by Band Back Together | Jul 18, 2013 | Brain Injury, Coma, Grief, Guilt, Help For Grief And Grieving, Loss |
During even the smallest moments of our lives, our actions can mean the world to someone. We must hold onto those moments with all we are.
This is their story:
We met at the bus stop.
You see, I was working at this place seven years back, and buses had to be taken to reach the institution. I was in a teaching position. She was in the library.
We got talking after bumping into each other at the same bus stop, boarding the same bus and getting off at the same stop every day. We were the same age. She was single and I was not.
Her long hair she carefully tied into a bun and soon we became friendly enough for me to intentionally pull out her hair clip and release her hair. She’d beg me to not do it; tying the hair down was “such a chore,” she’d exclaim, but I could not escape the fun of it. We’d chat all the way to the office, then chat all the way back.
She held her umbrella for me when it rained, because I hated carrying umbrellas, and she wouldn’t let me get wet. She claim to be fake-upset with me, but she always shared her umbrella.
Six months later, I changed jobs and I no longer needed the bus. I no longer stood at the stop. I no longer waited for her to arrive, so that we could catch up on our day (she lived at a hostel nearby the bus stop).
I recall catching a glimpse of her standing at the bus stop, while I was driving towards my new office one morning. The bus stop was no longer on my usual route, but I had broken my daily route that day. She was looking away; our eyes did not meet.
Then one evening, we bumped into each other while running errands. You wouldn’t have noticed that we hadn’t been seeing each other. While we were both in a hurry, the warmth was overwhelming. She invited me over to her hostel, but I refused, saying that I’d come by some other day.
Then I did not run into her at all. She crossed my mind now and again – I considered visiting her “one of these days,” but it just never happened.
Several months later, I ran into another ex-colleague. We’d worked in the same department, and rode the same bus to and from work. When the conversation veered toward M, the librarian, my ex-colleague suddenly got very serious.
M had been diagnosed with some brain-related issue and was undergoing treatment. I never got full details of what had happened. She’d had to get her long hair chopped off. She was still working but as she became progressively weaker, she eventually stopped working.
One day, she collapsed after a brain hemorrhage and never came out of it.
“Do you know what M used to say about you?” my ex-colleague asked.
“What?”
“Now I have neither the hair, nor the hair-puller.”
I cannot believe that M thought of me in her last few months.
What I put aside with procrastination and life-getting-in-my-way, has now become unachievable.
She is no longer there.
I instinctively look out for her every time I pass the bus stop.
She will never be found there. But that should not stop me for silently acknowledging the place that brought two strangers together.
Right?
by Band Back Together | Oct 8, 2011 | Anniversary Reactions, Baby Loss, Child Loss, Coping With Baby Loss, Coping With Losing A Child, Grief, Help For Grief And Grieving, Loss, Loved and Lost |
Maybe you will read this and nod along thinking to yourself, “ugh, why do people say stupid stuff” or you have a friend or coworker that needs comforting and you don’t know what to say. Here are some tips on what to say and what NOT to say to bereaved parents.
WHAT NOT TO SAY:
“It’s so much better that it was so early or he was so young, or she didn’t have to suffer.”
No parents should bury their child. No matter HOW old or young they are. It’s just the wrong order of events.
“You’re young and have time to have other children.”
You don’t know how long we’ve been trying to have THIS child. You don’t know that I haven’t had a hysterectomy because of some terrible disease. You don’t know any details that would lead you to think this statement would be true.
“I know how you feel, my dog died last week.”
This was actually said to me at Charlie’s visitation. Kid you not. Enough said.
“Please call me if there’s anything we can do for you.”
This is a really sweet sentiment. But we don’t know what we need right now. I’m sure we need our grass cut, some meals, somebody to babysit our other children, or any number of other things-be creative. But we don’t have any clue what day it is or even how to put one foot in front of another. So we sure as heck don’t know what our to-do list looks like.
“Things happen for a reason.”
