How Catastrophic Grief Changes You

 As I've said before "this" did not just change how many places were set at the table for Thanksgiving.  This changed everything.  Besides the obvious of what losing three members of your familiy can do to you  it also changes you in so many other ways that you never expected. Secondary losses I guess they're called.  But not in the manner that I have heard secondary losses referred to such as who cuts your grass or takes out the trash or takes the car in for servicing.  These are more on a personal level and not task related but since they are directly caused by this loss they would have to be considered secondary or second level losses and after 8 1/2 years I have to now assume they are permanent changes. I don't know.

The things I am referring to are more like personality changes which I would consider at a far higher level than whose job it is to take out the trash so I really think they deserve the title and trash duty should move to fourth or fifth level losses.

I feel like "I" have changed.  Mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually.  Totally changed.  Some changes and the rationale for them are normal and expected physical changes - like gaining weight from stress eating and/or depression. And speaking of depression - 

Mentally, depression for one. I cannot seem to stay out of the weeds. Momentarily, I can feel better with more exercise, regular contact with my family, regular church attendance and keeping almost too busy.  But I don't stay there.  Let me get some down time and I'm right back digging my way up just to get to ground level.  Mentally, my short term memory is terrible.  I still have problems concentrating on anything and I'm having problems with my speech too.  I've always been a talker.  Some people are natually quiet and have little to say - that has never been me.  Suddenly, I can hardly complete a sentence before I stumble and lose focus and just stop mid-sentence.  

Emotionally, I notice a couple of things here.  I can still get angry really quickly with frustrating "business dealings" like terrible customer service and people that do not do what they say they're going to do but it dissapates quickly.  And I spend no time thinking about it later.  But anger with the people I love - just doesn't so much happen anymore for more than a fleeting moment.  I get my feelings hurt much more easily though and that's hard.  But nothing really seems important enough to get mad over, hold a grudge about or make myself or anyone else upset over.  I don't seem to have really "strong" feelings about much anymore but then that too may be depression talking.  

Spiritually, here I've noticed a lot of change.  I do not feel even remotely like the same person as before the tragic deaths of my children.  I don't seem to have the same strong spiritual connection that I did before.  I still love God.  I still seek truth.  I still want to do what is right in the eyes of God.  I still go to church regularly and work at the church and still try to do what I can for others.  But now those things are conscious choices and the "feelings" that I used to have that prompted those choices without thinking about it - simply are not there.  Unfortunately, (I think)  I am less prayerful than I used to be.  I kind of have the attitude that God will do whatever He chooses to do to accomplish His purpose and that's okay.  What I want doesn't really matter.  It's like its just a fact of life that I accept now.  I trust God and His ways a lot more and fighting against Him to have things go my way is no longer something I do.  

And I don't know if you'd call it mental or spiritual or emotional or a combination of all but I have zero attachment to this life anymore.  I don't care about things like life's silly competitions, making new friends, or even hanging onto old friends, I don't care about "things" anymore; like new cars, clothes, furnishings or just stuff in general.  I still buy what I need but --I don't care about it one way or the other --I just don't care.  I have health issues that I refuse to go get seen about because --I don't care.  I no longer want to struggle to stay in this life.  This world truly does not feel like my home anymore and I'm ready to go home.  Things of this world no longer have a hold on me.  I"m okay living in this world and I function in it.  I will fix food and eat, I will buy clothes and shoes because I need them.  I will take the medicine I have for chronic high blood pressure because I do not want to be dibilitated and be a burden on anyone else but would I go to extreme measures to buy a few more months or years by taking chemo or having mutilating surgeries - I don't think I would.  I don't necessarily want to die but if it is my time, I'm really okay with it.  

Death is no longer my enemy.  Perhaps that is what's meant by: "O' grave where is thy victory, O' death where is thy sting?"  

It does not frighten me to talk about it or even plan for it and when I lose another friend - I no longer cry.  I feel like they are the lucky ones.  My only fear where death is concerned is losing another of my family.  I do not want to lose anymore family and I think that drives a lot of these feelings because the older we get the more likely that becomes so I'd rather it be me so I don't have to live through another horrific loss.

I don't feel numb exactly but dulled for sure.  And I'm not sure that it is not exacerbated by the secretive nature of all of this.  Not being able to deal with it openly.  Not being able to talk about it.  Not being able to grieve them openly.  Not having the support I needed because of that.  And of course not knowing what really happened and not feeling like we got an adequate investigation or adequate information.  

