grief
Losing a family member is one of the most traumatic life events; Families must support one another to endure the five stages of grief and get through it together.
My Journey In Grief
The one thing I've realized in the last 26 days since my life was destroyed is just how many misconceptions surround you when you lose a loved one. Now for me, I didn't just lose someone I loved, I lost the person I love most, the person I need most, the only family I have left, and the only person I can depend on. To put it mildly, I lost my entire reason for existing at all. Of course, people being the lovely creatures that they are, cue sarcasm, they have treated me like my mother's death was meaningless. Even going so far as to say so to my face. Almost everyone I tell has decided to push their own ideas and opinions onto me of how I should handle my grief, if you listen to most I'm not doing it right. Fortunately, I've learned over the years to never listen to people, never to let them make choices for me. To never follow a crowd. This, of course, makes them angry, then it's always there's something wrong with me. Their opinions mean less than nothing to me, especially now. But their cruel words would have easily driven another person to suicide.
Shannon HummellPublished 7 years ago in FamiliesStatistic in the System
I'm sitting here thinking where I could possibly begin this and, I'm realizing that you are 19 hours from here in a shared house with your soon-to-be in laws-probably sleeping with your girlfriend and current mother of your one and a half kids. While I've spent hours, and hours feeling depressed and saddened by your poor choices in fatherhood for the child you and I share. I blamed myself for a very long time, and sometimes I still do. How could I have been so wrong? What did I do to push you away? How am I going to explain this to my daughter?
Rebecca LynnPublished 7 years ago in FamiliesDear Dad
Dear Dad, The day is half way gone and I've spent most of it trying to ignore the obvious, but I won't let it go by without acknowledging you. I'd never do that. It's been 26 years to the day that you were taken from me. 26 years. I've come to terms with the fact that I don't know how to grieve. I don't know how to properly and healthily process what happened. I feel like I start the grieving process over and over again. It never stops. It doesn't get better. It never gets "easier." I hate myself sometimes because I can't remember what your voice sounds like. That drives me crazy. 1991 didn't have the technology of today so I don't have any recordings or videos or anything where I can just hear your voice. I daydream about how different my life would be of you weren't taken from me. I think about the impact you would have had on who I turned out to be as a person. I feel like there is a void there that will never be filled. That could never be filled. Had I known we only had five years to squeeze in a lifetime of memories, I would have fought to spend more time with you. I would have spent all of my time with you. All I have left are fading memories, and stories of your past from people who knew you better than I did. Every once in a while I have to tell one of your old teammates that you're no longer with us. They stare at me with pity in an awkward silence. It's been a pretty weird couple of decades.
Ashlee NicolePublished 7 years ago in FamiliesRevelation
It came to me in a dream, like a labyrinth of unmistakable waves. Hours prior I had received the worst news a young child of thirteen years of age could adhere. Something so unfathomable, and something so unrealistic in a young and naive mind. "I'm sorry I have to be the one to tell you this," my eldest brother spoke, panicked over the phone, "but Mom just passed away."
Crysta MiraclePublished 7 years ago in FamiliesThe Element of Grief
"If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing." —Benjamin Franklin
Nina MatazPublished 7 years ago in FamiliesRecovering Mom
As a recovering mother, I would love to tell my story. It all started about 11 years ago. My life was a happy place. I was doing well in High School and plans were being made to go to college. As I entered my senior year of high school my life went from amazing to hazy in a heartbeat. I had started a new school and needed new friends, somehow I fell in with the wrong crowd. The drinkers and partiers. My first drink and drug I tried was at 17-years-old. I was hooked. I had a way of escaping my own reality, a way of getting to know my inner-most desires. As I continued through high school, my plans of college became a vanishing dream, my life a whirlwind of drinks and parties. My job, my savings, and my life was spent during that last year of high school. I barely graduated, barely remember graduating. The lifestyle of partying and drinking was the only thing on my mind. I quickly became a couch surfer, moving from place to place not having anything stable or anyone by my side, but that drink and that drug. Just after I turned 19, my own mother sent me off to a summer break hoping I would dry out and get myself straight in Tucson, Arizona. Instead of drying out, instead of sobering up, I found new friends to drink with the army camp. I dragged myself further and further down the desperate hole I was building in my life. Eventually, I was forced to leave Arizona. I came home, met a boy, fell in "love," and had a child at 20-years-old. The love of my life cheated on me for a new love of his life. My love for parties, new drugs, old drugs, and drinking was always up front. I eventually lost my daughter, leaving her to grow up without a mom. As time passes I fell in and out of desprate trouble, abusive relationships, and worsening habits that I wouldn't and couldn't control. I had two other wonderful children and eventually CPS came, stepped in, and stepped up while I was unable to be a mom. I lost all care custody and control of my children. But thankfully this is almost where my tragic tale ends. As CPS came in, they found I had severe issues with drugs and alcohol and heavy depression. This time in my life had become, by far, the most difficult with watching both of my little boys getting packed up and leaving our little home then being diagnosed with alcoholism and drug addiction. I was placed into a rehab with counseling, for all drug, alcohol, and all depression issues. I spent eighteen months helping myself. Slowly I got better, but sadly in that case, my children became adopted. I fell back to the dark recesses of my mind after that happened. I allowed my alcoholism to kick up, not like in the beginning, but just drinking quite often and trying to hide it while managing a somewhat normal life. Through this process, I would get sober for a small amount of time then lose it again. This process repeated itself over and over until I found a sponsor and read a very special twelve-step book. After working hard to stay sober and trusting the process, I have the ability to stay completely sober and drug-free. I am working at a wonderful job now and that little girl I mentioned is seven-years-old. And I have partial custody of her today!