This is probably THE most insensitive thing anyone can say. Though this is true, that there is some “order of events” that our lives take and things happen in the order they are supposed to. BUT this is not a comforting statement and one that most people who are grieving a loss of a child, a diagnosis of a severe or chronic illness, a major accident or surgery that is life-changing, find offensive. If you take nothing else from this, DO NOT SAY THIS STATEMENT TO ANYONE. EVER. Thanks.
So, CharliesMom, what CAN I say to someone?
People get really funny around situations they are uncomfortable with. They panic when they don’t know what to say. They freeze and THAT is when stupid stuff is said.
Here are the basic rules:
1. Acknowledging the situation is better than saying nothing.
2. Saying nothing is better than saying something stupid.
3. Giving a hug and saying “I just don’t have the words to tell you how sorry I am” is better than saying nothing OR saying something stupid.
Other ways to offer comfort:
Send a card with a gift card to a local restaurant. It’s not flowers that die and it will get them out of the house which is normally needed.
Call and tell them you are going to be mowing their grass, shoveling their snow, pulling their weeds (or whatever fits) on Saturday.
Remember that food, flowers and help flows in for about two weeks. Then it’s like the rest of the world picks up and moves on quickly without the grieving people. The rest of the world doesn’t remember, or care that they lost their child or their child is sick. About a month later, or two months later, offer to help or to bring a meal or to take the mom out for a pedicure.
Acknowledge the child in the future. I cannot tell you how much I love this one lady. To this day, and it’s been seven years, when she sees my son Henry, she calls him Charlie. Every. Single. Time. She blushes and gets embarrassed until I tell her that it’s flattering to me that she remembers my baby that she actually never met. People like to hear their child’s name. And they like to know you remember and think of them.
Continue reaching out. If you are really close with the bereaved person, call regularly. I know I never returned calls, turned down lunch dates, didn’t want to go to parties but I had friends who were persistent and at a certain point, I was ready. And I said yes. Don’t give up on the person. They are hurting and are scared to have to leave their comfort zone.
JUST BE THERE. And don’t freak out when we start talking about our situation. If it freaks you out, you just need to listen and offer hugs and support. If you are a good friend, it shouldn’t make you uncomfortable, though.
Seven years down the road, the letters you sent, the meals you brought, the ear you lent, the shoulder you offered, the memories you helped us keep will be remembered.
And the insensitive stuff other people said will still sting when you think back on them
by Band Back Together | Aug 7, 2011 | Encephalocele, Loss, NICU, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Special Needs Parenting |
The old me died in a puddle of tears on that birthing table as my daughter whisked freshly from my body was clucked over and examined and I was left paralyzed from the waist down, terrified and alone. I was reborn into a new world where all of my old besties and allies were no longer at my side, where my husband was gone, and where I was, again, alone against the world.
It’s not terribly different, I guess, than how any of us are born, it’s just that I was older and not covered with that cheese-type stuff.
For eighteen months now, I’ve carefully picked up the pieces of who I was and assembled them back into a reasonable representation of who I am now. I discarded some of the old things I didn’t need: the anger that I’d held onto for so long and the inability to let people in and the long-held opinion that I didn’t need anyone but myself to be happy.
In turn, I’ve added some new things that I think I always needed but didn’t realize: I’m warmer, more loving and I’m more thankful of the people who do love me. There are bad things woven in there too, of course. You don’t go through major traumas without picking up some hell along the way. The darkness inside me is heavy sometimes. Sometimes I wonder if it’s more than I can bear.
These shards of who I am now are stitched loosely together with the belief that the universe is far less random than I’d ever thought it was and that someday, it’ll all make more sense. I have to cling to that idea or I’d probably go crazy and shave my head and tattoo a fire-breathing scorpion on it.
Monday morning, I will go back to the place that I was born. Not Highland Park Hospital, where on July 15, 1980, Rebecca Elizabeth Sherrick* was born, but Central DuPage Hospital, where Becky Sherrick Harks was born on January 28, 2009. I haven’t been back since her surgery.
