Grief Thoughts and Lessons I've Learned

        Grief Thoughts and lessons I've Learned

       It's a fact pure and simple that we cannot make it through this life without hitting a few bumps along the way.  What really counts is not so much the bumps we hit as how we handle them.  Bumps come in so many varieties and even hitting the same bump at different times can be totally different experiences.

      Life challenges can be caused by loss, rejection, dept, pain (physical or emotional), fear, or a host of circumstances.  A challenge may come to us in the form of a choice or a consequence of a choice or catch us by surprise in the form of an accident or illness. They may progress slowly taking years to be identified or in a matter of seconds change our life forever.

      Our reaction and understanding of trials and challenges is mostly based on our own personal experiences.  My first experience with death involved a little friend and playmate from up the street. I was only three and a half years old. I had snuck out the front door to go up to play a few times and my mother had put a hook latch high up on the door so I couldn't escape. I figured out how to push the chair from the desk in the living room over to the door, climb up, and unhook that latch and escape again! My mother wasn't too happy with me. I remember lots of cars were up at the neighbors house and I wanted to go see what was going on. When I got up there I was told that Eddie couldn't play. He was very sick. Later my mom took me to his funeral. I couldn't understand why he wouldn't wake up and play with me. I was reaching into the casket and patting him and saying "wake up Eddie".  Fast forward and my little grandson is patting his father saying "wake up Daddy".  My life experience had given me a significantly different understanding.

        You think you have a very good understanding of what it would be like to have someone you love very much burnt badly...and have empathy for others who have burn injuries...and I was feeling like I could understand the pain that my friend was going through when her son got tangled up with the power lines...and burnt badly from the electricity. My little daughter had dropped a hot iron on her arm trying to iron a handkerchief.  There wasn't a comparison really but that was my experience. I'd been through a lot of grief over that arm burn, getting chewed out for being a terrible mother letting my four year old iron. The next day the same four year old got a terrible burn on her leg (which left a scar) caused by a hot muffler on a motorcycle.  I didn't lecture the person who lectured me as I knew they felt terrible about it. It wasn't a matter of neglect. Or bad parenting (or grandparenting). Accidents happen. We may spend a lot of time trying to justify a situation...or pointing fingers and trying to blame. That happens in life a lot. Bottom line: Try your best to do you best and accept the things you have no control over and change the things that you do have control over.

      Speaking of accidents happening, and the learning curve, just a few years later my little two and a half year old daughter followed her older brother out the door, tried to push a chair up closer to the coals (all ready for a hot dog roast) climbed up onto that folding chair, which did it's folding thing and dumped her into the fire and landed on top of her. I had a new understanding of the agony and pain and damage that fire can cause. Deeper level of empathy. Camille died but fast forward a few more years and my son was welding at work and caught himself on fire and ended up in the burn unit ICU. After some skin grafts and intense care he has learned a few life lessons about burns himself. I haven't been burnt terribly in my life but I know that I don't want to be either, I have felt some pretty intense pain watching my children suffer. It is a very common thing to wish the pain was yours instead of theirs.

      Complaining doesn't make things better, it just makes those around you miserable also!  Thinking enjoyable thoughts can be a little more challenging in the midst of a crisis but it isn't impossible to do, and it does make a bad situation a little more bearable. You can think of it as the  "Pollyanna"(trying to find good in any situation) from the movie Pollyanna about a little orphan girl...which beats the heck out of the "Oscar the Grouch"!

     You have a lot of power within yourself to deal with any of your life situations, but your greatest source of strength is to lean on the Lord. And to understand that these experiences are a part of our life plan. The scriptures tell us that "these things are for our own experience".  And will bring us strength and closer to our Heavenly Father.  If we look to the Lord to help us through these hard times....they won't be nearly so difficult! I love the poem "Footsteps in the Sand" alluding to the times the Savior carries us when our path becomes so difficult for us to handle on our own.

     I also know that if we look to our Heavenly Father to guide and direct our lives through our trials He will help prepare us, before the trial even comes, so it isn't so difficult.

       Before my daughter Camille ever died, we had several experiences that were preparing us for her leaving this earth life.  Before she was one she got real sick. I took her to the Dr and he basically told me to take her home and give her Tylenol for the fever. I explained to him that she was so good natured and that even when she didn't feel good she was a real sport about it. This was different. She lay limp in my arms and occasionally moaned softly. It wasn't like her at all. He just shook his head. I took her home and things didn't change. While I was rocking her, one of the other kids came up to try and comfort her and patted her on the arm. Her eyes flew open in pain and the soft moan was a loud yelp of hurt. I went back to the Dr to say "her elbow hurts" he followed us over to the hospital where he put a needle into her arm and drew out white pus. This was more serious. She was admitted to the hospital where she stayed for six weeks. She needed someone with her twenty four hours a day. The Dr told me that another 24-48 hours later, without medical attention, she would of died. She came home on her two years old birthday.

