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.)

Why spring bruises a broken heart

Photo taken by Benjamin Wisler


Spring. Count the variety of budding flowers. See all the color. Quite a contrast from the stark, bare limbs of winter. Who knew that all this creation was going on underneath the soil while we huddled in warm houses and watched our breath in the chilly morning air of January? Each spring, I'm amazed at nature's robust and vibrant offerings in my yard and on my street. From the first daffodil to the azaleas to the wisteria that clings like a scarf around tree branches, I'm glad to be alive to experience it all.

It wasn't always this way. Years ago, there was a spring that came too soon for me. I wasn't ready for the showcase of irises, cherry blossoms and dogwood. I wanted to huddle in the dark and dead of winter. I felt dead. I couldn't embrace the vast colors of spring.

My four-year-old son Daniel had just died. Why was spring happening when he no longer had life on this earth? My mother's heart was broken, wounded, bruised. I felt inadequate to view the season of spring. I was still in the throes of wondering why my child had to die, why my child was not around to come out to play with the other children on the cul-de-sac.

Do you feel like I did? Does spring make you feel, as one of my bereaved friends put it, "Like there is too much life"? Perhaps you are unable to join in the beauty of the season. Perhaps you still need time in the winter of your grief.

Don't chastise yourself. Be gentle. You are not alone. Plenty of others who have had a recent loss can't encompass all that a season of warmer temperatures and brightness has to offer. Know that it is okay to cry, to shut yourself inside with your tissues and memories for a while.

One day those memories you held of past springs when your loved one was with you will be sweet. One spring, you will be able to dance underneath the budding cherry trees.

It is in spring when I recall

how you taught me

the heart survives

even the harshest wounds

borrowing balm

from the gentleness of spring.

~ By Alice J. Wisler

How to enter a new year with a broken heart

By Alice J. Wisler

As Dick Clark is about to countdown the hours to a new year, and friends and neighbors are chilling bottles of champagne for midnight toasts, many of us are wondering just what will be so happy about 2012. We recall easier times when we laughed more and enjoyed shouting "Happy New Year!" at the strike of twelve o-clock. We long for days when we had zeal and joy. Now are hearts are broken.

What has broken your heart? Is it the recent death of a loved one? When my four-year-old Daniel died in 1997, I dreaded holidays without him. My family picture was incomplete and I knew that this life I was thrown into without him was how it was going to be from now on.

Heading into your first new year without a loved one can be daunting. You know that this new year will be void of any memories of your special beloved. A new year, yes, but no new antics from your child, mother, or sister. Only recycled memories exist now.

What can you do to get through the ending of an old year when your loved one was with you before his death, and approach another calendar year without him?

Here are twelve suggestions to help with the transition from 2011 into 2012.

1) Bring your loved one into the new year by sharing a happy memory of him with those around you.
2) Speak his name. Again and again.
3) Make a dish in your loved one's memory. If you don't cook, buy a bag of his favorite chips, crackers, or snack food.
4) Think of resolutions for the new year that you want to make for yourself.
5) Consider doing something for someone else at the beginning of the new year, something that symbolizes your loved one's life.
6) Allow yourself tears. Buy a sturdy box of Puffs Tissues.
7) Allow yourself the gift of words. Jot down words that describe your loved one. Create a few lines or a poem about him.
8) Read passages from the Bible or a book that is uplifting and nurtures your soul.
9) Light a candle and keep it burning from the end of the year into the new year.
10) Send a helium balloon into the night sky, a gesture of sending a gift up to Heaven.
11) Know that even though your heart is broken, healing can happen.
12) Look for beauty in each day. Find at least three things to be thankful for. Start with thanksgiving for the love you hold for your deceased loved one. The love is always there, nothing can take it away.

Always.

Carrying Memories

Christmas has ended, and the living room still has that unwrapped look. With the festivities now part of future memories, I anticipate the next hurdle: the start of a new year. The TV commercials romanticize champagne toasts illuminated by glowing candles. People make resolutions, hopeful that this brand-new unblemished year will be the one that fuels their successes.

For the parent who has lost a child to death, a new year can be daunting. The first New Year’s Day after my son Daniel’s death was scary. I wanted to hold onto 1997. Although it was the year he’d lost his battle with cancer and died, it was also the year he’d lived. 1998 would mark the first calendar year without him.

For some reason, the image of an old-fashioned wooden bucket came to me. With this item, I heard the word carry. That’s it, my newly-bereaved mind said. The key with a new year is to carry the old into it.

So here we are, on the brink of another year, a new decade, with fresh hopes and dreams. A clean slate. There are many things about 2009 I wish to forgive and forget, but I don’t want to ever forget my son.

