A few days ago, while perusing a book in search of a passage that might keep me sane and centered, I stumbled upon these words written by Jon Kabat-Zinn. It made me remember a turbulent time in our family’s life, when everything was fading to black and I pleaded to a therapist, “I WANT MY LIFE BACK.” She replied very matter-of-factly, “THIS IS YOUR LIFE.”
I realize that each of us is at a different stage and time on this grief walk. For many, the freshness and foreignness of it all knocks the wind out of you; you are walking into walls, constantly teetering and tormenting yourselves with the what ifs and why nots. Even after 8 years, I play out different scenarios, wondering if there might be one single action that might have changed the outcome, the course of our lives, any one thing that might have saved my son’s life and prevented us from crash-landing in Griefland.
At this juncture, it’s fair to say we all take turns beating ourselves up, somehow feeling responsible, especially if we lost a child. After all, we are (or is it were) their parents. As a new month begins, I beg us all to stop long enough to find a few moments of serenity in our daily endeavors. Find a simple ritual that brings you some semblance of peace. Nancy walks her dog, Elsa. I drown myself in the New York Times, sip a second cup of coffee in bed, pretend I’m luxuriating in some grand hotel room far away from reality. Find something (or someone) that helps you get lost in the moment. Reality always returns, but every one of us needs an occasional time out.
Today I’ve promised myself to power down from all the technology, stand outside in the early morning sun, breathe in fresh air, then take a few steps and feel my feet movng forward. Surviving the unthinkable is hard, gritty work. Thank you each and every one of you, for meeting up with us here to share your stories, your hearts, your hurts. In our book, Griefland, Nancy and I created a fictitious cafe, open 24 hours a day, with a benevolent waiter who brings us warm bread, a glass of rich Cabernet, and stands guard over us so we can breathe, melt down, and eventually rise up again. This month, we transport all of you to this serene place, hoping it provides you respite. We toast you and lift our glasses to the beautiful loved ones missing from our lives. Knowing we carry them forever in our hearts, is worth noting – especially this month – February. As always, we invite you to share and recite their names on these pages.
February….the 16th will be my son’s 25th birthday….the 26th will mark 10 months since he passed away. I already know I’m going to be a sad basket case both days. I will allow myself those tears that will fall in bucketfuls. I will allow myself the pain that will be searing through my heart. But I also promise to allow myself the time out’s at some point, too. I love your words: “Surviving the unthinkable is hard, gritty work.” Yes it is. Every. Single. Day. Thank you for so many things that have helped me get through this…things you don’t even know you’ve done for me.
~mari-ellyn
I have crossed the bridge into Griefland not that long ago. My road like many others in this new land has been a long, dark, hard road to walk. At the moment it is 3a.m. and I can’t sleep. I had a dream that I can’t remember, I just know that I needed the lights on and had to get out of bed. I feel the tears coming, the pain and grief building like a wave. I can feel it through my body. I have come to Griefland and met my new compatriots,
This new land of which I am a citizen is one none of us thought we would become citizens. I like the idea of an all night cafe. I can picture myself tonight walking through the downpour of rain and the cold, seeing the lights on thru the windows. Walking into the door I can picture the room. Small table spaced around, the smell of bread and smoke, the quiet hum of conversation. Everybody looks up as I walk in, tears mixing with the raindrops blurring my vision. They all know why I am here, why we are all here. I sit at a table, body tight with the pain of grief. My wine comes along with some nice crispy bread fresh out of the oven. I look around the walls at all of the pictures of our smiling children all hung with pride, testimonials of our loss My tears flow freely and easily because that is what we do here isn’t it? We come here to be understood, to find peace, to heal even just a little bit. This is the place where we do not have to pretend anymore. The place where it is not alright, where when somebody asks, How are you? You can say ” I hurt, I want to cry and scream, my soul hurts,my body aches and I don’t know how to get through today” Here is where we can sit and talk, or not. Here is where pain is normal and something we all share. Hugs are given freely, comfort is something we all seek. This is a place where you can come and just sit it peace and let the tears flow in quiet suffering. This is the place where you can talk and be understood. This is the place where you can be held or hold onto somebody else.
So now it is time for me to sit and drink my wine. I miss my Cricket and that is ok here. I sit and dream of holding her again, seeing her smile , hearing her laugh. I raise my glass to her, I raise my glass to you all. Thank you for being here. I am sorry you are here, but I am glad I found this place. The next round is on me.
