Author: Grief Blessings

Trying to discover why I'm here and where I'm going. Finding out that today is all we have - tomorrow is not guaranteed. So live like today

The Depths of Sorrow

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Continuing my series blogging through Jerry Sitter’s book “a grace disguised”.

Chapter 5 – Sailing on the sea of nothingness.

I remember this chapter touching  me in way that no other had because the author shared the very feelings I had been having during the weeks and months, and sometimes presently, regarding how to deal with the past, present and future after a tragic loss.

“Maybe the most sacred function of memory is just that: to render the distinction between past, present, and future ultimately meaningless; to enable us at some level of our being to inhabit that same eternity which it is said that God himself inhabits.” – Frances Buechner

Sittser opens the chapter describing his feelings about a dream of sailing on the ocean with this remaining family. As he gazed out beyond the boat he could see a lovely sight for which he wanted to visit, yet the boat would not go there. It’s as if it had a mind of it’s own and he had no control. I understood that analogy so well because that is what it was like for me when my daughter died. It’s the feeling like you have no control what has happened nor do you have any control over where you are going.

One of the key statements that Sittser makes in the first few paragraphs of this books is what I found to be both comforting and sorrowful. He said, “Loss creates a barren present….Those who suffer loss live suspended between the past for which they long and a future for which they hope.” I think this was the turning point in why I chose to continue reading this book initially after searching high and low for words that I could grab onto and feel like there was some kind of hope.

The bible gave me a lot of hope and filled my empty heart so many times; however, at some I needed to know, to hear, to believe that I was not alone in my thoughts. Because you begin to feel that you are living in a vacuum and nothing makes any sense. Things look foggy and it appears as if you may never see clearly again. Sittser’s book gave me some clarity.

I found people saying to me “but you have such great memories” during the weeks and months after Brittany died. But you see in the early stages of grief and loss, memories bring sorrow and wailing. A sorrow that has left you feeling amputated. And wailing that deafens the thoughts that continued to run through my mind about what happened. Reliving the moments, the twelve hours leading to her death.

Like Sittser, the memories did begin to bring some joy and even laughter as I could finally find a way to talk about her without it always bringing the last twelve hours of her life to the forefront. Even today I speak of Brittany and our life together because it is a part of me and it will always be a part me. I can’t turn away nearly eighteen years of life with her  because it makes someone uncomfortable to talk of the dead. Which has been a problem I have experienced with several people, close people in my life.

My ability to speak about Brittany and to remember the fun times helps to put the not so great times behind me. Not that those thoughts will ever go away, but talking about her and reliving the great times, reduces the painful memories and lessens the blow. A very important factor my friends if you are friends with someone who has lost a child or a loved one. Please don’t shut them down because it pains you to hear about someone talk of a loved one that has passed. It’s a tragedy all by itself.

One of things I’ve learned over the past four years is that the emptiness does begin to fade as you begin to live your life again. But it will never go away. It will always be there to remind you of just how fragile life is and will always be. We are one second away from our lives changing dramatically from loss. As Sittser goes on to say about loss “Can anyone really expect to recover from such tragedy, considering the value of what was lost and the consequences of that loss? Recovering is misleading and empty expectation.”

People can recover from illness, surgeries, etc.; however people who have experience a tragic loss will never recover because there is no going back to the life you knew. There is no going back to see your loved one. Life as you knew it and the future you dreamed of is gone. And the future will always have the loss as part of your life. But the hope, for me, has been that even though I thought I’d never make it past the first year, I have and I have seen joy and I have laughed.

As the years pass, I continue to see that the future for me is bright. But know that the past does create a shadow sometimes over my life as it can over anyone you know who has lost a child. On those days it’s critical to be there, be present and listen. Listen to the pain, listen to the memories and validate the life that has been lost no matter the time that has past. It is my job and those who have lost to receive that gift of grace that comes with validation and the presence of those who take the time to listen.

until next time,

m

The Silent Scream of Pain

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* Continuing through “a grace disguised” by Jerry Sittser

Chapter Four

The Silent Scream of Pain

In this chapter the author talks about the experience of pain one can experience with loss. The words “unspeakable” “unbearable” were just a few he uses to describe the pain felt by those who’ve lost a loved one. I know that pain.

