Guest Post: Anne Payne

I asked my friend, Anne Payne, if I could share her poem on my blog today.  So glad she said I could.  Here is a guest post from her, including her beautiful flower photo.

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Today, May 13th, marks the third anniversary of my oldest daughter, my firstborn, being ushered into her eternal home. I wrote this poem during the Writing the Heartache grief workshop by author Alice Wisler, a grieving mom herself. Writing has been instrumental in the grief process and I haven't shared much of it, but today I wanted to share this poem. Amy had delicate hands and she loved to have them held. And I loved to hold them. I miss that. I miss her.

hands

tiny and weak

your newborn hands,

cradled protectively

within my own,

sweet kisses from my lips

cover them in prayer.

slender and cool

your delicate hands,

entwined  gently

within my own,

hot tears and desperate kisses

blanket them in prayer.

warm and strong

your beautiful hands,

reaching out

enfolded safely,

for all eternity

held by Another.

creased and worn,

my cold hands

rest empty,

wet with tears

and

silent prayers.

 By Anne Payne

April 24^th 2013

Guest blogger: My New Overcoat

Happy to welcome guest blogger, Gary Toye, to the Writing the Heartache Blog today. Welcome here, Gary, and thank you for sharing from your heart.



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Not long ago, I got a new overcoat. It's very heavy. The fibers are dense, you can tell it's a quality garment, made to last a lifetime. The inside label says "Grief Brothers" It has the name of my youngest son embroidered on the inside pocket - below that, two important dates. April 17, 1987, the day he was born and October 10, 2014, the day he died.

This new overcoat is extra heavy, soaked with tears, so much so that it drips when I move. Sometimes I wonder how someone who feels so hollow can bear such weight. Yet, regardless of how unreal it seems, it is mine to bear. Every once in a while, I feel like a pocket or maybe the lapel may be drying out and my new overcoat may get a little lighter. Then a song comes on the radio, a commercial comes on the television or just a thought flashes across my mind. I put my hand in that pocket or brush that lapel and it's soaking wet all over again.

In one pocket there is a mask. Half mask really, from just the nose down. It has a smile on it. I put it on when I am getting out of my car to go into the store or in to my office. The mask smiles, but if you look at my eyes, you can see the pain. It's too fresh to hide completely. Most people, kind, well meaning, loving people, have moved beyond the terrible event that bought me my new overcoat. It's amazing how the world still goes on, spinning every day. Morning, Noon, Night . . . Repeat. A new workday starts, holidays come and go...time is very unkind to someone with a new overcoat. It selfishly keeps marching on, leaving me stuck in this place, yet somehow running to catch up. It's harder to run with all this extra weight, but fear of not keeping up with the world forces me move forward. Most days I'd rather stay in bed with the blankets over my head and leave my overcoat in the closet, unfortunately -- or fortunately, that’s not an option.

Friends and family ask "How are you?" and seem so relieved when I say "fine". Either they or I change the subject quickly so neither has to be uncomfortable. They give my arm a squeeze or a supportive pat on the shoulder. They quickly pull their hand away when they feel that soaking wet fabric not knowing what to say . . . where to wipe their hand. I wonder if they realize just how comforting that touch is or how much I appreciate them literally reaching through their own comfort zone to share it.

Over time, I'm told, my overcoat will dry out. Bit by bit, fiber by fiber, piece by piece. Oh there will be times a shower or thunderstorm will come along and get it wet again -- birthdays, anniversaries, his kids graduating high school or college. There will surely be more rain, but I look forward to the day when my new overcoat is mostly dry.

I'll wear it, you see, for the rest of my life. Taking it off is not an option. I paid way too much for it not to wear it. Money can't buy an overcoat like mine. Only true love can make a purchase so great. It is because of the love I have for my son, that I’ll wear this overcoat until the day they lay my own weary body down.

I look forward to the day I can hang it in the coat closet just outside Heaven’s door. I can’t wear it in. There’s a sign at the door… it reads “No Tears, Pain or Sorrow Allowed.” Hmmm, there are a lot of other coats in here . . . let me see if I can find a hanger . . .