Love you all
Bryan
Griefland Cafe is open 365 days a year, 24/7, especially on Christmas and holidays. Yes, when you show up, imagine a kindly waiter showing you to a reserved table. We’re all there waiting for you, and there is no sound you can make, no noise or sob, nothing you could do or say that would make any of us leave. We know why you came and we’ll all hanging out for happy hour, Bryan. The waiter brings warm bread and wine, and he stands ready to assist if one of us falls to the ground. It’s a place where grieving is the norm, and where we spend a lot of time listening, wrapping arms around each other, just sitting in silence together when there is nothing finally left to say. Griefland Cafe has been a very powerful image for Armen and me, and we email each other still and say, “I’m on my way to the cafe — meet you there.” That’s code for “I’m having a meltdown day here.” But even in the imagery and saying that, some of the sorrow is lifted, just a tad, but it helps us get through our hours, the minutes when we feel so hopeless and alone. Good thing you found it early in your travels, my friend. We will never be far away from each other.
Love,
Nancy
I’m on my way to the Griefland Cafe today. I feel like I’m in a living hell and wonder what is the point to anything. I miss my son. I want to see him. Hold him. Tell him I love him. BUT I CAN”T!!! Because his life was cut short at the age of 24 in October of 2011. What am I doing here? I don’t see anything but darkness today. Experience tells me that I’ll pull out of this dark place back into the light, but for now, I’m just overwhelmingly sad, burdened beyond belief, and am carrying a load that is too heavy. What happened to my hopes and dreams? They died the day my son died. I can barely breath today, feeling like the littlest thing will send all my parts flying off in a million different directions. I feel broken, beyond repair. Isolated. Lonely. And just so, so sad.
Thank you for letting me vent, for listening, and for understanding.
So today face a new challenge on the road in Griefland. Today we are helping my stepdaughter fill out her college paperwork. She is such a brilliant young lady and her future is so bright and I love her so much. She is artistic and driven and so focused on what she wants out of life. But I sit here swallowing my tears because my Cricket doesn’t get to go to college, I don’t get to help her with her paperwork, help her pack for college and the next steps in her life. My Cricket has already left on a journey that I can’t follow right now and I am walking down this so very rough road in Griefland. I am not trying to be selfish and I don’t want to take away from her experience, I don’t want her to see that helping her makes me sad and that it hurts. I want to be there for every part of her life, I am so proud of her. But how do I help her without loosing my mind when every thought is why isn’t this Shea that is getting ready for her future.
Take care all, with hugs and prayers and a lot of love,
Bryan
Dear Bryan,
Your note comes at a time when I can certainly relate. My husband and I just returned a few hours ago from our niece’s engagement party in Southern California — a beautiful celebration of love and all that the future holds for two wonderful people we love very much. Last evening we found ourselves surrounded by a sea of young people – many the age of our son, Alex, whose life was cut short at the age of 22. These young men were vivacious and thriving, and as much as we enjoyed them, there was this constant piercing sensation, daggers in my chest, a little voice saying, “where is my son, why isn’t he here, where is his happily-ever after?” I swallowed my tears, too, dear friend, playing that painful ‘what if,’ ‘why not’ game. In those moments, life feels so unfair, so unjust. And yet, just look at you, mustering up the energy and courage to show up for your step daughter, tucking your own hurt away so as to allow her this special time in her own life’s journey. You amaze me, especially since your grief is new and fresh. How in the world are you managing this? (You don’t have to answer, I just remember the numbness, the brain damage, paralysis, how incapacitated I felt trying to do anything whatsoever during those early days and weeks after Alex died).
As parents and adults, we so want to protect our other children, our step-daughters and nieces from feeling our pain, but the reality is this – we ARE happy for their glorious lives while we are simultaneously grieving our own personal losses. Your voice on these pages inspires me — although it’s been eight years since we lost our son, on weekends like this one, the emotions come pouring out all over again and it’s very hard to keep them tucked in.
We no sooner walked through the door when I saw your message and it literally saved me. I was wallowing and slipping into that snake pit of grief. Somehow just knowing there are others struggling through this journey makes the trek a little less strange and lonely. I do think writing about these moments helps, and although you may not realize it, Bryan, your words give others permission to be authentic with their grief, with the emotional goo that arrives without warning, that plays havoc with our minds and yes, at moments, makes us feel as if we might be going insane.
One final word. Others who love you ARE indeed watching you. Sometimes I sense that by revealing your humanness – you offer a teachable moment about love, loss, and the resilience of the human spirit. Nancy and I (and I’m sure others) have already marveled at your ability to be authentic, honest, and articulate – during a time when most others would curl up in a ball and try to disappear into the night sky. Bravo for showing up. For your step daughter, for us, and for the countless others who arrive at this site looking for hope, handrails, a glimmer of light. Thank you, Bryan. Thank you so, so much for showing up today!