Secrets are destructive.  

My Silly Baby Boy...

Rocking Mama's Red Heels

Photo Shoot at the barn

Trying on hats in Charming Charlie’s 

                                            

First trip to the beach

Flying through the house in a monkey blanket

Riding “YeHa” at Nana’s 

                                                  

Napping in the nightstand

Playing in the bathroom cabinet

New "Do" after his bath

Paxton's coffee table campout

Mommy and me

Paxton and Teddy in the Island Cabinet with his 

favorite blue Blankey

Napping in the kitchen floor 

Trying on Wigs

First Trick or Treat - Dragon Costume that he would not take off

He was very creative. "Soda Box" costume. 

 Kara sent me this with the caption:

"Yeah, this just happened!"

 

Where I am with the book idea...

Nowhere. 

I have not made one single effort in the attempt to write the book.  I just cannot wrap my head around this story becoming a book.  I've only told a small handful of people about the prospects and have gotten nothing but positive opinions.  The consensus is that since I could not find anything at all in the way of positive, hopeful or encouraging stories that I could relate to concerning a situation like this - that I should write it so others can.  And I get that and maybe I should.  I want to or at least I want to want to.  But something about it seems kind of "wrong" too.  Like capitalizing on such a god-awful tragedy. I was only able to do this blog because I had to have an outlet for all of my emotions.  I had to do something to give Brian a voice and make him human to those that only saw a monster.  It was all that kept me going for such a long time.  I had a positive reason for it.  I felt like it had a higher purpose, and it did not give me any opportunity for credit, recognition or profit.  It was just a way to honor the three of them, remember them and grieve them the way I was not allowed to do.  It helped me vent.  It helped me process.  It helped me --period.  

I just wish I could get it in my head that a book might do the same... And, if I'm honest, I'm a little afraid of it.  I'm afraid that in writing it all again from the start and reliving it all again from the beginning that I will go back into that deep pit that it took me years to come out of.  It may give me insights and possibly help someone else going through this --but I'm just not sure I could take it all again and I know that is a large part of what is holding me back.  When I started this blog, I had no way to go but up.  My progress through this has been slow, start and stop, backwards a little and forward a little and it has taken me eight long years.  I don't think I could take it if it took me backwards and I'm just afraid it will.  I am afraid of those emotions again.  I'm older and not as strong or resilient as I used to be.  Eight years of this has taken its toll.  Some days I'm still not sure I'm going to make it.  And on those days going backwards ...No.

But it is true that I read over 100 grief books trying to find something that would help me or encourage me or give me hope and could find nothing I could relate to.  I just had to take all of them glean what I could and create a composite of little generic positives from each and do the best I could with that.  It wasn't what I needed.  It wasn't what I'd hoped for but it was the best I could do.  

There is definitely a need.  I just need the courage to try.  And of course, the desire, the talent, the enthusiasm, the motivation, the encouragement and the time!  

Good ending to a hard Day...

It's Sunday and since I have now trained myself to hold my tears and emotional meltdowns until Sunday, it's kind of always a bit of a hard day but today was harder than most.

 As I've said before I've been cleaning out and clearing out and letting go of memories.  So today, Brian's daughter came, along with my other two granddaughters and their families and we had a nice dinner and a great afternoon together - all 12 of us!  

It was established before Ashley came that she would be taking some of Brian's things back with her.  Some I had intended to keep because at the time the kids came to clean out his house and take what they wanted --these things were left.  Some I knew all along that one day I would give to one or both of them.  I just wanted to wait until some time had passed and they were more settled so they would keep them and care for them.  Today was that day.

I had Brian's baseball card collection.  His biological father had started the collection for him when he was little, and Brian had kept collecting them for 40 years.  Today I gave them to her for her son.  I gave her a box of his little odds and ends things, old movies, games, photo albums. 

The main reason for the trip here was a portable kitchen island Brian had built for Kara that I didn't have the heart to leave in the house when we sold it, so my husband brought it home.  Kara had said she always wanted an island in her kitchen and was a little disappointed that this house did not have one so Brian told her he would just build her one and he did. He built it to her specifications, and she always loved it.  I have a video of Paxton pulling up on it and opening the door and sneaking snacks out of it before he could even walk and the very last "hiding" picture she sent me was of him inside that little island’s cabinet with his giant teddy bear and his fuzzy blue blanket.  He loved to play in the strangest places.