Interestingly enough he goes on to reflect what pain means. The value of it, if one could find that unfathomable. The following quote puts it  into perspective and gives one some type of rationale behind why pain is experienced due to loss.

“What is true of the body is true in the soul. The pain of loss is severe because the pleasure of life is so great; it demonstrates the supreme value of what is lost.”

  

How we go about dealing with our pain is a whole different story. I found myself identifying a great deal with his examples of how we face our pain, or how we don’t. Just yesterday, Christmas, I found myself in a familiar place – avoidance. I tend to do one of two things: I either put on a happy face and pretend it’s all ok; or I withdraw into my “space” and avoid personal contact as to avoid anyone seeing my pain.

I have found over these past four years is that the pain has to be heard, faced, dealt with and acknowledged. While I understand this to be true, it’s harder to live it. To share this pain is one of the most difficult things I have experienced. Perhaps it’s because I don’t want anyone else to know how bad it hurts. Sometimes it’s because I don’t want to seem vulnerable. That could be a whole other chapter all by itself.

Another way of dealing with pain is by “drowning it” by indulging in various types of activities. For example grief and pain have many friends and for me the worst was the loneliness. The author speaks of watching endless hours of television during the hours of 10pm to 2 am for about two months. This was the time when he missed his wife the most. I found ways of avoiding that loneliness, I buried myself in my work and church. But in the darkness of the night – the loneliness returned.

I slept on the couch for three months after Brittany died because I couldn’t bring myself to pass by her room to get to mine. The nightly routine was I would pass by her room and say good night before I shut my own bedroom door. Just that simple action and memory was profoundly devastating to me. I could hardly breathe. But one day I had to face it. I could no longer sleep on the couch. What I was facing was more than just a ritual – it truly meant I had to face that she was gone. That she wasn’t coming back.

The author does speak to the problem of addiction and how it can occur after someone experiences a loss. Finding ways to avoid, derail, bypass the pain – problem is, it’s still waiting there behind all that avoidance.

“Loss disrupts and destroys the orderliness and familiarity of their world. They feel such desperation and disorientation in the face of this obliteration of order that they go berserk on binges. They saturate their senses with anything that will satisfy them in the moment because they cannot bear to think about the long-term consequences of loss.”

That quote was never more true for me than the first six months of journey. Once I returned to work, I put everything into it. It was an exhausting time and my body paid dearly for it. I found some sense of relief from the relentless attack on my heart while at work. It was once I pulled into the driveway at my home, the one I shared with my daughter, that the pain came crashing back. I had no place to hide.

I spent some time in the anger phase. It just so happened to be winter in Michigan and for those who know me know that this is not my favorite time of  year. It snows a lot in Michigan and I really don’t like snow. So when it snowed, I found myself outside shoveling, screaming at God and asking “why”. I’m sure my neighbors thought I’d gone off the deep end. But in looking back, it was a great time of healing for me. I was so angry at her doctors, her father, so many people who chose not to listen to me when I knew something wasn’t right with her.

Once I realized that the anger was just another way of dealing with the pain I was able to move on. So often people tend to get stuck in the anger phase of grief. As the author states “anger, like denial or bargaining or binges, is simply another way of deflecting the pain.” He goes on to say that pain will keep returning and will not let up until it has had it due time. I still find times I get angry, I go through the stages of grief over and over. I just don’t stay as long – I manage to go through them like a revolving door. I’ve learned to live with it.

At some point it becomes exhausting to fight it any longer. Yesterday I felt this disconnect and sense of nothingness. Devoid of emotion if you will. That is grief and pain knocking at the door. Over the years I’ve learned that I can’t run away from it. I have to let it have its moment and then in prayer I have to release it. It’s then and only then do I get some peace.

until next time,

m

As Time Passes

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As time passes I find I no longer look for those moments when I am overwhelmed with a wash of grief that suddenly comes over me and when I least expect it. I stopped expecting it a year or so ago. But funny thing – it still comes, it still stings and it still hurts just as badly.

