I confess, with both sorrow and gladness, that I can no longer summon the full measure of those savage feelings and the unremitting pain that engulfed me in those early years.  Working through them was the most demanding challenge of my life, enacting tolls in physical health perhaps even greater than the long term effects on miond and emotion

Today, however, I can reflect with gratitude upon a decade of mastery over the sadness. Control of my thoughts returned to me and I know freedom from the utter devastation of those early years.

Looking back reveals essential turning points on the road to healing.  Some would seem to generalize easily for anyone.  Others seem to respond to personal strengths and weaknesses more particular to an individual.

These points included:
    1.  Self forgiveness for the many deficiencies found 
         within, on the endless journey that is our lot in
         the wake of our child's death.
    2.  Forgiveness of others, relatives, friends and
         associates, who are less affected than are we, who
         who seem unable to help us in our time of deep trouble
         and need.
    3.  The accepting, at last, the finality of our loss, and  
         that we must gradually unleash ourselves from our 
         former lives and structure anew.
    4.  Learn to communicate value to spouses, friends and 
         surviving siblings, our love for whom seems shrouded 
         behind the totality of our grief.
    5.  Find ways to give expression to our need to somehow
         memorialize our child, be it through writing a book, 
         planting trees, sustaining scholarships or any number 
         of ways.  Our need to preserve and safeguard our
         child's memory is real and deserving of our attention.
    6.  A time comes for many to find new homes, jobs and
         purpose.  These are often part and parcel of any
         significant change in our lives.
    7.  Surrender to time, giving ourselves space within it
         to do our work.   Use time to foster healing within
         to enable us to grasp today and tomorrow with hope.

    No recovery will return us to life as we knew it while our child lived.  That life is forever gone and , to a certain extent, we may well have to accept that, as we perceive life today.  The finest days of our lives may well be a part of our past.  Somehow, we must recognize that this is not unique to surviving our child's death, but is often a portion of the human condition.
    Olin is dead.  As much as I would wish it otherwise,  it will never be.  He is not forgotten.  His voice, his laughter, his joy, and his shortcomings live on in me.
    No day passes without thinking about  him.  I am grateful for his touch upon
my life  Yet, joy is again mine.  Pleasure is no longer a forbidden or a guilt-producing element in daily living.   I live, gladly and with purpose, with Olin both behind me in time, but with me internally.
    Is this not our goal, to heal, to find strength to love both yesterday and today?  Our children have been the richest part of our lives and today should reflect the grace of that love in all that we are today.


A Mother's Day Wish From Heaven

Dear Mr. Hallmark,
I am writing to you from heaven,
and though it must appear
a rather strange idea, I see everything from here.
I just popped in to visit your stores to find a card,
a card of love for my mother,
as this day for her is hard.

There must be some mistake I thought,
every card you could imagine
except I could not find a card,
from a child who lives in heaven.
She is still a mother too, no matter where I reside.
I had to leave, she understands,
but oh, the tears she's cried.

I thought that if I wrote you,
that you would come to know
that though I live in heaven now,
I still love my mother so.
She talks with me, and dreams with me;
we still share laughter too;
memories are our way of speaking now.
Would you see what you could do?
My mother carries me in her heart.
She writes poems to honor me,
sometimes far into the night.
She plants flowers in my garden.
There my living memory dwells.
She writes to other grieving parents,
trying to ease their pain as well.

So you see, Mr. Hallmark,
though I no longer live on earth
I must find a way, to remind her of her wondrous worth.
She needs to be honored, and remembered too
just as the children of earth will do.

Thank you Mr. Hallmark, I know you'll do your best.
I have done all I can do; to you I'll leave the rest.
Find a way to tell her how much she means to me
until I can do it for myself,
when she joins me in eternity.
                                By Jody Seilheimer




Even in the fleeting time that the two of us were three,
You taught us of the purest form of love that there can be
- of a mother for her baby
- for the new life that she bore
- for the miracle love created
How could anyone ask for more?
Short-lived was my chance at motherhood
because you could not stay
And I would give almost anything to see you smile today
                                  By Sharon S. OP'Keefe, TCF, Richmond VA

Reflections of  Mother Denied

    On this my first Mother's Day, I asked myself, "Do I have a right to celebrate Mother's Day?  Have I truly been a mother this past year?"  The answer is yes.
    Each day I have cared for my child as every mother does, except differently.  In every way possible I have mothered him.
    I have mothered him with every tear shed, through the agony of longing to hold him.  I have rocked him in my heart if not in my arms.  I have kissed his little cheeks in my mind if not with my lips.  Smelled his sweetness with my hopes if not with my nose.  Felt his softness with my memory if not with my hands.  Tickled him with my wishes if not with my fingers.
    Am I a mother?  I truly am.  My physical mothering has been limited to lovingly tending his grave.  But I am a mother all the same.
                                        By Michelle M Parrish, mother of Stephen Andrew Parrish
                                            Columbia Chapter of Baltimore MD. TCF

    


Mother's Day:  A Father's View

    In our house as in other bereaved parents' households, Mother's Day comes with mixed emotions.
    Setting aside a day to honor motherhood is only right: mothers do tend to be taken for granted.  I remember the childhood joy of getting my mother a special gift, even if it was only a crayon drawing.  As an adult, buying gifts for your mother and the mother of your children still brings back those happy childhood memories.
    But this changed after Erin died.  Looking through all the cards at the gift shop only reminds me of this irony.  Cute, humorous sweetly sentimental cards await the bereaved father shopping for his grieving wife.  I can't find the card that will comfort my wife on this day.  
    I realize this day, perhaps because it is so widely celebrated, even years later can take my wife back to grief that she thought she was "through with".
    I can never do enough on Mother'js Day; maybe I try to do too much.  I know that all the cards, flowers, gifts and messy breakfasts in the world can't make up for the loss of our child.  But I still do these things;  she deserves them.
    The unfairness of our daughter's death will always be there.  I know I can't change that with a card.  But I can remind her that she is a great mother, and most importantly, she is still the mother of our child.
    This then is the wish I have for her and for all bereaved mothers on this day:  Please be as proud as every other mother today;  no one can dispute the fact that you brought your child into the world.  Although s/he is no longer with you, the love you feel can never be taken away from you.  If you are depressed, may your family and friends remind you of this and comfort you.
                                                by Al Bots, TCF, Cleveland, OH