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by Stella

Mysterious Things That Can Happen To Us While Grieving

May 21, 2010 in Acceptance, Balance, Compassion, Grief, Healing, Intuition, Knowledge, Love, Perception, Purpose, Rainbow Bridge Coaching and Healing, Spiritual Connection, Thought, Understanding, Wisdom

ME 2 SEATTLEIn the parents grief support group I attended after I lost my son there was often talk of strange occurrences that seemed to happen to not all but many of the parents .    By strange occurrences I mean  things out of the normal range that are unexplainable and that seem to  follow or surround the death of their children.  The interesting thing about the discussions is that not one of the parents was spooked by the occurrences nor thought they were evil, witchy, satanic, or otherwise came from or led to anything bad.  In fact most parents seemed heartened by them feeling their child was connecting  to them in some way  as if  they were trying to reassure them that they were OK.

 There is one couple that I met who see butterflies in the strangest places and at the strangest times.  In fact they have finally built a butterfly flower garden in their backyard so they can sit there to enjoy it and through those butterflies feel close to the daughter they lost.   

Another  set of parents I know have had experiences with lights,  especially a certain lamp in their home going on by itself.  This started soon after they lost their son.  They feel it is a way for him to connect to them  from the  new realm he is in.  A way to say hello!  I am here and okay!  It gives them great peace of mind and reassurance that he is okay where he is and is still watching over them.

 Many other parents claim to see what is called an orb of light.  I round bright ball of light that is sometimes seen around someone before, during or after death.  We have pictures taken several months before my son died where there is an orb seen in the picture by him.   I was told by a number of parents in my support group they too had looked back at pictures taken of their child who had died and noticed these strange round lights near them.

Many of us experience some kind of unusual  occurrence when we are grieving.  Often we are embarrassed to talk about these curious events.  We wonder if others around us may think us crazy.  We are most certainly not though.  Many normal average people experience these sorts of things upon losing someone.

 For example my son’s greatest trouble with being employed once he was old enough to be, was his loss of freedom.  He told me once before he died that he valued his freedom more than he did money.  He would rather be poorer and be free to spend his time doing what he wanted with his friends and family than  have money to buy an expensive car, etc and lose his freedom by being tied to a job and the material things most people are.   Of course as his mom and the voice of logic I explained how you must get a good education and job so you have good insurance and pay for all that may come your way so life is easier for you and your own family should you have one.  We  had this argument through his three years in college and he frustrated me as he worked hard at school but not also at a job after school. He choose instead to live meagerl,y to keep his prioritized freedom  as opposed to working more and having more money for things.  Looking back I am glad he choose what he did.  Had I known he was going to be murdered I would of chosen the same for him so he could enjoy the time he had with friends and family doing the things he enjoyed to do.  Did he know or sense something about his life being short? 

As a high school senior he was not happy like I thought he would be about graduating when we talked about it.  I remember him telling me he wished he could do another year in high school as he liked things as they were and knew his freedom  would lesson upon going into college and beyond.  Again looking back did he sense something I wonder about what was to come?  He flat out told me several times in his life he did not think he was going to grow old.  Just a feeling he said.  Other parents who have lost children have told me similar stories about their own kids.  Do they sense or have a feeling about their untimely deaths?  

The day of his memorial almost two years after he had gone missing and again a week later when we scattered his remains I noticed a golden eagle above me in the sky.  In Montana that in itself was not odd.  Not only did  Josh love the freedom of Eagles but he had an Eagle blanket in his room on his bed.  Both of these days every time I looked up outside this golden eagle was overhead.  I counted 5 different stops the first day when that eagle was over me and a week later while we were out of town scattering his ashes  there was that darn eagle again.  When we returned home a second time that day I saw a golden eagle overhead and again later that day 3 more times before the day was over.  Ten times in all, five times each day!  By the third or fourth time I was saying “Hi Josh, I see you, thanks for being so close to us, it helps since this is so terribly hard to do!”  or later when I looked up “Hi Josh, love you too much, too!”  Inexplicably I felt each time that it was too often to be coincidence or my wishful thinking.  I felt as if I was being touched by either my son Josh, God or both when I needed it most.

There are many who have tried to find explanations for this kind of thing.  In science they call it the -Laws of Seriality and Object-Impact Interactions.  In physics-Implicate Order and Morphogenic Fields.  Many have written about -Synchronicity and those in theology tell of -Grace and a Higher Being.

 What I have found is that these mysterious events especially in our early grief are not to be understood so much as to notice them and reflect on them.  Noticing something unusual does not mean we are crazy.  We don’t always need to be able to understand something to be comforted by it or be surprised by it.  My belief is that these occurrences are meant to be respite from dealing daily with loss.  Often they stay with us for a long time if not forever.  They are gifts sent to us, moments to be honored.  Times when we realize that some things are a mystery and that there may be a presence we cannot explain.  As for me I have now come face to face with the fact that I can be affected by something even when I do not understand it and it can give me immense and lasting comfort. 

Peace & Light,

Stella Wichman

Certified From Heartbreak to Happiness Coach
 
www.parentsgriefrecovery.com
 

“Who then can so softly bind up the wound of another as he who has felt the same wound himself?”

                                                                                   Thomas Jefferson

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by Stella

The Overwhelming Grief of Sudden Child Loss

May 14, 2010 in Acceptance, Balance, Compassion, Grief, Healing, Knowledge, Love, Purpose, Rainbow Bridge Coaching and Healing, Spiritual Connection, Thought, Understanding, Wisdom

ME 2 SEATTLEWhen I was told that my son of 20 years who had gone missing almost two years previous, had been found murdered I experienced many emotions.  I was extremely bewildered, felt anxious, was depressed and wondered if I had done something or not done something that may have led to it.  I had trouble continuing to lead a normal life as I had no time to absorb or prepare for the fact that my world as I knew it had ended and I was catapulted into one I did not understand.

The death of one’s child is painful no matter what the cause but in sudden death the ability to cope is severely diminished.  The sudden loss of a child puts the grieving parent into shock.  This kind of loss is so terribly hard that recovery is more difficult due to additional complications. The complications are that  the parents adaptive capacities and ability to cope are so severely hit that it leaves the grieving parents stunned and overwhelmed. 

