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I want to wish all the moms that are on this journey with
me a Happy Mother's Day!
When the road you're
traveling on
Seems difficult
at best
Just remember I'm
here praying
And God will do
the rest.
I want to thank Jayne http://www.tcfatlanta.org/ and all the moms that have replied to my cry for help to cope with the missing
piece of My Mother's day. The Compassionate Friends of Atlanta.
I am sharing with others that may be going through the same feelings. Never think you can handle
this alone no matter how hard you try. You do have to cry out for help.
A Missing Piece this Mother's Day!
This is my first Mother's Day I will hear no song and I love you Mother from Dustin.
The pain it brings as this day grows near and how to put aside to enjoy the love I have for Tiffany and my Mom. My birthday
I had to avoid most of the day which was so unfair when Tiffany calls to wish me a Happy Birthday this pain is not fair to
her and I do not know how to fix it. Why should I have to ask her to understand I am her mother too. How does one separate
the pain in ones heart of the loss of one child so it will not take away from the precious one you still have here
on earth.. Is it the first year that will be like this or every year to come. I so want to be able to separate the 2 because
so unfair to my daughter I feel. She said she understood on my birthday but why should she have to understand. When I say
this it reminds me of earlier years my mom telling me you are the grown up so act like it. Yes I am the grown up
but my heart doesn't feel like it . My daughter and grandson or the loves of my life and I do not want to take away from them
in anyway so how does a mom that has lost one child deal with it separately from the loves she has for the one here on earth.
I am reaching out to TCF to help me get through this first year of so much.
Patti Rawls
Katy,Texas
5-8-08 Sent from Kathy, Angel Stacey's Mom
A small gift for Mothers' Day from your Angel. May God bless and comfort us all.
Such a hard, hard holiday. May yours be kind, calm and give you some
peace of mind and heart. Karen Angel Geoff's Mom
A Grieving Father Looks At Mother's Day
Will the circle be unbroken by and by, Lord, by and by? Maybelle Carter
On Sunday, May 13, 2001, religious and secular institutions across our western hemisphere will celebrate
Mother's Day. Corporate America will eagerly open its arms, that is its doors, to embrace Mom with
sales. Florists will be working over time to insure that floral bouquets arrive on time. Restaurants will
be offering special Mother's Day meals so families can honor mom by eating out. In synagogues, temples,
and places of worship, mothers will be honored in a variety of ways. There will be silent,
invisible mothers on that day. They will go unrecognized for the most part. They will be generally unnoticed.
They will even be ignored. They are the grieving mothers.
For them, the day is not a celebration, but endurance. Mother's Day changes completely for them after the
death of a child. The pain is a pain only another grieving mother can relate too. All of the imagery that
is
conjured up doesn't necessarily help either The pages of the hymnbook flutter with the images of a mother
and her children Read the titles of the songs as you flip the pages: "My Mother's Old Bible Is True,"
"Will
The Circle Be Unbroken?," " Mother's Prayers Have Followed Me," and, "Are All The Children In?"
Religious guidebooks and holy texts are filled with thousands of references and pictures of mothers nurturing their children.
This motherly lode is central to all the religions of the world. The implied message is that a mother's
love for her children is a bond quite unlike any other. So the death of a child, to them, must feel quite
unlike
any other loss. These wonderful words and images which are meant to comfort, end up tormenting them I write this column as a grieving father. I share my insights from my personal experiences and my readings
on child-loss. But a lot of my education has come from the truest source off all, my foreverbest friend,
Debby. She has taught me that a mother's pain is so inexplicable, except to other grieving mothers, because
when their child dies, a unique bond is broken. I cannot understand this bond, because like all Dads I
am an outside observer so many times in the birthing process. But I do know that this bond exists. My
many hours of watching The Discovery Channel and Animal Planet with my
son, Carl, taught me one lesson, nature's lesson. Never mess with
mothers. There's a reason why mother bears have notorious reputations. They fiercely protect their young.
There is a deep, mysterious, and unique relationship that a mother has
with her child. Pregnancy is the start of a bond, which men cannot
fully understand. The intricacies of feeding, nurturing, male experience. It just boggles my mind
that my wife did all those jobs 24 hours a day, and still worked a regular job too. Fathers are sort of
detached observers in the birth process. Mothers are participants in the clearest meaning of the word
Their bodies work all day and night.