Be gentle with yourself. You’ve had quite a work out. Find a rest stop. Pace yourself. Breathe.
Armen
Thank you all for your willingness to be so raw and vulnerable on these pages. Tonight I sat with my husband and watched “Downton Abbey” and one go the characters gives birth to a baby boy. The new parents express their love and profound joy at the miracle of this birth. And all I can think of is how is my husband bearing this? I have mentioned that his son, my stepson, passed in November. How often we get blindsided by messages that seem to screech “your son is dead.” I don’t even know how the moment in the tv show affected him as there were extenuating circumstances and we could not discuss it. My point is that EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE is a reminder that his/my son/stepson is not a living breathing vibrant human person in our lives anymore. But as I write this and choose my words I feel so deeply that he is and always will be a vibrant force in our lives. And for that distinction I am simultaneously grateful and bereft.
Armen,
You asked how I am managing this? The only answer I have for that is, I don’t know. I keep hearing how amazing I am doing, how strong I am. How wonderful it is that I am able to put words to my pain. My wife says that I am her hero..But I don’t see or it or feel it. I am in doubt that I will make it thru any day. I continuously feel like.I am going to loose my mind in my pain. Some days I feel like I can’t go on one more minute. The physical and emotional pain are overwhelming at times and all I want to do is scream in pain, rage, sorrow. I want to scream at the world, God, Shea, myself.
Tomorrow will be the 3 month anniversary of the passing of my Cricket. How do I manage going on without the sunshine that was my daughter? I just do, I guess. Faith is a strong factor in my survival. I pray every day, sometimes all day, for strength and peace. My wife’s constant support and patience is another driving force of my day to day strength to walk this road. I could not have made it this far without her. I know beyond certainty that without her in my life I would be walking a very different road right now that would most likely be leading to my own destruction. Another driving factor for the survival of my mind, body and soul to be honest is Nancy and yourself. Finding Griefland has been a huge blessing for me. Without the two of you and your book I just don’t know where I would be. You wonderful ladies have given me the spirit to write the way I do. Bolstered my courage to write my pain in hope of helping myself and others to face this overwhelming pain.
I manage because I have to. I feel like I have been in a fight both physically and emotionally for 3 months. That I have been constantly kicked and hit, I heard a song the other day from one of mine and Shea;s favorite performers, it is a song called “Heartache that don’t stop hurting”
So tonight I’m here again Throwing punches in the wind At some enemy that I can’t even see
And I know I don’t want to let it have me But every time it hits I feel the truth
This might be the heartache that don’t stop hurting That just keeps working on me That just keeps picking on me
And these might be the tears that keep on falling That won’t stop coming on down They won’t stop raining on down
Maybe it’s too early to know for certain This might be the heartache that don’t stop hurting
Tomorrow I’ll stand up again And give it my best shot again But tonight it sure feels like
These might be the tears that keep on falling That won’t stop coming on down They won’t stop raining on down
And maybe it’s too early to know for certain But this might be the heartache that don’t stop hurting It just won’t stop hurting
Even if you are not of fan of country music, I recommend every single person that visits this site to go and listen to this song. It has become the theme song to my life.
So I manage, we all do. We all have our strengths, our pains, our weakness. We have all faced horror in our lives that we should not have faced. I pray and go on with the thought that someday I will see my wonderful Shea in Heaven and be re united in peace. I have my faith that tells me she is in a place of love and hope that is full of sunshine and joy. So how do any of us manage, well we just do. We can all be overwhelmed but as I said elsewhere in Griefland, I just try not to be over powered. So today I am heading to the cafe, I need a glass of wine, I want to look at pictures of all of our kids hanging on the wall. I need to cry and sit and fine my peace today if I can.
You all have my arms to hug you, my hand to walk with you and my shoulder to cry on.
Love you all ,
Bryan
The metaphor of being in a fight is all too familiar, Bryan. The image of throwing punches in the wind is so powerful.You know, I was talking with my students yesterday about how they use leisure time. Some young man said he watches 3-4 hours of TV a day, and I had to keep from gasping. This lead into a discussiion about how we use our time, kill time, and I told these kids they should be living every second as though it’s their last. Because it could be, right? We who have lost children know this reality all too well. I sometimes feel this pressure on my chest, this intensity about living life. Am I living two lives, Bryan? Am I living my life and Rachel’s life, too? Is that this pressure I feel? I wonder about this. I want to keep her alive so much that I want to live for her, I want to live the life she couldn’t live. But this is, in itself, unsustainable. I can’t live two lives, but I still feel this sense of “two-ness,” of feeling her presence ever with me. I ache for you today and am holding you in my thoughts, and in my heart, dear man.
