like it is all wrapped up in unresolved trauma. Sometimes I feel stuck and isolated and alone. Sometimes I live life like I am okay. Other times, I stay home, with the door closed, and have no contact with the outside world, and listen to the negative committee that lives in my head telling me it is all my fault. The fact that I have two other children who do not talk to me feeds my guilt and sense of worthlessness.

In my friendships and work life, I get lots of positive feedback and love, but that negative committee in my head tells me they have never lived with me. They do not truly know me. If they did, they would see the Gollum (see Lord of the Rings) that lives inside me and know how truly evil I am. Nobody can be harder on me than me…except maybe my kids. 

So, today, I will get out of the house and leave the negative committee home. I will see if my friend, who has dementia and truly appreciates my visits, is up for company.

SOMETIMES I AM NUMB

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3. ALLOW FOR NUMBNESS

We often think, “I will wake up and this will not have happened.” Early mourning can feel like being in a dream. Your emotions will need time to catch up with what your mind has been told. (Alan D. Wolfelt, PhD, HEALING A PARENT’S GRIEVING HEART, 2005)

I am not in “early mourning” and I never thought, consciously, “I will wake up and this will not have happened.” It has been more than eleven years; and, I still have difficulty with the idea that Joseph is gone. My mind was not “told” of his death. I found him. In that horrible moment, I screamed and became detached. My mind, protecting itself, knew that was not him. The cold, stiff body was not my Joseph. He was not in it.

Eleven years later, he is still alive to me. Ever present. I just cannot see him, hold him, or hear him. 

And so, I am taking this time, working through this book, to feel my grief, to turn it into mourning,  move through it, externalize it.

I wonder what I will find on the other side.

I KNOW I’M NOT ALONE

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Excerpt:

2. KNOW THAT YOU ARE NOT ALONE

You are not alone. In the United States alone, more than 100,000 children die each year. (In other, less fortunate countries, of course, this number is staggeringly higher.) This number does not include miscarriages and stillbirths. Countless more adult children die; consider that most people who die in their fifties or younger leave behind a surviving parent. If you add up these numbers and consider all the children who have died in the last two decades, this means that literally millions of other parents are grieving the death of a child. (Alan Wolfelt, PhD, HEALING A PARENT’S GRIEVING HEART, 2005)

The support groups I participate in are not specifically for parents, but there are parents among the members. One is for clinicians who have lost a family member to suicide. As clinicians, we are not immune from child loss by suicide. 

I used to participate in my county’s Traumatic Loss Coalition before I lost my son. We responded to traumatic losses in our communities (https://ubhc.rutgers.edu/education/trauma-loss-coalition/overview.xml). I realized, responding after I lost him, that it was retraumatizing for me, and I dropped out. Someone at one of the regular meetings once said that, knowing me, he was surprised that I lost my son this way. Being a clinician does not always guarantee that we say the right things. 

The other support group is for survivors of suicide loss, again, not specific to parents, but there are other parents among us. Sometimes people tell their stories with specifics to the method of death; and, they want to hear specifics of other’s experiences. I do not find this helpful, but, again, retraumatizing. It brings back memories of the night I found my son. I still go back there from time to time. I do not need reminders from others. I have, though, actually presented, to a group in a Counseling class, the details of that night. I asked them to close their eyes and go with me. The professor, my dear friend, was available to meet with anyone affected by the presentation, and I offered Reiki (energy healing) to those I suspected were being activated.

There was a group for mothers that met three times a year, but it faded away. I consider starting one again, but I still have work to do before I can do that.

Resources given by Dr. Wolfelt:The Compassionate Friends is the largest organization of grieving parents and its chapters hold support groups in hundreds of communities across the United States. Visit them on the web at www.compassionatefriends.org. Bereaved Parents of the USA (www.bereavedparentsusa.org) is another growing and reputable organization. For parents who have no surviving children, a group called Alive Alone (www.alivealone.org) may offer valuable assistance. (Wolfelt, 2005)

SURVIVING

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In my neck of the woods, there is an organization called Stephy’s Place (https://www.stephysplace.org/sp/). It’s a support center for those who grieve. Last night they sponsored a talk by Alan Wolfert, PhD, of the Center for Loss & Life Transition  (https://www.centerforloss.com/). I attended. 

Before the talk, I picked up a couple of his books. The one I’m using for my renewed attempt to regularly write this blog, starting today, is entitled, “Healing a Parent’s Grieving Heart: 100 Practical Ideas After Your Child Dies”. My son, Joseph, died by suicide 11 years ago, July 5, 2014. He would have turned 34 this month, which is probably why I am feeling the ”urge for going”…(https://youtu.be/ZvSvTRhAJxg?si=jNr174FC02Brv7rF).

