This page is a collection of my selecting writings, essays,  poems etc. for your use and perusal. Many have been published in magazines and journals.  Please  feel free to print, copy and distribute for use with the bereaved with appropriate source and author recognition. For reprint permission for use in  published newsletters, magazines etc. please contact the author at heartlightstudio@aol.com.

When Prayers Go Unanswered

As a beggar shares his bread with another beggar I share my heart on a difficult subject with the loss of a child; when there no miracle.   

 
No parent should have to go through the loss of their child; there is no greater pain on this Earth than to experience the death of your child, no grief harder to bear. There is no easy way out, no medication, placebo, no therapy, no shortcut or prayer that can take away the pain, it has to be experienced, you love hard you grieve hard. It is totally unfair and life does not seem worth living...but we need to live.

Some people blame God for taking away their child, some glorify God; that God picks his favorites to be with Him in Heaven and that they are in a better place, and that the good die young. Some people blame the devil for sending evil our way and that we were not faithful enough. Regardless of the cause of death; by disease, accident, suicide or murder, as parents we blame ourselves.  We are the responsible parents who failed to protect our children from their death, no matter how you cut it, we blame ourselves. We are responsible for their welfare, and in some way we failed and our child died. No matter what facts can be brought before us that we did nothing wrong, we still rationalize our guilt. I believe for most of us we as parents are guilty of one thing: loving too much.

If you think back just a hundred years in this country or currently in many third world countries, life is much more egregious and harsh. Medical care may be many miles away by foot or nonexistent, no electricity, and no penicillin, not much in way of helping to save lives for the average person.  Many people die and have died from lack of any medical care, most of them children, even our wars take our children year after year. This planet is cruel and harsh and although high in intelligence and many advances have been made, we as humans are very fragile and death is a continual oppressive enemy.  

Six million Jews prayed to their God to release them from their captors and save their lives.  Why no answer?  Enemy Christian soldiers in many wars have found themselves both frightened and both praying to the same God that they won't get killed. The Muslim prays to Allah for protection in a country racked with war. Whose prayer gets answered? The families at home on 9/11 praying their loved ones survived the blast, the hundreds of individuals scared for their life running down fire escapes praying to get out. Why did some survive and not others?  Pleas to God to find escape from earth quakes, fire and flood, again no answer, a prayer for a miracle for our child in the hospital,  the child abducted or lost,  simply our prayers for their protection at night.  No answer, no miracle.  Why does the omnipotent force of all good not answer our gut wrenched beseechments in prayer? We are good people, what did any one of us do wrong?  We become very, very angry at God for taking our child. He did not answer our prayers, He gave us hope, only take it away, allowing us to love, only to give us this unending agony.  What kind of a God would do this?  How could He allow my child to die?

We even begin to question the very existence of God, but the paradox we find is if we do not believe in God, then who can we be angry at? We need to let out our anger in a healthy way, screaming at God is one way; He cannot be hurt and will not scream back.

I think we tend to make God out to be some powerful magician like the Wizard of Oz; that if the faithful bring their requests to Him in earnest, their prayer will be answered just as requested. I don't believe God throws lighting bolts and curve balls to hurt us or give us disease so that we can experience spiritual growth or fulfill some nebulous destiny.  Conversely I don't believe He makes a choice of which soldier in the trench to save, or which child is cured of cancer.  Prayers are answered through the hearts and hands of those all around us. If the right doctor is found, the right medicine is administered, the life guard is on duty, the scientist finds a cure, the soldier frees a captive, the fireman, the police officer, your neighbor, or the man on the street are all agents of God, whether they know it or not. Many times there is no miracle, there is no cure, there is no hero or savior and our loved one dies; our prayers seemingly ignored.  We become very angry that we were lead to believe that our fervent prayers would be heard and yet they were left unanswered.

I am reminded of a story that illustrates this point. There is a man atop his house caught in a flash flood with rapidly rising waters and he pleads with God to save his life.  Soon a boat comes by and pleads with the man to get in the boat. The man responds "that's all right God is going to save me," the boat leaves. The water is getting higher and soon a helicopter appears and drops a line to the stranded man, again he refuses help saying that God was going to save him.  The rising waters soon overtake the house and the man drowns and goes to heaven and asks God why He did not save him.  God responded:” first I sent you a boat, then I sent a helicopter, you refused both so all I could do was save your soul”.  Sometimes there is no boat or helicopter available and our loved one dies despite our prayers.  As much as we would like to believe that God can magically reach down his mighty hand and rescue us, we intellectually know that is not going to happen. God is not a physical entity; He is the combined love of this planet.  Just as He used Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad and Moses to speak his words, he uses people to carry out the answer to prayer. If those boats and helicopters are simply not physically available at the time, or the right medication is not found we die, life is cruel, life is harsh. 

My nine year old son Kelly died from a malignant brain tumor called Medullablastoma.  We prayed and prayed that he would not die and that he could be cured.  Though many medical breakthroughs in cancer have saved many lives most children with this diagnosis 17 years ago and today, die from this form of cancer.  Kelly lived almost two years following his diagnosis.  Did God answer our prayers?  Yes, he did. Was Kelly cured? No, he was not.  Was Kelly healed? Yes, he was, for when there is no miracle death is the ultimate healer. 

A hundred years ago Kelly would not have even been diagnosed, he would have suffered more terribly and died much sooner.  Our prayers were answered with what was available to us geographically, with an outstanding local children's hospital, wonderful doctors and nurses and excellent insurance that covered over a half a million dollar medical bill. Our prayers were answered when our town of Bayport raised money with a benefit for us and with Make-a-wish who sent us to Hawaii for two weeks. Our prayers were answered in Mexico where we traveled there to find a cure and Kelly's tumor disappeared. When the cancer came back out of control, my prayers were answered that God would take him from the pain.  My prayers were answered when I asked Kelly for a sign that he survived death and that he could hear my lamentations.  My prayers were answered that I could find some path out the valley of the shadow of death and embrace life again. Yes, God exists and answers prayers.  My son has communicated to me after his death in a very real way; if Kelly survived death, than there is no doubt in my heart that God exists.  By whatever name you call your personal omnipotent deity or how that universal force answers your prayers is as individual as a snowflake and different for everyone.

Your child dies at 3 months old from SIDS, killed with no warning at 18 by a drunk driver, or the onset of a sudden illness, what prayer can possibly change those horrific facts?  There was no inkling of their fate or time to pray to prevent it; we are vulnerable to our physical limitations with every breath we take. Why did it happen?  Like trying to comprehend that there is no end to the universe, there is no answer our intellect can understand.  As long as this world turns our love ones, including our children will die, we cannot escape it. When this happens we feel guilty for not preventing it somehow, and feel totally empty inside, feeling far away from the God who failed us and took our child.

Believing in God is a personal choice and whether or not you believe in God or not, death will claim lives and we shall all experience the pain of loss.  I don't believe God takes our lives but I do believe He receives our spirit. God does not punish us, he picks us up when we fall and carries us when we cannot walk.  Our destiny is a work in progress, just as melting snow from the mountain top finds the ocean, nourishes the landscape or forms a mountain lake, it will be what it will be and dependent on what it encounters on the journey. I don't blame God for my losses, I don't blame the devil, and I accept the fact that life is harsh and is terminal from our birth. 

Because of my personal experience I choose to believe in God and thank Him for every minute that I am given to experience life. Every moment is an opportunity to feel love by sharing hearts with one another.  Even through all the pain of losing my son, my parents, two siblings, and two nephews I still feel His love through his children on this earth. That belief has sustained me in my deepest sorrow and the only thing that assuaged the pain.  I believe there are Angels all around us, living and breathing as we do and although they cannot bring our child or loved one back they can help to heal the hurt and if you help to heal the hurt of others so shall your hurt be relieved.  If you don’t believe in God, believe in love, to me it’s a matter of semantics. 

Victor Frankle, author, doctor and survivor of a concentration camp said in his book "Mans' Search for Meaning”: 'To live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning in the suffering.'  We cannot change what has transpired, as we live we shall suffer.  We cannot go back and change the past but we can change the future as we move from loss to legacy, substantiating our loved ones life by the way we live ours.  We can honor their lives and allow them to live on through our actions; in our grief we are given the license to take emotional risks, and express the feelings in our heart.  Other than the death of another child nothing can hurt us more than we have already been hurt.

I wanted to die when Kelly died, but I chose to live, who else would keep his memory alive?  If we do not choose life, than ultimately two lives are wasted.  Grieve hard, scream loud, feel every facet of your loss as long as you need to, grieve openly, express your lamentations and frustrations; you love hard, you grieve hard, it is supposed to hurt.  Know that your grief will lesson as time moves on but you will always be a bereaved parent and like living with arthritis you will live with flare ups of pain the rest of your life.

God bless you on your long journey and continuing passage of pain, and know also that although our children live in one sphere of existence and we in another, with faith, undying love and the desire, we can meet at the seam where our worlds connect; love never dies.

The death of a child is a huge leveler; we all walk this road together.

Love and Light,

Mitch Carmody
Author of "Letters to My Son, a journey through grief"

heartlightstudio@aol.com

www.heartlightstudios.net

It’s all about Heart

♫                                             ♫                                     ♫    

Oh……. we’re off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of Oz …Those words and melody always bring back to mind one of my favorite movies in the whole world. Maybe it was gathering around the television with mismatched Tupperware bowls of popcorn and a cold bottle of Coke (my mother had her own ‘hands off’ stash of Tab). We were dressed up for bed early, all snug in our jammies with pillows piled behind our heads and we would listen intently as Danny Kay introduced us to the yearly ritual of the televised viewing of “The Wizard of Oz”.

