Get to know your grief; it can teach you
Here’s how this thing called life and death is supposed to work. Grandparents live and die; parents live and die and then kids live and die. That’s what’s supposed to happen. It’s A to B to C and then continues on down the line through the generations. And then “supposed to happen” got ripped out from under you when C went before B and the walls came a tumblin’ down. You may have thought, if you could even think early on, “What the heck just happened? Here I am, going through life with my well placed expectations and WHAM, my child dies. That’s not even close to being fair or how it’s supposed to happen.”
How did your child die? Where were you and what did you do when you found out? Whether you’re new to the journey, or a well scarred (scars mean healing) veteran, try never to run away from going back to that moment and those circumstances that took your child. Tell your story; know your grief. The more you bleed out the poison of that devastating event in positive ways, the more room you have for healing. It can help you. It’s like turning on the spigot of a pressurized hose. Out flows the hurt. If you keep the ugliness in, you keep the healing out. Can it be painful to go there? Dumb question for sure. That deep, overwhelming, debilitating, can’t get out of bed, can’t go to bed grief can leave you. The sharp corners of your pain can round off, if you decide that’s what you want to do. Like any emotional pain, the more you battle it, the better opportunity you have to defeat it, or at least put it in a place that works for you.
Okay, back to the questions. Here are my answers. My son was murdered. I was in my car in downtown Chicago at rush hour, 40 miles from our home in the burbs when my wife, Kathy, called and told me, “Brendon’s gone.” I said, “WHAT?!” She said again, “Brendon’s gone.” Two words, said twice and that life was over. I went into protection/denial mode and thought, “No way. She must be mistaken. Our son is absolutely not dead.” Some
bereaved parents refer to their life before their kids died as a past life. Kind of like snapping a stick in half and throwing one part away. There was such an explosive interruption, such a dramatic redirection, it felt like becoming a tiny baby and having to learn how to live all over again. It was that life changing. Something I don’t need to tell you.
Maybe you got “the call,” like me. Or, maybe it was the knock on the door and when you looked into that person’s eyes or heard them speak, you fainted, or you screamed, or you started hitting them, or you burst into tears and threw up, or you shut the door in their face and sat quietly in a chair, emotions whirling. Were you there, in the hospital maybe, when your child breathed their last breath and you wished you could join them because it was unthinkable to continue living without them? And then you collapsed, or got really angry and lost control of yourself, or got in bed with them, or…………..
Pick one, they’re all fine. Death and deep grief can do that. If you’re crying while reading this because going back there really, really hurts, congratulations to you; even if you’re at the mall. Keep crying until you’re done; take as long as you need. And then grab a hand full of Kleenex, wipe your eyes and blow your nose…..hard. It doesn’t matter how loud it is or who notices. And then breathe. Do what helps you. In the first few weeks after
Brendon died, if I was out and about at a store, restaurant or mall and felt like crying or falling asleep on a bench or staring at the ceiling, that’s what I did. People moved away from me and I didn’t care. It was helping me. I was getting to know my grief.
Now you may be asking, “How can I help me?” Flip open your laptop, grab a pen and paper or get ready to open your mouth. Type, write or speak; “I HATE THIS, I HATE THIS, I HATE THIS,” as large or as loud as you want and as many times as you want. The idea is to express yourself in a positive way through writing or talking. When you’re done, look at those words and write or speak other words about why you hate this. As you do that, you’ll be bleeding out the poison of your child’s death. Words may pop up like angry, unfair, hate, lonely, sad, suicide, murder, obliterated, confused, blame, depressed, why, guilty, resentful and on and on. Any and all words and emotions are in limits. Nothing is off limits and I mean nothing.
Now, direct those words and emotions by writing or speaking them to anybody, or anything, you want. Could be the doctor, the drunk driver, the disease, the drugs, the military, the ice on the road, the killer, the insurance company, your unmet expectations of others, your minister or priest, your best friend who doesn’t have a clue as to how to help you, God, your family, your child, your husband/wife, yourself and/or the whole darn flippin’ world. Do all that through writing or speaking; never acting them out in a negative way. You don’t want to take your thoughts of suicide or murder and act on them.
You don’t want to take your emotions of anger, blame or resentment and vomit them on someone who doesn’t know why you’re doing it. Acting on them can hurt yourself and others. Writing or speaking those emotions can help you. And, you’ll be getting to know your grief.