So…excerpt:

KNOW THAT YOU WILL SURVIVE 

Many newly bereaved parents also struggle with feeling they don’t want to survive. Again, those who have gone before you want you to know that while this feeling is normal, it will pass. One day in the not-too-distant future you will feel that life is worth living again. For now, think of how important you are to your remaining children, your partner, your own parents and siblings, your friends. (Wolfelt, 2005)”

I am not “newly bereaved” but I still struggle, at times, with feeling like I don’t want to survive. At those times,I don’t see my importance to anyone. Two of my surviving three children don’t speak to me. I have no partner. My last surviving parent, my mom, died in January. My siblings…we’ve never been close…although I do talk to one brother and my sisters from time to time. My closest friend died in 2020. I do have other friends, one is struggling with dementia. I have a couple of support groups I attend sporadically.

I get most of my self-worth from work. When I’m engaged in work…I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, by the way…I am in the flow. I love helping people. I am semi-retired now, taking assignments from time to time. I’m considering an assignment for a school-year position 10 hours from home…that “urge for going” working on me.
But…I have survived eleven years. I will continue to survive. I am hoping this exercise results in exorcise of the demons within.

Guilty Until Proven Innocent? 

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I’m reading “Rogue Lawyer” by John Grisham. A man on trial has just been exonerated by a jury that didn’t even go into deliberation. I’m crying. This has touched me deeply. Justice, all too often not reached in the US so-called “criminal justice system”, is served. But it’s not the system that has me in tears. It is my own experience and history. 

I bore and raised four children, two sons and two daughters. My youngest son died by suicide and I blamed myself. My other son hasn’t spoken to me in many years. I don’t even know why. I have ruminated about the possibilities and, again, blamed myself. I am always ready to blame myself. I’m tired. 

The tears feel like a release. I tell myself, “I was a good mother.” I worked hard at it. I don’t know that my children would agree. It was important to me. I don’t think they have any idea how much. Can I release myself from the guilt over my sons? This weight is so very heavy. 

I have a good relationship with my eldest daughter…I think. We communicate regularly. She is living in my house while I live and work in Germany for a little over a year. My other daughter, well, it’s a little rocky, but I’m hopeful it will get better. 

Today, a Saturday, I am taking it easy. I’m sitting in bed as I write this. I slept in today until almost 10:00. I’ve put a stew in the crock pot and cooked myself some eggs for breakfast. I’m feeling a little sick, cold-like symptoms. I work with little ones in a day care setting and didn’t wear my mask as regularly as I should have. I also work with middle and high school kids in a youth center and I don’t wear a mask there at all.  

There’s some melancholy that comes with not feeling well for me. I have another 10 months on this assignment. I wonder what I will do when it’s over. I really don’t know. My supervisor asked me recently if I would consider staying on. I told him no. The weather is very gray here. He tells me it’s beautiful in the spring. We’ll see. 

I have seasonal affective disorder symptoms, on top of PTSD, along with some depression and anxiety. A coworker has offered to do EMDR with me to resolve some of the PTSD stuff. I don’t know. I had a bad experience with a therapist I saw for an intake to do EMDR. She was typing on a laptop as we spoke and kept looking up and away from me. I brought it to her attention, thinking she was looking up to a window where I’d seen a man, presumably her husband, at a sink. She said that wasn’t the case, that she has a “lazy eye”. In any case, it was a turn off for me. I’d been seeing a therapist, who I continued to see, who recommended I do EMDR. It was a bust and I never followed up. 

I later saw a wonderful trauma therapist. Unfortunately, she died, tragically, shortly after the trauma group I attended with her completed. Around that time, I broke up with a man I considered the love of my life. I wonder, sometimes, if we would have made it through if I’d been able to continue working with her. He’s married now. 

I wonder, often, if I’m just not cut out for a relationship. Friends tell me I just haven’t met the right person yet. I think I need to be kinder to myself. Give myself an innocent verdict. 

Spoiled American?

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So, I’ve completed the first 3 weeks of my year-long stay in Germany. Right now what I’m missing most is my washer and dryer.

So… the instructions on the washing machine are in German, of course. I need to sign up for a class. Using Google Translate, although a useful tool – especially with the photo translate option, doesn’t help much. The posted English instructions are incomplete…but my clothes are clean. The dryer, on the other hand is not drying my clothes consistently. First week, no problem. Second week, not dry at all. I was reprimanded for hanging my clothes around the apartment. I wasn’t expecting the apartment to be cleaned that day. I’ve downloaded an English language manual for the dryer, so I’m hoping I have better luck today.

At home, in the US, we call the part of the machine that collects the lint and other stuff a “lint trap”. The manual refers to this as a “fluff filter”, appropriately so. It also has a container that collects the liquid pulled from the wet clothing, which begs the question, What happens to the water in the machines at home? The settings are a bit confusing, even in English: Cupboard Dry, Cupboard Dry Extra, Iron Dry. There’s a troubleshooting guide that suggests if the clothes don’t feel dry it may be that they are just hot and therefore feel wet; and, the suggestion is made to lay them out until they cool off. Nah. Wet is wet.