I love everything about the film, its’ characters, the music, the majesty, the change from black and white to color, and of course Judy Garland.  The story taught me so much about how important the journey is in achieving a goal; to dare to take a risk; to dare to trust friends and trust the serendipity of life itself.  My favorite character was the Tin Man.  He was so tender, gentle and sweet yet so sad and forlorn.  He could not feel the beating of his own heart yet bore the qualities of one who truly has a capacity for love. Life is about finding our own heart; seeing how it reflects back to us from the others that we love.  We find that on the journey of searching to find what we think is important in life, we find by default what is truly important, and it’s all about heart.

I enjoy watching movies of all kinds. One of my favorites is a fictitious story about a young boy, the best little league picture in his small Montana town who walked off the pitching mound and quit playing baseball.  The boy’s name was Chuck, the movie: “Amazing Grace and Chuck”.  When Chuck is asked why he walked off the field, he responded “I have to give up something I love until the madness of nuclear arms across the world is halted”. Word spread, and soon major sport figures are giving up their positions on their respective teams to join this young idealist in his unique protest.  The movement soon spread to children in schools across U.S. and the world.  All the children began protesting nuclear arms by not speaking. To persuade the world’s children to start speaking again the United State’s President (Gregory Peck) and the Russian leader started to disarm respective missile sites. One person with integrity, the willingness to sacrifice, and has true compassion for the common good, no matter what their age is, can truly change the world.  We should all follow what our heart tells us and make the world a little better place then when we found it.

The movie the “Never Ending Story’ which was a partially animated children’s feature (from the eighties) that had a great message for us. If your remember in the  movie, the whole world was slowly disappearing because of “ the nothing” .When people stopped believing in magic and the beauty and  mystery of life the  world would fade away to nothing.  Experience is our greatest gift, apathy our greatest sin.  In our grief we may feel like fading away into the nothing and feel nothing, but then two lives are lost and the world diminished twofold. We love hard we grieve hard; we cannot feel nothing; If we do, we lose ourselves and that connection with our loved one in the bargain. We can use the experience of our grief to build our new future, a future that will have joy in it again sometime down the road. It is a life long journey down this road, but you if you feel love again you will feel joy again.  Feeling joy again is the great legacy of our continuing love for our loved ones who have died.

Pay it Forward. Now there is a movie with a message!  After experiencing several tragedies in my life, including the death of my son, I soon found the only way I was able to navigate through the dark shadows of my despair was by reaching out to other people in need.  The more I would help others, the better I would feel, the better I would feel, the more connected I felt to the world and my son. It’s all about heart.  I finally had a name for how I felt!  From a movie I found a name, a phrase if you will, to explain the modality of healing that worked and is working for me.  Pay it forward.

On this journey through life we will face many challenges; one of those toughest challenges is surviving the loss of a loved one.  Healing from a significant familial loss takes years to reach some acceptable level of recovery. It takes years, not months to accept the death of a child. Helping others is one way to face those challenges, but one cannot fill another’s cup if our own cup is not full. In the beginning we are forced to accept the compassion of others to fill our own cup; prime it so to speak until our cup is full and capable of filling others. This initial process of filling takes as long as it takes and is different for everyone. When you cup is again full, you can start to fill the cups of others.   When you reach out to others and in the process you will find your soul is refreshed, your pain diminished and your will to live restored.

 A small act of kindness it like a small pebble thrown into a pond; its ripples reach every shore. Let your heart be that pebble that sends ripples of compassion to many different shores. In reaching out to others in this way, our loss turns to legacy, our despair turns into hope, and our future is reclaimed. At some point in this process you may even feel true joy again.  Take the risk of being as good as one can be. Tip the balance. Pay it forward. It’s all about heart. It’s all about love.

I use these movies as metaphors of the grief journey for myself; you may have your own. No matter what movie, story, book or song that you may see, read or hear, if it is all about heart, there will be triggers that call their name. You will be reminded of your love one, in a way bittersweet and melancholy and your hearts will swell and eyes may well.

We will feel the pain again, and we may cry again, but we do not manufacture tears, they are just waiting to come out. Tears of remembrance are much sweeter than those of early pain, and they bring comfort, not fear.  Home is where the heart is…There’s no place like home.

“You must give some time to your fellow man. Even if it’s a little thing, do something for others…something for which you get no pay but the privilege of doing it”

                                                                        -Albert Schweitzer

“It is in giving that we receive, it is in healing that we are healed”

                                                                        -St. Francis of Assisi

Mitch Carmody November 2007

-Those Whispers of Love that keep us keeping on.

If you have lost someone close to you and suffer with that loss, you may have wished for, prayed for, expected and or anticipated some sort of supernatural experience that would validate your belief that there truly is life after death.  I believe that somehow our loved one who has moved on in spirit can communicate with us in some form or fashion, and that it can bring us a peace that can be found in no other way. I believe we live in one sphere of existence, our departed loved one lives in another, but we can meet at the seam where our worlds connect. If our love is strong, and we keep all our senses open, it can and will happen. We need to let go of fear of the unknown and our own preconceived notions of what is and what is not real.

I have recently become a grandfather. I cannot believe the depth of love I have for my granddaughter. At this point in my life and in my bereavement journey of almost twenty years I had thought I hit a plateau of acceptance with the death and physical loss of my son Kelly. I had accepted that my heart would never quite feel the intensity of joy that it once had. This child born to his surviving sister has brought that intensity of joy back to my heart. With that joy has come some unexpected blessings and some very special visits from our son.

I think Kelly stuck his foot in the door when his niece, baby Kinsey came to this world. I believe he is lingering real close to us for a while; it has been quite a long time since we felt his energy this profoundly. There were many years of silence or maybe there was too much white noise in the way for us to hear, but we feel so blessed that he continues to surprise us with his visits and everlasting love. 

Many, many people have had some form of experience with communication from a loved one who has died. Most people are afraid to tell others fearing that they will be labeled as nuts, gone off the deep end, lost it completely, or just desperate for anything to assuage their pain. I believe that for the most part, people are just still plain afraid of ghosts!  Even the word ghost, conjures up thoughts of scary things. We find ourselves using words more palatable to our psyche, such as “a presence”, “a spirit”, “an angel”, “a visitation”, “an entity”, ‘their soul”, or “energy field”, verbiage that takes away the enigma of darkness that surrounds communication from spirit world. People are scared of things they do not understand and attribute phenomenon like this to some malevolent spirit, rather than whispers of love from our loved one. 

Twentieth century Hollywood brought us many movies filled with ghost, specters and poltergeists that seem to continue to haunt the lives of the innocent.  From “The Shining” to “Ghostbusters” these movies perpetuate the belief in evil spirits that have a want and need to frighten us.  Communications from beyond the grave for the most part in our society has been relegated to Gypsy lore; late night séances with unsettled spirits raising tables and blowing out candles. Eerie, creepy scenarios made to frighten and to entertain.

Some religions have also helped to reinforce urban legends of malicious entities that are bent on plaguing humankind.  That demons and evil spirits surround us continually, tempting us, frightening us, and may be even possessing us. Ghost and departed spirits are pigeon holed with demonic spirits and by association become something to fear.  Therefore communications with the dead via, a medium, a séance or Ouija board is deemed dangerous and viewed as an aspect of the occult. This is somewhat of a paradox as the concept of speaking with the dead goes back to ancient times and most religions are based on prophets who hear voices, have spoken with angels or have had  visions of long dead religious icons.

In today’s world people report orbs in photos, lights turning on and off, hearing voices, objects being misplaced, a cool breeze from nowhere, doors slamming, phones ringing, dogs barking at nothing, finding a penny, and on and on. Most people have historically attributed these "happenings" to evil spirits or a poltergeist. Possibly, it is just our loved one using what is available to let us know they are around us always. We just need to remove the cloak of darkness and mystery that surrounds after death communication, and understand it is a fairly common occurrence world wide.

 Not until the release of the movie “Ghost” starring Patrick Swazee did a movie create a more believable image of a spirit who left too soon. Spirit communications have been mystified and sensationalized for so long it has become ingrained in our collective psyche as a negative thing, when it is merely love trying to shine through the veil of darkness.

I believe love is more powerful then evil, for evil is merely the lack of love. When we carry light with us, we should not be afraid of the dark, because -there is none. If we study physics, we know that there is no such "thing" as darkness but merely the absence of light. There is pure energy (love) or lack of it. Science clearly shows us that energy does not die, it is only transformed; everything in the universe goes through continual transformational cycles. So does the love that is the essence of our souls and it is transformed to a new existence of light. Spirit is light and loving energy and nothing to be afraid of. It is ignorance that is scary.

There is some speculation that the weight of the soul is 21 grams (the weight of a hummingbird). Soul is love, it is energy, therefore it has substance and that energy continues on. Just as a satellite dish can connect to anywhere in the world and tap into that continual flowing energy field so can so can our hearts. We must strive to turn on that switch to receive the signal and possibly even climb a mountain to get better reception. Love never dies. Light attracts light. Turn on your heartlight and spread the light we are meant to share; give the love, and show others we care.

 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.  People do not light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket.  They set it on a stand where it gives light to all in the house.  In the same way, your light must shine before all people so that they may see goodness in your acts and give praise to your heavenly Father.”  -Matthew, 5:14-16

Love is the light of the world, the energy that keeps the balance, and what opens doors to spirit. Without love, I do not believe that disembodied spirits could make themselves known to us, but with love they are empowered to do so and our love empowers us to receive it.  They use whatever means they can to get our attention to say “Hello!!!! Knock, knock ‘pudding head’…it’s me, pay attention!”   So things go bump in the night, lights go on and off, and society labels it as a ghost, poltergeist, or some evil phantom when it is only our loved one trying to get our attention to simply show us that their love lives on. 

They can even enter our dreams and speak to us in such a way that cannot be dismissed as “just a dream”. In the dream visitation, it is usually in full color, like watching a movie you can remember it vividly as the day it happened. You can experience smells, emotions, taste the tears, feel the pain, and feel the love. Your mind, body, and spirit react to is if it was real, you remember the experience as it if was real, you do so because it was not just a dream, it was real.