Love,
Nancy
Nancy,
I don’t think its really living two lives. Ive been reading a little more of Greifland and we have had a few “talks” and while I don’t know you per se I do have a little input if you’ll bare with me.
I/We have lost key parts of our lives. Our right hands that still ache for the touch of our children. Like a soldier on a battle field that has lost a limb, a ghost pain settles in as the mind still thinks that the limbs is intact. While we know beyond a shadow of doubt that our children, our sunshine have left, we still have the ghost pain of them in our lives. Part of our minds still feel the presence of our missing “limbs”. Like a dull ache left over from our battlefield wounds and our endless fights with our darkness, our pain, or endless sorrow. I/We go on.
You are not trying to live two separate lives, not in my opinion anyway. I think you are trying to live one life to its fullest with the ghost pain of a second life that has gone away. You say that you still sense the “two-ness” well of course you do. I hope that I and you and everybody always will. The spirit of our children should be in our lives and help to keep us moving. I hear a song on the radio and I think “Shea would love this song” so I turn it up to level that our parents would scream about. Sometimes this brings tears and I wonder why am I doing this to myself. Other times I feel peace and a gentle smile and a small voice that whispers “nice one Dad” I go somewhere new and think “what would Shea think or say or do” I am not living her life as well, I am trying to live my life and continue to feel her presence, feel her reach out and take my hand, feel the peace she has always brought to my life.
So the next time you think you are living Rachel’s life, the next time you see or do something new. Just stop for the briefest of moments, be still and take a deep breath. Maybe you can be just lucky enough to feel a gentle touch on your hand and a light whisper that say :”Good one Mom”
Love,
Bryan
Our oldest son was assaulted and robbed on October 29, 2011. Twenty four hours later, sitting with him – traumatic brain injury and unsuccessful surgery to relieve pressure – his brother, mother and I laid hands on him as his body begrudgingly gave in: then Christopher was gone. No words were exchanged: no good buys could be made or I love you said – he left – forever. I don’t see how it will ever be possible to catch up to the perspective. His attacker became a murderer in that moment and at 16, poses complications for our grief, if it is possible, by the anticipated murder trial, whose mandate is to put him away for life. Not lost, oddly enough, is the fact that anger and hate cannot substitute for the tragedy of another young life lost in the abrupt dispossession of becoming a killer. At the root, is a familial dysfunction becoming more and more common place; jail is little recompense for a son lost and the whole experience just defines the depravity of the society we must endure to live in everyday grossly abhorrent to stomach. Facebook provides the perfect backdrop for this view: a profile picture of a killer, flashing gang sign in a cloud of exhaled marijuana smoke just days before he took our sons life.
The emotional remnants of our loss – the intense, deep, and profound mourning we are never without, reveals’ itself an impossible hurdle to leap. As we struggle just to cope with his absence ever growing in intensity, after a year and a half, there is also experienced an added sorrow, impossible to have anticipated. SO many friends and family have just quietly slipped into non-existence. It is not without explanation of course; hindsight has revealed the difficulty of finding anything that can be done or said in light of such profound heart-ache, but it doesn’t stop here. Deeper is the tragedy of our exstended family dysfunction that not even grief has shown the potential for overcoming; instead, it has further defined it. From a realist’s perspective, this view underwrites a maturity that says we must embraces things for what they are – it is what it is. Unfortunately, it does nothing to off-set the pain of isolation and the feeling of neglect ostensibly so unjustifiable after losing our son, that never the less, adds with significance to the weight that must be carried. We see now a loss of this magnitude has also saddle our anguish, and it controls with a severe bit, our separating realities. Funny, this insight: grief is like having the flu, we feel the need to be attended to but at the same time, all we want is to be left alone – it hurts to be touched.
From this desolate existence, however, my wife has discovered Griefland. As I watch with certain relief and a sense of comfort, her finding residence with others of her like, I can’t help but reflect on the son I have left, or on myself or other men for that matter – fathers and brothers – wandering the streets of their grief; outcast as the result of horrendous loss, evicted by a society that does not readily consign a place for the secret sadness of men. We end up victims, entrapped by the nature to detach that is expected of us and that is the pathology of our own bravado. I have read this book, though, and found similarity and comfort in the words and expressions of these mothers who have lost what we have lost – I have lost, with a surety with which I can relate. Thank you to them for taking the risk and making the effort to create a shoreline where my wife could drag that boat of despair losing her son cast her into, which I can now peer through, as a window. Perhaps one day I’ll find my own residence and so be able to offer my remaining son a better chance at an abode. We have to break the chains of our dysfunctional grief.