I had thoughts of trying to find my son’s killer and killing him. I let myself go to those thoughts because I knew it would help me by expressing that level of anger in a positive way through writing or speaking (sometimes speaking really, really loudly) about it. I didn’t act on my emotions. I didn’t try to find him. I’m not writing this from prison.
Once you’ve written or spoken those emotions, and you may need to do it several times over the course of weeks and months, do your absolute best to let all those dark emotions go, or at least let them begin to trickle out of you. That can help you. If you express that ugliness by getting them out in a positive way, but then allow them back in, it’s going to be a difficult life because the poison of the death of your child will keep coming back to you. You
don’t want that. So, let them in, let them out, let them go.
Now that you’ve done the work of getting out and letting go of the ugly of your child’s death, try this next step to let in the beauty of their life. After all, not all of your child died when their body died. Take whatever form of expression you’re using and write or say, “I APPRECIATE YOU
because…………” Words about their life that may come to mind could be; funny, handsome, beautiful, love, you smelled good, nice hair, your goofy clothes, your laugh, dimples, bald spot, the way you walked, your lisp, when your wheelchair broke, all the cool stuff we did together, the time you washed the dog, fell off your bike, knocked over grandma when you hugged her, your first smile, had a D in school but brought it up to a B, filled your diaper with something that smelled horrible or your awesomely awesome smile. As you do that, you give yourself the opportunity to feel better because the life of your child is re-entering your life. You showed appreciation and gratitude for those things that death can never have because they all belong to life. You helped yourself. If you’re new to the journey, or even further down the road, those memories may hurt. That’s fine, let them hurt and then positively express that hurt.
Because I’ve done my work over the years by doing things that helped me, and I let my grief teach me, I came to a point in my life where I said, “I’m grateful for my grief.” And you may be saying, “Are you nuts? Grateful for your grief?” Stick with me. What is grief? Grief = Caring. We grieve the things we care about that we’ve lost. In terms of my son, Grief = Love. I grieved so much and so deeply because I love him so much and so deeply. I got
to know my grief and allowed it to teach me what it is. It’s the love for my son. I will always grieve because I will always love him. I can live with the pain; I can’t live without the love. I’m grateful for my grief and the opportunity I’ve had, have and will always have to love my child and remember his wonderful life. Always do what helps you by getting to know your grief and letting it teach you what it really is.
Here’s how this thing called life and death is supposed to work. Grandparents live and die; parents live and die and then kids live and die. That’s what’s supposed to happen. It’s A to B to C and then continues on down the line through the generations. And then “supposed to happen” got ripped out from under you when C went before B and the walls came a tumblin’ down. You may have thought, if you could even think early on, “What the heck just happened? Here I am, going through life with my well placed expectations and WHAM, my child dies. That’s not even close to being fair or how it’s supposed to happen.”
How did your child die? Where were you and what did you do when you found out? Whether you’re new to the journey, or a well scarred (scars mean healing) veteran, try never to run away from going back to that moment and those circumstances that took your child. Tell your story; know your grief. The more you bleed out the poison of that devastating event in positive ways, the more room you have for healing. It can help you. It’s like turning on the spigot of a pressurized hose. Out flows the hurt. If you keep the ugliness in, you keep the healing out. Can it be painful to go there? Dumb question for sure. That deep, overwhelming, debilitating, can’t get out of bed, can’t go to bed grief can leave you. The sharp corners of your pain can round off, if you decide that’s what you want to do. Like any emotional pain, the more you battle it, the better opportunity you have to defeat it, or at least put it in a place that works for you.
Okay, back to the questions. Here are my answers. My son was murdered. I was in my car in downtown Chicago at rush hour, 40 miles from our home in the burbs when my wife, Kathy, called and told me, “Brendon’s gone.” I said, “WHAT?!” She said again, “Brendon’s gone.” Two words, said twice and that life was over. I went into protection/denial mode and thought, “No way. She must be mistaken. Our son is absolutely not dead.” Some
bereaved parents refer to their life before their kids died as a past life. Kind of like snapping a stick in half and throwing one part away. There was such an explosive interruption, such a dramatic redirection, it felt like becoming a tiny baby and having to learn how to live all over again. It was that life changing. Something I don’t need to tell you.
Maybe you got “the call,” like me. Or, maybe it was the knock on the door and when you looked into that person’s eyes or heard them speak, you fainted, or you screamed, or you started hitting them, or you burst into tears and threw up, or you shut the door in their face and sat quietly in a chair, emotions whirling. Were you there, in the hospital maybe, when your child breathed their last breath and you wished you could join them because it was unthinkable to continue living without them? And then you collapsed, or got really angry and lost control of yourself, or got in bed with them, or…………..