But the hardest thing that I let go of today was a canvas bag of his old, ragged socks.  His "sock puppets" he and the kids made.  I wrote a blog post on the infamous sock puppets several years ago.  It was such a gift when my daughter found them in his attic before the house was put up for auction.  I had packed them away and had not seen them since.  That is until last week when I started going through stuff to give the kids.  I laughed and cried at finding them again as did she when I opened the bag of puppets.  I wanted to show them to her but had fully intended to keep them, but she assumed they were part of the stuff I had for her, and she wanted them.  So, I let them go.  Rightfully, they were hers.  And I needed to let them go.  But it was so hard, and I knew as soon as they were down the street the tears would start.

I've also had a toolbox that his son took in the beginning and then because he was not settled or stable  at the time, left it with a girlfriend.  Fortunately, her mom called me and made the two-hour drive to meet us and see that we got them back.  We've had them ever since.  I wasn't particularly attached to them and had never opened the box.  But today we did and as soon as I saw his tools --well...suffice it to say, it was hard.

Eight and a half long years later I'm still losing pieces of him.  Last spring, we lost his little dog that we took in the year he and Kara married. She was 21.  It's not like we didn't expect it but still it was losing another connection to him, and we loved the dog, so it was doubly hard. 

We had a day today that was a day of remembrance of him.  Like what I wanted for his birthday.  And that part was great.  Alex was not here, but Alex did not want to participate in that kind of celebration anyway.  He says it's too hard for him, so this worked out well.

This was not planned as such, it just kind of happened.  As we sat here together all of us recalling each of our memories of him - I could not help thinking about Kryss, Justin and Andy.  The spouses and significant other of my granddaughters.  All they know of him began that one horrible day.  They will never know the person he really was.  And again, I was saddened by the fact that his whole life was defined by "that".  All of the good he ever did and all of the man that he was, the dad that he was and all of the things that he ever did right - were all erased by one tragic event.  

My now youngest grandchild is wise beyond her years and surprises me with her wisdom.  She says Brian's life was not defined by this to us nor was it to God and that is what matters.  We can spend our life hurting over the injustice, or we can share stories like we did today and know he loved us all so much.  She says she found Jesus because of it.  That fighting through that trauma made her come to know God and she is so grateful for the way God took that tragedy and made her new with it.  

Unbelievable.  

What a gift.

Happy Birthday my sweet, sweet boy.  

A Book? Mehhhh I don't know...

I keep thinking that I want to capture all of these intense emotions so that they are not lost to me should this blog ever go away.  I have toyed with the idea of perhaps writing a book.  I want to and yet I don't.  I'm not sure I can go back and relive all of these emotions day by day again.  And while a lot of them are still alive and well it isn't like it was in the beginning and it has taken a long time to make what little progress I've made to get here. So going back to the beginning and retelling -- reliving all of this again well I don't know about that.  Also, to be honest there is something about writing the details of this story and having it be even potentially profitable - well that just seems wrong.  And for sure any anonymity that protects me from public judgment would be over.  

And those are my reasons for not pursuing it thus far.

In my efforts to try and make a solid decision I've had to ask myself a few questions:

Why do I want to do this?

Who am I doing it for?

What do I hope to accomplish?

And when I started to answer those questions it is there that I see merit in the prospects of a book.

Why? 

-   Because I want to introduce the Brian we knew to the world at large because I cannot stand knowing that his entire life was reduced to ashes and his entire 41 years before that day counted for nothing.  I cannot sit by and see the man he had been up to that day -- the light-hearted, funny, sweet son, the concerned, loving, playful dad, the loyal-to-a-fault husband, the funny baby brother, the hardworking employee, the practical joking co-worker, the fun uncle, the dependable nephew, the closer than a brother - brother-in-law --be reduced to the monster the news media and Sheriff's department portrayed.  I cannot let that erase all that he was up to that day.

-   Because we cannot be the only family that has been where we are and I know better than most how hard it is to find something we can relate to.  It was a determination so devastating, so difficult and so harshly judged and because of that it is bathed in shame and secrecy.  No one talks about it and as far as I can find no one writes about it either.  It is something that leaves you feeling so hopeless and alone and I want to give others what I could not find.  Hope.  Understanding.  Empathy.

