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When Weird Things Happen

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“I was standing in the garage and all of a sudden the door to the inside of the house swung open by itself. It freaked me out. Am I the only one who notices these things?” Tim in Oklahoma

Actually Tim, my mind is filled with stories from other people who have had similar experiences after a loved one has died or was killed. I, myself, have had these experiences as well.

Funny thing is…when you tell them to other people who aren’t in the same emotional place you are, they may think you’re a little nuts. But they can be a great source of contentment knowing that the person who died is right there with you.

I remember visiting a friend of ours one Sunday afternoon, whose daughter Maria had been murdered. As we sat in the living room talking, the front door slowly opened. There was no one near the door, nor at the door.

We all looked at her mother Luisa who told us, “Oh, that happens all the time since Maria was killed. I take that as her saying hello, as if she wants to be included.”

Another time, a small music box, which I had displayed in my living room and which I hadn’t wound or played in years, suddenly started playing while we were having dinner.

The first thing I thought was my stepdaughter, Angela was saying hello. And while it may seem like a strange occurrence, it actually was quite comforting at the time.

So when the garage door occasionally and suddenly opens, consider that your loved one is sending you a little sign. A gentle nudge just to say, “I’m with you, I love you, and you’re going to be ok.”

Military

Uniting Children of Vietnam War Heroes

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Today on Memorial Day 2010, I was so delighted to learn about a wonderful organization which was started 20 years ago to unite the children of the 58,260 men who were killed in the Vietnam War.

“Sons and Daughters in Touch” will celebrate their Dads’ lives this Father’s Day, June 20th, as they do each year on this special day, by gathering at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall at 10:00 a.m. in Washington, D.C.

Its leader, Tony Cordero, lost his dad when he was quite young and I commend him for providing such a heartwarming and healing opportunity for hundreds of thousands of children, who are now adults, who lost their fathers during the Vietnam War.

No one helps us heal better than another person who has walked in our exact shoes. They lived through seeing their Dad come home for short periods of time and be redeployed. They and their family members lived with the fear of not knowing whether he would return. Members of SDIT know exactly what it’s like to walk in those shoes. And nothing could bring more comfort than sharing with a fellow survivor.

If you know of a family who survived the loss of a father, son, brother, uncle, cousin or other relative in Vietnam, please forward this information to them.

I applaud Mr. Cordero and the countless volunteers who help children, whatever their age, acknowledge their grief and celebrate the lives of their beloved Dads.

Emotional Challenges

Loving So Deeply…It Hurts

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I am reminded today of how deeply we grieve and why that really is the case. I believe we grieve so deeply because we loved so deeply. And when someone has loved so deeply they expose themselves to the vulnerability of feeling incredible pain when that loved one has died.

When we are falling in love with someone, there is little thought of all the pain they would eventually feel should their sweetheart leave them through death before they left the other person. We don’t give it much thought.

And as years go by and relationships are built and good times are shared and intimacy is developed together, we rarely think of what might happen if that person was no longer with us. If we might lose them to death regardless of when that might be in our lives.

We rarely think it might be sooner than later. We go into relationships thinking we will be with that person until we are old and gray and don’t give it much thought that there could ever be a chance they will die prematurely.

But sometimes this happens. We take years to find the love of our lives and never think anything would stop our living the dream together until our 70’s, 80’s or beyond. We look for the long haul. We look toward the ultimate…being happily together forever.

Yet what happens if forever is a few months, like when a fiancee is lost, or five years like when a new husband is killed, or like 10 years when the children are little and we need to raise them now alone, or 20 years like when the kids are grown and you thought you’d have the rest of your lives together with your sweetheart alone now.

And you find yourself in a situation where you never thought you’d be. You didn’t anticipate being alone at this point in your life. You are in love. You still have the fire you had when you began and it was snatched out from you at absolutely the wrong time in your life. There was so much life to still live.

I guess the greatest gift we can give those whom we love desperately is to always honor them, be kind to them and act as though they may not be here tomorrow. If we are kind and loving each and every day and let the nonsense slip away, we will never regret a thing of how we loved them. How we made them the center of our world. How we took the chance to completely and enthusiastically take them into our lives and love them without reservation.

Scary…oh yes. To open yourself up to that level of vulnerability seems crazy in the moment. But there needs always to be a time when we know deep down in our core that this person is my honey…my soulmate. He/she is the one I want to spend the rest of my life with and I am willing to take the chance to love them unconditionally knowing full well that we could lose them at any time.

But not having loved them would be so much more painful than taking the chance of loving them regardless of our past pains and losses. It takes courage to love again. It takes courage to live again.

And it is possible…

Death of a Parent

Paris Jackson…What Grief Looks Like

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Regardless of whether you enjoyed Michael Jackson’s music, admired his career and his life, or not, he must be given credit for raising such wonderful children.

On Thursday, at his memorial service, the world saw very clearly what a grieving child looks like. Paris Jackson, in all her pain, mustered the courage to speak for herself and her brothers about their Dad and the man he was to her and them.

For a young child to decide it was so important to let the world know what her father meant to her, speaks volumes of the way she was raised and the love she felt for her Dad.

I was amazed at the continued reactions by the media covering the event. I guess for me, who has seen the enormous effect the death of a loved one can have on a child, it seemed slightly insincere. Inside I was thinking, “have they not ever witnessed someone in deep pain before? Had they never, in all their years of reporting, not seen real, raw emotions when a person knows this particular day will change their life forever? Had they never know the death of someone close to them in their life yet?”

Grieving children are everywhere. Sometimes we get to see it up close and Paris gave the world a very clear picture of what that level of pain is like. For a short, very personal, moment, she allowed the world to see just what the loss of a father can do.

While she may not know it, her courage and her comments have helped millions better understand the devastating emotions that will undoubtedly continue to rise up for her and her family in the weeks, months and even years to come.

Grief is never easy…it is not pretty…at times it’s even messy, because all of us grieve differently and at different times. And the unnerving thing about it is that until we’re in the thick of it ourselves we rarely will know how and when we will react to it.

So I applaud Paris Jackson’s courage. For with her very brief comments she helped the world better understand that a child’s grief is real and difficult and yet, when expressed, can have a powerful impact on others.

Death of a Child

Death of a Child…Age is Unimportant

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Greetings!

As I read some of the recent posts to the Grieving Hearts group, it will always be true that no matter when a family loses a child they feel deep sadness for the inability to have seen that child grow beyond the years of their death.

It doesn’t matter whether they were an infant, a teenager, or a 42 year old. It only matters that for their family they won’t have the joy of seeing what they would have done with their life, all the experiences they would have had from that point on and the person they would have become later in life.

When an infant dies the entire cycle of life is considered. All the pleasure of raising that child, watching them grow into a fine young man or woman. Seeing them graduate high school and college. Perhaps seeing them marry and birth children of their own.

Yet when it’s a 42 or even 52 year old child to an older parent, that parent deals with all the additional years they would have had with their child. They also think of how they counted on their child to take care of them in the latter stages of their life.

Regardless of the number of missing years that a parent no longer has the privilege of experiencing, the pain is still great and the hole in the heart still remains. But over time, as grieving and anquish subside, there is a place where it turns to celebration and gratitude for one’s life, however long they happen to be with us.