      Three months later I was back in the hospital and her little brother Kevin was born. A short version of Kevin's story: My husband was working up in Idaho and called to ask me to come up...he had something he wanted to talk to me about. I said "just tell me over the phone". He insisted I needed to be there in person.  He gave me a phone number and directions of which exit to take. He said "I won't try to give you directions as I know you will get lost, it's difficult to find this place. I'll meet you at the gas station just off the second exit and guide you in."  I packed up my four babies and the phone number and headed north. The kids started acting up in the back seat just after the sign for the first exit. Trying to tell them to behave and be nice I missed the second exit, therefore I went off the third exit thinking I could just get back on the freeway and head back to the one I missed. I couldn't find the entrance to the freeway to get back on. I pulled over to explain to the kids that they really needed to be quiet so  I could focus on finding daddy.  My oldest said "lets say a prayer".  They all folded their little arms and bowed their heads as Jared prayed. I had a prayer in my heart also asking Heavenly Father to guide us.  The little ones didn't open their eyes...they all fell asleep. I finished my own silent prayer and started to drive. I literally could hear a quiet voice directing me "turn left drive five blocks, turn right...." as I followed the directions I ended up in front of a brick house.  I stopped and pulled out the phone number thinking I would ask the nice people inside if I could use their phone to call Curt.  Imagine my surprise when he opened the door! The Lord had guided me straight to where he was staying.  His surprise was even greater.  He knew I had no sense of direction and that I didn't even have an address.

       When I saw him I jumped out of the car and ran up for a big hug. He asked how I got there and I told him "The Lord directed me here"  I said to his surprised face "So what is so important that I have to be here in person to hear it?" He said "Mary, we need to have another baby!" I grabbed his hand and led him to the car where I pointed to our sleeping children "Look! We have four babies! We are still young!  We have years to think about this....are you sure we need another one right now?"  He said that a little spirit had been riding around with him in the truck he was driving (fertilizing fields with the Co-op truck) and that this little spirit needed to come to earth now.  He asked me to pray about it. I stayed the night and headed back home the next day with my little crew.  I had been to the Dr's just a few days before and he had told me that I had three large cysts that needed to be removed and that with them there he doubted  I could get pregnant, and when they were removed I wouldn't be able to have anymore children.  I knew that I did want more children, and hoped that there was a different solution.  I was leaving this up to the Lord, but I was very prayerful about it.  The surgery to remove the cysts was scheduled for two weeks later.  When Curtis got home and I told him about it he wasn't very happy about it.  He said he understood better why the urgency that I had to come up to talk to him.  The day before the surgery was scheduled I got a call saying the Dr's office saying that his airplane ticket to France had been changed so one days' appointments had been cancelled.  (he was going over to teach a procedure and would be gone for while) I was rescheduled with a different Dr two months later.  When that appointment came I was already expecting little Kevin. When he was born, he was early and things happened in such a way that my life, and his were preserved at that time. Close call for both of us but if we hadn't of had the C section neither one of us would of survived. Curt had dashed down to Salt Lake with some amniotic fluid to determine if Kevin would be able to survive...I was already in labor. When he got back to the hospital he came into the labor room and said "You have to have a C section!" The Dr had just told me I was dilated  to nine and my baby would be born at ten. He walked in as Curtis said "C section" and said "you don't have too, it is your choice and in a few minutes there won't be any decision to be made!"  I said "He's the boss" and we were dashed into the room for the C section.  Later the Dr said that saved my life and the baby.  I prayed hard that Kevin would be able to get out of the ICU (he was life flighted down) and that he would live long enough to get a name and for me to be able to hold and love him for a while.  That prayer was anwsered and he was soon healthy, thriving and home in my arms. (only three weeks in the hospital not the months they predicted) But at five and half months he went back to be with Heavenly Father.  He really only needed to come to earth long enough to get his little body.  What a special little spirit he was.

      It was only six months later when little Camille joined her brother.  Now before she ever left, Curtis knew she would be leaving.  He tried so hard to protect her. He even took her to work with him the day she died. She was riding around with him in that big co-op truck, driving around in the farmers fields near out house.  Curtis had such a strong feeling that she was going to be gone and he didn't want her to go. She had had three close brushes with death at this point.  Once running in front of a car up near the campground in Mantua, once falling into the ditch where Jared fished her out, and once with the infection in her body that was so serious.  When I told Curt that I heard a little voice saying "there's too much work for me to do here, I need some help"  This was on Kevin's would of been one year old birthday. Curtis threw himself on our bed and started sobbing "No! Not Camille, not my baby!" (this was the second time ever I saw him cry. The first time for uncontrollable  sobs)  He had been out to the cemetary on his lunch and spent an entire hour out there. The next few weeks from July 6-July 16 when Camille died were hard.  It was still a time of preparation for us and both of us knew that we were going to loose another child. I thought it was Travis again. He had a life threatening bleed, having a tooth go through an artery in his tongue  and it would of not been a surprise at all if he bled to death,  in the night. I was very sleepless checking on him nearly every hour through the night each night.  Having two sons with hemophila was not easy. For them or for their parents! Financially or emotionally. 