I can’t complain about my space here. I’ve got a small, cozy apartment in a hotel, with a comfortable bed. I’m sleeping better than I did at home, except for one night. The bed is quite comfortable. My refrigerator doesn’t work so well. It either freezes everything or what’s in the freezer thaws. I was told, by my employer, not to ask the landlord for anything, so I’ve opted not to use the freezer in order to keep the refrigerated stuff usable. I’ve bought some shelf-packaged food that can be heated in the microwave. Breakfast is served in the hotel dining room…bacon and eggs every day. Nice rolls. Fresh fruit. I’m eating lunch with the kids at the day care center where I work the first part of the day. The food is passable. They even had quinoa one day. I have two electric burners but haven’t been brave enough to try them yet. An electric kettle boils the water for my tea.

I was dealing with the scratchy towels here, but decided to treat myself to a nice bath sheet, towel and washcloth. It’s the simple things. They came out of the dryer damp, but after cooling, they seem dry. Maybe there’s something to those instructions after all.

Well…the clothes are indeed dry; however, my slacks are wrinkled. I have no iron and ironing board, so I’ve hung them in the shower, trying to steam the wrinkles out. We’ll see. I may need to try that “Iron Dry” setting next week.

What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been

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I’m staring at a blank page.

I’ve told my writing group I thought I’d make a commitment to post on my blog after we meet every two weeks. It’s been a while since I’ve seen them. We try.

Although, as you can see, my blog is called Be Kinder Than Necessary, the posts are hit and miss, and disjointed. When I get around to writing something, I post it.

And here I sit.

I was trying to write a memoir of a failed relationship. Gathering snippets from my journals and building a narrative around them. I haven’t gotten to that in a while either. A subsidiary of Project Write Now, an organization that runs groups for writers of all ages, is doing a book incubator over the course of a year. I have thought about applying to get that memoir done. They really want it to be a new project, so I think I don’t qualify. They ask for a writing commitment of 14 hours a week. It seems both doable and astronomical. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to do the application. The cost is an issue for me as well. They are offering scholarships, though.

I haven’t even written in a journal for quite some time. Writing is a great release for me. I recommend it to my clients all the time. I even have a new journal. I recently went on a trip out west. We did a whirlwind tour of some of the most barren and beautiful landscapes in four states! The trip was in honor of what would have been my deceased son’s 30th birthday. He’s gone 7 years now. He died by suicide. I still have so much guilt around that event.I meant to bring the journal with me, and didn’t. I was totally unplugged for the trip, having forgotten my phone at home. Although my daughter and granddaughter both had phones and laptops with them; and, I tried to log in to my FaceBook and Google accounts, I couldn’t. The devices weren’t “recognized” and, of course, texts to confirm it was indeed me, were sent to my phone, which was thousands of miles away.

Being unplugged wasn’t the worst thing that could happen. It meant I was completely off from work, out of touch with clients. I had a book with me. So I read in the quiet times, which was nice. On the other hand, being with family, day in and day out, for 8 days was a challenge. Our temperaments are different, sometimes opposed. The shared, emotional, heart-to-hearts I was hoping for didn’t happen. We hit a rough spot about 2/3 of the way through the trip, on my son’s birthday,  after which I didn’t sleep, and I asked my daughter to drop me off at the airport and I would figure out a way to change my flight. I wanted to go home. We muddled through, and the trip continued. I thought leaving would ultimately make things worse rather than better.

I was feeling invisible, the fifth wheel. Sleeping on a pull-out sofabed didn’t help, especially after a 3-hour kayaking tour. I was hurting. Closing it up and sleeping on the sofa was much more comfortable. I’m not in the best of shape – overweight and sedentary – with fibromyalgia pain. While the accommodations were beautiful for the 3 nights we spent in Las Vegas, a one-bedroom apartment, I thought we were going to have separate rooms; and, I would be sleeping in a bed. When I tried to discuss this with my daughter, it didn’t go well. It was too late to do anything about it at that point anyway. Although, I suppose they could have given me the bed.

I didn’t ask.

My Body and Me

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My body betrays me,

            with all its aches and pains.

Weariness keeps me in my recliner

            with all the to-dos left unchecked.

______________________________________

Birds sing outside my window,

            sometimes drowned out by the machinery in use to replace the old water main.

Thank you, Lord, for ears that hear,

            however imperfectly.

_____________________________________

Four beautiful red blooms

            on the hibiscus this morning.

Thank you, Lord, for eyes that see.

____________________________________

Cool water glides over my tongue and down my throat,

            quenching my thirst.

Thank you, Lord, for the sense of taste.

___________________________________

Smooth wooden board sits across my chair,

            resting on its arms, holding my laptop.

Thank you, Lord, for the sense of touch.

__________________________________

I would thank you for the sense of smell

            but nothing is coming through at the moment.

Sinuses filled from the pollen in the air,

or whatever else is causing my allergic reactions at the moment.

____________________________________

Just the same, I do thank you.