There is no gradual transition time, no time to steady or ready or prepare yourself.  Sudden death places you between the way you thought your world would be with your child still with you and the way the world now is.  Your beloved child has died without even a warning.  This totally disrupts your ideas on what is to be.  It disrupts your beliefs in the world and of one’s own control in it.  When a loved one’s impending death is known ahead of time these issues are also dealt with but the difference is that they have had a valuable time period to place the death in the context of events that were predictable and made sense.   Even though they experienced pain they could see what caused the death.  They more than likely were given the opportunity to prepare for the death and to deal with their feelings about it.  They were given the opportunity to say I love you, to say good-bye and to do the things they wanted to do for their child before they died. 

There are many emotional demands and problems with any type of death of a child but at least when the death is known ahead of time the grieving parents have been able to focus their coping abilities towards the expected outcome.  For instance a child is diagnosed  with a terminal illness, even though the parents still must struggle with the craziness of their child dying out of order or before them it still is logical that when anyone at any age is stricken with a terminal illness the outcome is most likely death.  So the loss makes sense of a sort.

When a child dies suddenly the loss does not make sense.  There is no logical sequential explanation of what has happened that prepares them somewhat for the death.  The sudden death leaves the parents so stunned that they have a hard time even comprehending what has happened.  Accepting that the death even occurred is often difficult, and often takes quite a bit of time.  Parents will find themselves going over the story of the accident, suicide, or murder trying to make sense of the loss after the fact. Because they were not prepared for the death and it had no understandable context, they will try to deal with their lack of anticipation by putting the loss into a series of events. They may find themselves looking back at the time leading up to the death and searching for clues that could have indicated what was to come. For example, I remember trying to piece things together to figure out why my son was murdered, who had he been spending time with? had he made anybody angry enough to kill him?, did he owe anybody money? was he involved in anything illegal?  For me the answers were no and after repeatedly trying to make sense of the loss I still could not.  I found that sometimes people are in the wrong place at the wrong time, sometimes people trust the wrong people, sometimes the saying “It is what it is” is all there is to explain it.

This did not stop me though from trying to restructure the sequence of events by looking back in time leading to his death so I could feel a logical progression, a control and predictability and looking back some sense in what had happened. 

Holding yourself responsible however I found can lead to problems such as guilt.  For example I felt that maybe I should have paid more attention to what he was doing in college and who he was with there.  Knowing this I thought maybe  could have prevented it.  Eventually I rationalized though that when your child of 20 years is in his 3rd year of college 4 hours away and you see him once every few months it would be impossible and unhealthy for you to keep tract of everything  your child did and who he did it with .

The grief symptoms for parents experiencing sudden child loss tend to last longer and be more intense.  In addition to dealing with feelings of loss and grief a parent is trying to understand what has happened to them and is trying to cope with their drastically altered world. These parents have not only the same job as all mourners , but they also must cope with the extra stresses that leave them relatively more worn down and disadvantaged.

Losing a child suddenly gives us no chance to say good-bye, no chance to tell our child how much we love them or how much they mean to us.  This cause a lot of pain as we feel a sense of unfinished business.  We long for a chance to tell them things, apologize for things, explain things or simply let them know what they meant to us.

Parents who lose their child suddenly seem to talk of their shared loss of security and confidence in the world. We have been taught a dramatic lesson: Loved ones can be snatched away without warning. What is to prevent another similar loss from occurring in our future we may think.  Avoidance and anxiety eventually can lead to states of anxious withdrawal since the world has become such a frightening, unpredictable place.

The consequences of losing a child suddenly in some ways can last a lifetime.   For some parents this is evident as chronic grief, or persistent anxiety where security and confidence never totally return. For other grieving parents the consequences are less dramatic though still powerful.  An example would be my friends who have not lost children when faced with a spouse or child who is late in coming home will reason they have been held up by traffic or some other logical explanation and not worry unless they are terribly late.  Me on the other hand when faced with the same scenario will assume something terrible has happened.  I experience a lot of stress and have to mentally self talk myself out of the assumption and into a more logical non-disaster explanation.  Newer grieving parents to this may jump at calling the hospital or police.  After grief recovery coaching I learned to tell myself that the odds are on my side that everyone is ok and there is a reason for their tardiness.   I am however concerned.  I have experienced having a child snatched from me without warning and found that this sort of thing does not always happen to other people.

 With coaching though I learned that this awareness can also be turned into a positive:

  • I now make time for and prioritize my family and friends differently.
  • I do not put things off or wait to say important things to those I care about like I may have in the past.
  • I do not want to have unfinished business with anyone important to me because I now know that no one is guaranteed a tomorrow.
  • I now tend to live in the moment more relishing the small things I used to overlook in my hurry to get things done.
  • I choose my battles better and don’t get caught up in stupid matters that are trivial now realizing that my energies can better be applied to things that truly are worthy of my time and energy.

I appreciate life more now that I have experienced such a traumatic thing.   I did not chose this to happen but what I did find was that I could choose to pull something positive and meaningful out of such a tragedy.        

    Peace & Light,

Stella Wichman

Certified From Heartbreak to Happiness Coach
 
www.parentsgriefrecovery.com
 

“Who then can so softly bind up the wound of another as he who has felt the same wound himself?”

Thomas Jefferson

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by Stella

Time Alone Does Not Heal Grief…

May 7, 2010 in Acceptance, Balance, Career Coaching, Communication, Compassion, Grief, Healing, Knowledge, Love, Motivation, Perception, Purpose, Rainbow Bridge Coaching and Healing, Spiritual Connection, Thought, Understanding, Wisdom

ME 2 SEATTLEImmediately after I found out my son had been murdered people starting telling me “time heals all wounds”.  I am sure they told me this because they wanted to say something to make me feel better or because they had heard the phrase before and it seemed to fit or because they did not know what else to say.  I can honestly say that at first when you lose a child it seems like time is the enemy. The  impossibly long harrowing days blended into even longer agonizing nights of pain, loneliness and confusion make one wish that time could be stopped and even better reversed to a point when your child was still happy and with you.  Then there is the sudden realization that now that your child has died  you will never see him on this earth again.  That all you really have to hold onto if you are religious or spiritual is that  you will eventually be together again but you also soon realize that it will be a long time in coming and in another place.  And that thought puts you at odds with time as well!