My daughter, her curls like a halo, finally masking the scar that bisects the back of her whole head, she and I will march into the place where we were both born on the very same day. My ghosts will roam the halls with us, carefully holding my hand, gently guiding me find the place where I will take my daughter to help her find her words.
I hope that when I pass the ghost of myself in the hall I can send her a hug; some silent signal of strength from her future self. Because while the darkness is omnipresent, the sadness an integral part, there is always hope. I hope that she knows that the future is large and that while she will rage, trying to fit in to a world that no longer exists, in all that she has lost, there will be more that she gains.
Monday, the flowers in the vase on the desk will be fresh, and the volunteers will smile, confused by the visibly upset young woman and her beautiful daughter. They will not understand that sometimes, it just hurts.
They will not understand that sometimes, you slay the dragon.
Sometimes the dragon slays you.
Today, Amelia, Princess of the Bells**, she and I will slay my dragon.
————–
*what? You didn’t think my parents named me Aunt Becky, did you?
**Amelia, by my amazing friend the Star Crossed Writer
An army stands ten thousand strong and tall,
But you shall rise above the bloody fray
And rain down vengeance ‘pon your enemies
And all those who would stand against your will.
When darkness threatens fainter hearts than yours
And calls ring out for champions to arise,
The cries will cease and everyone will see
Amelia, the Princess of the Bells.
by Band Back Together | Dec 24, 2010 | Coping With Losing A Partner, Hope, Jealousy, Loneliness, Partner/Spouse Loss, Stress, Trauma |
…from the woman with the dead husband.
Not going to be happy and light, right? Well, you just never know.
This is my 5th Xmas without my love. He was a Xmas maniac, loved everything about it. Our house was lovingly dubbed (by me) the Xmas whorehouse, since it was so covered in lights and knick-knacks and crap, it was amazing we could even live in it; but we did, and loved it. Each year my husband lovingly put together a CD of Xmas music that we used as our card/gift. He collected Xmas music, you see, and, the more awful it was, the better…he LOVED bad Xmas music as much as he loved good. We had a lot of talented friends, so each year we’d also include one cut on the CD that someone we knew sang. The year Tom died I made one, final CD. It had a few really fun cuts on it, it had to, but it was mostly sad, aching, and a tribute to Tom. I included 3 songs that he sang on it, and every year, including this one, it catches me up short to hear his beautiful voice. I decorate the house and the tree (way less whorishly) and listen to the CD’s and have my self a merry little sobfest, replete with alcoholic beverage of my choice and a box of Kleenex.
It’s very hard on our son too. I think this year has been a little better because he is working at something he loves, and is working a LOT of hours. When he gets home though, he tends to close himself in his room and play piano, mostly sad, indie dirges he either writes himself or has learned to play. It’s good, it’s how he handles his feelings.
He’s the one who actually puts up the tree and lights it. That used to be Tom’s job, and then I’d decorate. But now it’s fallen to the wonder-boy, and he bitches and moans all the way through the process; his own little sobfest.
I miss him. I miss him so very much, more than I can express. He was my guy, and there is a vast, gaping hole where he was.
And so often I rail against the unfairness of it. It is so unfair that MY husband had to die! It is so shitty that MY kid has to live without a father, had to be a teen without a father. On and on and on…I could go on forever about the unfairness of it. About the goddamn WHY-ME-ness of it.
Lately, however, there has been this little, insistent-but-kind voice in my head asking me “why NOT you? What makes you so special that bad things aren’t supposed to happen in your life. Look around, look on this board you’re writing on, everyone on here has earned the right to SCREAM why me! Why are you not supposed to be going through this? Who of your friends would be a better choice?” maybe it’s just insistent and not so kind, that asshole voice!)
And, I’ve gotta say, I’m starting to listen, at least a little bit. I’m trying to measure my bitterness by tsp vs. tbsp. I’m looking around and seeing that others have it bad too, maybe worse.
