Insight to feeling nothing...

Today is eight months after the tragic loss of my son, my daughter in law and my two year old grandson to what we were told was a murder/suicide.

Today I found a post on a blog that I follow - What's Your Grief? an absolutely wonderful resource that I wish I had found months ago. There was a great article on “emotional numbness” after a tragic loss. I was totally unaware prior to my own personal experience, that this was even possible.  I just remember being seriously concerned because I seemed to be handling the tragic triple loss of my family -so well.  What a joke.

All of my life I would have assumed the loss of any one of my children would have just spontaneously killed me and yet here I was not only still living, breathing, walking and talking but what was more concerning was what I was not doing.  I was not fainting, screaming, crying or wailing hysterically.  As a matter of fact I wasn’t feeling anything at all.  Not grief, not pain, not sadness --not anything.

I was completely numb.  I could not cry.  I could not taste.  I couldn’t even feel physical pain.

I sat completely unemotional through the service.  All through the week following their deaths everyone kept making comments about how well I was taking this and how together I had it.  What!!? I knew that wasn’t true but I could not explain nor did I even understand myself what was happening. I wanted to die.  I knew I was crushed beyond words but even I remember worrying that I was a soul less creature that had no feelings because I literally had no feelings.  As a matter of fact, I was in a numb stupor for weeks literally at times staring blankly into space with very little facial expression.  I felt nothing most of the time like I was completely dead inside.  The world had no color. I saw nothing as if I were looking right through people and things.  I heard no sounds except garbled background noise.  Food tasted like paper.  What was wrong with me?  Did I not even have a heart?  I knew I loved them.  And that baby was the light and joy of my life.  I wanted to die every single moment and I knew how broken I was but I had literally no reaction to any of it.  It was bazaar and unnerving and was the source of added anguish for many weeks.

Several weeks later maybe three or more I began to feel and cry a little at a time in short bursts.  Then the dam broke and I began to feel EVERYTHING and almost lost my mind – I would sob for hours --deep racking sobs that felt as if my heart were literally going to burst.  I physically ached inside so bad until it felt like I was being crushed.  Then I got angry.  I mean ANGRY; screaming, cussing, throwing things, raging --angry. As if all of the emotion of everything that had happened, their deaths, the crappy investigation, the way we were treated by the coroner and lied to by the investigators, the way the news reporters stole pictures from my daughter in law's Facebook account and plastered my children's picture all over the news before we could even notify family members, the fact that we never got to see any of them, the legacy this left for my son; one of the best dad's I've ever known, the cruel things that people have said, the way my friends have turned away, the way that strangers were staring and whispering about us everywhere we went, the extreme waste of such beautiful lives, the insecurities I now felt about law enforcement, prayers and friendships, my sister's leukemia and the timing of the treatment...all of it - all of it hit me at once and I had anger beyond anything I could even imagine.  

Then I began to seriously wonder if it were ever going to let up.  It was then I realized the benefit of that numbness.  Clearly it was a safety mechanism to keep tragic shock and resulting aftermath from completely washing over you like a tsunami.  It is there so that you don't feel it all at one time but instead it allows the sadness and anger and devastation to seep in a little at a time as you can stand it.

And the article I found was dead on it when they said that although you would think numbness would be so much better than pain it really is not so much - it is a pain in and of itself.  You really are aware that the pain and devastation is actually there - somewhere deep - you just cannot feel it.

So very weird.  Like drowning in a bowl of beige jello.  Blank, bland, nothingness - like you are the walking dead.  You feel dead but you know you are not.  You know there is sadness; a deep terrifying sadness but it seems so far away until you can't quite touch it.

The article really resonated with me and brought back all of those first weeks and I know absolutely that it will be helpful to so many that felt as I did and don't understand it.  As I said, I so wish I had found it months ago.  (www.whatsyourgrief.com)

We are getting really good at pretending...

We pretended Thanksgiving was not on Thursday this year and held a “family get-together” on Saturday instead that was definitely not Thanksgiving.  

Then we pretended for some reason -- perhaps a new law went into effect - one that I don't remember ever voting for, like day-light savings time or mandatory insurance -- that required that Christmas be canceled this year.  Maybe it will be on schedule for next year who knows? Congress is still out on that right now.  But for 2014 Christmas was eliminated from the calendar.

I also pretended Paxton was just out of town for his third birthday.  Maybe off to Florida enjoying Disney or Legoland and that is why we did not buy the gifts we'd wanted to give him or have cake and watch him blow out candles or gather around him and sing “Haddy Dirtday” to him. 

Then I had the brilliant idea to actually let Brian’s birthday take place this year.  I decided we would remember him by baking his favorite cake then we would all get together and go out for pizza.  We'd reminisce about him tell funny "Brian stories" laugh and celebrate his life.

That did not work out quite like I’d planned.  