Our bodies react accordingly when we have an experience of some form of after death communication.  The joy that comes in recognition of a loved one alive or dead releases endorphins which are the body’s opiates that give us a sense of pleasure and/or relieve pain. Even sighing/moaning triggers the release of endorphins, which ultimately helps relieve pain physical and emotional.  Deep moaning, as in a physical trauma, or in the intense screams as in childbirth are the mind and bodies attempt to alleviate extreme pain.

Crying and laughing are flip sides of the same coin and laughter also triggers the release of endorphins and we feel pleasure. Sigh away, cry away and allow the laughter; it does help ease the pain. Embrace the love, embrace the light, for with the light comes healing.  Our loved ones are with us always, so filter out the noise of life and speak to them from your heart and in prayer. Listen closely with all your senses, for love cannot be denied, it was and is always there…and only a whisper away.                               

Mitch Carmody Email: heartlightstudio@aol.com

Fathers in Grief, a Paradox for Today’s Male

by Mitch Carmody

The loss of your child can be crippling and leaves deep scars, it changes who we are and how we look at life and how we relate with the world. Five or six years out is still early in the spectrum of child loss but close to the point where positive rebuilding can begin.  One thing that I have discovered that helps pull you out of the canyon of despair is compassion for others, it is giving that we receive and in healing that we are healed.

In the first few years it is hard to even help yourself much less others and we mechanically maintain, weep a lot and lick our wounds while clinging desperately to everything of our child and in secret wish to join them. We rejoin the real world at our own time and it happens when it right for us. Every ones journey is different, but what remains the same is the huge void that is left in our lives.  How we fill it is up to us. I believe we need to fill it with something positive for others that creates a legacy of good in our child's name. We now become their legacy and we substantiate our child's life by the way we live ours.

In our "modern day" society it is especially difficult for fathers to grieve openly, caught in a catch 22 of how to express the deep pain we our experiencing.  Men don't cry, men do not emote, men do not hug (maybe at the funeral) men don't go to support groups, men don't call in sick because they are screaming inside, we are the man of the family.  Fathers are the fix it guys, the protector, the strength and the rock the family needs for support.  More times than not people will ask a father" how is your wife doing? This must be hard extremely for her". 

The modern male is now given (by women and therapists) license to show emotions, to cry, scream, hug and express their deepest emotions and fears, to let it out. The Irony of this is if he does emote and the family has never seen this behavior, it is taken as a sign of weakness and the spouse and other family members feel they have lost their safety net, their rock of support, and feel even more helpless and rudderless on this journey of pain. If this happens he may again 'clam up' to help with his family and deal with his own pain later. He finds that 'letting it out' is an axiom of sophistry and in doing so he feels he is letting his family down. Indeed a paradox for the wanna-be sensitive Dad.

Most men cry alone in their cars on the way to work and they explain that the red eyes are due to allergies, or a late night.  When my father died when I was age 14, my Mom told me I was the man of the family now, I did not cry, I did not grieve.  It was not until years later and my losses became overwhelming did I finally let it out and express my emotions for the loss of my father. It has been 16 years now since Kelly died and I still cry with my wife when we feel our loss together or even when I hear a special song like'Wind beneath my Wings' and I do not care who is present, you love hard you grieve hard and it is supposed to hurt. When you recognize your own pain and express it, you automatically become more empathetic to others in similar pain and can help relieve theirs. Hell, now I cry at Hallmark Card commercials, I can't help it.

When people tell us to find closure, or move on and don't dwell on it. We can, but not how they think we should. We find closure in what will never be, let go of the what ifs, the shoulda -woulda -couldas and move on with the knowledge that our children are forever by our side, only in a new relationship. We live in one sphere of existence, our loved one who has died in another, but with faith, undying love and the desire we can connect at the seam where our two worlds meet. Love never dies.

In America we are allowed a few weeks to "get over it" and get back on track.   The dead are wrapped up neatly so to speak and put away and their names unspoken. I find this totally unacceptable, it has been almost 16 years and I still talk about Kelly everyday and always will.  We will always be bereaved parents but we will not always be experiencing the pangs of grief.  Like arthritis we learn to live with it the rest of our lives, and also realize we shall still have flare ups of pain and discomfort as we move on through the years.

                                                                                          Love and light

                                                                                          Mitch Carmody 2004

                       It’s In Letting Go That We Are Free To Hold On

In my many years in working with bereaved parents I have heard a lot of discussions on the use of the terms ‘closure’, ‘letting go’, ‘moving on’, ‘getting on with your life’ and ‘acceptance’.  So many people in the process of bereavement find the glib use of these terms offensive, repugnant and that it minimizes their intense journey of pain. When taken off guard the grieving person is hurt by the insensitivity of the remark and often even angered by it; especially if uttered by the inexperienced or the ignorant. We don't ever want them to be experienced and if they are ignorant, then we must enlighten them.  So many times we are angered and say nothing; we swallow it, put deep inside on a back burner to slowly burn.   It’s okay to be angry, it is a part of grief, but it also needs to be released and not allowed to fester.  Most of the time when someone makes a remark we do not like, or utter an inane platitude, know that their heart is in the right spot, they just truly do not understand.  We must appreciate their compassion and also must realize our perception is jaded by deep personal grief and its umbrage of pain and bitterness.

We tell them, we educate them, they become informed and we harbor no resentment.  We see past their ignorance and accept what ever words of compassion they give to us...so many say nothing.  Often times it is not what is said, but how it is said that threatens our well being.  Positive accolades are never taken well especially in early grief when they seem to be used the most.  People who have never lost a child just do not know.  Accept their compassion however they give it. . If you must, put a finger slowly  to the lips of the fumbling but caring human being and simply tell them “please don’t try and fix it, I don’t want to fix it yet, just hold me like you mean it.”

There is one key word in the above mentioned platitudes that you will notice is one of five famous Kubler Ross stages of grief; Acceptance.  This is the stage of grief that rules them all and is the key to understanding the use of its sister terms, moving on, letting go, and finding closure.  First of all I think we all have learned to understand that the five stages of grief; Shock, Denial, Anger, Bargaining, and Acceptance are non-linear and happen all together, separately, and in all combinations for many years but happen they do, and happen they will.  Each stage serves as a unique purpose for our survival and that is what they are, survival tools. 

Shock gets us through the impossible, to bury our child.  Denial keeps back reality so we can function somewhat back into society… like a non-ending bad dream we continue to live on without our child , but with an elusive thought we will wake up to find it really was just a bad dream. The first year anniversary date usually knocks out Denial and Shock briefly steps in back in.   Anger jumps in and out at its leisure and usually catches us off guard or when we are going into and/or out of depression.  Bargaining is a total mind game with play with ourselves to rationalize our current state of misery and to make it feel justified: I deserve to not get out of bed, If I go to church more often I will feel better, If I get drunk enough I can cry and or sleep, If I pray enough I will wake up from this nightmare. If I end my own life, I can join him; if I am good enough may be he will come to me in my dreams.  A seeming never ending internal dialogue that yields has no answer but gets us through another day.

Now back to Acceptance, the stage of grief that encompasses them all, and gives credibility to the aphorisms; letting go, moving on, getting on with your life and finding closure.  We own these words, they are our grief, we paid a heavy price for them and we shall use them as they were meant to be.  In eventual healing from child loss we find closure with the other stages of grief but not closure of our child.  We usually first find closure with Shock.  As a temporary survival tool by its nature shock finds closure on its own and we are no longer numb and it is then that we truly feel the pain.  When we find closure with Denial, we know our child is dead, that this is not a dream, they are not coming back and we begin to live the pain. We eventually find closure in bargaining because it is a mind game and simply doesn’t work.  That leaves us with Acceptance, we accept the pain, we accept our “new normal”, and we accept the new relationship we have with our dead child. We also accept dead is not gone, we accept there is letting go of many things/people in our new normal EXCEPT our child.  The world must accept our new normal and accept that we shall never ‘get over it’. Like arthritis we learn to live with it.

We ‘get on with our life’ with our child, we ‘let go’ of illusions of what could have been, we ‘find closure’ in what we cannot change, and we ‘move on’ with our new future as best we can.  We are now our child’s legacy; we substantiate their life by the way we live ours, so let’s make them proud.  We do not put their names and memories away left unspoken and hidden like some shameful secret but shout them loudly to the heavens and to all that can hear: “I love my child and I still feel him near”.  It’s in letting go that we are free to hold on.

The following is an excerpt from my book “Letters to my Son”.  This is the last posthumous letter I had written to my son followed by a brief postscript touching on this subject of “letting go”.

My dearest son,

            I have not written for quite awhile, but I think that means I am doing better.  The signs that you have given us have been truly miraculous and I share them with many people.  When you sent the five doves when I was reading the poem Letting Go to your mother was awesome!  You know me well enough to find out what the significance of the Number five was.  I talked to a lady at church who was a numerologist and she said it meant, “Letting go!!!”  My God that says it all.

            I take that sign as a mutual letting go as we release each other to move on.  I still would like to hear from you now and then although.  I would really like to have a heart to heart talk with you as visually as you can make it (or I can make it) or better yet as we can both make it in my dreams.  I need one good last hug from you that will last me for the rest of my life. I miss you so much!!!!!  I miss you like you have just gone away and my heart aches at certain times that just pop up.  It is not the intense pain that it was.  There is the pain of separation, being away from you physically.  Then there is the pain of separation itself, the actual act of separation that was so intense and painful.  That separation has finally reached its breaking point and the separation has taken place.  Now it is just the ache of our being separated and not the extreme pain of the separation process.             