By Gary Toye

When is the right time to send a book?

Shortly after Daniel died, a co-worker of my husband's gave us a book. The book was accounts of local parents who had lost children in various ways. One of the women shared how she lost a son 40 years ago to neuroblastoma, the same cancer Daniel had. According to her bio, she lived in nearby Raleigh. I looked her up in the phone book and called her. I'll never forget the feeling of calling a stranger to tell her about the death of my son. Would she think I was crazy? Too forward? I didn't care; I needed to connect with someone who had had a child die. Plus, her story was touching and from her written words, she seemed kind.

When she answered the phone, I told her what had happened to me. We were both excited that we'd found each other through a book. "Thank you for calling me," she said at the end of our conversation. She invited me to her house for lunch. We got together many times after that and became friends. She listened to my questions. Not only was she kind, she was living proof that life could go on for me.

I share this to say that I feel any time after the death of a child is an okay time to send a book or a gift. When the idea was birthed to send donated copies of my new devotional, Getting Out of Bed in the Morning , to the families affected by the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, people asked, "When is the best time to send your books? Should we wait a few weeks? Months?"

I say, go for it now. The bereaved parent may be like I was and delve right into the book (I tended to gravitate toward books written by other bereaved parents as opposed to those written by the theologians, although I was gifted with both). Or the particular parent may not be able to read or want to read anything for a while. Every parent is different. But there is no harm in sending a book right away.

Perhaps it would help if we recognized a couple of things about grief. When a child first dies, it is devastating beyond words. Months later, it is still devastating. Sometimes the later months are even worse than the onset of the moment when the news is delivered that he has died. Reality kicks in---he is not coming back. He is not backpacking in the Appalachian mountains, he is not away at camp. He is not at college. He is not napping in his crib. He is not, he is not, he is not, is not, is not . . .

He is dead.

The truth is, friends, this parental bereavement journey continues for the rest of the parent's life. Yes, that's thirty, forty or even seventy years. It is not going away.

So when to send a book? Any time. Let your message be: "I care for you. I want to do something." If you send my book, send it with a note sort of like this: "Here is a book my friend wrote after the death of her four-year-old son. I wanted you to have it."

Unfortunately no book will "fix" a bereaved parent. But books can help. Books can become comforting companions. "We read to know that we are not alone," wrote C.S. Lewis.

The hosts of the recent radio show I was on (one a bereaved mother and one a bereaved sibling) said many books written about the death of a child are either all about the situation (acknowledging emotions, etc.) and nothing about God or all about God and little about the situation. The hosts commented that Getting Out of Bed in the Morning is a mixture of both emotions faced when a child dies and God. I feel that books that gloss over the overwhelming emotions and get right to "how God has a better plan" provide a disservice to grief and loss. Grief needs to be brought to the surface, as ugly and uncomfortable as it might make us feel.

No one knows why children die. No one should pretend to have the answers. God of Mystery is a chapter in my book that deals with the not knowing why. In spite of not knowing, I do know faith is trusting even when the path is bleak and the winds knock you down. Faith is not easy. Trite responses and Band-aids do not give me comfort. But I do know that I need God on this journey and I need to trust that Daniel resides in Heaven with Him.



If you'd like to order a copy of Getting Out of Bed in the Morning, please head over to Amazon.

Autographed copies can be ordered from my Rivers of Life Gift Shop.

Alice on the radio

Tune into my BlogTalkRadio show, Writing the Heartache, for a chance to win something this Friday at noon (EST)! I'll be talking about my newest book, Getting Out of Bed in the Morning.

Just click on this link to find out how to call into the show to listen in on Friday. Or wait for the podcast to be posted. Either way, listen to the segment by Sunday, the 9th, so that you will be eligible for the giveaway! (You have to listen to hear what the giveaway is.)

Getting Out of Bed in the Morning has forty chapters and on the show on Friday, I'll be talking about chapter seven, Rescue Me!

Join us!

Guest post: Mary Jane Cronin

The Unthinkable has happened; you have just been told your child is dead.