What I did find out about time and healing is that although time moves along it alone does not heal.  Healing is an active process not a passive one.  When you have a wound and do not care for it properly, although it may scab over it often gets infected underneath, takes longer to heal and leaves a scar. 

When we lose a child we feel as though our heart and mind and very soul have been mortally wounded.  We eventually seem to heal up but if we have not cared for those wounds properly while healing then they too merely scab over closing off the infection beneath which greatly lengthens the healing process experts say  and can take according to (Time Magazine July, 1985) 5 to 8 years to recover.  Most generally as well this too can leave a bad scar.

The basic definition of to heal means to make whole again.  When we become sick something or someone has affected our wholeness.  To get back to wholeness we must either eliminate the thing that is affecting our wholeness as in taking antibiotics for strep say or we must integrate it so that we no longer see it as a threat.  Once we can do that it no longer has the same impact and we are free to heal and move on.  

A common factor among many grieving parents I found is that once they were able to create a shift in thinking and acceptance as if they had chosen their loss themselves they were free to move forward again into happiness.  And although not easy to do even when guided by a grief recovery coach or other professional this was necessary  to help them  heal.

Healing is thought of as a spiritual idea where as curing is a medical concept.  That is why it is an active process that we must participate in, it does not happen to us as in curing by a doctor.  As in the saying “Physician heal thyself” we must be active in order to heal from the wounds of child loss.  To do that we learn how to stay open and accepting  the very thing that wounded us. 

 

In Lamaze classes I learned to embrace the pains of childbirth and relax through them as I was taught to view them as  completely normal and natural physical and emotional responses to the birth of one’s  baby.  In doing so I was able to endure up to 20 hours of labor followed by delivery of a healthy baby together with a few stitches of some slightly torn tissue.  All this with no medication of any kind nor an episiotomy.  And I went home the next day!   

Lamaze as well as chronic pain management teaches one not to tighten up around the pain but to relax and allow the pain to be present.  The idea taught is that when pain is resisted it intensifies but when we relax and accept it, it can move and flow through us easier.  Pain is merely an alert that something is wrong whether it be something physical, emotional, spiritual or mental and all we need do is listen.  To relax and breath through it.  We do not want to fight it but learn from it.

Time alone does not heal but healing takes time.  To be healed we can give ourselves the time we each need to open to the pain and open to the loss.  As we do this we grow as we include more of what life holds.  We include what would have been lost to us if our hearts and minds had closed against the pain.  We include what would have been lost if we had not taken the time we needed to work at the healing we needed all along.    

 

Peace & Light,

Stella Wichman

Certified From Heartbreak to Happiness Coach
 
www.parentsgriefrecovery.com
 

“Who then can so softly bind up the wound of another as he who has felt the same wound himself?”

Thomas Jefferson

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by Stella

21 Things That Help Your Surviving Children When They Have Lost A Sibling

April 30, 2010 in Acceptance, Balance, Career Coaching, Communication, Compassion, Grief, Healing, Intuition, Knowledge, Love, Purpose, Rainbow Bridge Coaching and Healing, Relationships, Spiritual Connection, Thought, Understanding, Wisdom

ME 2 SEATTLEWhen my son died an additional hardship was deciding how to tell his sisters as well as how to balance my own grief along with supporting them in theirs.  The following is an excerpt from my diary and upcoming book “Grieving Joshie” by Stella Haight-Wichman

April 29th 2007 Going Home The police have just informed us that after almost 2 years of being missing they have found our son’s murdered remains.  Now while we reel from the news we must tell the girls, his sisters.

 Josh’s 17 year old sister is at their dad’s house.  He will tell her the news there while I break the news to his oldest sister 24 over the phone and Josh’s 10 year old sister at my house .

I call Josh’s oldest sister who is married and lives out of state.  Her husband answers and tells me she is gone for the weekend I tell him that her brothers remains have been found, that he is not coming back and that I do not want to ruin her weekend out with girlfriends so if he wants to tell her when she gets home or she can call me when she gets back and I will tell her. He says he will have her call me and that he is very sorry. 

How do I tell Tia his youngest sister who has mourned his being missing for almost 2 years as only a little girl could, openly and with much grief and confusion?  How can I tell her that her brother isn’t coming home again? How can I tell her that her brother is…dead?   Finally I just go ahead and tell her that the police have told us they found Josh’s body and that he is dead.  She looks stunned and then her eyes fill up with tears as she says “no” over and over as I hold her and she rocks back and forth crying.  Her heart has just been broken completely open as mine has.

 I am so tired.  So much has happened today.  I have had enough for one day, the rest will have to wait for tomorrow or another day.   We cry together into the night until we fall asleep together mercifully.

You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

ELEANOR ROOSEVELT

April 30th 2007 Back At Home

The next afternoon Joshs littlest sister  and I have a peaceful discussion about life and death. We talk about bodies being like dirty clothes encasing souls. I reassure her that Joshie will be like an angel watching over her. I tell her that she can talk to Joshie any time she likes, and that Joshie can hear her. I tell her that Joshies body is dead—but Joshie’s love is forever.  She says she doesn’t want me to ever die and I tell her everything living eventually dies but that I plan on living a long time.  She has a favorite book I gave her sister years ago called” Mama Do You Still Love Me?”  I remind her of that story and tell her that I will always love her for as many days as there are stars in the sky.  I tell her that all she must do when some day very far from now when she is an old grandma and I cannot be with her is look at the stars and know her mom is up there watching over her as her brother now is and that we  will all be up there one day.  This seems to answer all her questions at least for now. She quietly gets up from her bed and picks up the book she got for her brother at a garage sale right after he went missing so if I grounded him he would have something to do and says I guess i don’t need this anymore and hands it to me.  We both start crying again…

Later that day my oldest daughter calls from out of state and tells me she tried to call me earlier and found my line busy and figured I was probably  calling the rest of our family to break the news to them so she then says she called her dad and he already told her about her brother.  I talk with her more and answer as many questions as I can amidst our tears until she finally has to hang up…

 

The following are a list of things  that I and other parents who have lost children have compiled to help other parents when faced with the difficult task of telling their surviving children that one of their siblings has died.  My wish is that in some small measure it helps.