Each year marks a year further from when I last held him, heard his voice, and saw his smile. I yearn to hug him, tell him how much he’s grown, and ask him what he’d like for dinner. My heart feels that distinct hollowness and sorrow that belongs to a mother without her child.

But the bucket I have isn’t hollow. It is brimming with memories and fondness, warmed with love and laughter; I hold it tightly.

Just as I carried Daniel’s four-year-old memories into 1998, now — fourteen years later — I will continue to carry them. And I will do more than just hold them, I’ll let them trickle out, forming their own glow, as I share this special boy with my world. “Wasn’t it funny when Daniel called adults redults? Do you remember how he gave stickers away in the hospital, and once when bored made a collage out of baby lotion and glitter?”

Daniel lived, he loved, and I believe he continues to live in Heaven.

So, get yourself a sturdy bucket and carry. Boldly carry the memories into the new year. Along the way, give yourself permission to forgive. Let the memories you recall be the brightest ones.

Listen. There is nothing to fear. Listen. Your child’s voice can be heard in your heart.

Guest post from a writing course attendee

I HOPE
By Michele W.

Since Jenna’s death, I have learned to hope. Or at least I try to hope, because I don’t know what else to do. I know that life will never be the same without my daughter, and so I need a glimmer of hope to continue on without her.

A few days ago I was shopping for a birthday present. It was for my son’s friend, a little girl turning five. My daughter died when she was five, and I was overwhelmed with the task of looking at pink and purple and little girl things. I wandered away from the toy section and saw a t-shirt with the word “HOPE” across the front in bright yellow, all capital letters. I was strangely drawn to this shirt—I felt like I needed to own this shirt. I felt like I needed to wear this constant reminder across my heart, so that whenever I see my reflection I can instill in my heart that word—HOPE.

I HOPE that the remaining three in my family can hold on to each other tightly. I hope that the problems in my marriage caused from years of stress, grief, and loneliness can be resolved. I hope that we can stay together because we love Jenna and we share special memories of her. I hope that Braden will work through his own grief and that he will always love his sister, and that I can be the loving, patient, and attentive mother that he needs.

I HOPE that someday God will give me a glimpse of what Jenna’s new life is like. I hope that even though Jenna did not want to die and leave us, that now she feels free from hospitals and tubes and pain. I hope that someday I’ll understand why God chose to allow my daughter to experience such suffering and die, and that I’ll know that prayers offered up for her were answered.

I HOPE that a cure for cancer will be found soon. No parent should have to choose to poison their child with chemotherapy and radiation, in hopes that she will get to live. No brother should have to wish that his sister was alive so they can play together. No family should have to bury their child.

I HOPE that I will survive. My heart is broken and aching. My smiles are forced. Nothing in life is definite anymore. I now live day to day.

I HOPE ….

The Long Corridor

"How can I remember his life without the impact of his death?"


This is not like hitting a large pothole on a dark road and being caught off guard. It cannot sneak up on you because every year the familiar dates do not change. When I get a new desk calendar in January, I mark his dates. My son Daniel was born August 25th. And he died February 2nd. Both of those days have a heart drawn around them.

What continues to surprise many bereaved parents is the long corridor that leads up to the anniversary day of a child. How do our bodies and minds know that the date is approaching? I often tell people that I could be on a deserted island without my calendar, but my mind would still know.

The anniversary date of a child's death wreaks havoc with all our senses as we remember. The date of his death is not like his birthday, where as painful as it is without him, we can celebrate that he was born. The anniversary date is the flipside, reminding us that it all ended. Anniversary dates mean saying good-bye. No more memories. Gone. Finished here on earth. It's over.

We try not to let it take its toll. After all, most of us do not seek to dwell on every detail that killed our child. We hear the world say, "Still? It's been ten years." Or twelve, or like me, fourteen. Even so we wonder why we get this knot in our stomach as flashbacks snap before us on our memory's picture screen.

"The days leading up to Ethan's death anniversary date of January 19th are like this long corridor I have to walk alone. I even sometimes forget the dates leading up to the 19th are going to be hard," my friend Brina wrote to me recently about her infant son.

How well she described it! We replay those events that lead up to our child's death. Even years later, we still think that if we could have changed one or two of those circumstances, we would continue to have our son or daughter. Could have, should have, would have. Those are the phrases we learn early on not to say. But we still say them. If only. Why didn't I?

The days leading up to that marked date on the calendar can be lonely, painful, agonizing, irreverant. Yet each year we have to walk through them, until, at last, the day passes, and we are on the other side of the long hallway. For now. Until next year.