A graduate degree in counseling, post graduate work and twenty six years of teaching has been marginally enough life experience from which to draw on that keeps me moving forward. But it is not enough to flourish in the loss of my son. It’s just impossible to continue to be part of the same society – our ignorance died with him.
Rob,
I am so sorry for your loss. Especially in such a tragic manner. You pain just leaps off the page. I know it is not a place that you want to be but I am glad that you have found Griefland. It is a place to come and talk, rant ,scream and be understood as only those that have experienced this loss can understand.
As fathers we only want our children to be safe, that is our sole duty. The job that we welcome with every fiber of our being. We feel the responsibility in our souls. When something happens to our children in strikes to the very fiber of our being. When my daughter passed away in her sleep just 3 months ago. it was like a knife stabbed directly into my soul. I felt like a failure, like somehow I could have stopped this nightmare from beginning. All of the doctors and reports say that I could not have stopped anything, part of my mind knows this is not something that I could have controlled but the father part of me screams “Why, why couldn’t I stop this, Why has my daughter left???” This grief of ours knows no social, economic, or racial boundaries a parents loss of a child is something that crosses all borders or time and space.
The people that seem to disappear from our life I try not to be angry with. They cannot understand our pain. They fear our pain. The cannot except that our reality could become the reality that they have to live. So they turn away from us more from fear than any real intention of causing us more harm.
Please don’t think that this land is for your wife alone. Here you can find people to talk to, as well as your wife. I feel truly blessed to have found Griefland so early in my travels. I have found help, support and wonderful people to talk to as well as a friendship that I believe will stand for the rest of my life.
Today has been a tough day for me. I feel like the whole day has been one giant anxiety attack. The whole world has seemed to be unreal today and just an overwhelming sense of dread has filled the day. I know that this feeling is just stress as every muscle in my body is wound tighter the steel cable that is attached to the anchor that is my sorrow sunk to deep into the waters of just off the coast of Griefland.
I hope that you find something on this site that can help you. I will always be here if you need another father to talk to. There is a cafe in Griefland that we meet at. Here we sit, have a glass of wine and be with our comrades in Grief. I give you my thoughts and prayers. My arms to hold you because no matter what the rest of the world thinks we father need hugs to. We cry , we hurt and we mourn and as the rest we to go on. Do not suffer in silence.
Bryan
Bryan
Thanks for your response. You can email me at rsalomonson47@gmail.com. I would at some point like to hear more about the loss of your daughter- collaborate our losses. I just gotta catch my breath: the effort to write that post was a hard run.
Hopefully, talk with you soon.
Rob
Today I came on here to write about my pain and about my daughter.But as I started to type I realized that today it just hurts.
Today I think I will just be sitting in the Cafe all day getting righteously drunk. Today there are no words to describe my pain, my loss, my heartache. Today I just miss my Shea and my soul aches. The tears have been flowing all morning and its just too much today.
Today is a day of the year that Shea and I have always looked forward to. Today I miss her more than ever. Today the world is just unfair and it is not right that I don’t have her with me. I want to hold her, feel her sitting on the couch with me. Today I am just going to miss her with all of my heart and try to make it thru the day.
Love you all
Dear Bryan,
A few days ago, I found myself running on empty, emotions completely wrung out, feeling lost all over again, like the grief was fresh and brand new. A friend of mine was visiting from out of town and when she saw the hollow look in my eyes, she immediately took me to Starbucks where we sat for hours. In those moments, the world stopped and she actually gave me license to surrender. This is something I rarely allow myself to do – I work full time, and Nancy and I are still so busy book writing and doing speaking engagements. I also care for my aging mother, so most of the time, my grief is buried meticulously underneath the demands of everyday life. Your words today give me permission to just be – and you remind me I am not alone. Isn’t it strange that some days we can hold on to precious memories that soothe us when we are feeling battered and bruised, while other days, the grief is so powerful we fall silent, incapable of doing anything. Grief paralysis. It hurts like hell. I tell myself over and over again that this was never supposed to happen. I want someone to take it all back, rewind the night, change the outcome and give me a happy ending. The truth of the matter is, I can’t bear for it to be almost 9 years. The passage of time insults me. How can the world go on? I am sad and agitated, empty, depleted, a pathetic mix of rage and sorrow, guilt and regret. I’m pulling up a chair and sitting right next to you, Bryan. And if neither of us says a word all day, that’s perfectly fine. Maybe all those Hallmark cards are right, maybe sometimes “there are no words.”
Warmest of hugs, Armen (order me a double)
The shadow of grief is so deep and dark. It seems like it is a living breathing monster that has the soul purpose of enveloping us in darkness. I as all of us have been trying to fight this monster, trying to find a way to get by it, to vanquish this beast. But at every turn I have been shut down, reduced to sobbing tears, my whole body tensed with pain and agony. So how do we get by this, get thru, survive.