 

  • Tell them as soon as you can.
  • Less is more here so tell them in a simple straight forward manner being careful not to get to explicit.  They will ask more questions if they need to.
  • If they have a question you can’t answer tell them so.
  • Do not beat around the bush.  Tell them using correct words such as dead not sleeping.
  • Ask them if they have any questions either now or later to not be afraid to ask them.
  • Share how you feel as a means of role modeling for them.  An example would be saying I feel so sad that’s why I am crying.  This gives them permission to cry too.
  • Talk about the deceased child using their name it helps everyone to work through it faster. 
  • Be age appropriate when speaking to your child about their siblings death.
  • Talk about the many feelings that they and others feel when grieving, sad, lonely, depressed, teary, angry etc.
  • Read about sibling grief either in books, articles or on the internet to better help your surviving child. 
  • Read an age appropriate book on grief to your child to not only help them talk and understand but because it also tells them they are not alone in this situation.  That there are other kids who have lost siblings.
  • Tell them about the funeral , what happens and answer what questions they may have.
  • Help your child find ways to say goodbye to their deceased brother or sister. 
  • Talk about what happens to people after they die according to your beliefs.
  • Make it clear to your child you are there for them and the many questions they may have.
  • Talk about the memories you both have bad or good.
  • Keep on the lookout for bad dreams.  If they happen often talk about them.
  • Watch for changes in behavior both at home and at school such as: sleep problems, anxiety, eating problems, anger issues, troubles concentrating, clinginess, crabbiness, aggression, or fear.
  • Suggest doing something as a memorial for the sibling who has died.  This often is comforting!
  • If something seems to go on too long or seems to be too severe call a Professional such as a Certified Grief Coach or Therapist.
  • Give your child extra love, attention and physical contact.

 

This is by no means everything that might help but is only meant to be a guide to start you off in the right direction should you need it.

 

Peace & Light,

Stella Wichman

Certified From Heartbreak to Happiness Coach
 
www.parentsgriefrecovery.com
 

“Who then can so softly bind up the wound of another as he who has felt the same wound himself?”

Thomas Jefferson

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by Stella

16+ Things to Know To Help Yourself When Experiencing Child Loss

April 23, 2010 in Acceptance, Balance, Compassion, Grief, Grounding, Healing, Knowledge, Love, Physical Health, Rainbow Bridge Coaching and Healing, Spiritual Connection, Thought, Understanding, Wisdom

ME 2 SEATTLEMy  20 year old son Josh went  missing in 2005 and was missing  for almost 2 years.  I spent the better part of that time working and trying to continue being a mom to my three girls, a wife to my husband and a friend to my friends. Simultaneously I physically searched for my son as well as tried to drive as many people and agencies to keep looking for him with me as if it were their own child that had disappeared.

Police Station Today the police called and asked my husband Mike and I to come down again to the station and meet with Joshes dad and step mom for the umpteenth time. Little do I know that the rug will be pulled out from under me severely and quickly without any warning as it was 2 years ago when I was told that my 20 year old son Josh had gone missing. 

Upon arriving at the police conference room they told us that  my son had been found.  A moment of pure joy that was followed by the next comment b y the police,” his remains were found yesterday afternoon by some individuals in a remote area several hours away from Lewistown.  The area has been cordoned off and evidence is being collected.“   

It takes all my strength and concentration to simply remain where I am under the continued assault of information.  Josh my son is dead.  I ask if they know what has happened and they say yes he has been killed and an investigation will follow. Joshua what happened did you know it was coming?  Did you suffer?  Did you think of me and wonder why I could not come and help you or even stop this terrible thing from happening?  Did you even know you were dying?  Or was it mercifully quick and painless?  I sure hope and pray you didn’t know or feel a thing.  (Excerpt from my diary and upcoming book “Grieving Joshie-A Mothers Triumph” by Stella Haight-Wichman)

Each grieving parent receives the news of their child’s death in some way, a phone call, in person, from a relative or friend.  It becomes our ground zero.  Complete and utter devastation.  We each respond in our own way.  Some emotionally, some go numb, some respond more physically feeling nauseous or feeling as if they were hit hard in the stomach. 

Understanding the reasons for our reactions goes far in how well and how soon we start our recovery from child loss.  Emotions as many of us may have learned, help to regulate our lives, to give us consistency, balance and stability.  So when we suddenly lose that balance as we do when we find out our child has died and life no longer makes any sense, our emotions are affected and felt often times immediately.

Our emotional response in turn causes a physical response often times felt as quickly as a second later.  Chemicals in our body are released ,  causing anxiety and stress which causes the heart to beat faster and can mimic a heart attack and the muscles in our body  contract causing a feeling of stiffness and weakness and tiredness, blood vessels constrict and may reroute blood causing a feeling of coldness in our bodies and or numbness even, antibodies that normally help to keep us from getting sick have a tough time keeping up with things and we may find we get sick more often or more severely. Neurohormones temporarily shut down our awareness so that we feel an emotional numbness not altogether feeling in touch with reality.  I have tried to keep the explanations here simple and in laymen’s terms and they are but a few of the many and different responses parents experience  when losing a child. 

A question I often had when experiencing all these varied and sudden emotional and physical reactions to my son’s death was what is normal?  Below is a listing of some normal reactions to child loss.

  • No emotion or feeling (a feeling of numbness or emotionally empty or dead)
  • Strong emotion (varying from a little to a lot)  Can be tears, hysterical laughter, anger, etc.
  • Inability to sit still (often needing to constantly move or roam about doing things)
  • Loss of focus (trouble with concentration similar to ADD)
  • Feelings of memory loss, fear, disorientation and confusion (as if you suddenly got Alzheimer’s)
  • Nostalgic yearning for and or longing (often times intense and constant)  
  • Changes in biorhythms (eating, sleeping etc)
  • Feeling controlled and overrun by memories
  • Attacked by guilt, anger or blame

A second question I had was what can I do to survive this?