As I wandered about my place today I couldn’t figure out why I was feeling disconnected, unmotivated to do anything, talk to anyone or spend time with anyone. I was upset with myself because it is not like me to be that way. Then tears filled my eyes and I felt as if I’d been stabbed in the heart by the sting of grief.

You see if you have never experienced it, you can’t even imagine it. But if you have experienced this type of grief – you know perfectly well what I’m saying. Try as you may to not think about it, dwell on it or give it any residence in your mind – it still shows up. It’s like a bad ache, an itch you can’t scratch, a feeling of gloom that comes over like a black cloud on a sunny day that brings a burst of rain so strong it blows you over and you are covered in tears like a watershed of rain.

The hard part is letting it happen. Letting the work of grief do it’s thing and then releasing it into the world giving it it’s due. Because I’ll tell you if you fight it will fight harder. I have found it’s easier to just let it happen. Let the pain come, the tears flow, the sorrow cry out in prayer to God because that is how it gets released.

I miss my daughter with every part of my being. More than I can ever share. More than I could ever write about. There is nothing that I could write that would describe the emptiness I have in my heart that will never be replaced. As this fifth Christmas comes to an end and the tears flow I am still thankful, still grateful and still hopeful for the future.

until next time

m

Merry Christmas Message

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Merry Christmas

Sitting here surrounded by family, I am reminded of many Christmas’ past. Visits to grandma’s house where many generations of my family would gather from all over at one moment to celebrate Jesus’ birth. Laughter always filled the house as the little children ran around chasing one another up and down the stairs.

George Washington, his picture, at the top of the stairs so creepy awaiting us. No matter where  you stood, it always seemed as if he eyes followed you. As kids we would stay upstairs going through grandma’s closet looking for fun outfits to try on. We’d look through grandpa’s collection of Indian relics. Remembering those times always brings a smile to my face.

Many Christmas’ past brings such a joyful memory but also such a longing for just one more moment with mom. I miss her beyond measure. Her smile while cooking for the whole family was priceless. She loved those moments when the family was all together. I miss those moments more than I can say. Her death left this family in such a vacuum of despair that nothing has been the same since.

Then there are the many memories of my sweet Brittany. I have so many great pictures of her at Christmas over the 17 years we celebrated with her. The greatest gift of all was her life given to me as a  mother. She was a blessing like no other I’ve had and like no other I’ll ever have again.

Her smile permeates my heart and will for as long as I breathe. Her spirit lives within me and will forever be a part of who I am. This Christmas, I am reminded of how very important family is and how quickly it can change. So my dear friends – stop and take a moment to thank God for your family. Be grateful for the joy in your life.

My Christmas wish for you and your family is for you to know that the greatest gift you can give one another is yourselves.

until next time,

m

To Live and Mourn Simultaneously

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Continuing my journey as I blog through Jerry Sitter’s “a grace disguised”. Chapter Three: Darkness Closes In

I used the phrase “To Live and Mourn Simultaneously” for the title of this post because I truly think Sitter could have labeled this chapter that way. As we go through this chapter you will see why as I believe it became very apparent there is a theme in this chapter that will bring light on this very delicate topic.

“Sudden and tragic loss leads to terrible darkness. It is an inescapable as nightmares during a high fever. The darkness comes, no matter how hard we try to hold it off. However threatening, we must face it, and we must face it alone.”

Sitters speaks of the darkness that came over his life after the tragic loss of his mother, wife and daughter during an automobile accident that left him, and three children to live on with this burden of grief. I have related to this book on so many levels because I believe the author writes and believes what I feel and what I know to be true about grief. It validates if you will my own struggles with how I grieved and where I grieved.

