Grief triggers can become healing triggers
As I was driving down the street about a year after my son, Brendon, died, there was a young man standing on the side of the road, getting ready to cross. When I passed him, I looked in my mirror to see what he was going to do. As he began to run across the street, he had the exact same gait; same arm and leg motion as my son. It was Bren in someone else’s body. My heart sank and my tears streamed. I pulled off the road. My grief had
been triggered.
My wife, Kathy, works as a checker in a grocery store. It took her almost two years after Brendon died to muster the strength to get the job. It was a
leap of faith. A few months after she started, a woman came through her line with the same brand of chili we’d found on the stove when we went to Bren’s
apartment to get clothes in which to bury him. Her grief triggered and she started to cry. The woman reached in her purse, said nothing, and handed Kath a Kleenex. She knew something very sad had happened. Kath's grief had been triggered.
What was, is, it for you? We’ve all experienced those painful sights, scents and sounds that remind us of our children’s deaths. Was it a trip to the grocery store where you saw their favorite cookie and found yourself on the floor sobbing? At the mall were you suddenly hit with a scent that said, “It’s you; it smells just like you,” and you had to sit down? In your car, as you flipped through radio stations, did a song come on that was your song together and you had to pull to the side of the road?
Grief triggers can be crushing and it’s okay to let them knock us down. It’s okay to occasionally walk backwards and let those emotions wash over us. It’s important we experience them fully and not push them away. But if we do our work and positively express our suffering, they can’t keep us down. They can’t win. As we move forward in our journey it’s possible to know that death did not take all when it took our kid’s bodies. Death can never take their spirit, their life force. It can’t have our memories or our love; only life gets those. Death is not as powerful as it thinks it is, if we don’t let it be.
Healing triggers happen when those same sights, scents and sounds that once knocked us down, now lift us up because they’re a reminder of our living, breathing, laughing, loving children. By using our time wisely and embracing the power of letting go and forgiveness, we can transition from grief triggers to healing triggers. In embracing those healing memories is where we can find our smile and find our children.
For our children to have died, it meant they had to have lived first, however long that was. If we focus on their living, and let go of
their dying, we can heal; we can smile and find meaning again. Look for your healing triggers, they're everywhere.
As I was driving down the street about a year after my son, Brendon, died, there was a young man standing on the side of the road, getting ready to cross. When I passed him, I looked in my mirror to see what he was going to do. As he began to run across the street, he had the exact same gait; same arm and leg motion as my son. It was Bren in someone else’s body. My heart sank and my tears streamed. I pulled off the road. My grief had
been triggered.
My wife, Kathy, works as a checker in a grocery store. It took her almost two years after Brendon died to muster the strength to get the job. It was a
leap of faith. A few months after she started, a woman came through her line with the same brand of chili we’d found on the stove when we went to Bren’s
apartment to get clothes in which to bury him. Her grief triggered and she started to cry. The woman reached in her purse, said nothing, and handed Kath a Kleenex. She knew something very sad had happened. Kath's grief had been triggered.
What was, is, it for you? We’ve all experienced those painful sights, scents and sounds that remind us of our children’s deaths. Was it a trip to the grocery store where you saw their favorite cookie and found yourself on the floor sobbing? At the mall were you suddenly hit with a scent that said, “It’s you; it smells just like you,” and you had to sit down? In your car, as you flipped through radio stations, did a song come on that was your song together and you had to pull to the side of the road?
Grief triggers can be crushing and it’s okay to let them knock us down. It’s okay to occasionally walk backwards and let those emotions wash over us. It’s important we experience them fully and not push them away. But if we do our work and positively express our suffering, they can’t keep us down. They can’t win. As we move forward in our journey it’s possible to know that death did not take all when it took our kid’s bodies. Death can never take their spirit, their life force. It can’t have our memories or our love; only life gets those. Death is not as powerful as it thinks it is, if we don’t let it be.
Healing triggers happen when those same sights, scents and sounds that once knocked us down, now lift us up because they’re a reminder of our living, breathing, laughing, loving children. By using our time wisely and embracing the power of letting go and forgiveness, we can transition from grief triggers to healing triggers. In embracing those healing memories is where we can find our smile and find our children.
For our children to have died, it meant they had to have lived first, however long that was. If we focus on their living, and let go of
their dying, we can heal; we can smile and find meaning again. Look for your healing triggers, they're everywhere.