Michelle HessPublished 7 years ago in FamiliesWhen Grief Takes Over...
It’s the third day of fall and for the first time, it actually feels like fall weather. The windows of my car are rolled down and 94.7 Nash FM is blasting through the speakers, as the crisp, fresh air brushes through my now, dark auburn hair.
Kayla SimasPublished 7 years ago in FamiliesMy Guardian Angel
The worst thing for many young adults is seeing those close to their heart age. Realizing that they may no longer be in your life as you grow up is something that is unbelievably hard to come to terms with. When you think of life without them, it makes you think about things like how they'll never see you graduate, come to your wedding, attend your first football game of the season, etc. Whatever it may be, losing someone who is everything you need in life to feel wholesome, is something that will never get easy...especially knowing that you have your whole life ahead of you and they can't be a part of it anymore. For me, it feels as if I am a puzzle, only that there are pieces missing to complete me. Here and there you'll feel the missing piece, and wish you could have the puzzle completed just once more.
Kaylee MarisahPublished 7 years ago in FamiliesWhen a Loved One Passes Away
It is stated in nursing homes that when it rains, the residents pass in three's. I know this all too well as I worked in Nursing Homes as a CNA. My heart always went out the the families of those who felt it was their time to go. Over time, while working with said residents, I had the pleasure of not only assisting them on a daily basis but also formed a friendship with them. When it rained and I watched as my new friends take their last breath; I felt myself overcome with sadness. Although I knew my job was never done as I had other residents to care for, but it was the loss of not being able to walk into a room and bid someone good morning or walk with them down the hall to the dining room having a short conversation as to how their night might have been.
Kate AdamsPublished 7 years ago in FamiliesWhy I Joined a Grief Counseling Group, and Why You Should Too
About a year after my mother's passing, I started reading a book by Cheryl Strayed, an author whose mother also died when she was younger. Her two-page account of that event made me cry six times that night. I cried more times in one evening than I had over the entire first year of my mother being gone.
Aspen DrakePublished 7 years ago in FamiliesI Always Wanted to Be Funny
I always wanted to be funny. When I was a small child, I would do my best to entertain my mother. It was more than just a job or a hobby or anything like that. It was who I was meant to be. Since then, it has taken on its own form.
Ronny PascalePublished 7 years ago in FamiliesIn Which I Address the Passing of My Mother
When I was little and the world was quiet, I would lie in bed and think about the earth and how big it was. Then my mind would shift to the solar system, and how we are constantly floating around amongst other planets and countless stars. Then I would think about how there was even more beyond that, perhaps beyond anything a single person could imagine. I would begin to feel dizzy, and would have to roll over and consider something on a smaller scale. That’s how I would describe losing my mother. It’s something that I know happened, but it’s not something I take time to regularly consider. And when I do, it’s weird as f@#k. And despite how big the world is, with all its winding roads and hidden places I haven’t visited, and how many launches we are making into space, my mom isn’t there. I wont find her anywhere. Not around the corner of a noisy street market like in some art film, and not on another planet that we’ll eventually colonize like some sci-fi twist. She’s gone.
Aspen DrakePublished 7 years ago in Families