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IN THIS ISSUE YOU WILL FIND:
From The Director Of Grief Watch
Thoughts Along The Way
Friends And Grief
Parent Submission – “How The Gifts Arrive”
An Ending Too Early
Tear Soup Tips – Grandy’s Cooking Tips
Poetry - “August 29, 2001”
Helpful Product – The
Remembering Heart
Helpful Links & Websites
Comments & Suggestions
FROM THE DIRECTOR OF GRIEFWATCH
Pat Schwiebert, R.N. – Executive Director
Grief needs a face. For some people that comes naturally, for others, especially in situations of grief the desire is to hide away.
Being isolated during this difficult time may actually make things harder. That does not mean you should have people around you all
the time, because alone time is equally important in your grieving time. What is helpful to consider is having a balance. You need
someone else who will see how bad you feel and how much it hurts—someone else who can acknowledge what they see and absorb
some of that pain. At first you may need all the listening ears you can get. But down the road what you will need are just a few good
friends, companions who will stick with you throughout the longer segment of the journey.
You need friends with loving arms (to give you hugs when you feel untouchable). You need friends with willing ears (to be sympathetic
and non-judgmental—able to remember the important things and forget the unkind things you will say.)
Sometimes you may need a friend to help you face your guilt, self-pity, or bitterness. While learning life’s lessons of unfairness at
some point you are likely to become painfully aware that life does not owe you anything. Instead of saying “Why me?” you can say
“Why not me?” Having a friend during these dark hours will bring you comfort as you absorb the depth of these words.
In Life After
Loss, Bob Deits offers some tips that may help you re-evaluate how you may be feeling about other people. Write these
suggestions down and carry them with you. Pull them out and study them when you feel burdened by uncaring and insensitive
actions or statements made by friends.
1. I will not expect others to be better at handling my grief that I would have been at handling their
grief before my loss.
2. People cannot be something other than who they are.
3. Most people want to help me. They mean well even if they do dumb and insensitive things.
4. Others, including professionals, will not know what is helpful to me unless I tell them.
5. I will be patient with others, as I want them to be patient with me.
Here is a curve you may not like, but important to consider just the same: you have to take responsibility for how you feel. It will be
tempting to complain, “The saleswoman who called wanting me to sign up for diaper service ruined my day.” But remember, no one
can ruin your day without your permission.
When you try to make other people responsible for your negative feelings you also make yourself dependent upon their ability to
rescue you from those feelings. When you make loss totally responsible for your pain, you make replacement of the loss your only
hope for ending the pain.
Other important things to remember…
The point is not to let others off the hook, but to discover how you can regain some control in your life and how you choose to feel.
There are some people in your life that you might have known would not be able to support you through your grief. Who are these
people?
What are some ways you can help change their understanding of your grief process?
Who has been supportive, and how? (Don’t forget to thank them.)
Questions or comments? Contact the author
Pat Schwiebert R.N. at mailto:pat@tearsoup.com
THOUGHTS ALONG THE WAY
"A friend only gets in your way when you're on the way
down."
To learn more about Thoughts Along The Way please visit
http://www.griefwatch.com/pl/plinfo/thoughts.htm
FRIENDS AND GRIEF
By the Rev. John T. Schwiebert
As many of our readers already know, the name of our program, GRIEF WATCH, comes from a story told in the New Testament Gospel of Matthew:
. . . Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane; and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” He took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee and began to be grieved and agitated. Then he said to them, “I am deeply grieved even to death; remain here and watch [i.e. stay awake] with me.” . . . [Sometime later] he came and found them sleeping and he said to Peter, “So could you not keep watch with me for one hour?”
- Matthew 26:36-40
In this story Jesus clearly expresses what every person needs from acquaintances and close friends during a time of great sorrow. If you are grieving you want to know that friends are close by, aware of, and alert to, what you are experiencing, and available if you need to call on them. But you also know that your grief is intensely personal. There is much of your grief that is yours alone, that you have to face by yourself, and that even your friends can’t share. You probably don’t need a lot of people hovering around giving you advice, telling you how you should feel, and pretending that they understand the depth of your pain.
Instead you need friends who are willing to “sit here while I go over there” to do the grief work that only you can do. But taking a cue from Jesus you may need to speak very plainly as you tell your wider circle of friends exactly what you need from them—and what you don’t need or want from them! It may seem unfair that you, the one who is grieving, should also have to be the director of grief support systems, but that is often the reality that grieving persons face.
At the same time, like Jesus in the story, you may have a soul mate or two or three, whom you want to stay closer to you in your grief than others in your wider circle of friends. These are people you count on to pay close attention (“remain here and stay awake with me”) so you can talk to them and share what you are experiencing in your grief from one moment to the next. These are persons to whom you can say things you would not necessarily want others to hear, like “I feel like I have nothing left to live for,” or “I am furious at Jim for dying and making me a single parent” etc.
