Honour The One You Lost By What You Do

Every so often I write a blog based on a real client. When I do this it is either at their request or with their permission. I always change details to protect the person’s privacy.

This blog is from a mother who wanted to share her story because she wants to help others who lose a child. In this blog she is called Mary.

Mary’s Story

Mary had a son, Brad. He was an amazing boy. He loved telling funny stories at the dinner table and would have the entire family laughing at his stories. He was happy and sunny and people loved him.

He always wanted to be a chef and managed to complete his studies, getting a full time job in a busy restaurant.

Brad’s Difficult Life

Life was not easy for Brad. He struggled with old injuries that caused pain when he was standing in the kitchen working. He became addicted to heroin, it eased his pain and helped him cope with work in the kitchen.

Over time the heroin became such a large part of his life that it impacted on his work. He went to rehab, was doing well, then relapsed and exited the program. After some time he again tried rehab. Sadly that too failed.

The Day Brad Died

The day he died he was living with his mother and was out in the garden planning to work on an area of the garden.

He went inside to get ready and apparently decided to take a dose of heroin before starting.

His mother found him in the bathroom. An additive in the heroin had killed him.

Losing your child is hard and losing them in this way is even harder.

Being Plunged Into Darkness And Numbness

Mary has been forever tortured by the vision of her son lying on the bathroom floor, dead.

Brad’s death plunged Mary into a deep darkness. She felt she was dying too.

She went through the numbness and difficulty comprehending his death as real.

She had days where she cried and cried, and days when she didn’t get out of bed.

She felt terribly guilty and was full of what ifs. What if I had gone inside sooner? What if I had realised he was still using and sent him back to rehab? What did I do to lead to his addiction (as if it was her fault!)?

She felt lost in the darkness.

I Need Help

Then came a day she realised she needed to do something. She came to see me. Together we picked up the pieces of her shattered life.

In time Mary found a purpose in her new “Brad is dead” life. She realised she would never overcome her grief. She would just learn how to live with it.

How Mary Formed Her New Life

As part of her new life she took the following actions:

• She decided that every year on the anniversary of his death she would visit the location where his ashes were released.

• She also planted a garden in her backyard in honour of Brad. It followed the design he had suggested for the garden he was working on the day he died. Each year on his birthday she adds something to the garden. Lovely bamboo wind chimes, a small statue, a pond and so on.

• She also decided to support the rehab unit he had attended and has instituted measures to fund-raise for the unit.

• As Brad had spent some time homeless during the years of his addiction, Mary also works with a homeless charity, handing out packs of toiletries and food items.

• She also joined a charity that supports the families bereaved by drug addiction

Mary’s Summation

At her final session Mary told me that she still cries on occasion. But these days the tears are what she calls good tears.

Mary showed me a clip on YouTube by actor Billy Bob Thornton who lost his younger brother when he was young. His brother died suddenly from an undiagnosed heart problem.

Years later Billy Bob Thornton says his life is 50% happy and 50% sad. He is okay with that because the melancholy is his way of honouring his brother, so he doesn’t forget him.
Billy Bob Thornton doesn’t trust happiness anymore but he is okay with that. He states in the clip that it is important to embrace that you never get over the death of a loved one. He sees the only alternative is to forget his brother and he doesn’t want to do that. He feels it is important to honour the one you lost by what you do. Be it work, sponsoring, walking, fund raising, raising a family, or writing a song. Let the rest of your life honour the one you lost.

Mary thought that was a wonderful summary of what she had discovered.

Can I Help?

If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with your grief, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au

If you would like to learn more, I write a regular newsletter with helpful information, tips, information on courses, and the occasional freebie. At the moment I have a free mindfulness meditation for anyone who signs up to my newsletter. This meditation offers a way to safely explore your feelings and learn to be okay with them. If you would like to subscribe please click on the link here: http://eepurl.com/g8Jpiz

Losing a Child

There is a lot spoken about losing a partner. Less is spoken about losing a parent. But, I have noticed that one of the biggest gaps is speaking about losing a child.

I Am Supposed To Die First

Losing a child is a terrible nightmare for any parent. Children are supposed to bury us, not vice versa.

When the child is under 18 it is even harder to lose them.

Losing A Child To Illness

Today I am going to talk about losing a child to cancer or other illness. However, there are many aspects of the loss of a child that apply to any death of a child.

Many parents report the devastation of learning their child has a life threatening illness.

There are many decisions to make about care. This is in addition to adjusting to the possible loss of the future you had imagined for your child.

The Pain Of Watching Your Child Suffer

To watch your child have to endure endless blood tests, x-rays, MRIs, CT Scans, Ultrasounds, and more is very hard.

One parent who saw me reported the day they decided to end the tests and treatments was when their child just resignedly put their arm out for yet another blood test. They realised the limited time their child had left should not be filled with endless tests that were not going to result in their child living.

Filling Their Bucket List

Instead this parent opted to give their child loads of experiences. They took time out to go to playgrounds, theme parks, zoos, run on the beach, eat different foods, go on boats, planes, helicopters, a balloon ride, ride on a surfboard. The list is endless.