The darkness is a topic I’ve written about before and it’s primarily because it’s a place I resided for a long time after Brittany’s death. In fact, it’s a place I’ve resided for a very long time. Throughout my life of what I’ve coined as “unfortunate events” I have found myself to become a familiar resident in the darkness.

When I say darkness, I don’t mean black, I mean like murky water – sometimes unable to see my way through to the light. To find any good in what has happened to me. However as Sitter reveals – darkness is unavoidable and necessary to face one’s grief. Because you really have to face it. You cannot put it off nor can you dismiss it away to face another day – it will haunt you and it will keep haunting you until you face it squarely and walk through it. This is what I know to be true.

My walk through the darkness has had some good days and some not so good days. In the early weeks and months after my daughter’s death darkness was a scary place. I wanted to run away from it. I wanted it to go away because I didn’t like what I saw or couldn’t see but only felt. The pain was so gut-wrenching that I felt I couldn’t bear it another moment more. But I did. And I still do today. It’s just different.

Sitters believes, as I do, that we have a choice in how we grieve. How we look at our journey and how we can exist in the darkness and still see the light. The power remains within us to take the walk in the right direction. To face the pain and the sorrow right where you are in that moment can bring you to a place where light begins to crack through and the life you see before you can and will be joyful. Just different.

I have to say that facing your grief in the darkness can be exhausting. I continue to fight exhaustion to this very day. Why? Because the battle isn’t over. My struggle, anyone’s struggle with loss lasts a lifetime. It’s not over in a year, a couple of years or a decade. The loss changes you. It re-molds who you are right down to your very core. Life looks different, it feels different and some days it just doesn’t feel right. But you keep moving forward because it’s the only way to let the light shine through.

Sittser says “loss itself does not have to be the defining moment of our lives”. He goes on to say, “the defining moment can be our response to the loss.” I am in total agreement with the author here. I have written about this numerous times and I stand by it – we have a choice. The choice we make during these moments in life, whether it is personal tragedy or horrific loss – will define our future. It will mold you into who you are to become. Because, as I’ve said before, you are never the same after a loss. No matter how hard your friends and family wish that you are that same person, you are not. You can not.

“I absorbed the loss into my life, like soil receives decaying matter, until it became a part of who I am. Sorrow took up permanent residence in my soul and enlarged it.”

That quote from Sitter really spoke to me as I have lived that and breathed that for the past four years. I have grown from my loss(s). I am a new person, one that sees life from a different perspective. The world didn’t stop revolving when I lost Brittany, although many times I wanted it to. Life kept moving on and I had to move with it or remain stuck in it. It was a choice I made then and I continue to make now. To live and to mourn simultaneously.

Until next time,

m

Another Loss

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I am choosing to take a break from the book “A Grace Disguised” and wanted to talk about someone very special in my life that passed away Friday morning. Yes it is indeed another loss and for my family it just doesn’t stop.

My grandfather passed away Friday and just on the heels of my step-grandmother who passed away in late November. It of course falls in what I refer as the dark times for me as this is the time when I lost my mother and my daughter. I have gained two more reasons to not like this time of year. I spend many a day pining for January.

My grandfather and I were estranged for so many years due to various family reasons that I will not go into now. It didn’t help much that I lived out-of-state and didn’t travel back to Indiana but maybe one to two times a year. With such a big family to see, I spent my time with immediate family members.

It was only after my mother died that my relationship with my grandfather began to grow. I recall it being a very difficult thing for him to experience. Losing his daughter, my mother, so young truly was hard on him. I think it really solidified for him the sadness he had on his heart that their relationship hadn’t been a better one.

Once my family had moved from Dallas, Chicago and finally Michigan, trips to Indy were much easier and happened on more of a regular basis. So on every trip down we would stop in Anderson to see granddad and Irene. Brittany always looked forward to those trips. She enjoyed getting to know her grandparents.

Brittany only knew her father’s parents well and grandparents. Since my mother was gone before she was born, she only knew of her. My father and I are estranged, even to this day. For other reasons I will not get into here. So our trips to Indy always included a stop in Anderson.