I cried for three solid weeks afterward.

Turns out pretending was working way better for me so I opted to go back to pretending.   And so Easter this year was just another Sunday.  For the first time in twenty years we did not attend Sunrise Service or the fellowship breakfast afterward.  I did not go and help out with the Easter-Egg hunt on Saturday (although I did stuff 180 plastic eggs so as not to be a complete slacker.)  I did not buy a new springy pastel Easter dress but instead rummaged through my closet and dragged out a regular black and tan dress. I raked a comb through my hair, dabbed on some mascara and managed to show up for Sunday-School.  I didn’t even hear the sermon preached during the regular service but chose to keep the nursery instead.  I saw none of my children or grandchildren nor did I, in fact, see any family at all other than my husband that lives there.  The two of us ate lunch out and came back to the rental house early and watched TV till time to go to bed.

I’m going to Memphis to Graceland for Mother’s Day.  I'm pretending to be on vacation...

My latest gift...

I had had a particularly difficult week again last week and was feeling like God was so far from me.  I was finally able to sit down in the quiet and pray a little.  All I could pray for was for God to let me know He was in fact, still there.  I just needed to hear from Him in some small way to give me the little bit of assurance that I needed to get by another day or another week.

The very next evening I received yet another gift. 

He gave me the gift Brian’s humor.  Words straight from Brian that literally made me laugh out loud.

I had been sending photos that I had of the baby and Kara to Kara’s mom and had decided to go onto my Shutterfly account and see what was on there that she may want.  Turns out I had not been on the site in a couple of years.  The last time I’d signed in and downloaded some photos I had “apparently” set up a family page so that the kids and my sisters would have access to the pictures that I had taken.  As I told Kara’s mom about the pictures I was sending her – I love taking pictures and sometimes I would just randomly take Paxton outside and let him play and just snap away.  So consequently, I have hundreds of pictures - bad shots, shots of him crawling away, shots of him crying and sometimes that rare --perfectly timed, just the right lighting, just the cutest expression – “perfect shot.”  I had downloaded an afternoon of that kind of session to Shutterfly and sent Brian a link. 

Two years and seven months later I go back to find he has left goofy comments on a few of my crazy pictures.  Comments I had never seen; comments so typical of Brian until I could almost hear his voice as I read them and then for the first time in many months I thought of him and genuinely laughed out loud.  It felt so good and so right and I was so grateful. 

Thank you God for answering that prayer in the sweetest way.  

Enjoy!

brian m "so if I slip you this $5 bill, then did you still see me poop my pants? 

brian m

"and she kept taking these pictures of me doing dumb things...I told her I had enough but..."

brian m "so I was like, give me my keys.  I'm good to drive home...then it hit me - I'm a baby, how the heck did I drive here?!"

August 31, 2012•

The little unexpected changes of grief

Personality changes are among the weirdest of the changes that have taken place since “this”. 

When you hear that profound grief changes you – you don’t really have any idea of the full impact of that statement.  You think:  "Well, of course I know that it has changed my family.  There are so many empty chairs now, meaningless birthdays, hard holidays and bad anniversaries.”  And of course you see how it might change your roles in life; if you were a primary care-giver to one that had an extended illness, you suddenly find yourself without a purpose. Or perhaps your identity as someone’s wife has changed and you aren't sure who you define yourself as anymore or the daily routine of being someone’s mother leaves your days empty and quiet.   You may change where you physically reside because of the passing of a spouse requires that you move to something more manageable or less expensive.  Your responsibilities may change in that you now have to do things that someone else once handled for you.  These things are the things the books and the grief classes prepare you for.  These are common sense and while you may not think of them all at first –they are logical and natural expectations.

But no one prepares you for the changes to your actual personality. 

Like the way you suddenly relate to all of your personal relationships:  The sudden and unexpected intolerance for certain types of people in your life; or the exact opposite –the sudden uncontrollable clinginess you have towards certain others? 

Before - I wanted people in my life.  Any people. All people.  No matter that they were not particularly "good" friends to me.  I kept friends that weren't always honest with me; friends that had ulterior motives; friends that were insincere and self-absorbed. It is not like I was blind before and could not see who they really were – I knew.  I always knew.  I just didn't care.  I allowed them into my life and even at times, struggled to keep them there.   Perhaps my “co-dependent “ tendencies made me cling to even toxic relationships – because they were better than no relationships.  I needed “friends” however loosely one might define that term.  

After - it is not that I no longer need people in my life but I find am choosing quality over quantity. 

It seems that after, I am seeing things much clearer. I can no longer close my eyes to things I once could and a relationship regardless of the quality of that relationship just does not fly anymore.  Maybe it's because I have now experienced the worst of the worst and realize that being without a lot of people in your life really does not kill you.  Losing those people that really matter in your life -- that is what kills you.  