-   Because I want to find the lessons I can only see in the rear-view mirror.  I want to bring it out of the darkness and look at it closely in the light, twist it and turn it and see it from all angles, analyze it, dissect it, put it all under a microscope and learn from it what I can.  I do not want to waste this pain.  If there are lessons in this, I need to be able to see them and that is so difficult to do when it is shoved under the rug.  I want to find the beauty from ashes, and I want to help others do that too.

Who is it for and what do I hope to accomplish from it?  These kind of run together.

-   First and foremost, it is for Brian because I firmly do not believe for one minute that he was capable of this, and I want to honor the person he was before this and by letting the world know the person that we knew in the hope that it could raise a question in their mind too.  I want him to have a fair trial the only way I can get him one —by giving our side of who he was and perhaps give some that read it cause for "reasonable doubt".

-   The average person - I want the reader to see that there are two sides to every story.  I want others to know how sometimes the police department's final determination may not always be correct.  And before they are so quick to judge they should realize that there is a 100% chance that they do not know the whole story. I'd also like for others to know how quickly their lives can change and how a jaded determination from a police department could happen to them just like it did us.

-   The police departments - I'd like for them to see what an emotional snap judgment on a grisly crime scene can omit about who someone is.  I'd like for them to know that saving time and money on what appears to them to be a useless and costly investigation can decimate the lives of all of the survivors.  

It may not matter to them, but it matters to those that are devastated by the results of not having a proper investigation.  And I fully realize that I cannot know for sure that I am right, and they were wrong.  I admit that.  But I am certain I knew him well enough to make a better judgement call than they could in a few hours.  And I'm sure I cannot know exactly what really happened but that's the whole point. I can't and neither can they.  What I do know is that I could have accepted it and moved on had I had a full and thorough investigation with a half an ounce of concrete forensic proof.  Something they did not deem important.  

-   For Kara's mother - the only other person in this tragic mess that had the same loss I did and understands from my perspective what the loss of a child and grandchild means and to let her understand who Brian really was and why I still cannot believe he could have done this.  She doesn't have to agree with me or believe as I do but I want her to understand why "I" don't.  I know it cannot bring back her child, my child or our grandbaby but I live in hope that it can give her peace with the fact that they were loved and there was no way this was out of malice.   

-   For all mothers that have lost children everywhere under any circumstances.  We share a common bond of love and loss that no other human can come close to understanding.

-   And to anyone that has ever experienced a loss that they cannot acknowledge.  There are so many layers to that loss that they will continue to peel through for years to come and the emotional damage that keeping this kind of secret causes is unfathomable.  It would be my hope that bringing this out of the darkness and into the light that I could acknowledge and accept this and in doing so that others can as well, hopefully setting us all free.

Well His Birthday Didn't Go as I Hoped...

But it went about like I expected.  We did not celebrate.  Same as we have done for the previous 8 birthdays.  I have not celebrated a single one of them as much as I have want to.

His kids were not on board.  One was busy with family obligations.  The other I have no idea as I never got a response from him.  Neither of my own kids called me.  I did call one of them but I may as well not have.  I went to my sister's and spent the afternoon with her.  As with most of my life she is my best friend and the one and only person that understands and actually cares.  But for some reason I don't even talk to her about all of this. It's like beating a dead horse at this point.  But I still enjoyed our time together.  

By the actual day, most of my funk had played out the previous two weeks. The first day of March the "mood" starts and it goes on until the actual birthday and then it's like its behind me and I'm okay again for a while.

Today is Sunday.  My typical "cry" day and though I am not in the best place emotionally I don't feel like crying today.  I think because I've done so much for the past two weeks.  I've just been a grouch.  Suffering from a case of activity burn out and I think clinical depression.  I think I need those happy pills back that I let go of three years ago. 