Once Brittany’s father and I were divorced, I began making more trips down and visiting more with granddad. We would talk often about my mom and he would tell me stories. Always with a tear in his eye he would talk about how much he loved her and I felt that.

Brittany would spend time with him and he would teach her things like how to shoot a BB gun out in the back yard. She reveled in the fact that he would take her outside and spend quality time with her. She loved him dearly.

I have some really great photos of them together and two in particular made into her memory book. I will cherish those moments of them forever in my heart. I sit here with tears streaming down my face because the life I once knew is just that a memory, a moment in time that hurts like hell and no one really knows to the depths that my pain goes.

After Brittany died in 2006, my first visit with granddad was so very emotional. I recall as our eyes met, and the tears began to fall, that he knew my pain and I understood his for the first time. We both lost our girls. It was the bond that tied us so closely together and I think for the most part it was unspoken. We just knew.

Over the past four years as I have grieved the loss of my daughter, it has been my grandfather that has been most helpful in my feelings of being validated. That the pain and sorrow in my heart and that permeates my life was something he understood. I didn’t have to say a word. Now that one person who understood is gone too. And that is such a loss for me.

I wished I had seen him more often, but as life has it way of keeping one busy. My life has been crazy busy for the past few years. And I won’t apologize for it as it is what keeps me from going absolutely crazy insane from the sorrow I live with daily. But it has kept me from developing deeper relationships with those I love. I have a fear that when I let those close to me into my life in a deeper way – that they will die. Because it is what I have experienced.

Now I know that is ridiculous to hear and it is ridiculous for me to believe. So I work on that daily. I pray about it often and I talk about it with someone when I need to. As I always say my life is a work in progress. My faith in God carries me when I cannot take another moment of sorrow. It is God who lifts me up and brings me through.

Now my faith may look different to some of you who either know me or who read my blog regularly, but my faith – it is a simple faith. It isn’t all decorated up in man-made rules. It just simply knowing who God is and who He wants me to be. Shinning the light into a dark world by loving and loving only. No judgment, hate, discrimination – just simple love and acceptance. That is what I know is true. Anything else is just hypocrisy.

So to my grandfather – thank you for understanding me and thank you for the bond we had as it has helped me become who I am today. May you rest in peace and I know without a doubt you had one heck of a receiving party at the gates of Heaven. I know for sure my Brittany and mom were some of the first to greet you.

until next time,

m

Chapter Two: Whose Loss Is Worse?

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Continuing the series…Blogging through “a Grace Disguised” by Jerry Sittser

Chapter Two: Whose Loss is Worse?

In this chapter Sittser tries to open our eyes to what loss is and how we often see a loss as worse or more catastrophic than the other. I found that in this chapter I really came to understand that my multiple losses, no matter the type, have been all different, have all changed me to who I am today. But to say that losing my only daughter has or has not been the worst is a conversation I’d like to debate with the author.

Sittser discusses the many types of loss one can experience over a lifetime. He reminds us as we read about an experience he had as a teen while traveling with his family and while they had stopped during their trip at a gas station he noticed two extremely mangled vehicles. The story told to him made him shiver. Two cars, nine teens playing chicken and nine lives were destroyed in a moment of foolishness.

Even in his own experience of losing his three loved ones in a horrible crash, he often heard from others how people would compare his loss to others. That his loss was the worst they had ever heard of. But Sittser believes, as I do, that a loss is a loss. It doesn’t matter how or why it happened and that no two losses can be compared. Each loss has its own significance. Each loss leaving behind in its wake a devastating and cumulative effect on those whose lives will never be the same.

Sittser speaks about the difference between a lingering loss and one that is quick and immediate. It made me think back to when Brittany was first diagnosed with Epilepsy. The loss I felt then because after doing some research and also having a brother wi th Epilepsy, I knew her life and our lives would not be the one I had forever created in my mind as a girl growing up. The perfect family. That vision, that dream broken, fractured like a mirror falling from the wall onto the floor – never again being whole.