The most valuable lesson that I have learned of late from counselors, groups and friends is to be easier on yourself. I have learned that all of my pain is grief. From the pains in my chest, to my stress, to anxiety. It all comes back to grief. My biggest fear as a father was “What would happen to Shea if something happened to me?” Never did my thoughts even stray to “What would happen to me me if something happened to Shea?” So everything I feel, every ache, from my shoulder to my chest to the rest of my body is all brought down to grief.
How do I know this? Well every doctor I have seen for the past three months has said that I am fine.(Physically of course) I have had just about every cardiac test that ca be run, xrays and physicals and all comes back fine. So finally one day a counselor finally said something that all of my friends , family my Wife and the whole world had been telling me. Bryan this is grief causing all of this pain. Every article I have read list the entire gamut of physical pains that are associated with this darkness that stalks our lives. So how do we defeat this?
I don’t think we do, to be honest. I think we find an agreement with it. It is ok for all of these feeling to exist. The pain, the sadness, the utter and complete misery. are all to be here. It is not right that we have to deal with this but we do. So I have going to stop “fighting” my grief. I am going to embrace it in a lot of ways. My feelings need to be felt. The pain is to be felt. But like every injury this one to will heal. I am putting my mind, body and spirit in the Intensive Care Ward. I am going to feel all of these ills, I am going to take my medicines and do my therapy. I am going to rest and let everything heal. But I am not going to fight it. In time my healing will start, maybe it already has.
Peace to you all, tonight’s round is on me.
Love
Bryan
And I’ve got the second round, Bryan. I often liken this condition to having diabetes or AIDS. There is no known cure for these diseases, but you can live a life with the diseases, as long as you get good at taking care of yourself. We learn in Griefland to be good at self-care, we know how much insulin to give ourselves, how to eat properly, we good at self-care because that’s how we are surviving. I don’t know if this helps or not, but just for tonight, my dear friend, place yourself in protective custody, eat something healthy, drink something warm, rest, watch some mindless movie if you need to. When the grief hits you and you can’t stop the tears, then let them come, let them wash over you. Remember, too, that Shea loved you with all her heart, with all her capacity. You were her prince. The best way to honor her, is to live fully in her place. She would want that, just as I know Rachel would want that. I’m at the cafe now, and keeping an eye out for you.
Love,
Nancy
I shared with Bryan as a matter of bad days, I knew a father whose son had been badly beaten in an assault and robbery. He told me once that his righteousness was scrap and his plate of revenge would be, if he had any say and power over the delivery, served cold and fatal. Oddly enough, it rung foreign in my ears. I’ve diverted virtually no thought to the kid who took my son’s life, yet I find it all the more puzzling in light of the loss of him. What that boy did is done and no measure of exacting revenge will change it. I sat in the prelim 8 feet away from him with none of the 6 bailiffs in the courtroom standing between us. The thought crossed my mind for a second to move, and left without a glance back: I was sitting with my wife and Jacob. After being with Christopher when he died, experiencing the last beat of his heart and the last breath he took, my anger went with it. As a matter of the kind of bravado that kept me afloat many times, I was a college wrestler and have coached the sport for 25 years; I am very capable of taking care of myself and anyone else for that matter, but the instinct to fight is just not there. It doesn’t feel like it’s supposed to be a fight.
I do relate to what this father said, distantly, about righteousness being scrap and the plate of revenge served cold and fatal: even my son’s God father, a Lieutenant Commander Navy Seal, had guys on deck, dressed and waiting for an order. I just couldn’t give it even though with those guys, no one would be the wiser. It’s been replaced over the years by the power of God in my life, usurping my need for revenge. I was hoping to find another man with like experience and quality: someone I could sit down with and traverse all of the meanings behind the change in character, if only for the slightest reason, to make sure I’m not crazy for obverting the opportunity to avenge my son, as if it was that simple to remedy my loss, but even in the absence of such, it doesn’t change the change… Yet, I still have to sit through a murder trial and face him at sentencing, having not quite figured what that is gonna look like, I have a feeling the test is not over. But by grace, I will endure.
Rob, your attitude about revenge is so inspirational to me today. I can’t pretend to know what this aspect feels like, as my child was not murdered, but it must feel so surreal to be thinking about sitting in on the murder trial of the young man who killed your son. But the truth is that nothing is going to bring your son back, and even when the verdict comes back, it’s going to be little consolation. Thank you for coming back here and sharing your feelings, your story, your experience of this horrific ordeal. It helps everyone here, including me. My heart is with you today.