For a mother, the emotions surrounding the loss of a child is like a child’s first day at a new school. Although people who may be nice and want to help you get through the experience surround you, you feel alone and isolated. I lost Jeremy two years ago, and yet it feels like it was just yesterday. During those first few weeks I must have heard from friends and family, “ How you are getting through such a horrible situation? I do not know if I could do it if I were you”. Comments such as this made me wonder how other mothers have learned to deal with the loss, and if they had experienced the sense of helplessness surrounding their lives that I had following the death of my son.

Grief is traditionally defined as the thoughts, feelings and outward actions of someone who is experiencing a loss in their lives. The loss can be anything from the loss of a friendship, parent, or even a divorced spouse, but nothing can surpass the emotions that engulf you following the loss of a child.

The natural order of life for most people begins when a man and woman meet, marry and begin raising a family. The children grow from infancy through the school years to begin dating themselves, and one day they meet someone and they, too, marry and begin to raise their own family. During the child-raising years a parent watches over the infant as they sleep, and learns the child’s patterns for sleeping and eating. Tasks for a parent include encouraging their school-aged child to learn, participate with others and grow as the beginning stages of separateness emerge, and parents begin to see that the child who will forever be emotionally and physiologically connected to them will one day unfold their wings and fly.

Fears for the parent regarding their child, that they might get hurt, kidnapped, or killed, begin immediately upon the arrival of the child and go on forever as the powerlessness of parenthood begins to emerge. No matter how much we love our children, nurture them, guide, support and believe in them, we must live with the powerlessness that we cannot protect them from the harms of the world, including death.

Parents are given the opportunity to administer direction and advice to their child, but even when this conversation takes place, it still leaves the parent powerless that their child will follow the warnings and instead use their own judgment. For, as every veteran parent knows, no matter what you say to a teenager, they still have their own judgment to counter and question what you say, and using that sixteen-year-old judgment is why my son is in heaven today.

Grief over the loss of a child, like any loss, is a personal expression in that it is a process of learning to live without, to live with the emptiness and deprivation, and to rejoin the world and go on differently. Searching for meaning in what has happened to them, parents often wish they could undo this, that “for what might have been”. Regardless of our religious and cultural beliefs - - a life has been taken, and cannot be returned. People around the grieving parent cannot comprehend the intensity of such a loss, for it is as if the parent has died as well. In a sense, the parent has died with the child, for the hopes and dreams of both the parent and child are gone forever; the loss of the future and the re-creation of themselves through the next generation is now gone.

Grieving family members are expected to mourn the loss, but are to do it appropriately and within a certain length of time. It is acceptable to cry, to sulk and withdraw from others, even to be angry…but only for an expected length of time. The mourning parent is then supposed to "pull themselves up by their bootstraps” and move on. Following this expected time frame they are to live again, return to work, tuck their pain and agony away and dry their tears – for it is too painful for others to see. But, as mentioned, for many parents the loss of a child means a part of themselves has died as well and no other person has a right to require recovery by their own agenda.

Grief is not a disease, a disorder, or an illness, but an indication of your connectedness to another person. Grief can make you feel like you are going crazy or losing control. One minute you are fine, and the next minute you are sobbing uncontrollably with no explanation as to why. Loss of sleep, loss of appetite, reoccurring painful thoughts and crying are outward expressions of the inward pain grief is causing you. Being forewarned by others who have been through such an ordeal that these feelings and emotions will come in waves, and that you will fine for a while and then “crash” into a sad episode, cannot prepare one for the experience when it truly does happen. In the following days you will have feelings that you are back in control of yourself, only to fall into a deep depressive crying stage, which gives one the feeling that they may not have accomplished much at all in those few good days.

Counselors, friends, and family members are all anxious to see you feeling better and not hurting, so they may additionally tell you that it will get easier with time. True - - the waves of sadness and helplessness become less intense, less frequent, and begin to not last so long, but to the question of “Does it get easier in time”? I would have to say No! Grief does not have a timetable that you can say, on a given day such as March 12th, you will begin to feel better and no longer grieve, for everyone suffers differently. Grieving for some parents is a way to stay connected to their child, for it keeps memories alive and retains a place in the family for the child. A parent’s grief is endless, but the intensity does diminish in time - - for the body could not endure the monumental emotions a parent feels immediately following the death of a child. It is during this time that a parent begins the journey of understanding and accepting the loss in a place with no rhyme or reason and many unanswered questions.

