Excerpt from A Broken Heart Still Beats; after your child dies. It is a collection of grief anthologies. This quote is from Terry: My Daughter's Life and Death Struggle with Alcoholism by George McGovern.
Why did it take her death to trigger this search for understanding...? I can't give satisfying answers to these questions. What I can tell you is that the sorrow of losing one of your children is almost unbearable. It is sad beyond any measure that I had imagined. Death is devastating and final and agonizing for a parent. There is no way you can avoid a full measure of painful regrets and might-have-beens. Your friends and counselors will tell you: "Don't blame yourself. It's not your fault-you did the best you could." This advice is well meant and may even be true. It doesn't help much. You'll be sad, and will hurt when you lie down to sleep, when you awake in the night, when you rise in the morning, when you hear her children laughing, when you see a Christmas tree, or whenever you recall her dancing eyes, her lingering embrace, her glorious smile. I'm especially sad on June 10-her birthday and on December 13, when she died in the snow.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Lost in the Storm Together: Grieving Differently
Excerpt from A Broken Heart Still Beats; after your child dies. It is a collection of grief anthologies. This quote is from These Same Long Bones by Gwendolyn Parker.
You could tell it sometimes right out at the interment, right while someone stood over the grave. The preacher would throw a piece of earth on the coffin, talking abut dust to dust, and for some, it was as if they'd been slapped, and they'd let out a yell. They'd fall to the ground, screaming, and their kinfolks would have to drag them up to their feet. Sometimes they'd be like that all the way to the car, moaning, clutching at other people's hands. Later, they were the ones who did just fine.
With others, it was as if the sound of the clod of earth was a voice calling to them, and they'd hear it and turn and then something inside them would climb down and lie beside their loved one inside the grave. And after that, all of the light in their eyes would be gone. Other children, parents, even husbands or wives couldn't reach those people who'd climbed down into a grave after their heart.
You could tell it sometimes right out at the interment, right while someone stood over the grave. The preacher would throw a piece of earth on the coffin, talking abut dust to dust, and for some, it was as if they'd been slapped, and they'd let out a yell. They'd fall to the ground, screaming, and their kinfolks would have to drag them up to their feet. Sometimes they'd be like that all the way to the car, moaning, clutching at other people's hands. Later, they were the ones who did just fine.
With others, it was as if the sound of the clod of earth was a voice calling to them, and they'd hear it and turn and then something inside them would climb down and lie beside their loved one inside the grave. And after that, all of the light in their eyes would be gone. Other children, parents, even husbands or wives couldn't reach those people who'd climbed down into a grave after their heart.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Waves
My sorrow floods over me and rushes me into Katie. My sadness collides with my love for her. I gasp and breathe her into my being. I am grateful Katie is my daughter. Blessed by her presence in my life. I smile. Then I remember. I cry. My loss and love tumble me in the waves. I am caught up in the under current. The wave is the moment and the ocean is eternity. The moment takes form and shape as a wave; then returns to the ocean; into eternity. The loss; this moment; is now, but my love for Katie is constant; consistent like she is, like the surf. The ocean repeatingly forms into waves then returns into the cohesion of the water. My sadness washes over me, smoothing my broken, jagged edges. Polishing me, making me beach glass. I love you Katie infinity times infinity. You are wrong. I love you more.
Uncertainty
I struggle with uncertainty. I rage war on randomness. I fight for order and proper patterns. I loath chaos. My obsession with systematic arrangement is futile and diversionary. It is so paradoxical, because what I really want is to reach into the emptiness and make it malleable. I want to create a reality which contains a happy, healthy, physically formed Katie. The truth is; albeit, I battle with uncertainty; it is not my enemy. It is certainty that I am furious with; certainty that burns my throat and stings my eyes and pierces my heart. It is the certainty; that one cold unchangeable fact that Katie no longer has a body; that I hate. If that could only become a mutable uncertainty that I could change, then I would happy with all the other uncertainties in my life. Revel in them. Rejoice that life is ever changing. But no, alas, I do not have that choice. I am angry at my choice-less world. Life is uncertain. Death is the only real certainty. There is no solace in certainty.
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