Nancy
Funny how this works Nancy, my own words sound like someone else’s today.
We are unrecognizable to even ourselves much of the time, Rob. It is strange, isn’t it? This is such a roller coaster ride, that very few people really understand alien we feel, even to ourselves.
Good Morning all,
Another month has passed and I am still alive. How can 4 months have passed since my Shea left this world? I am not sure how I continue to survive this nightmare. Some days have passed with some semblance of a new normal, if any of this can be called normal. Other days have just been darkness marked by pain and sorrow.
During this 4 month journey, I have discovered many things. I have made new friends that will stand the test of time. I have found a talent and passion for writing, as well as its healing qualities. I have also found the overwhelming power of the mind to make my life even more miserable. Anxiety and stress fight with my grief to try and overwhelm my over taxed mind and body. Physical pain has become a trademark of my daily existence, Powered by my mind anxieties of health, life ,death have tried to take over. I have slowly been realizing that to fight these feelings tends to only make them worse. So I have started to really accept that all of these thing are normal at this point in my walk thru Griefland. I figure if our minds can make us sick, our minds ca heal us as well.
People keep telling me I need to be easier on myself. How do I do that? How can I make anything about this easier?
One of the other things that I have discovered is that I needed Shea as much if not more than she needed me. Some say it has only been four months, of course you still hurt. Others say its been four months why do you still feel this bad. This four months have seemed at times to be an eternity. At other times it seems like only yesterday that we found that Shea had passed away in the night. I still have not figured out how to get by more than one day at time, but I see glimpses of a future when I will. I have actually started thinking about a future.
My faith, which I thought was strong, has been both a struggle and a blessing. At times it has brought me more anxiety, wondering if this is some kind of punishment for sins of my youth. Will I be able to get into Heaven to finally be with my daughter. At other times I have put my faith in God. Trying to hear his voice in my daily life, trying to feel his love and peace. Some days I think I can feel them in my life. I try hard to quiet my mind to hear the whispers of life and His messages for me. At times I have felt Shea trying to communicate with me, trying to let me know that she is good and she is well. I have even tried to have faith in my Doctors and Counselors that I am going to be ok. My pains are Grief and not some underlying health issue.
My biggest challenge has to be trying to think of nice things. Trying to remember good things and times. When the overwhelming feelings of loss and pain start to fill m soul. I try to hold one image of Shea in my mind. Finding one memory of joy and happiness to anchor my heart.
I had more to say and thoughts are running rampant in my mind. But I just need to be quiet for a bit, build up some strength. I will be back, I will survive. I will always miss Shea
Love you all
Yes, you will miss her every second of your life, and yet, Bryan, just as I miss Rachel more than I can describe (but I don’t really need to, since you already know that….), the one way to honor her memory is to reflect on this one thought: the best way to honor her is to live fully in her place, without guilt without regret, with love and respect for all she brought to this world and would continue giving if she could. That’s where my life takes on a new purpose, a reason for being in all this darkness. I’m here, and the cafe is growing in numbers. Our waiter is bringing out more chairs, I see….
Christopher’s death was so abrupt –absurd; his loss crippling beyond conception. It has usurped innocence, distorted perceptions and handicapped abilities to cope. Hope it-self has become ambivalent. His murder poses such a dichotomy, and tries the ability to endure this life that has his mother, brother and I asking: what does happiness in the reality of Christopher’s loss look like when his loss takes away the perception of the reality to be happy at all. These opposing ideals divide emotions and are immensely difficult to sort out. Grief is complicated. It follows no time frame, but there is one thing I find with surety: time does not lessen the pain of loss, it defines it.
These are some things I have had to come to terms with in my personal life now that Christopher is gone, which apply as a counselor trying to help others. Personal experience and clinical knowledge go hand-in hand in this manner; show’s itself as empathy and compassion and has the trappings of a gift coming from the ashes of tragedy. From this perspective, then, I’ll share that people lack the ability to deal with the ambivalence of grief on conscious and subconscious levels. The root of ambivalence is the presence of two opposing ideas, attitudes, or emotions at the same time (you can better see why it affects hope in this way). Denial is a form of it, and the most destructive. How does this have something to do with us? Let’s look at what has happened in the abrupt absence of our loved ones and as it taxes our abilities to discern the future.