The first years without a child are all gut-wrenching, and when the anniversary day looms, parents wonder if they can survive another year. As time goes on, the harshness softens to some extent. Yet I've heard parents say that certain years were harder than others. My friends Gene and Linda just experienced fifteen years since Steve, their only child's, death. Because Steve was fifteen when he died, this particular year marked fifteen years with him, and fifteen years without.

I think of Stephen King's The Green Mile and what walking along it signified to the inmates. They plodded along that long corridor until they reached a chair. By being strapped to that chair, they would be removed from this world.

We parents re-walk that mile every year. Yet it is not we who sit in the chair, it is those memories of our child who died. The call is given, the act is done, and breath stops. There was nothing we could have done to prevent that action. Nothing, no loophole, that we can find, to bring our precious child back to us.

And so we walk. Scenes from years ago grab us like horrific nightmares, only we know we will not wake up and find our child safely in bed. We are still bereaved and that is why, year after year, we must make that lonely walk.

As Christians, we believe in life after death. This brings much comfort. Yet, I must emphasize that walking the mile is still treacherous, at times scary, and sorrowful, despite the promise that our child is experiencing the magnitude of Heaven. For those who want to say, "Be glad he is in Heaven," I would like to add, "Yes, but I want him here. Just like your child is here with you, living each day as part of your family."

For the corridor is not about life after death or that we will again be reunited with our child, it is about the truth that death, plain and vast, occurred, and every year we are impacted by this horrendous truth we cannot escape. Some of us have more events along their corridor, especially those of us whose child was hospitalized, had medical procedures, or suffered before his last breath.

Is there a way to make the approaching days easier? My friend Brina called a friend and planned to attend a chapter of a grief support group in her area. In December, Pam sent out an email message letting others know that the anniversary date of the death of her daughter Paula was around the corner.

Pushing aside the pain and need to be heard is not wise. Reach out, and hopefully, those you reach out to will help to shoulder the monumental walk. Cliches don't substitute for comfort. Loving the broken-hearted is always a good practice.

This year I plan to invision God holding one of my hands and Daniel holding the other as I make my way through the flashbacks from January 22 leading up to February 2, 1997.

And I will continue to follow the advice of my four-year-old Daniel during his own demise: "Deep breaths, deep breaths. That will help me."

Welcome, Guest Blogger, Colleen

The following is from Colleen B. Readers, please feel free to leave a comment
as Colleen would love to hear your thoughts.

++++++++++++++++++

On June 1, 2010, my father died. My expectation was that I was gong to be terribly
sad and possibly thrown back into the depths of grief. Although I have been sad, I
haven't experienced the level of grief that I expected or that I feel might have
been expected of me. I have actually wondered if something was wrong with me.

I didn't experience the death of someone that I truly loved until I was in my mid-
thirties when my grandparents died within a year of each other. I had spent my
summers with them through most of my childhood, but work and family had made our
visits fewer over the years. I remember being very sad for a time, but life as I
knew it returned to normal very quickly. It wasn't until almost fifteen years
later, on 01/01/01, that life changed forever. My 19 year old son, Andrew, choked
on a gummy candy while sitting in his car outside of a gas station. Andrew's
brother and friend had gone in to pay for the gas. When they returned to the car
Andrew was unconscious and could not be revived. That is the day that a big part of
my heart died, and I learned that a broken heart really does hurt. The grief
journey after the death of a child is an incredibly difficult one. It changes you
forever. Even though I have certainly improved over the almost ten years since
Andrew's death, that experience has left its scar. Now I'm never totally sure how I
will react to the constant tragedies that happen in the area where I live. There
have been at least twenty young adults that have died since Andrew, and five of
those were his friends. These deaths knock me off my feet, but I think I have been
left with less sadness for the people who had an opportunity to live a full life,
even though I know they were well loved by many, and I know their families suffer
the loss.

I guess this leads me back to my dad. For the last two and a half years he had been
in a nursing home living a life he tried so hard to avoid. Luckily he didn't
realize that he was one of those "old people" that he was always pointing out to me.
Over the last five years we were called numerous times to the hospital and told he
probably wouldn't survive the night, or he probably only had two days to two weeks
to live, or the next illness would certainly be the last. In mid May when he
stopped eating we were once again told that he most likely wouldn't survive more
that two weeks. It was hard to take it seriously because we had heard it so many
times. Death for him was a release from a body and mind that no longer worked. He
was 90 years and 9 months old, and I just keep thinking that he lived over 71 years
longer than my son. I'd love to know if others have felt these same things. It
would help me to know that others have had the same feelings.