Pick one, they’re all fine. Death and deep grief can do that. If you’re crying while reading this because going back there really, really hurts, congratulations to you; even if you’re at the mall. Keep crying until you’re done; take as long as you need. And then grab a hand full of Kleenex, wipe your eyes and blow your nose…..hard. It doesn’t matter how loud it is or who notices. And then breathe. Do what helps you. In the first few weeks after
Brendon died, if I was out and about at a store, restaurant or mall and felt like crying or falling asleep on a bench or staring at the ceiling, that’s what I did. People moved away from me and I didn’t care. It was helping me. I was getting to know my grief.
Now you may be asking, “How can I help me?” Flip open your laptop, grab a pen and paper or get ready to open your mouth. Type, write or speak; “I HATE THIS, I HATE THIS, I HATE THIS,” as large or as loud as you want and as many times as you want. The idea is to express yourself in a positive way through writing or talking. When you’re done, look at those words and write or speak other words about why you hate this. As you do that, you’ll be bleeding out the poison of your child’s death. Words may pop up like angry, unfair, hate, lonely, sad, suicide, murder, obliterated, confused, blame, depressed, why, guilty, resentful and on and on. Any and all words and emotions are in limits. Nothing is off limits and I mean nothing.
Now, direct those words and emotions by writing or speaking them to anybody, or anything, you want. Could be the doctor, the drunk driver, the disease, the drugs, the military, the ice on the road, the killer, the insurance company, your unmet expectations of others, your minister or priest, your best friend who doesn’t have a clue as to how to help you, God, your family, your child, your husband/wife, yourself and/or the whole darn flippin’ world. Do all that through writing or speaking; never acting them out in a negative way. You don’t want to take your thoughts of suicide or murder and act on them.
You don’t want to take your emotions of anger, blame or resentment and vomit them on someone who doesn’t know why you’re doing it. Acting on them can hurt yourself and others. Writing or speaking those emotions can help you. And, you’ll be getting to know your grief.
I had thoughts of trying to find my son’s killer and killing him. I let myself go to those thoughts because I knew it would help me by expressing that level of anger in a positive way through writing or speaking (sometimes speaking really, really loudly) about it. I didn’t act on my emotions. I didn’t try to find him. I’m not writing this from prison.
Once you’ve written or spoken those emotions, and you may need to do it several times over the course of weeks and months, do your absolute best to let all those dark emotions go, or at least let them begin to trickle out of you. That can help you. If you express that ugliness by getting them out in a positive way, but then allow them back in, it’s going to be a difficult life because the poison of the death of your child will keep coming back to you. You
don’t want that. So, let them in, let them out, let them go.
Now that you’ve done the work of getting out and letting go of the ugly of your child’s death, try this next step to let in the beauty of their life. After all, not all of your child died when their body died. Take whatever form of expression you’re using and write or say, “I APPRECIATE YOU
because…………” Words about their life that may come to mind could be; funny, handsome, beautiful, love, you smelled good, nice hair, your goofy clothes, your laugh, dimples, bald spot, the way you walked, your lisp, when your wheelchair broke, all the cool stuff we did together, the time you washed the dog, fell off your bike, knocked over grandma when you hugged her, your first smile, had a D in school but brought it up to a B, filled your diaper with something that smelled horrible or your awesomely awesome smile. As you do that, you give yourself the opportunity to feel better because the life of your child is re-entering your life. You showed appreciation and gratitude for those things that death can never have because they all belong to life. You helped yourself. If you’re new to the journey, or even further down the road, those memories may hurt. That’s fine, let them hurt and then positively express that hurt.
Because I’ve done my work over the years by doing things that helped me, and I let my grief teach me, I came to a point in my life where I said, “I’m grateful for my grief.” And you may be saying, “Are you nuts? Grateful for your grief?” Stick with me. What is grief? Grief = Caring. We grieve the things we care about that we’ve lost. In terms of my son, Grief = Love. I grieved so much and so deeply because I love him so much and so deeply. I got
to know my grief and allowed it to teach me what it is. It’s the love for my son. I will always grieve because I will always love him. I can live with the pain; I can’t live without the love. I’m grateful for my grief and the opportunity I’ve had, have and will always have to love my child and remember his wonderful life. Always do what helps you by getting to know your grief and letting it teach you what it really is.