Caring for Brittany over the nearly 18 years was a gradual type of loss, one that is a constant reminder of what will not be. The ebbs and flows of the many years brought moments of joy and sorrow. Disappointment after disappointment left me feeling as if I had smacked down by God for some reason unknown to me. I really felt for the longest time that God was punishing me for something I’d done in my past. To bring upon me such pain was so cruel. But I know now that is not the case. Loss is everywhere you look, and it is definitely not exclusive to just me.

Loss has been an unwelcome visitor throughout my entire life, yet I have learned that you can still get up and dust yourself off and move on. But the one thing I think is the hardest for people to understand is loss changes you. It has made me more sensitive to others who have experienced loss. Yet it has also made me less tolerant of people who don’t understand how blessed they are with what they have. For it can be taken in an instant. It pains me to see mothers and daughters fighting. I just want to say to them “stop it love each other for one day one of you will regret this moment for the rest of your lives”.

Sittser finishes his chapter with this thought and question:

“No one will ever know the pain I have experienced because it is my own, just as I will never know the pain you may have experienced. What good is it to compare? The right question to ask is “what meaning can be gained from suffering, and how can we grow through suffering?”

That is where the author plans to take us for the remainder of this book. I found this book to be extremely helpful in taking me to the next level of my journey in grief and it is my hope that if you are experiencing this journey along with me, you too, will find it helpful to move forward and grow through the experience.

until next time,

m

And now you miss 23

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It has been just five short years since my daughter passed away and tomorrow would have been her 23nd birthday. It is the sixth birthday I have had to endure this lump in my throat that comes on the eve of November 30th and stays until I choose to release it.

Her angel date is always difficult, but it’s her birthday that I find extraordinarily difficult to think about. Birthdays represent life, birth a promise of a future to come. One filled of years and years of joy and yes, even some sorrows.

I fought so many years to have her. Suffered from many painful and expensive infertility tests and finally she was born. Even that wasn’t without difficulty. Last minute c-section and a dislocated hip but it was the most joyous moment of my life.

Throughout her life I had to hold on tightly to her as she had suffered from different illnesses from having a bout of encephalitis at 11 months. But mostly we just survived life the best we could. But there was always this nagging feeling that something wasn’t quite right.

In looking back the many years of fighting for her rights, her healthcare and her life – it seems as though life was always a battle. But there were also so many moments filled with joy and happiness. Laughter came easily to her despite her many setbacks over the years. She faced life like no one I’ve ever seen.

Perhaps that is why her birthday is the hardest day for me to live through. Each and every one represents a loss so profound in my life because I fought so very hard to have her, keep her and care for her. Every fiber of my being went to be her mother. Her caretaker and she – she was my everything.

As the tears stream down my face, I can’t help but also laugh because she made me laugh. She made me proud to be her mother. She made me a better person. And although tomorrow will be hard. I know she lives on in our hearts and minds. And I will see her again soon.

In the meantime I will continue to honor her life by doing the things I know she loved – loving people.

until next time

m

The End and the Beginning

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Chapter 1 – The End and the Beginning

by Jerry Sittser

In this beginning chapter Sittser describes his loss. The horrific tragedy that fell upon him while driving home with his family. His story is gripping and leaves  you with a sense of loss that is beyond my own. But it’s the way he describes his pain that left me with a sense that someone else besides me understood what sudden loss can do to a person. How seeing the one(s) you love die right before your eyes and the feeling of helplessness that is so overwhelming you want to die.

The way he describes his initial experience was much like mine. The shock is so unbelievable that you can’t imagine that such an event has taken place. The flashbacks to the series of events leading up to the loss is excruciating to read because I too had those flashbacks. Reliving each moment over and over again until you fell to the floor in absolute exhaustion crying and wailing because the pain had to come out.

Sittser lost his wife of two decades, his mother and his third born son in a horrible automobile accident. I can’t even imagine what it was like to lose three people for me just losing one, my daughter was so incredibly difficult that the thought of losing three loved ones at once was beyond what I could comprehend.

