The Train

I had a revelation last night.  A revelation about a dream that I dreamed over 50 years ago.  One might wonder how you could or would still think about or recall a dream you had 50 years ago.  But that was one I will never forget.  It was a scary, terrifying recurring dream that I had for months.  Some might say it felt like a premonition.  I did.  So the dream tormented me for years wondering what the dream was trying to warn me of.  Months and months I was afraid of falling asleep afraid I'd have the dream again.  It was clear that it had an evil connotation to it.  Problem was I did not know of what.

I dreamed I was way off somewhere walking down an old dirt road that ran alongside a railroad track.  Suddenly the road disappeared and there was only track and the track at this point started over a long train trestle that crossed over a wide rocky river below.  I surveyed the bridge and knew that I needed to be on the other side.  No train in sight I set out across the trestle ever conscious of the raging white water below.  About the time that I had reached the halfway point of the trestle I heard it.  The low long whistle of a train.  I look behind me and quickly calculate that either way will take me longer to reach than the time it will take the train to reach me.  I look up and see the single huge round engine light off in the distance flashing between the trees as it barrels toward me at an alarming speed.

I look down at my only other option.  It is not a good one.  Big wide river, swift water rushing loudly over an endless sea of huge rocks.

I look up the train is closing in fast.  I know running back is useless it will over take me long before I reach the end of the trestle.  Down - white water, rock and certain death awaits.  These are my choices.  I can feel my hands are clammy.  My breath coming now in shallow spurts.  I am shaking, panting, terrified and I do not know what to choose and truthfully it doesn't matter.  Both choices result in the same outcome but I stand there frozen and I can't choose.  I realize that "not choosing" is choosing but I can't move.  I hear the steel of the train's wheels strain and squeal with a loud screeching noise as the engine reaches the trestle.  I am running.

Suddenly I'm awake.

Thank God.  Sweating.  Heart racing.  Shaking uncontrollably.  It was just a dream.

But it was not just a dream.  It was such a terrifying dream that I did not want to go back to sleep for fear of being taken back there again.

I was disturbed over the dream for days and days.  And just as I began to let go of it and feel I could rest again.  I had the dream again.  Exactly like before.  Again I woke up just in time.  Again I was seriously disturbed for days.  Weeks.  And this continued on for months.

Last night for the first time I realized that I now know the choice I made.

Four years ago I had that choice before me in reality.  I wanted to choose to jump into the rolling waters and not face the blunt force of the train but I stood frozen and so the full force of the 100-car freight train plowed through my life...

Some days...

Today is one of those days when just walking by my computer sets the tone for my day.  The screensaver picture is one I took of Paxton up at our barn sitting on a log.  They are all precious.

I would sometimes just follow him around with the camera and let him be "him"; running, playing, climbing, throwing leaves up in the air --whatever he found to do while I snapped away.  The hundreds and hundreds of pictures of him that I took in the few short years that we had him can attest to that.  I've never done that.  I realize now what a gift that was that I did as they now are all I have.

Some days it is still so hard; so painful and so raw.  Other days - I'm visibly better.   Some days these memories are treasures that make me smile and I could just sit and flip through hundreds of them at a sitting.  Today, they are treasures that do just the opposite.  I want to turn away quickly because they hurt with a fresh, deep, agonizing, physically painful hurt.  Just walking by them made me burst into tears. 

Best to do on days like this? Focus on helping others.  It helps me.  It helps "me" way more than it helps them. I find I desperately need to stay busy and keep my mind occupied and off of the sadness which at any given moment without warning can totally ambush me and sidetrack my entire day.  And I still need my time to cry but at least most of the time I am able to control when and where I cry --so that is an improvement.

I am so glad I naively did not realize I could still be "here" over four years later.  In many ways, as impossible as it seems, it is actually worse.  I do wonder when it will stop getting worse.  That news alone would have been more than I could have overcome in the beginning.  

One day at a time.  One step at a time.  One ambush at a time.

Today is not a good day but tomorrow will be better.

What helps...

I've read somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 grief-related books in the past four years - and what I have been able to glean from them that has most helped me --is the advice to help others that are grieving. 

The bible says you have been given this experience and you should not waste your pain. But to pass on what you have learned and provide the type of help that has been provided for you.

Very few understand a grieving person's pain and way too many walk away because they don't know what to say or do. 