For this parent the priority was their child’s happiness.

Accepting The End

Before making that decision there was hope of survival. Numerous chemotherapy rounds, radiation therapy, hospitals and more hospitals took their toll on the family. The pain of watching their child suffer was unbearable. The only thing that kept them going was the hope their child had a future.

Then comes the time when you realise there is no future. There is no cure. This disease is terminal.

Letting Go

This is when the terrible decision to end treatment has to be made. There are always the “what ifs”. What if this next treatment works? What if they live a few more months? Is it better to live those few more months after some suffering or to give them the best life they can have (which won’t involve the pain of more treatments).

All this decision making involves letting go.

Letting go of hope of a future. Letting go of your child. Letting go of the quantity of life over the dignity of life and death. Allowing your child to be as pain free as possible.

After Your Child’s Death

The aftermath of a child’s death is awful.

At the time of their death you are surrounded by supporters.

There will be some people who stay in touch, who support you and check in. There may be ones who supply meals, or are available to listen. But over time the frequency of support reduces.

Grief hits hard once your time is no longer occupied keeping your child alive.

Even other children in the family, or having another child, does little to relieve the pain.

The Experience Of Grief For A Parent

When you are busy looking after other children and just surviving, it is hard to process your grief.

Many parents describe the following ways grief showed up in their life:

• Being easily irritated

• Experiencing panic attacks

• Chasing after anything that will fill the void, even if meaningless

• Feeling helpless

• Feeling life is futile

• Feeling so very sad

• Missing the hugs and hearing their voice

• Feeling part of you has died

• Finding it hard to face the day

• Feeling you are constantly scaling immense cliffs just to survive a day

• Constant reminders and memories of your child

• Learning to smile through the pain

• Feeling no one else can understand the immensity of your pain

• Frightened of overwhelming others with your pain

• Experiencing despair at the loss of your child.

Learning To Live Again

Many parents tell me they learned to live in the moment as the only way to move on in life.

Over time parents learn to accept the thoughts around their child. All of them. They acknowledge the thoughts and the emotions that come with them.

Joining a support group of other bereaved parents can be very helpful. One thing it does is help the parents to know they are not alone.

It is possible to survive grief. You can learn to keep that grief a little more distant. This distance allows you to process your grief and allow you to change. If you allow grief to change you and empower you then you can become a better person than you were before your child died.

Remember, grief will humble you. Grief will shatter you. Ultimately it will strengthen and empower you.

Can I Help?

If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with your grief, at the loss of your child or any other loss you are struggling with, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au

If you would like to learn more, I write a regular newsletter with helpful information, tips, information on courses, and the occasional freebie. At the moment I have a free mindfulness meditation for anyone who signs up to my newsletter. This meditation offers a way to safely explore your feelings and learn to be okay with them. If you would like to subscribe please click on the link here: http://eepurl.com/g8Jpiz

Seasons of Grief

You sit in your grief
Frozen
It is as though an icy reminder of winter has invaded the autumn
You suddenly find yourself in.

You sit in the icy numbness.
Then the numbness passes.

And you are tossed around by the autumn winds
Blowing their cold breath
Causing all to hunch forward and rush to shelter.
Leaving you alone in your grief.

You stand there
In the midst of the swirling leaves
Reds, oranges, yellows and brown.
Echoing your own swirling emotions
And you long for the time when you felt only numbness.

Then you sighed
And settled in for the long haul of the winter of your grief.
The days when it was icy and still.
When snow muffled every sound
And the world seemed deserted.

Just you and your pain.

As you stood on the edge of the ocean.
Antarctic blast hitting you with its icy needles
The waves whipped to a frenzy by winter storms
You remembered that all healing comes in waves.

The intensity varies.
Sometimes you can feel almost normal.
Other times you feel like you can’t go on.
You are out there in the white caps
Drowning.

And then you realise you will heal
Eventually.
You look around and notice the gradual budding of leaves at the ends of branches.
You look at the ground as tiny flowers emerge from their bulbs.

The wind comes warm and you dance in the beauty of it.
Then the wind blows cold and you are back in the thundering waves
Drowning.

Be okay to feel what you are feeling.
To feel those exhilarating days of warm breezes
And those terrifying days of drowning.

Allow it to take time.
Don’t rush.

You will be fed up with grief
Long before it is finished with you.

Allow the pain.
In that pain is growth.
In that pain is the way to learn how to live with your loss.

A day will come when you will stand on the edge of the ocean
The sun will dance on the gentle waves
A warm wind will gently caress you
And you will feel at peace.

Nan Cameron 24/7/2023

Can I Help?

If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with your grief, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au

If you would like to learn more, I write a regular newsletter with helpful information, tips, information on courses, and the occasional freebie. At the moment I have a free mindfulness meditation for anyone who signs up to my newsletter. This meditation offers a way to safely explore your feelings and learn to be okay with them. If you would like to subscribe please click on the link here: http://eepurl.com/g8Jpiz

The Horror of Parental Grief

In my blogs I often talk generally about issues. But every so often someone comes to see me who wants their story told. Today’s blog is one of those.

I am going to refer to this beautiful woman whose story is being told as Adele. I have changed some details to protect her anonymity.