Again you may need to be specific in your instructions to these closest to you: “I need you to stay with me at least through these first sleepless nights. I need you to listen to me, even when I talk crazy and don’t make any sense. And I need you to be fully present to me even during long periods of silence, not chatting with other people on the cell phone or working a crossword puzzle.”
You also need to know, as Jesus himself discovered, that even your closest friends will probably disappoint you. And that will be another minor grief added to your major grief. But somehow you will survive, and—through patience and forgiveness over time--so too will your relationships. And through it all you will know better how to be a friend to others in their times of grief.
Questions or comments? Please contact the author
Rev. John Schwiebert at mailto:john@tearsoup.com
PARENT SUBMISSION
How
The Gifts Arrive
By Mike Kleiman
Buying Valentine's Day flowers for my eight-year-old son is always terribly difficult. There never seems to be an arrangement suited for a young boy that also expresses profound parental love. My heart is naturally drawn toward the pink, red and yellow flowers but they
certainly don't speak the same way to my son. He'd be more satisfied with an arrangement involving a monster truck. I look at each flower arrangement that touches my heart and I think of my son; would he like this, does it shout-out his name? Most of them don't shout-out
his name so I pick something bright, sunny and cheerful...
Picking a balloon will be far less draining than the flowers. No other object better represents a child's spirit than a helium balloon. Helium balloons - happy and fearlessly dancing excitedly above our heads - lost in an imaginary world. They bounce and sway and play innocently above our world while yearning to be set free - to fly as high, as high can be. Helium balloons come in all shapes and sizes and they are so much like our children. Selecting a balloon is easy - they all work.
Buying his valentine card tends to be a repeat of the flower episode with an added emotional twist. The loving poetry strikes emotional surges in my heart and throat. I desperately struggle to suppress my sentiment but my eyes threaten to announce my secret. The urge to become disconnected is overwhelming; like a marathon runner whose body conspires for a rest, I feel the overpowering need to settle for the next card. But the card must be true. I have to find the right card. I have to stay together long enough to find the right card.
The truly difficult quests are now behind and I just have to decide whether to get a gift or not. I've given him one every year since he was born so it just wouldn't feel right to stop now. He'd love something electronic but I don't want to buy anything too elaborate. I truly can't endure another difficult decision so I settle for a teddy bear like I did the previous year.
Standing in the checkout line with the other parents always threatens to destroy my delicate façade. If I actually allow myself to connect with them, to think about their love, to envision them giving these gifts to their children; I will definitely explode in an uncontrollable emotional meltdown. To sidestep this catastrophe, my mind has to lock into a mantra - pay the bill and get to the car; pay the bill and get to the car... I get the balloon safely into the car and prop the flowers so they won't tip. I don't need to sign the card until I'm with my son. That's the way we always do it.
The shopping trauma transforms the drive into a complete blur. I go into a trance and rely on my mental autopilot to safely deliver me to my destination. I arrive physically intact and am relieved to be alone because I desperately need solitude to salvage my senses. The first thing I do is tidy the place up a bit. Then, I arrange the gifts. I place the flowers on the ground and make sure they won't easily tip. With the balloon fastened to the teddy bear's wrist, I nestle him near the flowers leaning him comfortably back. There's a bench near my son where I sign the card. An eternity of extreme emotions passes as my face goes from lapped hands to the sky and back to my son. I search for the words from so much to say... there's so much to say. Emotionally drained into a calm, I prop the card upright on the slab and touch a kissed finger to his picture, which is forever sealed on his stone.
When you see the gifts adorning the stone fields, please know, "this is how they arrive".
February 01, 2002 (v1.4)
Questions or comments?
Contact the author Mike Kleiman at mailto:mikekleiman@cs.com
AN ENDING TOO
EARLY
On May 16, 2002 our family embarked on a mini vacation to California to attend the wedding of my
cousin. In the early hours of Friday morning, just miles from the station in Chico California, our train came to a screeching halt as a young man’s life abruptly came to an end. We will never know if
his death was a suicide, or a tragic accident. What we do know is that it deeply affected our family.
Everyday we assist families who are suffering from a devastating loss. We were shocked at the rarity of this accident, and also reminded that life is fragile and a struggle for some.
We were amazed at the reactions on the train that early morning. There were different reactions from every type of passenger. Many were angered for being delayed for nearly three hours and remarked at how inconvenienced they were; others simply wished it had happened to the next train to come by. Teenagers gawked and rushed about the cars trying to catch a glimpse of the deceased like the event was just a scene from a movie they had seen before. Business travelers accustomed to sleeping upright, quietly woke up to access
a situation that was out of their control and then simply drifted back to sleep. The crew reaction was the most sterile of all,
remarking that “It’s just a part of the job, these things happen all the time.”