            Just as your mother raised you for nine months inside her womb, nurturing you and protecting you, she then had to give you up after the ninth month. She had to separate from you physically and it was very painful, that act of separation.  She then suffered later after she recovered with the ache of that separation.  She no longer was physically responsible for your life, and she felt the loss of the ultimate maternal feeling of having you inside of her and grieved that.  Now after nurturing you and being responsible for you for nine years, she then had to give you up again, and with it came that terrible pain of separation.  The whole separation scenario played over again.  Only this time, you are now born into a new life that is a more permanent separation.  There is no physical contact.  It maybe a quick return for you, but a long wait for us until we can see you again.

            Our return to Mexico was of great importance for us all.  It gave us an opportunity   to let go and carry on with our personal destinies.  We cannot change the facts of our separation so we must make the best of where we are now.  For a while, I just wanted to die and join you, while selfishly ignoring all the responsibilities I have here, especially for your sister.  I also now realize what a great legacy you left us with, and I would be renege in my duty not to carry on the work that you had started.  The work and purpose of your lifetime was the main reason that we were picked as your parents by you.  You picked us to help in the task set before you and to carry on with your work and the work of our Lord’s that now seems so synonymous in their natures.

            If I was to give up and become an emotional cripple and let the pain of separation maim me for life, I would be doing you such a great disservice and make your life of great trials and tribulations all for naught.  I must and will spread the word of God and what faith in him can do and I shall do it my son, with your life.  Not many people have done as much with their life at full measure as you have done already with your few short years on this earth.  We will continue on with our path that you have started for us.  I feel more abundant in the spirit then ever before in my life. You’ve given that to me, Kelly, and I thank you.  I want to be of service to mankind and my God more than ever before.

            I would give it all up in a heart beat if I could only have you back here with us, but that can never be so I will expand upon all that we have learned in the school that was your life. I will help to heal mankind as best as I can and spread the word of the faith that can produce miracles. You will always be an active part of my life and together we shall turn my sorrow into joy.  Please continue to be that light that guides me and keeps my spirit alive and let me be a conduit of healing energy. 

            As man suffers at the thought of the crucifixion of Christ, and yet without that reality that he knew was his destiny, where would the world be today?  Just as you did, knowing your destiny would create a living testimony of faith.  We suffer at our loss, but rejoice in the glory that is your spirit.

                                                                                    I love you,   Dad

                                                  Postscript

This was the last letter that I had penned to my son, some fifteen months down the road following his death. It was then that I finally accepted the fact that he was really dead.  Part of that acceptance had to deal with a trip back to Mexico.  My wife thought it was crazy but she acquiesced at my insistence that it was something we needed to do.

            So much magic happened in Mexico and we as a family were buoyed up spiritually from the whole experience.  Now a year and some months following his death I had to go back to Mexico and see if it had all been real.  The memory of it all seemed like some vivid dream that I could not let go of.  Return we did, only to find a whole different landscape.

            The beach house where we had stayed for several months had burned to the ground.  Nothing remained.  We went to the chapel where the healing had taken place.  Dona Nieves, who owned the chapel, was in Mexico City for an extended stay so was not available.  The Medium (Maria) had not been around for quite some time we were told.   We did not meet any of the friends that we had made and we were even hassled by the local police.

            When we had been there before, we were treated like gods and everyday was a good day.  It was as if it had all been a dream, like a Brigadoon experience that was there for a short time, only to vanish again.  We drove that day out of Mexico with very mixed emotions.  We knew the miracles had happened.  How could it have all changed so much?  What does this all mean?

            We flew home and when the plane pulled onto the runway and up to the terminal, I received my answer. I could see my wife’s parents in the window holding the hand of our daughter Meagan.  It was then that I realized that she was all I had left.  She deserved all of me. As I stared at Meagan, I had a vision, a mental image of my son’s face on a large kite in the vast blue sky. His eyes were alive, happy and brilliantly blue as the sky around him.  His smile was one of peace, contentment, and self realized assuredness. Gazing into his eyes once more I found myself lost in a reverie of pure joy.  With tears streaming down my face and totally unaware of my surroundings, I saw myself clutching desperately to the string that connected to the kite.  It was then that I realized how extremely tight I was holding on to the string.  I was so afraid of letting it go.

Momentarily, my connection to the outside world returned and as if looking through a tunnel I stared at my darling daughter behind the thick safety glass.  I then knew I had to make a choice to let go of my son and give all my energy to my daughter, who was alive and needed me so much.  It was painful for me to do, but as I slowly walked up the ramp to my awaiting daughter, I unclenched my hand and let go of the kite string.  The kite never strayed, but remained high in the azure sky and my son smiled down at me as if to say, “Now that wasn’t too hard was it, Dad?”   My daughter was now running down the ramp and soon was wrapping her arms around me. I scooped her up in an instant holding held her very tight.  I gave Kelly a wink and the vision fading I covered my daughter with tender kisses.  It felt good to come home.     – MC

-The loss of a child is huge leveler; we all walk this road together

Mitch Carmody

www.heartlightstudios.net

In trying to explain the intensity and duration of grief recently, I used the story of the Lord of the Rings as a metaphor to give it some perspective of magnitude and I share it with you now.  I was always a Tolkien fan and had even read The Hobbit to the kids when they were little. My Son Kelly would have really loved to see the movie trilogy if he had lived.  This story may not mean as much to you if you have never read the book or seen the movie, but in your battle to survive the loss of your child you know of the journey.

                                     The Journey to Mordor

                                            -a mythology of grief

Losing a child is an extremely difficult life changing experience and one that leaves deep scars.  Grieving in child loss tops the scales as life's most challenging stressors.  There is no pain worse on this earth than to lose a child, no grief harder to bear. It is a life long journey into acceptance of the unacceptable.  When we lose a child, parent or sibling, we embark on a journey, the hero's journey if you will, to find meaning in our suffering and help heal the ache that throbs so deeply in our soul. We are on a mission, a spiritual quest to heal our heart, traveling into uncharted territories of grief and bitter realities. The bereavement process is not unlike the brave Hobbit's journey to Mordor in the story of the “The Lord of the Rings”.

Like Frodo Baggins we embark on an odyssey of seemingly impossible odds; on a journey we did not choose but the where the journey chose us.  Feeling small and infinitesimal against the looming gargantuan mountain of grief, we rest for a while in its long deep shadow and watch the rumbling clouds of storms gathering threateningly in the distant.

We rest; we gather strength for our long journey and find the courage to take that first step.  We cannot go back, we have to cross the mountain, and leave what we have known for our whole life, leave our comforts and begin our journey. As Frodo wore the ring of power around his neck, so do we wear the ring of grief on a chain around our neck, "my child is dead, this is all I have of him" my grief.  We clutch on to that grief, its ours, it is our precious, it is our child.  If we hold it hard, like Frodo we too can become invisible for a while, but like Frodo and worse yet Gollum if we stay there to long, we can get lost in the dark.

We continue on our journey using the ring of our grief to aid us in our survival.  We are now away from our life as we once knew it and we put on the ring to escape our pain in a world so harsh and cold.  We struggle forward, always feeling the draw of the ring, our grief, our burden, our savior, our mojo, our precious, our lamentations, all that's left of our child lays in our grief.  There in lays the paradox, our goal to throw the ring of grief back into the fires of Mordor and heal our pain, when that is the only thing that gives us relief...our grief.

We learn it is not the metaphorical fires of Mordor in Tolkien’s trilogy that heals the hurt , anymore than a mechanical ticking heart allowed the Tin Man to feel compassion nor the medal that was given to the Cowardly Lion give him courage in the Wizard of  Oz.  It’s the journey itself that is the healing process.  Slowly we feel our own heart beat again, we gain courage to move forward, a reluctant warrior we face the dragon and fight for our life. 

We find out who our real friends are and who we really need in our lives.  Like Samwise the hobbit we have friends who stay by our side, protect us when we are not looking, give us bread when they are hungry, put up with our intolerant moods and are always there when you need them the most.  We meet angels, and orcs, good people and trolls, madmen and magicians, we see and experience more death, more pain, we find more magic in life, recognize the Synchronicity of kismet and enjoy the kindness of strangers. We meet new friends and lose old friends.  Life is living, life is dying, flip sides of the same coin; our own life flippant as a coin in mid air toss.

Everyone's journey to Mordor is different and it takes as long as it takes, but it is a journey we cannot escape. Returning the ring to Mordor is the acceptance stage of grief, the ring to rule all the stages of grief.  We throw into the fire: shock, denial, bargaining and anger, we no longer need to become invisible or deny our own destiny.  All the stages need to be experienced for they all serve a purpose. It is a misnomer although to call them stages as that implies a degree by degree advancement of a process.  Whereas the 'components' of grief come and go in any combination with some never experienced at all. They come when they are needed; the teacher comes, when the student is ready.

Each grief component helps us cope in different ways and we each take from the ring of grief what we personally need to survive.  We can become invisible when we feel the need too and escape from the world but we cannot stay there too long for its harder to return each time. We need to hold on to our grief but not let it become our 'precious' and take over our life forever. We must carry it with us on our journey, because it is the journey.  We shall need many different friends to help and aid us as we travel to our own Mordor.  We shall lose old friends, gain new friends, find friends in unlikely places, find kinship with strangers, and cold hugs from good friends. We shall be hurt, we shall hurt others and we will learn to accept it all as part of the journey and continue on because we must. 

 As with Frodo it can be a struggle to let go of our grief, it has been our 'precious' for a long time and paradoxically can be hard to give up.  Like Frodo we must return the ring, and find acceptance or become a miserable creature like Gollum enslaved to his catharsis, and a causality of his own avarice.  We shall rest when weary, we will doubt our mission to survive, we will collapse from exhaustion, we will lose our way, and we will want to give up. But like Frodo we carry on wounded, hurting, forever changed and move slowly across those mountains.