I've had another story published.  So I guess that's something positive.  I am making a half effort to write a little.  I've had no interest in it but after 8 long years of silence, I've submitted and they have published three stories now.  I am trying desperately to get out of this downward spiral I've been in for the last several months.   I don't know what happened to the things I used to enjoy.  Photography, writing, crochet, cooking...now I just sit,  I eat everything that gets in my way and I still can't sleep.  I watch way too much TV --something I have never done.  And I've tried different things to see if maybe I can spark interest in something new.  I've tried volunteering, and church work again, I've taken design classes online, we bought a camper and have tried camping again after many years, I've tried reading a few old classics again, visiting botanical gardens.  I have enjoyed them, all of them for a bit but not enough to keep me out of the weeds.  I think I desperately need someone to talk to.  I've never been without friends to talk to and share burdens with.  Bounce stuff off of, give me fresh perspectives, get me out of my head etc.  

Friends matter to me.  They always have.  We all need people.  We were made to be social creatures; we need to have someone to share our successes as well as our burdens.  Successes are all the sweeter when shared with someone you care about and the weight of your burdens are cut in half when they are shared. And I've always, always had friends and confidantes.  That is also now missing from my life like hobbies and goals - I've shoved them out or grief has shoved them out.  I am systematially cutting everything from my life and as of this weekend church may be on the chopping block.  That scares me.  I've tried desperately to make a close friend at church.  I've gone out of my way to the point of becoming what I feel is a pest.  But the relationships are just shallow and superficial.  Its really difficult to make close intimate friends at this age.  Everyone is kind of over it.  They have their friends and no one wants to invest the time or emotion it takes to create new ones.  I keep praying God will send me someone.  I thought I'd found someone I could bond with in my nextdoor neighbor and less than two years into the relationship - she died!  Died. Mesotheleoma. And come to think of it I guess I have a right to be a little depressed I've lost twelve people from my life since 2020 and my sister-in-law is dying with bone cancer now.  All of that would be hard on anyone in any state of mind.

It will get better.  Maybe.  Somehow I don't quite have the same conviction that I did five years ago when I say that.   But I keep praying it will.  If you pray, please pray for me in that.

Birthdays

Today is Brian's first grandchild's 8th birthday born just 6 days before Brian's birthday.  His hardest birthday.  The first one after he died.  So he has never met this first grandchild and there are now two more that he has never met.  

His daughter told me the other day how her youngest one (three) noticed a picture of Brian sitting on her table and asked who that was.  She told him it was her dad and he said, "I've never seen him."  Thus began a long, difficult conversation and a lot of pent up emotions of how her children would never know their grandfather and he would never know them.  

She, like me, still struggles.  

As a matter of fact she has just now after 8 1/2 years signed up for GriefShare.  She did the opposite of me.  We signed up way too early in this grief journey and she has signed up way later than their target attendees.  I was still in shock and denial.  She has struggled with learning to cope with daily life on her own without their help and has found that 8 years later, she still needs help.

What she is hoping to gain out of it at this point is being able to get her emotions out because again like me, she keeps them inside.  She lets them out to me but only on rare occasions.  She is still also  struggling with the secondary losses - which never seem to end.  Like her sons never getting to know her dad and the biggest influence in her life.  And I'm certain with wondering how on earth to ever tell them what happened.  I do not envy her that job.  I cannot imagine how you could even tell that to your children.  I still cannot even tell it to strangers, friends and relatives.  I don't know how.  I don't know where to begin.  How could you tell this to your children???  Both of Brian's children have got that hard conversation ahead of them.  Catastrophic grief - the gift that keeps on giving...

March is always my most difficult month because Brian's birthday is the hardest of all days.  This coming Wednesday will be his 50th birthday.  A milestone birthday that should be celebrated.

I'm pulling my usual - distracting myself with activity to try and keep from melting down.  Church work, camping, house painting projects, basement cleaning anything and everything.

We have been cleaning and working on their memory garden some though.  I'm afraid my good intentions with that have gone the way of my interest in every other part of my life.  I have neglected it.  Ofcourse, it always needs cleaning and replanting in the spring, but I have been very negligent still.  Maybe for his 50th I will get the lead out and get it looking like it should again.  You know what they say about "good intentions".

How I would love to do something special for his 50th to actually honor him instead of either avoiding it or crying all week.  When Kara's mom brought cake to our lunch to celebrate Paxton's birthday together, I wanted to cry.  It made me so happy to finally actually "do" something to remember his birthday.  We had a "Paxton's grandmother" day out with lunch and a movie and then cake. Remembering him together.  It was awesome.  I would truly love to do something for Brian's 50th even something small.  Dinner with his kids and grandkids would be nice.  Hmmm maybe?