In order to refute the depth of pain our losses conjure (because it goes beyond our ability to make out its effect in any given moment – for now), we’re always up against the inability to manage our circumstances. It says we can find neither any real nor rational ability to fill-in a life that will always remain unfinished now that they are gone. Born of perceptions and expectations developed through society, a belief has been propagated that says we should get over our loss and move on. Just so we understand I believe it is only because society has no way to cope with loss like ours, and so dismisses it in the effort to avoid its own discomfort. By putting a time frame to grief, the majority gets to turn a blind eye in relief, superstitiously believing that if they don’t think about it too hard; they have the power to keeping it from happening to them. I see this so clearly because I’ve had a lot of parents – ‘friends’ – tell me point blank they can’t imagine what we’re going through and quite frankly, they won’t even try because they’re afraid – the horror of a murdered child obscured by that vividness. Our reality – yours and mine – is their nightmare, and if we’re not careful and because we know not to do otherwise, we can go about compartmentalizing how we feel and strike out to early with the effort to put our trauma behind us, which will unduly prolong and eventually engrain how much we hurt. In this process we would have to deny the expectations of wanting a life [that we will never have with our loved one in it] as we shut down the ability to dream and thus, never experience closer. As ambivalence goes, this poses not only a danger to our own self-efficacies (the measure of our ability to complete tasks and reach goals) but affects the efficacies of those we include in our lives.
So, if we find ourselves here-in, until we have dealt with the unfinished life we may have had with them, we will find our self getting caught between denying the future we dare not dream of now, set precariously against any other relationship, never having taken the opportunity to comprehend our grief and come to terms with what has been taken from us. It is a form of denial that will always have the potential to ill-effect relationships, especially those that cannot walk along with us… So in the defining moments of the relationship we have lost, if we find our self caught in this dichotomy, created by the expectation of moving on when we’re not ready, the only recourse left to us, then, is the impetus rationalizing, justifying and minimizing creates as it leads us farther away from what is in needed: time for ourselves to feel and come to terms with our grief and loss.
I hope what I have shared helps to define whether or not we are handling the significance of our losses, in our own time frames and not by the standards set for us (any expectations we feel to get over it), which would have us moving too quickly. If this is what has occurred and we’re feeling a ping of guilt or shame – breath; the craziness underlying the concept of sorrow is that we couldn’t have seen it any sooner the moment we’re in. In this, I find, hind-sight is 20/20. I hope we don’t hear the sounds of persuasion, either, to act a certain way or to make a definitive decision about any relationship. I wouldn’t dream of undermining us in such a way. To the contrary, I would want us to find the time to mourn that allows, at some point, the capacity to feel and cope with our loss that avoids any mechanism of control or influence affecting the love that we are to give or receive. We need to be true to ourselves, then, to be able to find the kind of freedom and the expression that brings joy, free of what might have been… and still acute. This would see us able to define and then be comfortable with our own time frames, underwritten by the honesty to address them less any outside influences. It sounds like I’m giving us permission to grieve and then love anew. I think I am; it is the only blessing, perhaps, left for me to give.
Hope I can remember all this when I wake up again tomorrow…
February 16, 2013 was my sons 25th Birthday. I bought a card for him & wrote this letter & put it inside. Thank you for letting me share it here at the cafe.
Kevin,
It’s your 25th Birthday. I am lost today. I don’t have words. All I have are tears. I’m finding it hard to celebrate your life without you here. I miss your smile. I miss your deep voice. I miss your goofy laugh. I miss your silliness. I miss your hugs. I miss your great big sweet heart. I miss YOU.
I wish I could have taken away all your pain here on earth. I wish I could have “fixed” whatever it was that made you feel you needed drugs to feel better. I worry that I’m part of that reason. I worry that you didn’t know how much you mean to me or if you had any idea just how much I LOVE YOU. I have loved you since before you were born. And every day I spent taking care of you as a baby and beyond was done with unconditional love. I love you with all of my heart & soul and I am proud you are my son. Nothing you did or could have done would ever make me love you less.
I used to think that worrying about you before was a heartache. Wondering where you were. If you were safe. If you were high. If you were driving someplace. This is a much bigger heartache, Kev. It’s really a lot for me to handle some days. I just want my little boy back.
I know you see me. I know you hear me. I know you hug me when I cry. I know you feel my heart…..because I still feel yours. I hope I see you again someday, Kevin, when I get to the other side. In the meantime, I’m asking you to watch over me. Every day. Keep your angel wings wrapped around me tight. I really need you now more than ever.
All my love,
Mom
This letter slices my heart in two today. I have so much trouble surrounding Rachel’s birthday, even more than any other day of the year. There is something about their birthdays brings their unfulfilled lives into penetrating focus, forcing us to imagine what they might have been doing now, thinking now, traveling, going to college, marrying, having children. All shadows. All imagination. All fantasy. I ache for you, Mari-Ellyn, and wonder how you have been doing since composing this beautiful tribute to Kevin. You are in my heart today, the eve of Mother’s Day. I pray you feel his presence surrounding you.
With love,
Nancy