Eventually like Frodo we release the grief, the grip of our precious and live by what we have learned on the journey itself.  We don't release the love for our child or the essence of our loved one; we release old expectations and lost dreams.  We release guilt and anger; we accept that we have a new relationship with our loved one and accept our 'new normal.' Like Frodo, where he was wounded, it will ache the rest our life, we shall always be bereaved parents... but not always be in grief.

We must live our grief, we must experience it fully, we must express our sorrow, show our lamentations, wallow in our pain, it is supposed to hurt, and we do not need someone to fix it.  Grief is a natural process we have to allow to happen and allow it to take its course. Its not to be rushed, circumvented, delayed or medicated forever, it has to be experienced and absorbed before true rebuilding can begin.

 Recognize your journey and do not opt for the short cuts.  Letting go of grief is not letting go of love, its not getting over it, is going through it, it is not moving on, its moving with, its not closure, its acceptance, it not concentrating on what you no longer have, its embracing what you still have.  Dead is not gone, love transcends time and space, our love ones spirit is but a whisper through the veil; we need just open our hearts, God will do the rest.

Love and light

Mitch Carmody

www.heartlightstudios.net

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

We fought death with all we had

there was almost nothing we did not try

but despite our every effort

our child still had to die.

We were left in pain and sorrow

but we sought magic through our tears

and found miracles in motion

as we moved on throughout the years.

Those miracles in motion

seemed to keep our boat afloat

no dream seemed too bizarre

nor a coincidence too remote.

        Spontaneous chills and goose bumps

are meant to warm the spirit

they happen when they happen

and happen when you need it.

When God is breathing down your neck

It’s because He is holding you real close

You can feel His heartbeat within you own

and find ways that you can cope.

You find a way to transform your grief

into something tangible and good

so light a bon-fire in the darkness

let your deeds become the wood.

You must give back to everyone

with everything you can

    share your world with others

 truly listen, and lend a hand.

You cannot bring a loved one back

there are no rebates from the grave

so one must embrace a living face

and find someone you can save.

Save somebody from their loneliness

save someone from their pain

save them from themselves

or from a society gone insane.

Everyone longs for love

without it we would surely die

it’s easy to give in many ways

a smile, a hug… a cry.

So it’s “Top-o-the morning” to everyone

let your heart-light shine

reach into each other’s hearts

with words, with touch…and time.

Makes silly jokes and laugh out loud

it’s giggles that massage the soul

look directly into peoples’ eyes

and let your heart-light glow.

Others will see that Inner Light

as you gaze into their eyes

and know we are all relations

the ignorant and the wise.

Still there will be difficult times

when sadness escorts travail

nothing tried will ease the pain

and you will feel that you have failed.

Where were the miracles that

were once woven within my grief?

I used to talk to angels

and had visions in my sleep.

I now realize the miracles never stop

they only take a different form

mini-miracles happen everyday

and soon becomes the norm.

God’s magic has changed my life

changed who and what I am

I have moved through the pain

and find joy in all I can.

Sunrises are crisp again

sunsets bathe my heart

butterflies, birds, and song

are daily works of art.

As the sands of the ocean

were once a piece of land

what once was in human terms

  can never be again.

Some flowers bloom for only moments

then wither and fade away

but the memory of their great beauty

is always here to stay.

So we move on with our life

and embrace the miracles that we can find

the magic in essence, never goes away

it’s just that sometimes we are blind.

There will be people that we meet

that we have known for many years

or share moments for the first time

with strangers and their fears.

We must boldly share our love,

 reach out to others without hesitation or dismay

find the pain that lies so near

and around us everyday.

Whether it’s an old friend or an enemy,

a relative or just a cashier at the store

there will be some one that will need you

and it’s you who shall open the door.

Be of service to yourself

and all with all the people that you meet

there are many paths yet to cross

many avenues and streets.

There are people who desperately need

your evolvement in their sorrow

just as you need them

to face the next tomorrow.

So if you think that God has overlooked you

and has no idea that you are here

you must realize it’s not that He’s forgotten

it’s you who have forgotten that He’s so near.  

Miracles and magic are never ever gone

they are always within our reach

just as are the memories of our loved ones

and what they had to teach.

They taught us love is unconditional

it is the strongest fiber in our being

so let loose, let go, let God, let love

let YOURSELF …and start a new beginning.

The beginning of a new relationship

with our loved one who has gone

their spirit is always very close

and their love… lives on and on.

Mitch Carmody

-Edited and abridged from my book ‘Letters To My Son’ for the Lakeview Hospice Tree of Remembrance Candle Lighting Ceremony December 4^th, 2003

This Poem is dedicated to the 137 souls that passed through the many loving hands of the Lakeview Hospice Team

Living the Loss on Father’s Day

By Mitch Carmody

The dogs were barking strangely one early morning in July of 1970; I was 15 years old. I knew someone had probably driven up our driveway and were taking their time to come to the door which was driving the dogs nuts. I was up early to get ready to bring my dog to the County fair as a 4-H project and was eager for the day.  I went to the window and peered out to see who could be there this early in the morning. I then spy my Mom walking up with two neighbors close by her side, arms around her, covering in an obvious shawl of compassion and they were whispering. The dogs barking; a harbinger of despair.

My Dad had died. A few days prior he had gone in to hospital for a relatively new operation for the clogged arteries to the heart and although in this century is now done routinely it was then a very risky operation.  My father had complications following surgery and later died.  Our neighbors brought my Mother home to support her in breaking the news to myself and my sisters. My mother reached out to me and embracing each shoulder with her shaking hands she said: “you are the man of the family now son, you need to take care of yours sisters, and the farm…your father has died.

I hugged her without a tear, without fear and just said…Okay… I love you Mom.  I never really did grieve or publicly lament my fathers passing.  I was the kid whose old man kicked the bucket over summer break. I was embarrassed by the quiet looks of consternation and thusly became the clown, to laugh it off preemptively and avoid the glares. I put away the grief, the pain, and did not lament, or mourn my loss.   It seemed almost too easy to pack away.  My mother soon remarried, then feeling somewhat abandoned, compounded with the strong feelings to stretch my own wings, I moved away from home.

Now years pass by, I get married and have a child, our firstborn, our only son. Soon we were blessed with the birth of his darling sister, life seemed again be joyful and the fulfillment of a dream.  Soon the dark clouds returned with death of my only son, nothing could have ever prepared me for the depth of pain that one experiences in losing a child. Nothing!  The world stopped and everything I ever knew had now changed forever. I was lost in hopeless pain for many years.  Father’s Day mocked my existence, for fate had slapped me in the face. Both my past and my future in fatal swoops were whisked away and I was left here in the present alone in so much pain. Why me?

I lost my father, then my son, it felt so violated, so cheated, earmarked by God for misfortune, It felt like I was playing a role in some Thomas Hardy tragedy novel where I played the main character whose life was built on misfortune.  I soon cracked under its weight, it broke my spirit, and I felt hapless, hopeless, innocuous and miserable, I wanted to die.  I had my daughter to care for and my wife who spoons my soul, but I had no zest for life, no passion, no feeling, no goal.  I struggled hard to free myself from the web of self pity, and I dug deep into my inner soul; from attic to basement I looked within myself to find a way out.

In my head with angels help, I went back to the day my father died. I literally went back and relived the moment, I screamed and I cried. I finally lamented for my father and let out the buried angst hidden for so long.  When that dam burst I could then make room for the lamenting of my son.  Only then did my road to acceptance begin.  Acceptance is not selling out, or letting go of their love, it is just accepting that they are dead and giving our selves permission to rebuild our lives the best that we can.

I finally grieved for my father and I am still grieving for my son. Accepting their death is not forgetting them, it is merely accepting the reality of life.  You cannot have one without achieving the other. Accepting their death is not the end of the bereavement journey it’s only the beginning.  We shall continue to grieve for associated losses from their deaths the rest of our life.  Father and son banquets, hunting trips with the boys, working on cars together, sharing a beer or two, having a pair of strong shoulders to hug, so many potential moments  that we shall grieve forever. No grandchildren, or great grandchildren, no retirement party, birthday parties or graduation celebration, no parties of any sort.  We are always reminded that their lives were cut short and we grieve anew for what should have been.

Through the loss of my son and many family members I have learned much on the journey.  I found that I love deeper, I smell flowers longer, and I savor the sunsets more.  I feel the best when helping others and I thank God for my every breath.  These are all good things to have come to me in the midst and aftermath of horrific pain. How sad it would be if we were not compensated in some way for our tragic loss, for life would then truly seem meaningless would it not?

Through the loss of my father and my son I discovered the randomness of death. That death can hit anyone, anytime regardless of genes, the environment, or the best of efforts to stave off the sting of its reality. There is nothing we can do that can adequately prepare us for a loss of our loved one. Nothing. 

Do I feel sad on Father’s day?  You bet I do?  Do I celebrate it?  Yes I do. I am proud to have been a son for 15 years and proud to have been a father to my son for 9 years. I am proud to be a Father for my surviving daughter for 26 years. I am proud to be a grandfather. Everyday is Father’s day when you find yourself surrounded in love from this world and from the next. 

Feel the sadness of your Father’s day; feel the pain, feel, the joy, feel the love that alone makes it possible to feel the pain.

Love and light

Mitch

The Anatomy of Grief

                                                - and it’s affects on our body

When we see our loved one die or hear the news that they have died, it immediately propels one into a state of instant grief or clinically distress of mind. Our mind reels in unbelief and our body launches into an active flight or fight response. Adrenaline flows, chemicals, hormones and endorphins are pumped into our system that is in a full red alert.  We are now in active flight or fight response.

As a living being this response is innate in our nature and by design protects us from a perceived danger.  When we are faced with a situation that requires an adjustment of our behavior, an involuntary response increases our blood pressure, heart rate, rate of breathing, blood flow to muscles, our metabolism speeds up preparing us to fight or to run for our life. Animals respond in this way instinctively for life threatening events only and it is not normally activated.