     Back to the crisis with Camille's approaching tragedy and my personal preparation.  I hardly ever watch t.v. There are many things that I enjoy much more.  I was out weeding the flower bed when I had a very strong feeling that I needed to go in the house and watch channel 11. (we only had 2,4,5 and 11 total choices and the reception on any wasn't very good) As went into the house, washed the dirt off my hands and turned the t.v. on I sat down to a special about a little boy who had been burned over 65 percent of his body, including his face.  It had caused his parents divorce and many painful operations for him.  His face was still deformed and scarred and he had many more surgeries to go.  They had given him a nose, reshaped one of his ears, and worked on his eyes a few times.  It still wasn't very pretty to see.  At the end of the program the interviewer asked him a question and he said "I wish I would of died.  It would have been so much easier.  I have no friends. I have so much pain. Life hurts."  (paraphrased a little) but essentially what he said. I turned off the t.v. and went back outside to work in the yard. I couldn't stop thinking about the half hour show that I had just watched.  This is just a little of my personal preparation from the Lord...helping me to understand a little better what was going to happen just a week or so later. When Camille fell into the fire I knew it wasn't "my fault" or "Curt's fault"  When she died I knew that it was the better choice for her.  She didn't have to go through all those painful surgeries and live with the taunts and rejection from classmates. She didn't have to suffer anymore.  The little boy that had been burned so badly also said he didn't feel any pain until he started healing, there was a couple of weeks immediately after he was burnt that his body was in shock and everything was like numb. The pain came later.

      After Camille fell into the fire Curt felt like it was all his fault. He had failed to protect her. The next year was even more difficult than any previous time in my life. The guilt he felt, the anger at the Lord, and the sorrow were more than he could bear.  Until he turned his load of burden over to the Lord it was not a good scene. 

      When Kevin died, there was a very peaceful feeling from the time we found him in his bed not breathing to the time his heart stopped the next day at the hospital.  We had taken him in to the Brigham hospital and they transferred him down to Primary's in Salt Lake. He died the next day.  We were so at peace. It was hard but neither of us shed any tears. We had both known for at least a week that one of our children was going to die. We both thought it was Travis and when the Dr wanted him in the hospital for a transfusion (he had fallen out of bed and knicked an artery in the back of his head and when it took off bleeding (usually in the middle of the night) blood would hit the ceiling with each heart pump. I said to the Dr "This will be our last Christmas together as a family and I really want him home with us so we can all be together") I promised to check him every hour on the hour and I did. I also promised to bring him in the day after Christmas to have his hematacrit checked again. When the Dr checked it he said "how did you do this?"

      the anwser: liver and onions with broccolii and orange juice (fastest way to improve your blood there is!) magic combination! Seen it work a number of times. When they were anemic and looking pale that was the anwser. I do not like liver but it's worth it. Travis was doing well and the bleed was under control.

        Then we found Kevin not breathing.  Curtis calmly said "this is it"  When the bishop arrived and asked if we wanted him to give Kevin a blessing Curtis said "leave it up to the Lord to heal him as I really believe it is Kevin's time to go" After the blessing (we were at the Brigham hospital at the time) the dr's came out and said "By knowing CPR you have saved your son's life! He is stablized and breathing on his own now."  Curtis looked at me and shook his head. He knew.  Within ten minutes they were life flighting Kevin down to Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake. The next day he passed away.

        This time in my life was a very difficult time but I felt the love and support of neighbors, friends and family.  I also knew that the Lord was comforting me in a very real way.  I've tried to describe some of the life lessons and feelings that happened to me at this time and it's still just as difficult to put onto paper. It's like the feelings put into my heart came in symbols without a way to translate them onto this paper. I know them. I feel them but I can't describe adaquitely just exactly how because I don't know the language of those symbols.  I have a snuggly warm blanket that I love to cuddle up in on a chilly day...if you can imagine the feeling of that warmth and softness on the outside and put it into your inside...that's as close to a feeling or description as I can come up with.  But it's incredibly real.

       Comfort and knowledge. Both unexplainable. Both amazing.

        There have been many life lessons that I've experienced in my life that deal with grief. Not only the loss of my children, but also my husband. Cancer is slow and very challenging. But not all grief comes though death.

        Bad choices by those you love hurt.  Rejection from those you care deeply about hurts.  Heck even rejection by those you don't even know hurts!