They feel the movements of the new life within them. endure the
hardships and sicknesses. Go through intense ups and downs. Live with the sheer terror of the unknown.
Mix all these ingredients together and
the result becomes a spiritual umbilical cord of great durability
between a mother and the new life within her. Nothing can sever that cord. It survives
all the troubles and turmoil in life that children can bring Nothing
can break through that cord. Nothing, that is, except a child's
untimely death. Now, I am trying to understand all of this in my finite, male mind, and frankly,
I can't. I can't begin to understand a mother's
keen sense of suffering when a child dies. I am left only to my inadequate imagination of her emptiness
within. I caught glimpses of this suffering watching Debby sob and repeatedly cry out, "I can't protect
him anymore! I can't comfort him anymore. I can't treat his hurts anymore!"
Truly, a big part of a mother dies when her, child dies. I share
these thoughts with grieving family members and friends so there can be some sort of understanding. Mother's
Day will never be the same If
it is a first time after the passing of young one, anxiety and grief will
be severe, frequent, and intense.
Expect those feelings, but they will also pass. Here are some suggestions, which come from grief counselors and experienced grieving parents.
Keep the level of anxiety and anticipation low
Let the grieving mother set the tone for the day.
Let it be her day to observe in her fashion
Have a plan for the day It can be the simplest of plans, and it should be. Elaborate plans can cause more
grief, not less.
Communicate the family plans with all family members and friends. Be assertive. Stick to those plans. If
a quiet day is needed, do it. If many friends and family are the answer, do it.
Words can hurt or heal. So choose the words of encouragement wisely. Resolve to be a good listener that
day.
Remember that the best gift to give to a grieving mother can't be bought. It is priceless. It can't be wrapped. It is too immense. That gift is you. Now, I close with something for all you precious, compassionate
mothers. Please be good to yourselves, you have surely earned it.
-Aaron Pueschel
~reprinted from TCF Mercer Chapter Newsletter
IN THE SILENCE
In the silence you hear me,
In the silence I am here.
In the silence you can feel me,
In the silence it is clear........
That my spirit hasn't left you,
I am just a thought away,
You can see me in the shadows,
Anytime you look my way.
Look for me in the sunshine,
And in the stars at night.
In the wind, trees and flowers,
Everything that is in sight.
Talk to me, say my name,
Know that I'm still here,
In my death I have a new life,
And one day it will be clear.
So talk to me and look for me
In everything you do,
For I haven't gone so far away,
I'm really right next to you
AUTHOR UNKNOWN
Submitted by Romelle Lysenko-TCF Bridgewater
~reprinted from Bridgewater, NJ TCF May 2006 Newsletter
A Special Corsage for Momma
I send you this special rose
to go in the corsage your wear.
I know it has wilted a bit.
But I know that you don't care.
I planted the flowers just for you.
I fertilized each rose with love.
This garden of roses I planted for you,
grows in the Heaven's above.
I see other mother's with a corsage.
I want you to have one too.
So I touch the roses & kiss them...
Before I put them together for you.
Now wear this corsage that I send you...
Wear it with all my love & your pride.
For it comes from the bottom of my heart...
Watered by the tears you've cried.
~Author~
Kaye Des'Ormeaux
Copyright 2000
Dedicated to Moms
To You On Mother's Day
Here come those memories like a long lost friend.
Here come those reminders of what might have been.
Another Mothers Day is here that I have to face,
Though it seems you left here without a single trace.
And so I must so truly tribute this day to you.
What else is a childless Mother supposed to do ?
You are my hope and wonder out on those moonlit nights.
You are the brilliant colors that have always made my world
So bright.
I think of you in good times, bad times and especially all of the sad. I think of you and know you were everything I
had.
I feel you on Nascar days, especially when Earnhart Jr. wins.
I see you in the sunrise and sunset over and over again.
I have to picture you in heaven now, as hard as it may seem,
For if I dont it will be that forever I have lost my hopes and dreams.
And though you are gone now and there is nothing I can do,
I have learned without a doubt, my world will always be about you.
There is a miracle I have experienced, and its one amazing feat, How a Mothers heart can be so broken and still continue
to beat.
To all of you lost and hurting Mothers I wish you some peace today, For we all dearly miss our children, more than anyone
will ever Be able to say. As one dear friend stated to me, recentlyWhen we miss our children the most, they are
the closest to us.