I have learned the difference between real true pain and isolation and the imagined pain and isolation I feared would come from being without a lot of people in my life.  

I also see that life is short and that the quality of people I was spending the precious few days of my life on was taking away from the relationships that mattered.  

When you have been through something like the loss of a child, two children – three; your need for loving, quality relationships is so intense that things very quickly become black and white. 

Toxic relationships are all-consuming emotional vacuums; they are time consuming, resource consuming and downright painful at times.  Perhaps when you have been through something as horrific as this – you simply cannot take anymore pain and you just have to eliminate it where you can. 

Perhaps it is just an application of the Serenity Prayer:  God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.  

Words...

Do you know how bad it hurts to write the word “Deceased” on a piece of paper as it refers to your child?  I didn’t.  And I hope and pray that you never do.  Unfortunately, I have had to write it and say it over and over as his bills still continue to come in --today, is seven months later. Probably because some had been returned in our rather untimely gathering of his mail.

Like "suicide", "murder" or "autopsy",  it too, is an ugly, hideous word that makes me want to scream every time I have to write it.  

Speaking of words – it never ceases to amaze me at the things people say.

When Paxton’s name was mentioned in a conversation just recently – someone actually said to me:

“He sure was spoiled.”  

I won’t argue that point here but suffice it to say that I certainly do not agree with it. My issue lies with "that" being the only thing someone can think of to say to me about the baby I loved and lost.  Seriously? 

Those are not words that have a warm fuzzy feeling attached to them – “spoiled” invokes visions of smelly food left out on the counter too long or brown mushy bananas or soured milk thick and molded to the bottom of a week-old baby bottle that mysteriously appeared from under the car seat.

That is not a word that I would ever attach to that beautiful little boy with the quick smile and the laughing brown eyes. 

But even if you didn't love him or even know him - why would you think this was an appropriate thing to say about the baby that we just lost?  Really, why?  This would be pushing it if he were alive and well and standing in my living room.  And then as if to justify that it was not meant to be a negative statement about me or my son – they actually qualified it with “Well his mama spoiled him.” And this somehow made it better – how? Now you have just said something with negative conotations about my baby and the daughter in law I loved and also lost?

His mama loved him.  His mama appreciated the gift she had been given when she thought she would never be able to have a baby. His mama treasured every precious moment and celebrated every little milestone and his mama enjoyed his sweet and fleeting baby days.  His mama - did exactly what she was supposed to do - she loved him.  We all loved him.

I was left speechless, devastated and literally sick to my stomach.  Tears are always so close to the surface and the stinging words left me afraid to say much of anything afraid if I started I might not stop...crying or cussing.  But after I’d regained my composure I thought perhaps I should have said: “Let me ask for just a moment, that you put yourself in my shoes.  Not a good place to be I assure you but, close your eyes and imagine for just a moment that the child that has died here is your child instead. Feel the heartache and pain of that loss for just a moment.  Imagine now that the child you loved has been "cremated" (another really hateful word) and all you have left of the beautiful little life she was -- is a few static toys that you cling desperately to and a sprinkling of her ashes tucked into the bale of a small necklace.  But her laughter, her smile, her soft baby hair, her sweetness and her joy is gone forever from your life.  You could never imagine your life without her.  And you do not, in fact, even want a life without her…and now what would you say to the person that at the mention of her precious name, says to you about this child: “She sure was spoiled.” ?

Now open your eyes and go enjoy your child because you still can and please be a little more aware of the effect your words can have on someone.  I know this was not said to hurt me - but it so did.

*****

After several months of not knowing how to tell anyone that did not already know about my children, I finally got up the nerve or whatever you call it to write a letter and as carefully and succinctly as possible, tell a long-time friend that lives in Minnesota as much as we knew about what had happened.  I related the story as gently as I could and also let her know about my sister’s leukemia.  Bear in mind, nothing was ever mentioned about feeling suicidal or anything emotional like that just saying that I apologized for not telling her sooner and I just wanted her to know.

Imagine my surprise at her response to me: 

“Why don’t you just go ahead and kill yourself!  All you are thinking about here is yourself.  You have a responsibility to your sister and others and you need to be strong and stop feeling sorry for yourself.”   Then she follows that up the next day with a second email telling me that I need to “grow up” and "You are going to have to stop telling all your problems to me." (???) "This mess has kept me up all night long and I need my sleep!"   

I'm sure I do not need to add here that she has never had children...

Seriously – I need some new friends.

Just random thoughts

It has been one of the hardest weeks in many months.  Brian’s birthday apparently woke me from a numbness that I had not even realized I was in.  I have cried non-stop until I wonder how much more one can cry and keep producing tears. 

I am not a crier as a general rule.  But the tears I’ve cried since August 23, 2014 far outweigh all the tears I’d cried in the entire 60 years prior.  And I wonder if they will ever stop?