About Mary Jane Cronin
I am a bereaved mother, a licensed mental health counselor, writer, consultant, and public speaker. I have been specializing in the area of grief and loss for over ten years. Counseling in the Tampa Bay area of Florida since 2000, I have extensive experience in bereavement counseling of individuals and groups. I’ve lectured on grief and taught bereavement support skills to teenagers, incarcerated women, hospice patients and their families, hospice volunteers, and fellow health care professionals. Being employed by Suncoast Hospice as a bereavement counselor for the past six years has given me the opportunity to learn skills that allow me to continue to help others following a loss. I have presented at The Bereaved Parents of the USA conference in 2009 and The American Business Woman’s dinner earlier this year. Following the death of my son Jeremy, I wrote and published my first book, "November Mourning." November Mourning includes letters to my son in Heaven, my journey to find acceptance following his death, and stories about others faced with the loss of a child. Seeing there was a need to help others learn the benefits of journal writing I published my second book, "Writing Through Your Grief," earlier this year. You can view
my video and visit my website. My website is devoted to providing support and resources for individuals experiencing loss. (Ordering information for both books may be found on the website as well.)

Guest post: Tanya Eavenson

Memories


I still remember what it felt like—shivering under the hospital sheet, legs drawn, unable to stay still. The two things I wanted were my baby and the pain to stop. I was guaranteed one of those when I awoke and sometime later, the pain had stopped, but my child was gone.

Winter that year brought many firsts. The first snowfall, the first snow man my husband and daughter rolled, the first time our acre pond froze over that you could actually walk on, and the first time it seemed a part of me died. I can recall the days afterward as vividly as the day it happened. Like when my husband asked if I wanted to take a ride into town to see the snow and how everything within me cried, No! Or how I told him, “I want that dining room table we talked about. If I can’t have the children to go around it, at least I’ll have the table.” I wanted to fill the void left in my heart, and if a table would do that, then I wanted the table. But nothing filled the void my child left no matter what I tried. At times I felt the Lord nudging me to draw near to Him, but I couldn’t. If I did, I would relive what happened, and I wanted to forget, so I avoided what I felt.


For months I was lost in nothingness--nothing I did could make me happy. Then one day I felt the Holy Spirit pulling me to read scripture. I hadn’t read for a while, but I picked up my Bible and began. It didn’t take long for me to find the scripture God had for me. 2 Corinthians 12: 8-10 says, 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.


Yes, I remembered pleading with God to save my baby, and to say I was weak was an understatement. But that’s where God had spoken through His word. “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” To me, God was saying, I am all you need and I will help you through this. I will make you strong, not in your power, but Mine.

Over the years, God has used my loss to comfort others who’ve lost loved ones. I can relate to what it feels like to lose someone they will never hold again or at all. Do I truly know what they are going through? Only God does, but I’ve become sensitive to others who are hurting. Whether it’s bowing in prayer with someone or through sharing my story, I’ve found joy, knowing God keeps His promises. God never left me, even when I turned from Him in my pain, He drew me like Jeremiah 31:3 says, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.” If you’re hurting today from a loss, remember God is near, and He is faithful. Take comfort in knowing He has loved you with an everlasting love and draws you to Himself. There, in the shelter of His arms, you will find peace and rest.


~ Tanya Eavenson accepted Christ at a young age after walking down the reddest carpet she’d ever seen. At sixteen, she received her first Bible for Christmas. Never in her wildest dreams did she think God would use her to reach others for Him. But that is exactly what she’s been doing since God called her and her husband into the ministry. Tanya is also a writer for Christ to the World Ministries. She is a member of ACFW and was a semi-finalist in the 2011 Genesis Contest. You will find her blogging at Proof, See the Evidence http://proofseetheevidence.org; Guided Girls http://guidedgirls.blogspot.com/ and Student Life http://www.studentlife.com/

Birthday Reflections Around Daniel’s Grave

August 25, 2011

With the threat of Hurricane Irene looming over North Carolina, I left my post at the computer where I’d been tracking the weather and ventured to Daniel’s Place, known to most as Markham Memorial Gardens.