My wife and I held hands and each whispered a prayer to the departing soul that we knew was still in the presence of these reactions.
Family members and friends who we shared that event with created the following two submissions. It felt important enough to share their words with you here.
Chuck DeKlyen
Editor, Grief Watch Newsletter
mailto:crd@tearsoup.com
A Planned Trip
By Pat Schwiebert
We are on a planned trip: three young grandchildren, 4 parents and 2 grandparents-on a train ride that’s destination speaks of a family celebration.
Strangers smiled, chatted idly, read, gazed out windows or slept, as we enjoyed our total togetherness, so seldom experienced in everyday life.
Then without warning in the early AM
as our little ones were sleeping curled around us,
A young stranger, standing in front of our train, ends his life.
Purposeful or testing an immortality theory
We’ll never know for sure.
Our train, without consent, became a
Death Machine.
Some were awakened by the jolting of the cars
soon to hear the disturbing news.
No wails. No sirens. But surely death.
Cell phone sounds broke the night silence
With angry calls to waiting friends.
Lives disrupted by a “thoughtless kid.”
Others slept on untouched by the gravity of the moment.
Not much to say,
We didn’t know him
We didn’t know what urged him to say “no” to life.
But there’s a sense of knowing he was one of ours.
Our children in their youth saw futility in their lives.
Our children made dangerous choices.
They are through that now…busy trying to be good parents.
But as their parent, I’ll never forget.
Somewhere in the night parents will awaken with the news that their child is dead.
I will grieve for them and consider the lessons.
What other “ Death Machines” are our young ones waiting to jump in front of?
Tormented Soul
By Gigi Galluzzo
Consider his conflict as he decided to meet the train.
He must have suffered immeasurable pain.
Life is a choice throughout all of the strain.
He shut his door and turned the page
He longed for release from his miserable rage.
The boy was young with so much ahead.
He viewed his life as nothing but dread.
Please don’t condemn this tormented soul.
Love him, even after he’s met his goal.
He ceased to exist and lost sight of his soul.
Life is hard, and no one is perfect.
He is now in the hands of God!
© 2002 Gigi Galluzzo
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TEAR SOUP,
a recipe for healing
after
loss |
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Grandy's Cooking Tips
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1) Grief is the process you go through as you adjust to the loss of anything or
anyone important in your life.
2) The loss of a job, a move, divorce, death of someone you love, or a change
in health status are just a few of the situations that can cause grief.
3) Grief is both physically and emotionally exhausting. It is also irrational and
unpredictable and can shake your very foundation.
4) The amount of “work” your grief requires will depend on your life
experiences, the type of loss, and whatever else you have on your plate at
that time. |
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5) A sudden, unexpected loss is usually more traumatic, more disruptive and
requires more time to adjust to.
6) If your loss occurred through violence, expect that all the normal grief reactions will be exaggerated.
7) You may lose trust in your own ability to make decisions and/or to trust others.
8) Assumptions about fairness, life order, and religious beliefs are often challenged.
9) Smells can bring back memories of a loss and a fresh wave of grief.
10) Seasons, with their colors and climate, can also take you back to that moment in time when your
world stood still.
11) You may sense you have no control in your life.
12) Being at work may provide a relief from your grief, but as soon as you get in the car and start driving
home you may find your grief come flooding back.
13) You may find that you are incapable of functioning in the work environment for a short while.
14) Because grief is distracting it also means you are more accident-prone.
15) The object of grieving is not to get over the loss or recover from the loss but to get through the loss.
16) Over the years you will look back and discover that this grief keeps teaching you new things about
life. Your understanding of life will just keep going deeper.
Tear Soup - Copyright Grief Watch 2002
Tear Soup illustrations Copyright Taylor Bills 2002
Please Note:
Reprinted from Tear Soup, a recipe for healing after loss.
If you would like to share this recipe with others or include it in
a support group or
newsletter, please include the following byline:
Tear Soup, a recipe for healing after loss
Copyright Grief Watch 2002
By Pat Schwiebert & Chuck DeKlyen
Illustrated by Taylor Bills
Home Page: http://www.tearsoup.com
email: mailto:info@tearsoup.com
Read more of Grandy’s Tear Soup
tips. Please visit http://www.griefwatch.com/tearsoup/tstips.htm
To learn more about Tear Soup please
visit http://www.tearsoup.com/tearsoup/tsabout.htm
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POETRY
August 29, 2001
By Karen Resnick
I enter the depths of my deepest sorrow
The place where my heart bleeds, empty and dry
Fill me with the love
the warmth
the fullness of knowing you are with me
always…
How do I let go?