We as humans however, instinctively illicit this response when under any type of stress real or imagined. Our busy work-a-day worlds, tight schedules, commitments, family issues, political issues, and any unresolved anger continual bombard our system with stress.  Our body acts accordingly to the stress it receives and perceiving it as an apparent danger it will activate the flight or fight response to some degree.  On the positive side this affect can give instantaneous powerful physical ability which can save lives, your own or someone else’s.  On the negative side it is meant as a survival tool not an everyday tool and to our bodies, on a continual basis…can be deadly.  Like a motor running at its top end continually, it will eventually burn up or blow apart. Fortunately we as humans have an over speed trip that we can activate, slowing the response to our stress down; Relaxation. We must learn to actively relax and diligently reduce the stressors in our life.

Grief is an enormous stressor that continually puts us in the fight or flight response. Not only can these in the long term cause damage to the body, it consumes valuable needed energy each and every day.  Do you always feel tired?  Do you forget things? Does your mind wander?  Are you tense?  Have difficulty in reading or your math skills?  Are you apathetic? Are your testy and humorless?  Are you depressed?

Grief wipes you out and reduces your ability to even focus. To reduce this affect to your system, you need to identify and reduce other stressors in your life.  You have to make room for the enormous stressor of grief that has now become your daily ‘modus operandi’. Grief, especially in child loss is like living with arthritis, you never get over it; you learn to live with it.

In the first few years of child loss when grief and lamentations are the most intense, you will likely suffer other physical ailments as well as accidents.   Your body is reacting to the continued stress of grief and will be immune depressed and vulnerable to many opportunistic diseases. Because of decreased body health and emotional fatigue one’s mental acuity will also suffer and you will be forgetful, have less dexterity and be more accident prone, possibly causing physical injury.

                                                                        [

You will always be in bereavement for your loss, but you will not always be in the state of grief.  When grief does rear its ugly head and it will, be prepared with a few simple proactive approaches:

1) Ownership. This is your grief and absolutely no body can possibly know the depth of your personal pain.  You have a right to experience it, let no one take it away, immerse your self into it, feel all of it, for there is no way around it…only through it.  Take it in small doses, baby steps, one at a time.

2.) Be yourself. Express yourself.  Let others know you are in pain. Grief gives you license to say anything you want (He/she is crazy with grief).  Speak your loved ones name, do what ever feels right for you. People will learn it is a long process that may last for years and they must learn to accept the “new you”.  Grief must never be internalized, actively mourn you loss, show your sadness, express your lamentations, your anger, disappointment, frustration and fear….let it out.

3.) Reduce other stressors in you life.  Prioritize; you can not possibly get done what you did before when you are grieving.  Make a list of what is absolutely necessary and then cut it in half.  Ask for help to do simple things.  Call on those people that say: “if there is anything I can do”, there is no time limit on love, allow them to give so that they can also receive.

4.) Be good to yourself.  Treat yourself to whatever makes you happy.  As elusive as happiness appears to be, we all have our personal comfort measures that makes us feel good.  A movie , a walk, a good book, hunting golfing, horse back riding, the beach, it is as individual as you are. Remember you are also very vulnerable and comfort measures should not include those that may be contraindicated for your physical or mental health.

5.) Relax.  Find ways to relax that will illicit the relaxation response.  First find quiet and solitude and a comfortable position. Secondly repeat a mantra, prayer or phrase in your mind or listen to gentle music. Thirdly and most importantly adopt a passive attitude.  With the proper attitude even closing your eyes with headphones on in a crowded subway can illicit this response. By doing exercises such as this, you will automatically reduce many of the accelerated metabolic changes to your body that the stress of grief has created. 

6.)  Physical exercise. Try to find some form of physical exercise that works for you. Lack of physical exercise builds up metabolic waste in the body’s tissues, taxing an already immune depressed system even more and can physiologically contribute to symptoms of lethargy, intense fatigue, body ache and depression. Try walking, running, jogging, working out, swimming, horseback riding, golfing what ever it takes to get the body moving and reduce the levels of static toxins that affect total body vitality and mental health.

These are some simple steps to reduce the stress in your life accompanying loss. When you lose a significant loved one, you will go through the many different emotions associated with grief: Shock, anger, frustration, denial, bargaining, hope, isolation, depression, melancholy, apathy and more. Grief emotions are not linear or predictable and you may experience all of these singly or in different combinations at anytime, any place, and may for the rest of your life.

 You dare to love hard, you grieve hard. Grief is hard work and necessary for our survival and it cannot be circumvented or continually medicated. Just know that grief can wreak havoc on the body with illness, as well as the fact that the potential for personal injury is very real.  This requires an introspective and proactive approach on the grief journey to minimize physical distress and possibly injury to ourselves or others.

Mitch Carmody

Care Giving the Bereaved

-tips for the journey

                                                                                    By Mitch Carmody

To be able to adequately undertake the role of care giver for the bereaved we must first understand the elements and the history of the bereavement process in our country.  As late as the early 1800s grief was still puritanical in approach and death was regarded as some form of punishment from God for our sins and the wicked were punished accordingly. Death was believed to be a visit from the dark side, the Angel of Death and the Grim Reaper; the Devil gets his due and you are paying for you sins.  Death within the nuclear family was treated as if it was an embarrassment; a guilt of some wrong doing. It was largely kept hidden from public view; handled privately and quietly.  Stillborns, premature births and suicides were not even recognized with a mourning period and for the most part the name of the loved one was forbidden to be spoken.

By the late 1800s a more proactive approach developed toward understanding grief and a more demonstrative and proactive process of mourning was developing. Mourning mementos such as gloves, scarves, and rings proliferated, burials began to be attended by large-scale public processions and funerals at the gravesite, and funerary speech began to take on a sentimental or eulogistic quality instead of damnation.  Life after death was hoped for and the belief that spirit survived death became the norm. This also gave rise to the beginning of the Spiritualism movement, with mediums, séances, and Ouija boards that supported life after death.  

Now at the start of  a new millennium in this country we have reached a point of  bereavement processing that has moved from that era of extended and ritualized mourning to the “Drive Thru” mentality to get this all over and through quickly.  Three days off from work with pay and the waking, mourning, memorializing, the cremation and or burial have taken place. Public mourning is finished... Get over it, move on.

In this latter transmogrification the bereavement process we find a much sanitized, streamlined approach that has adapted to a fast moving culture. Wake periods are short and sweet or non-existent; funeral plans are made quickly without elaborate preparations; mementos of mourning are seldom warn or displayed, even the wearing of black is seen less and less.  This recent cultural paradigm shift in processing loss has created an environment that delays or circumvents the critical lamentation period that must take place.

The loss must me expressed, the bereaved need to lament their loss and express their pain for as long as it takes.  Our society I believe is ready for a shift back to common ground in the bereavement process; a shift that will allow the bereaved are able to grieve naturally, openly and to express the full depth of their loss. To be able to lament and mourn their loss as long as is needed; surviving without guilt, shame or the fear of ridicule; living the loss, living the pain and regaining the joy.

Whatever road that may bring you onto the path towards helping others during their crisis and pain with their loss, know that the road chooses us, and it is we who accept the challenge. In accepting that challenge our own healing begins.

You must give some time to your fellow man. Even if it’s a little thing, do something for others- something for which you get no pay but the privilege of doing it.

                                                                                                           -Albert Schweitzer

Accepting the challenge to come to the aid of someone in their grief is a special commitment, with the loss of a child, it can be a lifetime commitment.  Losing to death someone you love deeply, rocks your world, rips open your heart and cripples your soul. You are lost and rudderless in a sea of despair, where nothing seems to be able to assuage he extreme pain you are feeling.

Being a caregiver for the newly bereaved is like handling a new born baby with colic; it requires a high level of commitment, a whole lot of hugging, rocking, patience, listening and unconditional love.  Experiencing a close family member death is life changing, course altering and irreversible. In essence the bereaved are starting all over again in real time, developing into a new normal in stages of life development; measured in years not weeks or months.

When we see our loved one die or hear the news that they have died, it immediately propels one into a state of instant grief or distress of mind. Our mind reels in unbelief and our body launches into an active fight or flight response. Adrenaline flows, chemicals, hormones and endorphins are pumped into our system that is in a full red alert.  We are now in active flight or fight response and the beginning of shock.

This is where the societies accepted five stages of grief: shock, denial, anger, bargaining, and acceptance have the most significance as it pertains to the bereaved or the dying themselves. These stages suggest a linear process which is indeed experienced in the initial days of processing the loss but does not adequately represent the long term processing that takes place months and years following the death.

Shock, no longer numbing, like Novocain it eventually wears off and has retrograded to a dull ache, an ache that may ebb and flow the rest of our life. Denial is not a long term option, our child is dead we know that, we buried them, but denial  will hit us for a brief moment every morning that we open our eyes…and we softly say to ourselves: “ My God it’s true, they are dead. Anger is tucked safely away for emergencies, vented when needed and by many still being used to create change. Acceptance is simply that decision to get out of bed after you open you eyes every morning …and realizing it is true.

The stages of grief in long term bereavement are not stages at all, but fluctuating emotional components of a life long challenge to survive the loss.  We move through the loss; we can’t fix it; we can’t deny it; it happened, we carry it with us always, and we continue to process it the rest of our lives as we grow with our new normal.

The grief associated with a close family member can be crippling. The grief so prevalent, so pervasive, so controlling, so sustaining, we depersonalize it in conversation to the base pronoun “it” just to survive the moment. The “it” that is with us always. Like a lamprey on our heart, it feels as if it is sucking the life force from us daily. A lamprey does not kill its host however; it simply becomes a part of the host’s life for a long time, then one day just drops off. Someday at an indeterminate time, it too will fall off our heart, but the scar will always be there. Living with that scar is our constant challenge.