We must give ourselves permission to grieve.  (to feel however we feel, to express our grief in any way that is appropriate for us and to know there is no wrong way unless it is immoral, illegal or is harmful to ourselves and or others i.e. cutting, starvation etc)  Studies point to more physical and psychological problems in the initial months following loss for those suppressing grief as well as more problems over a year and more later.  So expressing how we feel is a normal and healthy means to experiencing grief. 

A third question I had was what should I know to help me through this?

 

  • Hang with those who are supportive of allowing you to grieve your own way.
  • Talk to the child you lost as if they were actually there.
  • Find a professional  counselor, therapist, or grief recovery coach.  What better  time to hire a guide to help you through this painful grieving process so as to move forward easier and quicker.
  • Live in the moment and try and appreciate the small things.  The taste of an orange, the smell of the flowers, the feel of a warm bath!
  • Let others help!  This is a time that tables turned you would want to help out so give others the opportunity to help you with anything you need.
  • Stay close to those that love you.  You do not need any more loss in your life so it is worth focusing on trying to minimize the effects of your grief on your other relationships.  This also gives you something concrete to do to help you through your grief. 
  • Take care of you!  For all sorts of reasons but most of all because you matter in this world!  No telling who or how you might have an impact on someone else who is suddenly thrown into grief and may need your hard earned wisdoms, strength and direction!

Peace & Light,

Stella Wichman

Certified From Heartbreak to Happiness Coach
 
www.parentsgriefrecovery.com
 

“Who then can so softly bind up the wound of another as he who has felt the same wound himself?”

Thomas Jefferson

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by Stella

The Rebalancing Of A Family After Child Loss

April 14, 2010 in Acceptance, Balance, Communication, Compassion, Grief, Healing, Intuition, Knowledge, Love, Purpose, Rainbow Bridge Coaching and Healing, Relationships, success, Thought, Understanding, Wisdom

ME 2 SEATTLEWhen my son was found murdered, indeed even after he went missing I found that my family and myself instinctively knew that we needed to get itself back into the rhythm and balance that was lost when our Josh was gone.  This feeling seemed to grow out of a necessity to not replace but to reorganize roles. I found that when your child dies there is a definite shift in the balance of the family and it helped for me to understand what needed to happen to again find that equilibrium.    

It seems that the role of your child which held parental hopes and expectations, and was as well the object of love and focus of your family’s attention, is an important one, and its absence is felt keenly by everyone.

I observed families are a lot like an organization.  They take on their own identity with their own characteristics and are more than the sum of their parts or in this case family members.  They do not merely reflect the individuals that are in it. 

In families it seems that when something happens to an individual it has an affect on the family and conversely if something happens to the family it has an affect on the individuals in that family. So for example when my son died I was preoccupied and withdrawn as I grieved at work and everywhere else for that matter which took my focus away from where it was usually therefore having an affect on others in the family.  And because my focus was drawn away our loss not only was felt by each one of us but in addition it was as if my family lost me as well as Josh.

I have learned that families which have experienced child loss also work hard at regaining the balance in the family they had before the loss and may not even be aware of the fact that they are making changes to accomplish this.  They may shift or change roles, rules, communication, expectations and behaviors to regain the equilibrium that stabilizes the family so it again operates consistently. There is no right way to achieve this as each family differs due to the uniqueness of its individuals. 

My older girls each pitched in and spent more time with their little sister after losing their brother.  They seemed to know instinctively that she would need that as he and she had been very close and spent a lot of time together.  My oldest started calling me daily which she still does after 5 years as she knew her brother had regularly called me or visited on weekends and summers while in college.  My youngest started turning into the family clown always trying to lighten things up when needed, which is the role her brother had filled in the family until he went missing.  These are just a few examples of reassigned roles and obligations in our own family as we tried to reestablish a balance in our family again.

This happened entirely of its own accord in our family as water will move to fill a void when it’s there.  Regardless of whether family balance is resolved healthily or successfully, the period of reorganization following a family’s loss I can say firsthand is very stressful.

I did find with other parents I have coached through grief that one must be careful of not doubling the grief for your surviving children by stealing their own unique identity by placing demands on them to take on the role of their deceased sibling. (Your brother was an accomplished basketball player and you should be too now) when they have no interest in basketball. 

On the other hand sometimes if a surviving child has been in the shadow of his sibling (an accomplished basketball player for instance) he may be able to step into the limelight and shine now.

Remember that this is such an explosive time for each member of the family and one member’s grief can trigger another. 

An accumulation of grief and pain in an individual or even in the family as a whole can trigger blowups.   On the other hand at times the family can draw strength from each other and gain support and solace.

Recognize the need to look at each family members needs and weigh them against that of the family at times.  An example would be everyone wanted to celebrate Christmas traditionally at home and I wanted to get away instead and so we celebrated out of town at my oldest daughters. It is important to strike a delicate balance so as to encourage healthy grieving and communication and unity rather than the opposite.  Compromise seems to be in order here as each person finds that the health of the whole family is the goal and that each family member will have situations come up that will take precedence.    

Remember that each family member does not have the same needs, grieve the same nor have the same relationship with the deceased individual.   There are personal differences which must be taken into account.  Individual factors are responsible for how each person will react to grief rather than similarity to others in the family or the fact that they all lost the same person in the family.

Lastly the very thing that helps which is the closeness of the remaining members of the family also can be the very thing that threatens to destroy the family.  It is easy when we are hurting to place blame, be angry, make false accusations, and place unfair expectations on those we need the most due to irrational demands or fear of upsetting another in the family. 

Although a huge undertaking the surviving family needs to reorganize itself to survive and must cope with the stresses of containing different grievers, each with different, unique needs. It is indeed a huge job and what is needed is patience, love, compassion and understanding.   

Peace & Light,

Stella Wichman

Certified From Heartbreak to Happiness Coach
 
www.parentsgriefrecovery.com
 

“Who then can so softly bind up the wound of another as he who has felt the same wound himself?”

Thomas Jefferson

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by Stella

Do Men Grieve Differently Than Women?

April 7, 2010 in Acceptance, Balance, Compassion, Grief, Healing, Intuition, Knowledge, Love, Motivation, Perception, Physical Health, Purpose, Spiritual Connection, Thought, Understanding, Wisdom

ME 2 SEATTLEHow long can I cry each day before I run out of tears? 