Of my true love
My little light who grows so strong
yet holding on by a thread
The thread that holds you to me and me to you.
Yet it is thinning.
So fragile
so weak
so helpless and dependent on me
I am sorry that I can no longer nurture you and our relationship.
You need me
I need you
And to continue could cost us both our lives
You have come to me in strength
in question
in uncertainty.
To teach me about:
love and sorrow
joy and peace
grieving beyond belief
And ultimately trust
Trust that I am whole-with or without you.
Trust that I may connect with myself in relationship to the world in which I live
To breathe in life as it fills me
This is too surreal
How to grasp the present moment as life unfolds
As my choices get squashed into a corner of surrender.
Tears please wash away my pain, my sorrow, my anguish
Turn me inside out, upside down, round and round and back again
and pray I come out standing
How do I say goodbye to preconceived notions of my future?
My life?
Redirect me
The path that lies ahead is uncertain
Rocky
Rebuilding the pieces of my life which have crumbled down
Bleed, bleed, bleed
Release my bundle of joy into freedom so he will exist without the confines of these
boundaries I have known too well
Fly away dove and forever know that you were loved and have
taught me the hardest lessons of love I have ever known.
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HELPFUL
PRODUCT - The Remembering Heart
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“What we remember lives on.”
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The Remembering Heart is
two hearts in one--a tiny inner heart that goes with the one who
has passed away, framed by a detachable
larger outer heart that can be kept by the one who is grieving and who feels that a part of his or her heart is missing because of the
loss.
These individually-made ceramic hearts are fired at 1800 degrees and will remain intact during cremation.
WAYS TO USE THE REMEMBERING HEART
In hospice situations the one who is dying may choose to be part of this ritual by presenting a
heart, or several hearts, to those who will be left behind.
Remembering Hearts can also be mailed to family members who are unable to be present at the time
of death and
memorial, thus enabling them to feel more connected to the process.
Remembering Hearts will also help children feel more included when they too, receive a tangible
memento like
other members of the family.
CUSTOMIZE THE REMEMBERING HEART FOR YOUR ORGANIZATION!
The Remembering Heart can be customized for your hospital, department,
church, or support group! Your organizations information
can be printed on the inserted poem card that comes tucked alongside each Remembering Heart. Customizing the Remembering
Hearts that you give away makes the gift all that more personal because it comes only from you!
To qualify for this special offer orders must be for (50)+ Remembering Hearts. For more information about customizing
Remembering Hearts for your organization please contact us
via email at:
mailto:grieving@tearsoup.com
To learn more about the Remembering Heart please visit:
http://www.griefwatch.com/pl/plinfo/hearts.htm
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HELPFUL LINKS - For Parents And Professionals
American Foundation for Suicide Prevention
http://www.afsp.org/index-1.htm
The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention is dedicated to advancing our knowledge of suicide and our ability to prevent it.
MISS Foundation
http://www.missfoundation.org
A nonprofit organization providing immediate and ongoing support to grieving families, helping them to empower themselves by proactive community involvement and volunteerism.
National SHARE Office:
http://www.nationalshareoffice.com/
The National SHARE Office is a non-profit organization and the hub for all SHARE
support groups around the country. If you are looking for an infant loss support group
or the local SHARE group in your area, this is a good place to start. Site also has
good information regarding parents’ rights and grief education.
The Centering Corporation:
http://www.centering.org
The Centering Corporation has a large online and mail order selection of bereavement
titles and resources for your family.
Web Healing Discussion Page
http://www.webhealing.com/cgi-bin/main.pl
Tom Golden’s Web Healing site offers an online discussion board for grief topics as
well as a comprehensive bereavement links page.
For more bereavement sites and grief links please visit our Helpful Links Page at
http://www.griefwatch.com/links.htm
Tear Soup is one of the most helpful recipes for you and your family.
Find out why. http://www.griefwatch.com/tearsoup/tshome.htm
Want to learn more about Grief Watch?
Please visit our website http://www.Griefwatch.com
COMMENTS & SUGGESTIONS
Do you have an article, idea or suggestion for our newsletter? Our online community grows and becomes inspired everyday by your input. Please send your submissions or comments
to webmaster@griefwatch.com.
This newsletter is the creation of Metanoia Peace Community (Grief
Watch) Portland, Oregon USA. The articles contained within are subject to all copyright
restrictions and are the property of Grief Watch or their perspective
owners and authors. If you would like to share this newsletter with others please do so. If you would like to reprint a portion of this newsletter for your organization
please contact Chuck DeKlyen
mailto:webmaster@griefwatch.com
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