       When I was 14, during the summer, there was a music camp down at Snow College that I went too.  While there I was in a choir that was learning the song that starts out "Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death..." that song and another we learned for our ninth grade graduation have stuck with me through the rest of my life. At times when I needed comfort the words echoed in my head. Think about these words and just how profound, and comforting they are:

No man is an island, no man stands alone

Each man's joy is joy to me

Each man's grief is my own

We need one another, so I will defend

Each man as my brother

Each man as my friend

I saw the people gather

I heard the music start

The song that they were singing

Is ringing in my heart

No man is an island, no man stands alone

Each man's joy is joy to me

Each man's grief is my own

We need one another, so I will defend

Each man as my brother

Each man as my friend

Friends, family, the gospel, being married to such an amazing man as Joe are all blessings in my life. How thankful I am for those who have buoyed me up during the difficult times in my life! 

    I have learned many life lessons concerning grief.  I know that I will have more life lessons to go through. My heart will still be broken many more times before this life here on earth is over.  

    I have learned that men grieve differently than women. Thanks to a good grief meeting that I went to with my friend Ginny Ayotte (which I am sure saved my marriage to Curtis just after Kevin died) 

    I have learned there are five stages to grief. and that ALL, people, repeat ALL people grieve differently. It is sometimes very offensive to hear someone say "I know just how you feel"...

Again, all people grieve differently. Some people will wear their emotions on their sleeve and be outwardly emotional. Others will experience their grief more internally, and may not cry. You should try and not judge how a person experiences their grief, as each person will experience it differently. Just because someone doesn't show on the outside their feelings doesn't mean they aren't deeply grieving on the inside...

I copied and pasted The five universal stages of Grief:

1. Denial and Isolation

The first reaction to learning of terminal illness or death of a cherished loved one is to deny the reality of the situation. It is a normal reaction to rationalize overwhelming emotions. It is a defense mechanism that buffers the immediate shock. We block out the words and hide from the facts. This is a temporary response that carries us through the first wave of pain.

2. Anger

As the masking effects of denial and isolation begin to wear, reality and its pain re-emerge. We are not ready. The intense emotion is deflected from our vulnerable core, redirected and expressed instead as anger. The anger may be aimed at inanimate objects, complete strangers, friends or family. Anger may be directed at our dying or deceased loved one. Rationally, we know the person is not to be blamed. Emotionally, however, we may resent the person for causing us pain or for leaving us. We feel guilty for being angry, and this makes us more angry.

Grieving is a personal process that has no time limit, nor one "right" way to do it.

The doctor who diagnosed the illness and was unable to cure the disease might become a convenient target. Health professionals deal with death and dying every day. That does not make them immune to the suffering of their patients or to those who grieve for them.

Do not hesitate to ask your doctor to give you extra time or to explain just once more the details of your loved one’s illness. Arrange a special appointment or ask that he telephone you at the end of his day. Ask for clear answers to your questions regarding medical diagnosis and treatment. Understand the options available to you. Take your time.

3. Bargaining

The normal reaction to feelings of helplessness and vulnerability is often a need to regain control–

• If only we had sought medical attention sooner…
• If only we got a second opinion from another doctor…
• If only we had tried to be a better person toward them…

Secretly, we may make a deal with God or our higher power in an attempt to postpone the inevitable. This is a weaker line of defense to protect us from the painful reality.

4. Depression

Two types of depression are associated with mourning. The first one is a reaction to practical implications relating to the loss. Sadness and regret predominate this type of depression. We worry about the costs and burial. We worry that, in our grief, we have spent less time with others that depend on us. This phase may be eased by simple clarification and reassurance. We may need a bit of helpful cooperation and a few kind words. The second type of depression is more subtle and, in a sense, perhaps more private. It is our quiet preparation to separate and to bid our loved one farewell. Sometimes all we really need is a hug.

5. Acceptance

Reaching this stage of mourning is a gift not afforded to everyone. Death may be sudden and unexpected or we may never see beyond our anger or denial. It is not necessarily a mark of bravery to resist the inevitable and to deny ourselves the opportunity to make our peace. This phase is marked by withdrawal and calm. This is not a period of happiness and must be distinguished from depression.

Loved ones that are terminally ill or aging appear to go through a final period of withdrawal. This is by no means a suggestion that they are aware of their own impending death or such, only that physical decline may be sufficient to produce a similar response. Their behavior implies that it is natural to reach a stage at which social interaction is limited. The dignity and grace shown by our dying loved ones may well be their last gift to us.

Coping with loss is a ultimately a deeply personal and singular experience — nobody can help you go through it more easily or understand all the emotions that you’re going through. But others can be there for you and help comfort you through this process. The best thing you can do is to allow yourself to feel the grief as it comes over you. Resisting it only will prolong the natural process of healing

    I have learned that no matter how prepared you are for one of these life tests...you can't get through it by yourself. No one is that tough.