I remember asking myself that a year and then again almost two years into the loss of my 20 year old son when he went missing.  I continued needing to vent sometimes long and hard and sometimes softly and briefly daily into the third year.  Mostly at night, late in the bathroom, alone and screaming into the bath towel.  The tail end of the 2 year his murdered remains were found hastily hidden in some brush in a remote area several hours from where we lived in Montana.  At some point into that third year after he had been found the daily spontaneous bursts of tears became not always so daily.  Here and there I was surprised when I woke up and realized I hadn’t cried at all the day before and it struck me as just short of miraculous.   I do not know if it was because I knew where he was now and that knew no one could hurt him again.  Or perhaps I was finally resolving my grief and learning to integrate it into my life and move forward, but it had finally started for me, my recovery and a sort of rebirth of sorts of the new me. 

I visited about this throughout the three years with my family and took note of how differently we each grieved during the loss of our Josh.  The women in the family all talked of tears off and on for a period of time.  Some cried more and some less.  Some were affected by depression others simply sadness, some got angry, some wanted to talk and some didn’t want to talk at all about their loss yet alone mine.  Most of the men in the family showed little outward emotion.  They did however spend a lot of time by themselves either praying or talking to Josh.  Each of them seemed to throw themselves in their work as a means of dealing with the stress and the anger over his murder.    

Dr. Colin Parkes, Hospice Pioneer says that there is an “optimal level of grieving” that differs from one person to another. No two people—no matter their gender—grieve alike. There is no right way to grieve. Someone once said that we grieve as we live. If someone is a reserved stoic in life in general, that person is likely to grieve as a reserved stoic. If someone else finds it easy to express emotion in life, then that person will be more likely to show grief by expressing emotion. What is important is that grief be expressed. What is not important is the specific manner in which that expression occurs.

So do men and women express their grief differently?

Phyllis Silverman, who did important work on grieving at Harvard, points out that there is a “male model” of loss, in which one speaks of “learning to break away from the past.” Persons—and they might be women or men—who follow this “male model” prefer to “get on with life” and quickly involve themselves in work or other activities.

A “female model” of grief, however, emphasizes connection rather than disengagement and separation. Those who identify with this model are more comfortable saying, “You don’t break your ties with the past; you change your ties.” People—and this, too, can be men and women—following the “female model” are more inclined to display grief to others, reach out to one or more persons around them, and to talk more openly about the loss.

Those who tend to follow the male model will work hard to keep from breaking down in front of others emotionally, keep to themselves more and are apt to refrain from asking for help.  These people feel an importance in being independent or autonomous.  The female model stresses connectedness and being related.  What is important is that men and women grieve consistently with how they respond to things in life. 

Their different outward expressions can cause criticism towards each other as they feel the other isn’t feeling the degree of pain the same.  We must realize that we are each different and grieve in our own way and there is neither right nor wrong except for those that stifle their grief  or demonstrate an unwillingness to fully express grief in any form at all.  To do so is to set ourselves up for a lifetime of anger, bitterness, illness and a feeling of apathy or deadness or lack of joy for the rest of our lives.  It is important whatever our method of grieving be, to be able to integrate that loss so we can again feel engaged in life and happy.  That is our goal in Grief Recovery and that is the outcome of healthy grieving.

Peace & Light,

Stella Wichman

Certified From Heartbreak to Happiness Coach
 
www.parentsgriefrecovery.com
 

“Who then can so softly bind up the wound of another as he who has felt the same wound himself?”

Thomas Jefferson

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by Stella

GRIEF RECOVERY CLUES THAT SHOW YOU’RE GETTING BETTER

April 2, 2010 in Acceptance, Balance, Compassion, Grief, Healing, Intuition, Knowledge, Love, Motivation, Perception, Purpose, Rainbow Bridge Coaching and Healing, Spiritual Connection, Thought, Uncategorized, Understanding, Wisdom

 

ME 2 SEATTLEAs I have worked through my grief over the loss of my son, I found myself wondering if there were going to be recognizable clues that I would see that would let me know if I was making progress with my grief recovery.  I also know that it went agonizingly slow and that it seemed that for every good day forward where I felt as if I might survive this wilderness of grief it was most often followed by several steps backward into sadness, sorrow, anger and despair.

 July 13th 2005 I was abruptly catapulted into grief when my 20 year old son first went missing.  Almost 2 years later his murdered remains were found.   Initially I stumbled along the road of grief recovery and later with the help of a grief coach continued down that road at a quicker more purposeful gait.  What I wanted was clues that could help me see that I was making progress.  Markers that I could strive for and upon reaching would tell me that there was a light at the end of the tunnel and that my hard work was paying off.   That although things would never be the same I would be happy again.  

The list below is the clues that I compiled from both myself and other parents. These can be used by other grieving parents to give them hope and to see they are starting to make progress through their grief as well: 

 