“It is has been said, ‘time heals all wounds.’ I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.”

                                                         -Rose Kennedy

It was twenty years ago this past December 1^st 2007 my 9 year old son died from an incurable brain tumor. Twenty years later I am still a bereaved parent. I am no longer experiencing the pangs of deep grief, yet I still lament and continue to express the emotions of my loss.

Having lost my father at age 15, my brother at age 21, my twin sister and her two boys at 29, I thought life could not get much worse, when three years later my son dies after battling cancer for almost two years. I was changed for life, nothing could have prepared me for the pain I felt and still feel in my heart today.  Hello, my name is Mitch, I am a bereaved parent; I started life all over again when my child died;  today I am 20 years old. How old are you in your new normal (abnormal)?

Starting all over again

a chronological view of the bereavement process

                                    -from the perspective of a bereaved parent        

If you want to go the extremes of grief to try and understand the complexities of the bereavement process one should study the bereaved parent.  No other loss is more devastating than the death and physical loss of a child.  No other loss leaves your heart as deeply and mortally wounded for life. No other loss is more difficult to accept.  Even among bereaved parents there is a plethora of differences that set individual grief journeys apart and in how each bereaved parent processes the loss of a child.  However we are all forced to accept the unacceptable: the physical loss of our child forever.                                                                        

We have all heard of the five stages of grief that have been accepted and used worldwide for the most part without question: Shock, Anger, Denial, Bargaining and Acceptance. For the person dying, for parents living the nightmare of watching their child die, or  the parents hearing of the news of their child’s tragic death these stages may aptly apply in the initial response to the death or imminent death. But with the ensuing months and years that follow I feel the stages do not adequately represent the true reality of the bereavement process following the death of a child. 

In accepting that initial reality of their sudden death or imminent demise, the stages are a natural progression of emotions to that loss.  But for the bereaved parent in the early months and subsequent years following the loss of a child there is no linear progression of stages of grief that is a ‘one-size fits all’. We find that the societies’ accepted stages of grief do not fit our life as we have come to know it.

 If there are true stages in our long term bereavement process, there are only two: shock, and the road to acceptance. Everything else falls in between. Both denial and bargaining are insults to our intelligence, of course we know our child is dead, we buried them.  We cannot strike a bargain with God or anyone that can change that fact. We may continue to experience denial the first moment in the morning when we open our eyes and realize it was not a dream, but we are not in clinical denial; we just don’t want to believe it’s true that our child could be dead.

 Depression and anger are very real emotions that we will experience, but they are not stages, they are tools of survival and a condition of our new normal. Depression brings us to emotional pain levels that we need to experience as we continue to process the enormity of our loss and also serves to protect us from the assaults of the outside world. Anger channeled constructively can be a powerful force for positive change and be a healing process in and of itself. Anger turned inward or manifested in a negative way is concurrent to healing and can only cause more pain.

Bereaved parents trying to fit themselves into the accepted stages of grief find themselves frustrated if they have not gone ‘through’ the stages as outlined.  Very vulnerable, the new bereaved parent--still somewhat in shock—will begin processing the loss of a child as the mores of society dictate.  Following three days of bereavement leave from work, its back to your job and start getting on with your life. For surely in a few months you will be over your loss and will quietly blend back into the workplace, as hoped for and expected by most.  At first you will be greeted with embarrassed looks by co-workers who almost hurt themselves by either making an unanticipated hallway dodge, or an abrupt u-turn. Others become ad-hoc bulletin board readers or mutterers hiding behind magazines.  Those skillful with avoiding eye contact will utilize their skill, while the less creative will employ urgent rest room needs. These and other methods are all ruses to avoid the uncomfortable contact with the bereaved parent.

People practice avoidance to avoid bringing up the subject of your loss which they feel will be sure to acerbate your pain.  They also have their own concerns that they might be put into a position to have to say something profound and/or healing when they know there is nothing that can be said or done to take away your pain.  From time to time, we ourselves play the artful dodger role when we do not want “to go there”. Sometimes the actions we see in others are reflections of our own projection.

 I remember one time seeing a person coming towards me down the hallway at work one morning a few months after my son had died. The young man rounded a corner whistling and glancing cheerfully at the headlines of his morning paper, unaware of his overfull coffee mug leaving a trail behind him.  Then I notice that he catches site of me in his peripheral vision and he scrunches further into the pages of his paper. He suddenly became more engrossed in the paper as we neared each other in the narrow corridor.  I was feeling down with transitional edginess from a few real bad days and did not want to hear any morning weather reports or exchange cheerful drivel, so I dodged to the right just as we neared each other, he then dodged to the same direction, we both reversed several times and at the same moment we both spoke and said, “Care to dance?”

We each laughed loudly in a very natural way and automatically hugged one another without compunction.  He whispered in my ear with the compassion of a Mom tending her sick child, “How are you doing, man?”  I pulled back from our brief embrace and looked him straight in the eye and responded that up to this moment I was having a very bad day. “Thanks for the dance”.  We both laughed as we walked away my heart lighter, his heart brighter.  Sometimes we avoid contact with others just as they seemingly do with us.  Just under the surface our racing emotions are left unseen and unexpressed. In a spontaneous or forced contact situation with another, our emotions can be released like the welcome eruption of a festering boil. Although it hurts briefly, we sigh with relief that the dam has finally burst.

The first year back to work is a difficult challenge for the bereaved parent, but remember you are still an infant in your new normal, barely a few weeks old.  We get lost in a forever wandering mind of our own internal dialogues.  We have no attention span for the language of the real world and depend on Post it notes to remember everything. We trip more; spill things more, lose things, and get lost on a simple errand. We develop techniques to get things done, but the color is gone from our life. Those around us appear to be living in full Technicolor while we are relegated to dull, flat, still and dark monotones of the person we once were; we are changed forever.                                                         

 The loss of a child is terminal bereavement.  We start all over again and try to figure this our ‘new normal’.  It is a new beginning in all sense of the word and our clocks are reset.  We construct new concepts, new ways of looking at life…not from the passage of time but from an amalgamation of events and experiences. In the depths of early grief time seems to stand still, so it is with an infant; time has no meaning, all that matters is that we be comforted. As an infant grows to childhood, time will appear to accelerate just as it will for us and we shall cry less often, get up and walk all by ourselves and become curious about the world around us.

In essence I believe we are born again into a new life that starts the moment our child dies and ends the day we die. We start marking time just as a new born baby does, day by day, year by year in a slow progression of discovery of the person left behind. A slow metamorphosis of the psyche, like the Phoenix we rise from the ashes of our despair and become our new found destiny as surely as the maturing baby keeps trying to walk.  We need to go through that progression of life developments and stages of growth that a child goes through in becoming an adult; we need to learn to crawl before we can walk. We need to grieve naturally, not stages of grief but stages of life development that takes years--not months-- to progress through.

 In support of this theory I offer parallels to similar behaviors as drawn by the famous behaviorist and psychiatrist Erik Erickson in 1956 and his 8 stages of social –emotional development of a child from infant to adult.  These stages of development are accepted world wide and used in most institutions of higher learning.

 According to Erickson, the socialization process consists of eight phases- the eight stages of man.  Each stage is regarded by Erikson as a “psychosocial crisis” which arises and demands resolution before the next stage can be satisfactorily negotiated.  Stages that build on each other, each previous stage supporting the next and  so on in a structural sense that demands each stage be achieved before moving on to the next. It is I who postulate their relevance and key to understanding the long term grief process that a bereaved parent is suffered to endure. I believe we are vulnerable and needy as a new born child and we grow into our new normal just as a child takes his first steps.

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The world you knew is gone; time stops, your brain is in code blue and reality as you know it fades from conscious thought; you are propelled into a world of disbelief.  Taken from a world that you knew and understood, a world of warmth and security, you find yourself head first in a cold painful world of the unknown.  It’s hard to see, you are shaking, insecure and frightened of what’s ahead. Tears flow from your eyes, you feel cold and lost and just want someone to hold you and tell you it’s just a dream.

Am I describing a baby just being born into this world, or a parent just hearing the news of or witnessing the death of their child?   It could be both since both describe being thrust into the unknown and faced with the continuing challenges of survival.

Life without our child; our new normal; our new life.  Just as a newborn baby needs to adjust to a new environment, so do we.  Just as an infant does that first year we shall cry a lot, sometimes way into the night,  sleep for a few hours, only to wake up frightened, cry and then sleep some more. You will find people taking care of your simplest needs for you and without compunction, -you offer no resistance. As if in a daze you allow others into your close personal space, finding it feels good to be cared for. You will have accidents, you will be unsure of yourself, you will be scared to venture out, be hesitant with strangers, and testy when you’re tired.  And… you’re always tired.  You will want to explain what hurts and find you have no words that can express your thoughts.  Food will be tasteless and you will eat in a perfunctory fashion, yet coupled with an unabated thirst that cannot be slaked; the scratch that cannot be itched. So we find pacifiers to slake the unquenchable, indefinable thirst that gnaws at our being. Again does this describe an infant or a bereaved parent functioning at the base primal level of 1^st year survival?

                                  *Actual Erickson Developmental Stages entitled in Bold Print

Stage One:  Learning Basic Trust Versus Basic Mistrust (hope).

                                                      The first year

The world, God, Kismet or the fates of life, have stolen our child from our arms, caused them pain and continues to assault us with more pain and deprivation. How do we ever trust again?  Baby steps; we learn all over again. We will try to stand and fall, we will try to walk and stumble, we shall try to explain and cry in frustration, not finding the words that anyone can understand. We are dependant on others for our own survival; we reach out for anyone to pick us up and pat us on the back and make it all right. We want to be comforted on our own terms until we can understand this new world we are forced to accept. Sometimes this comfort comes from perfect strangers

If we are well handled and cared for, we shall develop optimism, a sense of hope and we grieve naturally. If the grieving is delayed, so will the first step towards optimism and the whole bereavement process will be chronologically delayed. Sometimes without help, a bereaved parent can be stuck forever, never finding hope, never building on that next stage of development that we must also go through.  That is just the first year following the loss of a child. At the risk of being glib, we then head into the “terrible twos”, our second year of grieving that is more often worse than the first.