“Pack a picnic,” my oldest daughter said, and we agreed to meet at noon at the gravesite.

Purposely getting there early so that I could walk my daily mile and have time to reflect on the significance of the day, I laced up my tennis shoes. Today was my son Daniel’s birthday. I had not seen him in nearly fifteen years. His grave was one of the ones under a swaying oak tree.

I began to walk, the sun on my back. Butterflies and dragonflies flitted around as I noticed the artificial flowers on the tops of the rows of graves and wished that I could magically turn them into fresh bouquets. I was waiting and hoping for some words, some line I could use to write my annual poem or article on this special day. Over the years, I’d composed many birthday words, using the agony of his death and the joy of his life to inspire me. Yet today, I felt nothing new or fresh to work with.

If people knew how hard it is to live another birthday without my son, I thought, they’d be surprised. I bet most think that after all these years, time heals the jagged wound of grief. I thought of those who early on had wanted to stop me from grieving. They believed that by prayer and scripture verses about God being near that they could whisk away my pain.

I wanted to tell them that it was biblical to weep and to groan. We don’t have to look far to see that life is not as it could be. We long for a world without evil, illness, disasters, and devastation just as the psalmist does in the Book of Psalms.
Yet, even so, there were those who wanted to take my grief from me. They wanted to coat over it like the workmen recently did when they used machinery to repair the streets in my neighborhood. These men filled the cracks and rough edges with tar to make the surfaces smooth.

I was not made to be smooth! I was a mother with a mother’s heart, a heart full of love for my child. Were they denying me of the love God had placed in my very core for my son? If so, they were denying God. God gave this strong love to mothers. In my opinion, this love is the most pure human love available on earth. This love nurtures, cares, heals, comforts, provides unconditionally, and weeps. To stomp it out is impossible. It beats on and on, even when the object of its love is no longer in sight. Daniel had breathed his last on earth, but as long as I lived, I would love as a mother for her son.

My eyes filled with tears as I continued my walk. All these years, I’d felt misunderstood. I had let others try to push aside my love, which of course, comes with sadness from missing my child. I had grimaced when well-meaning folk tried to make light of my sorrow by saying I would see Daniel again in Heaven, and then felt guilty for not letting that knowledge make me want to smile.

Seeing Daniel again on earth is what I wanted. I wanted him here, growing up with my other children. I wanted my oldest, who remembers him best, to be able to have Daniel as her sibling. The two younger children had never known him and they had missed out on a funny, sweet boy who was generous in his care for others. I wanted to watch him blow out the candles on his fifth birthday cake, his tenth, his sixteenth, and his cake today. Telling me not to miss him because I’ll see him again in Heaven was missing the point. I will not be his mother in Heaven, making him grilled cheese sandwiches, buying him Cocoa Puffs, and listening to his accounts of his first day of high school or college. For although the Bible reveals little of our next life, it’s not going to be a repeat of this one. A repeat of this one! That would not be heavenly at all. We’re not going to be in little families as we are on earth, or married, or getting older with body parts that sag, or having to put up with neighbors who don’t mow their grass.

So I moan over what I lost. I ache because it is no more. There are chapters in Daniel’s life that I wanted to share with him here, like his first day of kindergarten, teaching him to read, and the other many milestones other parents get with their children.

I continue to love my son and wish he had not died from cancer treatments at age four. What mother wouldn’t feel the same? If there is one, I don't want to have coffee with her!

I let the sun dry my tears and when my daughter Rachel arrived, we ate lunch. For dessert, we munched on Teddy Grahams because Daniel loved those. We placed a ceramic pig on Daniel’s marker, and laughed, remembering how Daniel slipped and fell at a petting zoo, and was bitten by a prized hog. We hoped the upcoming hurricane would not destroy our piggy gift when her predicted winds made their way inland.