ADELE’S STORY

Adele lost her daughter due to a sudden illness a number of years ago. This is her story of loss.

The first thing Adele spoke about is how her loss turned her into a person who lived as an alien on a planet she once felt was home.

She spoke about feeling that everything in her life was detached and she was no longer walking on the planet but floated somewhere on the other side of a heavy curtain she couldn’t get through.

BECOMING ONE OF THE ‘OTHER PEOPLE’ BAD THINGS HAPPENED TO

One day she was at a fundraising event for her daughter’s illness and saw some women talking, then pointing at her and looking horrified. She realised she had become a mother who lost her child. The other. The one that was someone else. Except now she was someone else.

She told me she remembered a childhood friend whose little brother had died and the memories of him on the wall. She remembered the family’s grief. Now she understood it.

She also understood that when your child dies, you die too.

She understood very clearly that there is the you before loss and the you after loss. Those you’s are two totally different people.

LIVING IN A SOCIETY THAT RUNS FROM DEATH

One of the most distressing things she found was the way our society handles death.

She realised people expected her to recover from her loss swiftly and move on.

She chafed under the idea that grief was a journey, although at the end of our sessions, she admitted it was a good description for part of her life journey. At the time she came to see me she felt she was trapped in a labyrinth deep underground. A dark, damp, dismal place from which there was no escape and where you kept going around in circles as you desperately tried to find a way out.

Adele felt the word journey did not describe her reality as she struggled to survive the death of her daughter. She felt that describing grief as a journey suggested it would some day come to an end. She didn’t believe that would ever happen. When we discussed life as a journey with the end point being death she was more accepting of that term. She was ready to accept that grief was a part of that journey, but not the end point.

THE NIGHTMARE THAT CONTINUED

For Adele, the death of her daughter was like a nightmare from which she never woke up. It was there all day, every day. It was as if her leg had been amputated but no one could see it. She looked the same but inside she was a completely different person.

One of her difficulties was that her daughter had died in the wrong order. Her grandmother and mother were still alive. She should have buried them before her daughter. In fact she shouldn’t have buried her daughter at all. Children are supposed to bury their parents, not the other way around.

PROLONGED GRIEF DISORDER

Adele came to see me because her daughter told her she had prolonged grief disorder and needed to see a grief counsellor.

As a baseline for any progress she may make, I gave her a questionnaire that asks questions about her grief. One question talked about grief lasting longer than 6 months. She was puzzled by this. I explained that in the Diagnostic Manuals prolonged grief is a “disorder” where the grief lasts six months or longer than expected according to social or cultural norms.

This horrified Adele. She was appalled that our society considers grief should be over in 6 months. She was appalled that people thought that grief should ever be “over”. She was appalled and shamed that her grief was considered to be a disorder.

I agree with her. Many grief counsellors agree with her. The inclusion of prolonged grief disorder at 6 months after the bereavement was a very controversial move.

BEING CHANGED PERMANENTLY

Adele felt she had been permanently changed by her daughter’s death. She felt pressure from others to go back to the way she was. But she felt she could never do that. Her daughter’s death had so dramatically changed her that she realised she would never be the same person she was when her daughter was alive.

Grief is normal. It is a natural reaction. It is well recognised in all cultures and societies. The turning of a normal process into a disorder is worrying and unhelpful to people in that situation.

FEELING LIKE A FAILURE AS A PARENT

One of Adele’s biggest difficulties was the feeling that she had failed as a parent. She felt she should have done more to keep her daughter alive. She should have been able to protect her. She should have sought help sooner.

Adele also felt she should have been the one to get sick and die.

A BOND THAT TRANSFORMS BUT NEVER ENDS

There has been a lot of research about what is know as continuing bonds. It is where the bond you have with the person who has died continues after death, but is changed to reflect the changed circumstances of the relationship.

The greatest fear of anyone who is bereaved is that they will forget about their loved one. They will forget their smell, their smile, their face.

That is difficult and the realisation that those memories are fading is very real and distressing.

For all his faults, Sigmund Freud, the father of modern psychiatry, acknowledged that grief never goes. The pain of losing your loved one will continue for as long as you live. Over time people find the sharpness of the pain softens a little, but the pain is always there.

PARENTING YOUR CHILD’S MEMORY

One day Adele came in with a beautiful way to remember her daughter. She had read in her research about a therapist telling a bereaved mother that “you will parent her memory”. She loved that. It gave her hope and something to hold on to.

Over the course of her visits with me Adele learned how to continue to live her life. She learned how to live with the pain of losing her daughter. She learned how to remember her daughter, how to honour her, how to continue to remember her smile and her face.

Most importantly for Adele, she learned how to parent her memory of her daughter.

DO YOU NEED HELP?

If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with your grief, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au

If you would like to learn more, I write a regular newsletter with interesting information, tips, information on courses, and the occasional freebie. At the moment I have a free mindfulness meditation for anyone who signs up to my newsletter. This meditation offers a way to safely explore your feelings and learn to be okay with them. If you would like to subscribe please click on the link here: http://eepurl.com/g8Jpiz