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

Guest post from Dave Roberts

The Armadillo


Inspiration and Intent
Since my 18–year-old daughter Jeannine’s death in 2003, I have embraced many sources of inspiration that have inspired me and changed how I view the world. I have learned that when we state our intent to become inspired, we eventually inspire others by exposing them to the lessons that we have learned.

Animal Medicine
I have discovered the benefit of Native American Animal Medicine during the last 22 months of my journey. One of the tools that I have consistently used is a book called Medicine Cards by Jamie Sams, a revered Native American teacher. The book comes with a set of Animal Medicine cards. The teachings inherent to each animal are outlined in a corresponding chapter of the book. I don't have a schedule for working with these cards, I simply let intuition, rather than the passage of time, be my guide.

Feeling Untethered
In early grief, it is not uncommon for many to feel disassociated from themselves, surroundings and others around them. We feel untethered and walk in a dreamlike state, detached from everything around us that once had significance in our lives.

After I filed for retirement from the State of New York in April of this year, I felt just as untethered as I had in early grief, following Jeannine's death. It was more stressful than I anticipated saying goodbye to several staff who touched my life and a routine that had been part of my identity for over 27 years.

My Protective Armor/Walking the Ethereal
In June of this year, I got the urge to work with Jamie Sams' Medicine Cards. I picked just one card: The Armadillo. In several previous sessions, I never picked the Armadillo. However, as with every card that I have chosen, the lesson was appropriate to my present reality.

According to Sams, the Armadillo "wears its armor on its back, its medicine a part of its body. Its boundaries of safety are a part of its total being." She goes on to write: "What a gift it is to set your boundaries so that harmful words or intentions just roll off. Your lesson is in setting up what you are willing to experience."(Sams, p 149)

I had a conversation about the Armadillo with a close friend and a valued spiritual mentor during the last 22 months of my journey. I told her about my feelings of disconnectedness from my workplace. I also told her that I was operating strictly from intuition. I have allowed my intuition or spirit to guide me, but have always being able to make connections between my spiritual experience and experience in the physical world. Due to what was going on with me at work, I struggled to maintain that important connection.

My friend told me that "walking the ethereal" without any sense of connection to the workplace was not necessarily a bad thing. She viewed my experience as a way to deal with leaving my job.

I eventually concluded that feeling untethered was the protective armor that helped me focus on the practical matters (i.e. packing my belongings, shredding materials that no longer applied to me) of leaving my job, while insulating me from the sadness of leaving those people who provided me with joy and validation during my career.

Redefining My Experience
Jamie Sams discusses a simple but powerful teaching about how we can best use Armadillo medicine in our daily lives. She suggests making a circle on a sheet of paper and to "see it as a medicine shield.” Sams further instructs us to write down within the circle, all the things that we desire to have, do or experience. She goes on to say that “this sets up boundaries that allow those chosen experiences to be a part of your life” (Sams, P.149).

I did this exercise and took it a step further. Outside the circle, I wrote down those things that I was not willing to experience or let penetrate my medicine shield. Doing this helped me feel less untethered as I got closer to my retirement date (July,11,2012).

We can define what it is that we truly want to experience in any transitions in our life... including our journeys after the death of our children. Armadillo medicine can help us represent our life experiences in ways that are true to who we are. In the journey after loss, what we are willing to experience or not experience may change depending on where we are emotionally, spiritually and psychologically. The road to enlightenment was not meant to be a static process. Enlightenment is about finding our truth while representing our experiences as authentically and genuinely as humanly possible.

Express your lives as a demonstration of your highest beliefs, rather than a denial of them. ~Neale Donald Walsch


David J. Roberts, LMSW, CASAC, became a parent who experienced the death of a child after his daughter Jeannine died of cancer on 3/1/03 at the age of 18. He is a retired addictions professional and is also an adjunct professor in the psychology and psychology-child life departments at Utica College, Utica, New York. Mr. Roberts also developed a topics course on Parental Bereavement issues, and has taught a Death, Dying and Bereavement course for Utica College. He is a volunteer for Hospice and Palliative Care, Inc, in New Hartford, New York and a member of the All Inclusive Care for Children Coalition.

Guest post: Poetry from a father

ON ANGELS’ WINGS


I lie awake under the covers,


the dog snuggled at my feet,


The cat lounging on my chest,


both soundly asleep.


My wife lies beside me,


so innocent, so sweet.


She surely doesn’t deserve this,


no, not this stinging defeat.





I’m tired from the long work day,


but I can’t sleep just yet;


I’m waiting for you to get home,


my daughter, my sweet pet,


And pop your head in the door:


“Dad, I’m home,” you say.


“Get some rest,” I say,


“and be sure your clock is set.”





“I love you.” “I love you too, Dad,”


you say with a smile.


“She’s home, Hon,” I whisper softly,


“safely home for a while.”


My wife turns and squeezes my hand,


as she lets out a sigh,


We’ve survived another night,


survived another trial.





Sometimes it’s one in the morning,


sometimes it’s four.


Sometimes I get out of bed


and slowly pace the floor;


I listen for your car,


and the blaring radio.


I’ve been through this scenario


so many times before.





Sometimes when I’m sitting up,


patiently waiting for you,


You walk in and give me a hug


(for me, nothing else would do),


And ask “what’d you have for dinner, Dad?


Are there any leftovers?”


Then you settle in on the couch,


flipping channels on the tube.





Now I lie awake under the covers,


the dog snuggled at my feet,


the cat lounging on my chest,


both soundly asleep.


I still get up at one or four,


and pace the floor for hours.


But before I go back to sleep this night,


it isn’t you I’ll greet.





For loneliness, desperation, hopelessness and fear


will be my companions tonight.


We’ll meet my wife along the way,


and party into the night.


We’ll wake-up in the morning with


a hangover of sadness and grief,


And face the realization that


this might always be our plight.





Because you’re not coming home tonight,


not at one, not at four.


You left us here to grieve your loss,


nothing less, nothing more.


But this is not our home, nor yours,


and we’ll join you soon enough,


We’ll see you again in Heaven,


yes, on Angels’ wings you soar!


~ By Ernie Laughlin

Kentucky