So you go.  You help.  You just be there.  You can relate better and you have tools you can share. 

Here are a few things you can do:

1.  Be there to walk alongside them.  
2.  Give them your hard-earned sage advice. Tell them what has helped you.  Then help them get started.  
3.  Send them cards. Call them. Text them.  Email them.  Just don't ignore them.
4.  Give them the books that have helped you most.  Help cut through the mountain of crap out there and give them the ones you've found that are worth reading.
5.  Go walk with them.  It gets them out of the house, out of the closet or out of the bed.  It is exercise, it gets the blood pumping, it lessens depression, increases energy gets muscles being used, takes in fresh air, sunshine and is passive company.
6.  Listen to them, cry with them, let them talk about their loved one.
7.  Ask about their loved one.  Call their name.  Say something nice about them or bring up a memory if you have one.
8. Send them comfort - hot chocolate, tea, their favorite cookies, bath salts, warm slippers, good chocolate, a scented candle or a throw.  Give them something to help them care for themselves.
9. Make or buy them comfort foods.
10. Eat with them.
11. Take them to lunch or dinner.
12. Send them flowers several months later.
13. Watch a movie with them.
14. Help them start Journaling.
15. Help them with a scrapbook, or collage of photos
16. Go with them to the cemetery to place flowers.

These help.  I promise.  And all of these have been done for me and I have now done most for someone else.  And it helps.  It helps ME as much, if not more, than it does them.

Four Years

I just realized this is my first post of 2018.

So hard to believe it has been four years now.  I keep thinking back to our first Grief-Share meeting.  The lady running the meeting Susan had lost her beautiful son to an automobile accident and it had been "four years" right where we are now.  I remember she and her husband both teared up as they told their story of the loss of their precious son --Garrett.  For some reason I was terrified by that.  I was in so much pain and panic and all I could think about was when will I get some relief.  Their tears told me what I now know to be the truth - there is no relief.  It is less intense - yes, but you could hardly call that relief.  The deep, abiding pain is ever-present.  Four years later there is not a single day that goes by that they are not all on my mind.  Not all day - but everyday.

The first year I would have never have expected to still be playing scenarios over in my head constantly.  That first year I was incredibly naive as I had nothing to compare this to.  I thought "if" I lived through that first year that surely by four years I would have incorporated even this horrific loss into my life and begun to heal and move forward and find that "beauty from ashes" that everyone speaks of.  But the truth is - I didn't think I'd live through it.  Like I said on my very first post, I figured I would just try and postpone the inevitable as long as possible. Which brings me to what keeps me up nights now - the fact that I never saw any of them.  I never went to the house, never went to the scene - not even still four years later can I even drive down the street or go into the area.  I never went to the coroners office.  I never went to the funeral home except to make the arrangements but never to see them.  They were all cremated and it is my understanding that none of us ever saw any of them.

That seems so wrong. More so everyday.

The guilt at times totally consumes me.  I feel like I just walked away and deserted them, left them all alone. Abandoned them. It seems wrong and it seems weird for a mother not to want to see and touch and say "goodbye" to her child --but the human survival instinct is soooooo strong.  I had no reason to ever know how strong.  But it is so strong that even when you want to die - you still "try" to live?  How does that happen?

And I knew.  Absolutely knew.  That I could not survive that. I am a weak coward I know but I knew I could never "see" any of them and continue to live.  I could not look at the terror of this full in face and ever get that picture out of my head.  I could not look at that finality, that unfathomable horror. That all by itself would have killed me.  And killing me instantly vs dying of this horrific sadness and the terror that would bring on --are two different things.

This way - the cowardly way, at least there was a chance I'd survive it.  There of course is no closure but it allows me to live with the illusion - when I need it - that it is not really true.  Good or bad you survive it the best you can.

But it kills me still.

I can't complete this and not recognize Kara here.

Tomorrow would have been Kara's 34th birthday.  Four years later the hurt is so raw because her beautiful life was cut short by the unimaginable.

I texted with her Mom the day before the four year anniversary.  We have an unusual bond and strange relationship I guess.  But we seem to find comfort in each other.  She is the one and only person that feels this loss with me from a mother's perspective.  And so still we cling to each other.  So this is for you.

Kara Brittany Miller

Happy Birthday my pretty girl.  We all miss you so much.