Then we sent a helium Happy Birthday balloon into the air and watched it bump into a tree limb, get stuck, and slowly free itself to make the journey into the blue sky. We watched that balloon as it sparkled in the sunshine until we could see it no more.

Then we parted. We returned to our jobs, back to our daily routines, as we had so many times before—without Daniel. But as always, we carried him with us—deep within our hearts with those rough edges.

~ By Alice J. Wisler

Tribute at Grand Canyon West

Most people don't believe this story, but I'll tell it anyway.

Seven years after Daniel's death, I received a phone call from the funeral home in Durham, NC.

"Is this Alice Wisler?"
"Yes."
"We have your son's ashes."
"His ashes?" My mind spun. Then what had I buried seven years ago in that little lamb urn? "But I buried him." The words came out slowly.
"These are the extras."
"Extras?"
"Sometimes," the woman at the other end assured me, "There are more than what fit inside the urn."
Gulping, I nodded into the phone.
"Would you like them?"
Would I like them? What mother wouldn't want the leftovers?

I made the trek across town and picked up a white box that had Daniel's name on a card inside. The box was heavy, and I was eager----in a strange sort of curious way--- to look inside. At home, I opened the box to view fragments of bones. I'd never seen ashes up close and was amazed at how chalky, gray, and dirt-like they are.

For seven years, I kept the box of ashes inside my bedside table.

As I worked on a novel (yet to be published), I created a scene where the mother of a young deceased boy spreads his ashes over the Grand Canyon. She crosses the United States from North Carolina to Arizona by RV.

And then, they say that truth can be stranger than fiction, the day came when we planned a trip out West. My husband booked us on a bi-plane flight from Boulder, NV to Grand Canyon West with a helicopter ride into the Canyon and then a trek on a pontoon boat down the Colorado River. "Take Daniel," he encouraged me. "You can do like the woman in your novel."

Thinking that was a great idea, I packed some of Daniel's ashes in a small bottle. I'm an avid watcher of the show, Locked Up Abroad and I hoped that no authorities would think the contents of the bottle were suspicious as I went through the security check before boarding the aircraft to our first destination of Las Vegas.

On Saturday, July 2, we set out on our Grand Canyon experience. A bus picked us up at our hotel in Vegas, taking us to Boulder City where we got on a bi-plane that flew us to the edge of the Grand Canyon. Next came the scenic helicopter ride into the Canyon, my daughter Liz seated next to me by the pilot, Carl and my son Ben seated behind us. The helicopter took us to the sloping edge of the Canyon where we walked down to the dock. A pontoon boat waited. This part of the journey was the most meaningful for me. This was where I would do what I'd never done before, and what so many have done---scatter a loved one's ashes.

As the tour guide talked of the mighty Grand Canyon, I slowly placed the ashes into my hand. I let the sun warm them, and then dropped them into the chilly Colorado River.

What a privilege to have this experience, to pay tribute to my son on a July day fourteen years after his death.

Upon my return to North Carolina, I composed the following poem about this adventure, one I know Daniel would be tickled to hear and one that will always be a tender caress around my heart.

Saturday Tribute on the Colorado at Grand Canyon West

Cold even in the height of summer
this river runs more shallow
than a mother’s daily sorrow
Your ashes brittle in my hand
No match for the winsome kid
who once sailed down the cul-de-sac
in a vibrant plastic car
One prayer
One benediction
into the waters you stream
Bones that once embraced the
sweet laughter of yesterday
Join, my child, merge
Energize this Canyon presence
As my empty fingers shield
teary eyes from a blazing sun
in heaven I imagine
your loving gaze
mesmerized by this tribute
You always loved adventure.

~ By Alice J. Wisler

The last day you were alive

Fourteen years ago, this was the last full day you lived. It was a seasonably warm Saturday outside the hospital, and inside the institution, the windows didn't feel as cool as they had earlier. I kept hoping you would not leave us, although it was evident that there was no more life for you here on earth. Time was running out. I prayed more earnestly for a miracle---if God could part the Red Sea, surely he could breathe more years into my little boy.