God Bless You All,
Carole Adams (Loganville, Ga)
Happy Tuesday to you :) We had a really good sermon at church
on Sunday I was thinking about you a lot during it...It was talking about the storms we go thru in life and how sometimes
we can't understand why we would be put thru the storm that some of us face but even though when the storm hits it's
hard to look thru it, but your just have to put your faith and trust in God and he will bring you thru
the storm...probably didn't state it word from word but I'm sure you get what I'm saying...anyways I just thought of you because
I know Dustin's death is the biggest storm you have and hopefully the biggest storm you will face and even though it has been
and still a tough journey I think you are an amazing person that has looked past the storm and helping others and meeting
others in the same position as you is helping you get thru the storm.....Because there is a rainbow on the other side and
I know GOD, Dustin, and all your family and friends are helping you find that rainbow at the end
of this STORM!!!! :) Well I Hope you have a great Tuesday , thinking about you always....
Tamra
Patti:
In the very early days I was so angry because there was nothing I could do to take away my other childrens pain - I really
felt like I had somehow failed as a mother - I couldn't keep Joseph safe and I couldn't take away John and Julies pain. Once
I realized that, just like I had to somehow learn to live in this new family structure, so did they and once I really let
them go and quit hyperventillating every time I couldn't reach them and smothering them because I was so paranoid - they found
their own peace with the loss of their brother. We all still have our bad days and God knows our birthday and his angel
date and the major holidays will NEVER be the same, but we really have no option but to keep putting one foot in front of
the other and keep breathing.
I often feel like I must be living in some parrellel universe - that Joseph can't really be gone - then I realize if
it was a dream - I wouldn't be in pain. Reality bites.
Wishing you peace,
Nancy
Subject: In
need of a friend
I am so sorry that you are in this club, we all wish we could have met under other circumstances. You said you needed
friends, I know how that feels. The old ones can never understand, and new ones need to be sought. I lost my son to a drunk
driver 3 years ago. I remember my first Mother's day without him. It's so very hard, you almost never want to do it again.
Do you have other children??
I too, am having my first Mother's day without my son. I have
three older daughters who are young adults and I just want to be alone this Mother's day. I lost my only son who was
17 to suicide eight months ago. How did you lose your child? I know it isn't fair to my other kids but I just
don't feel like "celebrating" Mothers Day or my birthday or any other holiday. If someone says "Happy Mother's Day'
to me I know I will break down and cry. So I have decided that I am going somewhere by myself this year and read or
sit in the sun or whatever without my other kids or my husband bacause I make the rules in how I am deal;ing with my grief.
I deserve this Mother's day to be selfish and that's exactly what I will be. God bless you,
Debbie Grimm
Dearest Patti
I read your letter in the email from TCF.
my heart goes out to you as this mothers day approaches.
I know how hard this for you, just as I know you will make it through it. My little girl
passed on Christmas Eve and I have had to battle that for 31 years with 3 other children.
my best advice to you dear lady is to do the best you can and do not beat yourself up over it.
Your daughter will understand. just remember that she to is grieving. maybe she is just worried about you
and just maybe the best gift you can give her is to talk to her about your feelings. She lost her brother and is probably
scared to death that she will lose her mom. I don't know her age but I am assuming she is the mother of your grandson.
just remember sweet lady that as long as you go to sleep each night and wake up each morning,
the pain does get easier and the memories to become sweet and not so painful. you never forget and you never stop wanting
them but you heart heals. I promise!
God Blessing to you and your family
Virginia - mom to angel Melissa
Patti:
I am so sorry to read of your loss - My son Joseph will be gone 3 years on Mothers Day. The first year I told my
surviving children - I don't want to do Mothers Day and they understood - Last year we did Mothers Day - it was difficult
but survivable - this year we aren't doing it - they don't want to either because of it being his angelversary.
I don't know how old your daughter is - but I'm sure she would be understanding if you explained to her that THIS year
you can't do it - that's not to say that next year you can't or the year after. Maybe you need to do what I did with
my mom - we made a special day for us - to celebrate our relationship that wasn't everyone elses Mothers Day. I do the
same with my other children - we pick a day during the year and spend it together celebrating - that way we wouldn't have
expected Joseph to have been there so we aren't looking for him.
Hope this makes some kind of sense and helps even a little - May you find peace in whatever decision you make - and remember
- it isn't for ever and ever - just this Mothers Day - you need to do something different. Face next year when it gets here.
Nancy Long
Josephs mom
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