  • You have come to terms with the finality of losing your child.  You understand that they are gone and can not come back to this earth.
  • You are able to think about the difficult memories as well as the nice ones.  Initially in grief it seems that memories are hard as they bring to focus how much you have just lost.  Now it seems easier and is comforting to remember.
  • You once again enjoy the company of just yourself and no longer need to distract yourself with things and people to keep you busy.
  • You can safely drive again without breaking down into tears because it is one of the few places you can be alone with your grief and vent even though you know how terribly unsafe it is.
  • You find you are less sensitive to other comments and are again able to see that some comments are simply made due to stupidity and are not purposeful attacks.
  • Holidays and special occasions are again something you look forward to whether or not they have remained the same or you have adopted new traditions.
  • You are able to take what you learned from the experience of losing a child to try and help others going through the same thing.
  • You are able to listen to your child’s favorite tunes without crying or needing to turn it off as it hurts too badly.  Now you may even be able to enjoy the songs as they bring happy memories shared with your child.
  • You finally realize that grief is not Permanent, Pervasive nor Personal.  It merely is what it is and just happens sometimes for no reason.
  • You can go to church without tearing up at some point.
  • You find yourself not thinking of your child as much or as long at one time.  At first you worry you are forgetting them.  This is not true though.  Instead you are giving yourself permission to move forward with your own life which is what your child would want for you anyway.
  • You are able to laugh again and be happy without feeling any guilt.
  • You find you’re eating, sleeping and other routines you once had are returning to what they used to be.
  • Your previous energy level is returning.
  • You find you have developed new daily, weekly, monthly and yearly schedules that do not include your child.
    You find you are able to concentrate on things again like a book or movie or TV show and can retain what you read or saw!
  • You find you no longer need to visit your childs grave as often or as long. 
  • You find you are again able to focus on and embrace the positive which was there all along but impossible to see.
  • You are able to again enjoy new people and develop healthy relationships with them.
  • You feel your confidence returning and know who your new self is.  You’re able to focus on and work towards your future again.
  • When you look into your eyes they no longer look like the wildebeests whose being attacked by the lion.  The shock is over as well as denial and anger mostly has given way to acceptance and understanding of your new reality.  This is not the same thing as condoning the death however.
  • You have adopted the attitude of “Why argue with the rain?”  You now understand that it will not change things.  Instead you look for ways to work around the rain or you may even choose to dance in it (for example I continue to make my sons favorite Birthday 7 layer bars on his birthday for his family even though I understand he will not be blowing out his candles or having a piece to eat.)
  • You find you are calmer about the grief bursts or grief attacks.   You realize they are happening less often and are less intense.
  • You find you are starting to look forward to waking up to your day again.
  • You find you have found others that fill the void in your life created when your child died.  You may also have found other activities as well to fill the space and find you are more so comfortable with the changes.  
  • The energy it used to take just thinking about your child and the time it took as well is now being used in other areas.  You may be helping other parents who have lost children or making other definite plans for your life.
  • You accept your new life and find that the experience of losing a child has led to new personal growth.

You realize you are starting to enjoy things again!  Flowers, music, sunny days, birds, the smell of coffee!!

Peace & Light,

Stella Wichman

Certified From Heartbreak to Happiness Coach
 
www.parentsgriefrecovery.com

“Who then can so softly bind up the wound of another as he who has felt the same wound himself?”

    Thomas Jefferson

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by Stella

WHAT DOES GRIEF RECOVERY MEAN?

March 26, 2010 in Acceptance, Balance, Compassion, Grief, Grounding, Healing, Knowledge, Love, Motivation, Purpose, Rainbow Bridge Coaching and Healing, Relationships, Spiritual Connection, success, Thought, Understanding, Wisdom

ME 2 SEATTLEIn January I touched upon the subject of recovery after the death of a child.  When I say recovery I do not mean a neatly complete type of closure but rather a regaining of the ability to function at a previous level, an integration of one’s loss and a successful resolution of the situation. In some ways, though, we can never recover totally, because we will never be exactly the way we were before. The loss of a child, changes us in many ways. What we can recover are our attributes and our capabilities, even though other aspects of us are different. We now have a slightly different self, due to the changes in us and our world as a consequence of our Child’s death.

 

THE RECOVERY GOAL

Our goal in grief recovery should be to learn to live with our loss and to adjust to our new “Normal”.  This is arrived at by making many adjustments; I call them course corrections due to our new identity, our new relationship with the child we lost and readjusting to our new life without our child.  This happens at the uniquely right time for each one of us and happens by reinvesting ourselves in new people, things, goals, pursuits etc. This is not the same thing as wanting or choosing the loss it just means you no longer have to fight it.  You accept it in the way of learning to live with it as a fact of our life.

Recovery is when we can combine the past with the new present.  Not that we will ever forget but we will not always agonize over our loss as much or as hard.  Just like a physical operation which leaves a scar, our recovery from grief will also leave a psychic scar.  And although we will be able to live our life there will be days again just like having a physical scar that it will throb or ache.  It will remind us of what we have been through and that we will have to deal with it until it passes.

 

WHAT RECOVERY DOES NOT MEAN 

Recovery does not mean forgetting our child or the way things were.  It is not the end of our relationship with that child. It most certainly does not mean the end of our pain and that we are always happy again.  We choose what recovery isn’t!  Recovery will not mean that we do not experience bursts of grief as we live our life coming from familiar smells, sights, sounds, places, occasions and reminders of our child. It does not mean that we won’t wish for our child to be present for certain events in our life nor that our child was present to experience many of the things in life like graduation, marriage, children etc. that we imagined they would  be experiencing. And it certainly does not mean we will not wonder what they might look like at a certain age or wish they were able to share in our joys or be proud of us even.   

Recovery does not mean the end of grieving; it means we have painfully but successfully integrated the loss of our child so as not to interfere with our ongoing healthy functioning new life as we now know it.  We will never stop grieving entirely.  The following passage discussing widows is written by psychiatrist Gerald Caplan.  It can be applied to bereaved parents as well.
 

We now realize that most [bereaved persons] continue the psychological work of mourning for their loved ones for the rest of their lives. During the turmoil and struggles of the first one to three years, most [bereaved persons] generally learn how to circumscribe and segregate this mourning within their mental economy and how to continue living despite its burden. After this time they are no longer actively mourning, but their loss remains a part of them and now and again they are caught up in a resurgence of feelings of grief. This happens with decreasing frequency as time goes on, but never ceases entirely. (Caplan 1974, viii). 

The goal for a bereaved parent in Grief Recovery should be to come to terms with their grief and to have healthy productive lives in spite of the loss of their child rather than expecting a complete and permanent end to their grief.

WHAT RECOVERY MEANS

Grief changes you.  It redefines roles, relationships and skills.  Again like a physical scar the psychic scar we now have can give us character or vulnerability.  But it is up to us how we will respond.  We did not have a choice in losing our child but for the rest of our life we can choose how to respond to the scar after we have worked through the early on acute period of grief which affects all areas of our life.  It is up to us whether or not after that we want to make the most out of our lives or stay bitter, whether we choose to integrate the loss into our lives so we grow or stay stuck in our grief like tires in the sand unable to move forward.  Eventually we may be able to see how our loss can also be a gift from our child to use in incredible ways that would have otherwise never had happened if not for our loss. Or we can carry with us the sense that the world owes us now.  It is our choice.