You were still in the white bed, except for the seizures that were more frequent. I hoped they were signs of energy. You had been still for ten days. Movement on your part must be a positive. I knew you could open your eyes and cry, "Hey! I had a long nap."

The day before you died, I hoped for this, and more.

Before you died I was like the other mothers with little boys. I could say, "They grow up so quickly."

I didn't shed tears when Eric Clapton sang, Tears in Heaven and when Elton John sang, Daniel.

Before you died, I didn't think about whether or not you would know my name in Heaven. Eric's contemplation did not have significance for me. Elton's words, "Your eyes have died, you see more than I," were only words. They had nothing to do with your fading blue eyes that once flickered with mischief and riddles.

Once, I held your hand in one of my own and innocence in the other. But the day you died, innocence, well, I had to let it go. I still hold onto you, though, sweet son. And I do believe you will know my name in Heaven.

Fourteen years ago today was your last full day on earth. I used to believe that fourteen years was much too long for a mother to still miss her child.

But that was all before you died.

This Must Be Where Mothers Go

As mothers of children who have died, we want to be understood as we trek through this journey of bereavement. I hope my poem speaks of the need we have to remember our children, to doubt, to grieve, and most importantly, to love.

This Must Be Where Mothers Go

This must be where mothers go
flowers fresh upon the grass
hiding the heavy soil
pounded by remorse and guilt

Where cloudy eyes and misty cheeks
see no light and lack the warmth
as questions of doubt fill
every labored breath.

This must be where mothers go
recalling horrifying nightmares
captured in the disbelief
that it could happen to them.

Yet--one touch, a whisper, a "tell me"
and the circle widens to radiate
the soul lifting, the sun
pushes back threatening clouds.

No strangers, these women speak
until soon, memories of each child
fill the stars as love abounds
free and stronger than any sorrow.

A landmark, the sacred tree where
comfort swells as leaves rustle
Mothers remember their hands
once held all that was precious.

Here the children still dance
now in fragile hearts
where names are spoken
Nothing dies, where mothers go.

~ Alice J. Wisler

Welcome, guest blogger, Sandy!

The Missing Piece
By Sandra P.

For the first two years after my son Jason died, I wrote daily. Writing truly did save me. Heartache, pain, questions and grief, spilled all over countless pages. Without the ability to write all of the words I could not say aloud, I don’t know what would have happened to me.

After those two years, I gradually stopped writing and I’m not sure why. I still can’t read many of the raw, heartbroken words I wrote during those days. Since then, I’ve been able to write very little about anything – including my son. So maybe writing will help again. I desperately want it to help. I want to write myself into the next stage of my life. I want to write to continue to heal.

Right now, it just makes my heart hurt almost as much it did during those first months. My throat is tight. Tears are just below the spilling point. But it also feels somehow comforting, in spite of the hurt. It feels like I am connecting, just a little, once again with the son I love so deeply and miss so badly.

My heart still grieves for Jason; my firstborn. My arms ache to hold him again. I long to brush the hair out of his big, brown eyes and tell him how much I love him. I want to talk with him about all the things that only he and I cared so much about.

During the last eight years life has gone on, even though I’ve often wished it wouldn’t. I look back and feel almost as though the years since his death have been some sort of dream – or nightmare. Even though I’ve continued to function, to love and be present for my living sons, to work and earn a living, to smile, to pretend I am doing fine – I realize that my life is largely a façade. I am not who people see on the outside. I am not the easy going, relatively happy person people think I am.

Inside, I am still crushed. Now, much of the pain is a dull ache, instead of sharp, jagged and raw. There is a part of our family and a piece of my heart missing. And I am left with many more questions than answers.

I still pray but I no longer think I know much about God or His purposes. How could the God I’ve loved for so long have allowed this? Why wasn’t I a better mother? Why wasn’t his heart condition ever diagnosed? Why didn’t I try harder to make him go to a doctor? Why didn’t I see that something was wrong? He was an adult, but I am his mother. Mothers protect their children – always. And I failed. I did not protect him. I could not save him. Why why why?

All I’m left with are memories and questions that can never be answered. And, I just now realize, quite a bit of anger.