I am sad still…grief doesn’t go away, it just is. Xmas is a hard time for me, and then in January it’s the dead date, so… I miss him. I’d kill to have our old life back. That’s all the truth, and has been for the (almost) 5 years he’s been dead.
But the house looks beautiful, and my siblings and their kids will come over on Xmas Eve, as usual. And I have a wonderful son and a great present for wonder boy this year that I’m so excited to give him. I had the best husband and the greatest love that I could ever wish for…why not me for all of that too?
Because that little voice is also there to remind me of the good things, if I listen.
And that’s my Christmas post, and with it comes hugs and love and peace for everyone here on Band Back Together (another one of the good things I have to remember).
by Band Back Together | Dec 7, 2010 | Child Loss, Coping With Losing A Child, Grief, Help For Grief And Grieving, Loss, Sadness, Stress, Sudden Unexplained Death in Childhood, Trauma |
Holidays have not been easy for me for a long time due to family issues between my wife and my parents. That was unpleasant but tolerable. Details of that are completely different story.
Bringing our first and only child into the world helped. I could now find joy in watching him open his gifts on Christmas morning, seeing the same joy in his eyes that I felt as a kid during the holiday season.
We had the same ritual for 4 years – stress over the holidays, money, buying gifts and so on. But it was all worth it to watch Kaden open his gifts and enjoy Christmas.
This year the holidays have gone back to “full suck mode.” You see, our beloved only child of almost 5 years old passed away in January 2010 of unknown causes. Doctors are unable to explain exactly why the life of our child was taken from us so suddenly.
I never thought anything could change your life more than bringing a child into the world. I now know that losing that child changes your life even more. Life continues on around you but somehow you are unable to keep up. The same problems, and struggles you had before are now magnified by the constant pain, sorrow and discomfort in your heart.
Going through our first holiday season without Kaden is really taking its toll on us as well as our entire family. Some people understand why we don’t want to leave the house to visit friends and family and gather for holidays just like we used to, but it seems that some are just flat out offended and hurt that you decide you are not emotionally capable of attending family holiday celebrations.
I hope that some day the pain will weaken enough to allow a somewhat normal lifestyle but for now, we are broken.
by Band Back Together | Dec 6, 2010 | Grief, Happiness, Help For Grief And Grieving, Livng Through A Miscarriage, Loss, Miscarriage, Pain And Pain Disorders, Sadness |
Grief is a very strange journey and process. Some days I find myself in the best mood – happy and cheerful and then without warning can be smacked in the face with sadness and tears. Sometimes it happens without warning and one thing I have learned through these 10 miscarriages is that is okay. It is normal and it is okay.
There are times where a certain trigger will bring out the grief and I have been spending some time identifying those and learning to be okay with the emotions that come up. Television has been a big trigger, so has Twitter and Facebook and mostly a specific time of year or date. Those last ones I can brace for {as much as anyone can} or avoid Twitter or Facebook for some time if I feel like I just don’t want to face it for the moment. My husband will brace me for television or movies that might have some sensitive material in it for me and will be there if it gets to me. Those I can all ‘deal’ with. They make sense and can be avoided.
One trigger I am having some trouble coming to terms with – or figuring out just how to deal with – are triggers that are from within my body – normal body functions.
Miscarriages are painful. PHYSICALLY PAINFUL. Cramping and bleeding can be intense and one of my biggest lingering triggers is normal menstrual cramping and bleeding. Kind of a double hit because women can be more emotional during their period and compound that with an emotional trigger response it can be very difficult. Very.
It can sort of throw me back. It triggers me to re-live those days where i was fighting emotional and physical anguish. It leaves me confused. Confused because I can’t avoid it. I am almost certain that the emotions that play into it make the cramps that much worse which is then a cycle that I just can’t seem to avoid.
It has slowed down a bit now because I am on birth control that stops monthly periods but the cramps still come and go and each time I can be caught off guard and will find myself back there.
It is hard. very hard. I am learning that it is okay to feel it. I am learning to sit in the grief because running away from it will not make it disappear. It will be okay.
{right?}