“I was so bewildered that I was unable to voice questions or think rationally. I felt wild with fear and agitation, as if I was being stalked by some deranged killer from whom I couldn’t escape. I could not stop crying. I could not silence the deafening noise of crunching metal, screaming sirens, and wailing children. I could not rid my eyes of the vision of violence, of shattering glass or shattered bodies. All I wanted was to be dead.” – Jerry Sittser

The above description, although it not my own experience, is very much the feeling I had when I watched as my daughter was being resuscitated for the fourth and final time. I’ve written before about the experience of watching as the hospital staff surrounded her bed on numerous occasion throughout the night bringing her back to life. Yet during the early morning of October 13th 2006, I watched in horror as the nurse climbed up on the bed and was performing CPR while the doctors where shouting out orders to keep the medications going.

All the while I’m looking at the monitors, as a nurse, knowing that what was about to happen next was going to be the worst moment of my life. As my eyes met the nurse who was pumping my daughter’s chest I saw all I needed to see. Her pain, her helplessness and her compassion said it all. As the doctor said to me “she can’t take much more, it’s time to say goodbye” – the words I will never ever forget.

So as I read his description of his flashbacks and reliving the moment. I too relived that moment for so many months. But as time as gone by the violence of it has diminished. But the sorrow that it created is still profoundly real.

One other thing that Sittser reveals about his own first few weeks after his loss that I found to be parallel is that one day you wake up and realize you haven’t cried for the first time. I thought in the beginning that it was a sign I was on the mend, that I was beginning to come out of the gloomy fog I had been living in.

“The tears came for forty days, and then they stopped, at least for a few days….It was only after the forty days that my mourning became too deep for tears.” – Jerry Sittser

At the end of chapter one, Sittser describes what it is like to have your life turned upside down and the choice to move on is the only one. That there is no way to avoid the pain. He called it “suffer and adjust” which is basically what I did. And as I have said before it’s a work in progress.

until next time,

m

A Grace Disguised

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I’m so excited to blog through this next book “A Grace Disguised” by Jerry Sittser. As some of my dedicated readers know I have found it rare to find a book that can come close to seeing grief through my eyes. Although our experience of loss is not the same; for his is much more tragic, he chose the right words that so creatively and accurately describes my pain.

I hope you get something out of this series as I did reading his book. I highly recommend it to anyone who has suffered a loss for it offers hope, spiritual rebirth and a new-found belief that the soul can heal and grow through loss.

“The experience of loss does not have to be the defining moment of our lives. Instead, the defining moment can be our response to the loss. It is not what happens to us that matters so much as what happens in us.” – Jerry Sittser

In the beginning of the book the author writes about the previous edition and reflected back over the years of his experience. What I related to most was on page 19 of the book where he talks about writing. I believe as he does that writing about one’s experience, thoughts, feelings, emotions can be healing.

At times during my four years I felt as  if my writing would either make me or break me. In the early days the writing was so porous one could see my pain on the pages of my blog. I allowed many of my readers to “feel” my pain as much as I could. Not because I wanted to bring everyone else down; but to allow you to see that the clichés of the past needed to go about what grieving people need to do or should do. But to allow you to see what’s real about grief.

Sittser talks about being able to read his own journals and was able to see his journey and how far he’d come. How he had changed as a person. He believes as I do that the hope is that our words can bring help to others. But in no way does it diminish our own losses. That our losses are as real and horrible as they were the day they happened.

“The good that may come out of the loss does not erase it’s badness or excuse the wrong done. Nothing can do that.” – Jerry Sittser

So much of what the author writes about in this book has been very validating for me as someone who has suffered so many losses. So it is my hope that you, my dear and cherished followers and any of you who have come upon my blog for the first time, take a moment and reflect that even though our losses have been great. The power to heal resides within  us. It is how we live on that makes the difference between living or just existing.

until next time,

m