Stage Two: Learning Autonomy versus Shame (Will)

Two year to four years

Every morning when you open your eyes you get a mini-jolt that your child’s death was not a dream. On the second year of healing every day’s calendar memory reminds us a year ago on this day our child was dead. Today is real and with it comes another full day of painful memories just waiting to rip your heart apart. The world thinks you are on the mend while you are just beginning to understand its going to take a long time; a very long time.  The second year calendar days mark time with memories of the sting of their death and the ensuing life change that followed. It is like starting all over again but without the numbness, and for the most part, the world now expects that you should be over it.

 The terrible twos, the second year of healing, when anger, frustration, apathy, anxiety and depression play tag team for control.  The loss begins to become real, and separation anxiety kicks into high gear.  Extreme concentration becomes necessary in order to accomplish almost any task, and every task seems to deplete you physically.  You will have accidents, lose things, and forget appointments, trip, stumble and fall.

You want to feel better, be able to talk normal, care about things again, but yet it’s hard to leave behind that initial, albeit painful but protective cocoon of grief that has protected you for so long.  A butterfly cannot turn back into a caterpillar no matter how hard he tries and may be fearful of breaking free of its cocoon.  Just as a baby longs for independence, it still clings to and longs for the security and comfort of bottle, crib and someone who cares. We struggle with many mixed emotions during our second year of healing.

We can fly into a rage at a moments notice, cry uncontrollably out of the blue, say NO to everything, don’t eat what is on our plate, we want our nap, we scream out, “Its not Fair”, we pout, we are difficult to be around, we sometimes run around like a chicken with its head cut off and we fall into an exhausted pile and sleep.  Begging to be left alone one minute, and then begging for hugs the next.  Are these symptoms of our second year and third year of our bereavement process? Or a two year old learning autonomy?  Hard to tell one from the other isn’t it?

Stage Three: Learning Initiative Versus Guilt purpose)

Five to seven Years

We as bereaved parents entering our 5^th of year of experiencing life without our child will usually feel we have hit a benchmark, a milestone in recovery from our devastating loss; yet still feel without purpose.  If active steps have been taken to integrate our loss into our new life, by this time we are starting to broaden our experiences, reaching out to the world and see how we fit into it.   We may go back to school, change careers, start a foundation, lead a recovery group, get involved, and dare I say make plans for the future. Imagine!  We can have a life again.

As an inquisitive youth we are discovering the nature of our selves (our new normal) and naturally gravitate toward experiences that can bring interaction with the world. To hunger for knowledge, love, and pleasure, to experience growth and maybe even have fun again.  To become involved with support groups, attend meetings, as a leader and/or contributing follower, all show a desire to invest in life again.  At this point you may have discovered ways to help process your loss that helps to heal or support others in their pain or grief and found relief yourself in the process of the giving.

Not working on proactive ways to heal from your pain you may  become stuck in unresolved anger or apathy and not want to move beyond  a previous stage, staying dependant on others for your needs and avoiding interaction with the world that has hurt you so badly; picking up your softball, glove and your bat and slinking back home.

Stage Four: Industry Versus Inferiority (Competence)

Seven to twelve years

Seven to twelve years following the loss of your child you have more than likely have fully integrated back into the work place and the world in general. Your loss to most people is not known or forgotten about and is ancient history.  At this point in our journey we may be even be playing catch up with the world that has moved on so quickly while we were absent from it.  At this juncture of our bereavement process we are honing the new skills we have learned in our survival of the horrific loss we have to bear. Our social skills improving, once again we hunger for more of what life has to give, experience more love, more joy, to see more of the world.  We are willing to take on tasks, become a team player once again and work hard to accomplish goals.

If on our grief journey we have not gone through an earlier developmental stage of our ‘new normal’ we may still be caught in a negative, guilt based position of being defeated and have no thoughts to the future. With most thoughts locked in the past we might be stuck in anger without resolve and used to living life feeling inferior, beaten, with no hope of redemption.  Life sucks; I have no friends who understand; I am lonely. I am bitter. I am bogged down in the past and simply do not care!

Stage Five: Learning Identity Versus Identity Diffusion (fidelity)

Thirteen to twenty years

From thirteen years to twenty years in your bereavement process and if you have experienced every previous developmental stage of life progressions in your new normal, you may finally have come to terms with who you are now; the transmogrification of your post child- loss identity almost complete. You have integrated into your new normal and how the loss of your child has changed your life. You accept that change and build on it, even look for growth opportunities that are presented to you in your new life. You have the strength to take on causes and make positive changes.  At the same time you may still have feelings of self-doubt and despair.  You may still not want to move forward, frightened you may forget. This insecurity in moving forward may cause one to long for the security of the old days of early grief despite its’ extreme pain.

By this time in the process of your bereavement you may have allowed yourself to love again. You may have lost relationships with many friends, some even the closest of friends or relatives as well as other acquaintances lost through attrition. It may be by our choice that we have lost friends or by their choice. Sometimes, it is no-ones choice and bonds just dissolve; lost in the sheer battle to survive our loss.  You may experience further loss from divorce in a marriage that could not survive the storm; you may have children in college, married or have simply moved away to experience their life; you could even have possibly suffered more personal loss by death.

Stage Six: Learning intimacy Versus Isolation (Love)

Twenty years and longer

By now in your journey you have learned to value more than ever the relationships that survived and the new ones that were created. New friends, more children and or grandchildren, new marriage, or a new job may already be an integral part of your life and you have felt joy again.

As bereaved parents at this point in our journey we may find our old selves and our new normal selves merging onto the same road. We integrate the wisdom of our former and present self together and we meet the challenges of the life as we now perceive it.  This is where we truly get back on the sidewalk and walk neck and neck with the fortunate others with our head held high and meet life’s challenges on an equal and level playing field again…only we have an edge.  No one can hurt us anymore than we have been hurt! We can take the risk to be ourselves fully, play no roles, and strive to make a difference where we can without remorse.

If you have not completed these stages in life progressively with or without experiencing a loss in your loss you may be stuck forever in one or another stage and may never find true joy or the meaning to your life.  We always have a choice to make efforts to back up a stage or two and start over.

           Stage Seven: Learning Generativity Versus Self-Absorption (Care)

In our new normal, the last two stages can give each of us an opportunity to experience phenomenal growth in areas of both creativity and productivity.  After all, by this time a parent has not only survived the unnatural experience of the death of a child, but many parents have suffered untold challenges in many other areas of their lives as well and somehow have been able to move forward on the road to a fulfilling life. Some parents may become dependent on prescription medications or alcohol and have to fight their way back to normalcy and sobriety in the midst of their grief work.  Having undergone a myriad of other losses in addition to the loss of a child and having survived huge life changes, the typical parent has by this stage become a pillar of strength. Although still pitied by many they have garnered much respect and awe as a survivor of the unthinkable.

At this stage of your ‘natural life’ merging with your ‘bereaved life’, if you have not already done so, you can take your “Mulligan” and start again. After all, you have survived the loss of your child and nothing else in life can be so hard.  Grief has forced you to come in contact with your entire range of emotions, grief has taught you how to keep on working when you could not care if you starved and or became homeless; grief taught you how to respond to others around you in socially appropriate ways when you could have cared less; grief forced you to create new innovative ways to jump start your life again.  Because of your journey you may have recognized for the first time the music that truly emanates from your heart and your feet long to dance to its tune.

Stage Eight: Integrity Vs Despair (Wisdom)

This last stage that Erickson outlined we reach or do not reach regardless of our grief journey.  I feel every one of us goes through, or does not go through, all these stages of human development in the process of experiencing life on this planet.  If we experience the first six stages of development fully and sequentially the last two stages will only enhance our lives and the lives of those around us and we will find ourselves making a difference in this world. This last stage is up to us, what we have learned on the journey and how we choose to use that knowledge.

When you experience the loss of a child your life is changed forever and in essence you start all over again in the developmental stages of life.  Just as in your own birth experience and its developmental stages of life that you complete or do not complete are so unique, so it is with your bereavement experience for the loss of a child.  Everyone’s journey is so different.  What is the same although is the lifetime journey to find purpose in our lives. The loss of a child can cripple you forever if you let it. Life can cripple your life forever, if you let it.  If we bury our life with our child’s body, then two lives are wasted, joy is non-existent and the world itself diminished.

Your personal journey of development in your new normal chronologically will be varied as we are.  Delayed active grieving such as in the case of murder or a negligent accident may propel parents into many years of legal battles and painful memories that continue to bombard their psyche. In cases such as this, processing of grief may be delayed and the journey lengthened.  Conversely active grief work, such as taking on a bereavement group leadership role, creating a foundation, volunteerism, all can accelerate the process and one may find that they are moving through the developmental stages more rapidly.

If we create a legacy in our child’s name with our life, we in essence start a new relationship with our child and in the process give them life. When we can continue to be a part of their life and recognize our continual part in it -joy will come into our heart once more.  It may take a lifetime or a few years but joy will eventually return.  When we feel joy again, our love is validated, the world is enriched and we find tomorrow is not so scary.

If we have breath… there is reason to love.

If we have love…there is reason to live.

If there is reason to live

…there is reason to give

Turn on you heartlight

-Mitch Carmody

Triggers That Call Their Name

On the day my son died Dec.1^st 1987, something shifted in my soul, something deep inside my being got rewired.  As a newly bereaved parent you anticipate that the affects and symptoms of shock will eventuall