There are an incredible number of parents who have shown the positive things that can be done after losing a child.  This is not the same thing as choosing to lose your child but choosing to recover from it and make something positive from a negative situation.  I do not mean this to sound unrealistically positive or sappy as in denying our pain and the price we pay for losing our child.  Instead I mean that even though we have lost our child we can decide that it will have some positive meaning for the rest of our own life.

The numbers of positive varied responses I have been privileged to see or hear about are amazing.  As in the song “To Live Like You Were Dying” being touched by the death of our child opens our eyes to new possibilities and experiences and priorities that we may not have seen before or choose to overlook in the past. An example would be spending more time with the loved ones we still have.   Not putting off saying things or doing things with them as we now know how precious, brief and fragile life can be but living each day more fully and meaningfully because of the death.  

Many grieving parents find themselves more compassionate and caring towards others as they have developed a new sensitivity due to their loss.  They have found a new or enhanced ability to pick up on and discuss sensitive emotional issues with others.  Parents I have talked to often note increased religiousness and spirituality as well as heightened levels of consciousness.  Like a dying individual the experience of losing a child has opened many parents up to taking time to enjoy the simple things in life that they once were in too big of a hurry to even notice.  Many turn to the arts creating music, art, literature etc. from their pain.
Many decide to take their pain and rage and funnel it into helping others which in turn helps them as well.  They start or assist in support groups for bereaved parents to help other grieving parents such as Compassionate Friends for example.  Many bereaved parents strive to get political changes made through groups like Parents of Murdered Children to ensure no others suffer the same bereavement. 

Successfully enduring the pain and suffering of grief allows us to find a deeper sense of self-worth, understanding of ourselves, life and of others.   We are more passionate, compassionate and stronger than we were because we faced and got through our adversity.  The death of our child has been one of our greatest lessons!

Many parents find some things are sweeter so to speak than ever before.  Our relationships take on new dimensions as we have survived the worst.  We want to get on with the business of living focusing on our newly found priorities.   We are more assertive and set more limits than we may have before as we don’t wish to waste time on the people and things we put up with in the past.

Many parents find their own way to recovery and others like me rather than take the amount of time it takes to figure it out ourselves choose to use a Grief Recovery Coach. Some parents choose the opposite of the responses above and can become hardened, angry, and bitter and stuck in their grief.  This is their choice too.  You can not change others just your response to others.  This goes here too!  You did not have a choice in your child’s death but you do have a choice in your response to the death once the initial shock has worn off. Recognize you can make a choice.  Take responsibility for the choice you make and do not think that if you chose something positive and constructive with the loss you have somehow betrayed your child or have stopped loving them.  On the contrary many parents see it as a way of honoring their child!  A way to continue their relationship with that child and to love them despite death!

 

 

 

Peace & Light,

Stella Wichman

Certified From Heartbreak to Happiness Coach
 
www.parentsgriefrecovery.com
 

“Who then can so softly bind up the wound of another as he who has felt the same wound himself?”

                                                    Thomas Jefferson

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by Stella

HOW LONG DOES THE GRIEVING LAST?

March 19, 2010 in Acceptance, Balance, Compassion, Grief, Healing, Knowledge, Love, Rainbow Bridge Coaching and Healing, Spiritual Connection, Thought, Understanding, Wisdom

ME 2 SEATTLEI have spent a long time pondering this question for myself as well as others.  When you lose a child you feel so bad that you naturally want to know when it will end.  When your best friend moves away you mourn the loss, when your dog dies you mourn the loss, and when your child dies you mourn what feels to be an unimaginable loss.  Grieving is part of life, remaining stuck in the grief should not be though. 

When you love someone and they are gone you are going to miss them.  When the 4th of July comes around and there is no Josh to walk through the door with a bag of fireworks to light off and ask when my homemade ice cream will be ready it is hard.  I don’t believe that means I haven’t grieved properly or been spiritual enough.  I think it means that when you lose someone they are forever in your heart and you simply miss them when they are not there.  Terribly at first but with time and grief work I have found you do not agonize over your loss as much or as hard.  It is replaced bit by bit with quiet thoughts and sadness and eventually peace and calmness.  

Interestingly enough when I decided to write my blog on this particular topic I researched time and found when I delved into my (Greek) heritage that the ancient Greeks distinguished between time as sequence (How much time?)  Called Kronos and time as instance (How many times?) which is called Kairos.  Kronos is the time of calendars and clocks.  It is physical time.  Kairos refers to “the time within which personal life moves forward.  Kairos time refers to a deepening process that results from our paying attention to the present moment, a process through which we are “drawn inside the movement of our own story.”

We tend to measure the progress of our grief in Chronos time.  “It’s been a year shouldn’t I be over this by now?” or others say to us “it will just take some time, give it a few months.”  This is not helpful other than Chronos time gives us a span within which to experience our own Kairos time.  The idea of months or years to measure our grieving progress is ludicrous.  Chronos time alone does not bring about the integration of the loss of our child.  Kairos time is what matters.  What have I learned from this?  How can I apply this new found knowledge?  Where do I go from here?   

Anthropologists speak of entelechy; that we each have our own inherent force controlling and directing our development.  Successfully integrating our loss is determined by our own Kairos time and our own entelechy.   This is why there is no correct predetermined length of time for all people to properly grieve. 

Most all parents would certainly agree that the time it takes to incorporate the loss of our child to where it does not dominate our lives is much longer than we wish.  This is partly due to our eagerness to be done with the tremendous amount of pain we have been in since the loss of our child but it is also due to our society’s discomfort with death.  Our cultural practices give us hints that our grief should be short term when we see state and government employees only get 3-5 days off for a bereavement leave of absence. 

When the time is right each of us incorporates our loss and we are able to say we are changed by it and that we have changed our life due to the loss. Through experience we have gained wisdom, balance and focus and are ready to live life again, ready to offer others from what it is we have gone through.

But it will be in our time our own Kairos time!

Peace & Light,

Stella Wichman

Certified From Heartbreak to Happiness Coach
 
www.parentsgriefrecovery.com
 

“Who then can so softly bind up the wound of another as he who has felt the same wound himself?”

Thomas Jefferson

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