Funny how you will have weird premonitions about things and never understand them until you look back.  I started a Memoir about five years ago and titled it: “Bring on the Rain”. 

Well—it’s here.

And five years ago I thought I’d had a pretty rough life – Oh God, I didn’t know anything then.

But another weird premonition that I have just recently remembered haunts me now day and night.  It came with the announcement that Brian and Kara were engaged to be married.  I kept feeling very anxious and nervous and I told my friend Sara that I was and that I kept having the feeling like “if they get married, he will die.”

I had no idea how or why but those are the words that came to me regarding my anxiety about their marriage.  She kept asking “Why?  What are you thinking is going to happen?”  I had no clear answer except that I just had a bad feeling and felt like he would die.  I could not enjoy the wedding or feel happy for them and I was a nervous wreck for the entire first year.   Then I blew it off and finally got okay with it.  And then…he died.  She died.  They all died.

Things have been very hard lately and I feel like I am hanging off of a mile-high cliff and clinging to the edge by the tips of my fingers –like any little miscue and I’ll plunge to the bottom or I will just tire of hanging on and plunge to the bottom or something will come along and stomp my fingers and I will plunge to the bottom.

Though I’m not completely sure what the “bottom” actually is -- I’m absolutely positive that the threat is very real.  Is it physical death; spiritual death or just a complete break from reality?  I’m not sure but it is an overwhelming darkness that threatens to swallow me and I feel powerless to stop it.

I am not sleeping and I’m sure that is exacerbating any negative feelings I may have.  If I happen to go to sleep it is after midnight and I am waking at 3:00am –even with sleep aids.  That makes it very hard to function on my job or in my life.  What few minutes I slept last night I dreamed that I picked up my phone and had a text message from Brian.  It shocked me so until it woke me up and so I did not get to see what it said – nor did I go back to sleep.  I am running off of 90 minutes of sleep all night and I have a nine hour day at work and an hour commute and then GriefShare until 9:00 tonight.

I feel like I need to get away for a while and yet we had vacation scheduled for next week and I cancelled it.  I just could not go.  Not even my favorite spot – the beach - was a draw.  I was simply not up to planning anything or packing or driving 8-hours.  Nor did I really feel like anything would be enjoyable.  I can’t really see spending the money to sit in a condo somewhere and cry when I can do that at home for free.   

My all time favorite

Brian always kept the entire family entertained.  He just always had such an unusual way of looking at things and always just said the first thing that came into his head.

My sister came and had lunch with me today for support as she knew yesterday was going to be hard on me.  Today I was able to talk about Brian.  We sat outside in the little garden picnic area provided by our building and as I looked down at the beautiful blooming Hyacinths I remembered one mother’s day when he was about 13, Brian asked me what kind of flowers I liked.  (His dad had put him up to asking.)  I am not a long-stemmed roses kind of person and told him I would like something that I could plant in the yard.  I said, "How about hyacinths - I love hyacinths."  He later told me about going into the garden shop with his dad to get them and he told the lady he couldn’t remember what they were but they were pink and sounded like Hippopotamus! 

Miraculously, she sent them home with a pretty pink Hyacinth tied up with a bow. 

She laughed and then she reminded me of her all-time favorite “Brian story”.  Which I agreed was also mine.  And I decided to share it here.

During the 1980’s I used to be a lot more organized than I am today.  Had I not been with three kids, cats, dogs, rabbits, a full time job and attending college classes in the evenings – I would have misplaced a child or two on a daily basis.  One thing I credited with helping me keep down the clutter was that the American Kidney Foundation sent trucks around regularly to pick up household items and clothing donations.  I was diligent about clearing out the clothes and shoes that the kids had outgrown or older toys that they no longer played with.  We just did not have the additional drawer/closet space to spare.  So consequently, I was on their list of “regulars” and they frequently placed a courtesy call to me the week they would be in my area.  I was in the middle of preparing country-fried steak for dinner when one such call came in.

Brian was home from track practice and was in the kitchen with me chattering away about his day when the phone rang.  I turned to him with both hands full of flour and said: “Grab that would ya and see who it is – tell them I’ll call them back in just a few minutes.”

And this was what I heard on his end. 

“Hello, no, she’s busy right now.  Can I ask who is calling and have her call you back?” 

Suddenly, his face turns ashen and he has the most confused and …disgusted look on his face and then he literally yells into the phone:  

“DO WHAT?  Like WHAT?  Spare body parts?”

And with that he shoves the phone at me and literally runs from the room sick to his stomach.  Totally baffled, I take the phone --dusting everything in White Lily Flour --and say: “Hello?”

On the other end the lady is literally rolling in the floor and she says through fits of laughter:

“Yes mam, I’m with the Kidney Foundation and we are going to have our truck in your area this week and were wondering if you had any donations you wanted us to pick up?”