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mbkubitz

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  • Date of Death
    09/30/09
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    NA

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    Female
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    Castro Valley, CA

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  1. I lost my 4-year-old daughter in 2009. At the time, her brothers were 8,9 and 10-years-old. In the years since they've celebrated me on Mother's Day, but I've continued to feel guilty because Mother's Day became an incredibly sad occasion for me in the wake of their sister's death. Last year, I wrote an open letter to them on my blog. It resonated with many bereaved mothers and siblings, so I decided to share it again...this time via Open to Hope. While I wrote this for my surviving children, I think it applies to everyone who not only lost a sibling...but lost the mother they once knew in the process. I hope this letter gives you the glimpse into what your own mother may feel on this Mother's Day. http://www.opentohope.com/letter-living-children-mothers-day/ Love and hugs to you all...
  2. If there is a silver lining for me after the death of my daughter, it would be that I've learned to better appreciate the little things in life and to live more authentically and fully. I saw a video shared on Facebook today that brought me to (happy) tears and captures what I now understand to be the most important aspect of life. I wanted to share it with all of you. As a disclaimer, it is a 3 minute advertisement for a Thai life insurance company, but that is not the focus of the video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaWA2GbcnJU
  3. My understanding of what "Life after Life" means to me has certainly shifted over time. No matter what I believed then or now...everyone's belief is their own and no one is right or wrong since the fact remains that we can never know until death happens to us. Our beliefs are shaped by our personal experiences and are therefore as unique as snowflakes. I'll paste an article I wrote about my transformation of my beliefs about death last year... For most of my life, I feared death. As a child, if I let myself wonder about what happens when we die, I would end up in a state of panic and have to go to great lengths to distract myself from thinking about it. I’ve had many nightmares throughout my life where I face certain death – most often of being trapped in a car plummeting off a cliff toward the ocean below – only to wake up seconds before the moment of impact with my heart pounding. Religion has never been a part of my life, and never will. Not accepting the idea of heaven and hell from any religious perspective, my only two ideas as a child of what happens to us after death were either being reincarnated or to just die and our body eventually becomes part of the earth. Neither one sounded comforting or appealing to my childhood logic. If I was reincarnated, I would be an entirely different person and have no memories of this lifetime. If death equaled nothingness, it amounts to the same thing. The idea that my life, my identity, and my memories would all be erased turned death into the ultimate fear for me. In 2009, I experienced something far worse than my ultimate fear. Not my own impending death, but the death of someone whose life was more important than my own: my child. In the early days and months after my daughter’s death, I once again grappled with what death meant. I was forced to face the question of what happens to us after we die? After reading many books and talking with others, I still found no real answers. I found no concrete evidence. I found no absolute reassurance. All I knew was that I desperately wanted her to still be with me. In some moments, I actually wanted to die…if it meant that there was even the slightest chance I could be with her again. Not to mention it seemed the only escape from the oppressive pain I felt. Of course, I knew the pain of my own death would cause my family even more anguish and would never do anything to cause my own death. During this time, I began to notice what seemed like signs from my daughter. They started off as fascinating coincidences, but the more I noticed them, the more they felt like someone was trying to tell me something. Some signs involved dragonflies, others involved ladybugs, and most often I started seeing repeating numbers or number patterns each day, multiple times a day. None of this had ever happened before her death. I told select people, and some brushed it off as my mind wanting to assign meaning to things that had none, but others accepted wholeheartedly the idea that they were indeed signs from my daughter. Yet, as hopeful as I was that these signs were from my daughter, I was still skeptical on some level. After years of receiving these signs, I am now fully convinced that they are my daughter’s way of reassuring me that she is always with me. I now believe that we continue to exist after our death. I don’t know how. I don’t know where. But I do wholeheartedly believe it. I am no longer afraid of death. Then an interesting thing happened: in the past year, I have had several dreams where I’m falling towards the water, just as I had dreamed in nightmares many times before. But in these dreams, I didn’t wake up in a panic just before plunging in. Instead, I went into the water and instead of struggling for breath, I surrendered to the situation and relaxed. And in doing so, I didn’t feel pain or panic. Instead, I felt completely at peace. I think that must be what death is like: a state of complete and absolute peace.
  4. Thanks for starting this thread. I have recently become more interested in my dreams and the meanings behind them. I will admit that when my daughter, Margareta, died, I was very disappointed that I wasn’t dreaming about her. I would sit in support groups listening to other people say that they would have long conversations with their deceased loved ones in their dreams on a regular basis. I can count on one hand the number of dreams that Margareta has been in within the last 4-1/2 years after her death, and she's only spoken three short words in one of them. Thankfully, only one of these dreams was a nightmare about her death. The more interesting dreams I’ve had since her death have to do with my recurring dreams about imminent death that I’ve experienced since I was a child. They have been based on my intense fear of death. I’ve written about the transformation of these dreams in an article on Alive in Memory. Here’s a description from the article of how the dreams typically happened in the past: I’ve had many nightmares throughout my life where I face certain death – most often of being trapped in a car plummeting off a cliff toward the ocean below – only to wake up seconds before the moment of impact with my heart pounding. The fact that my daughter died from drowning is not lost on me. My biggest fear realized in recurring nightmares most of my life involved the threat of drowning. But as I describe in the article, I have overcome my lifelong fear of death in the last four years. As a result: Then an interesting thing happened: in the past year, I have had several dreams where I’m falling towards the water, just as I had dreamed in nightmares many times before. But in these dreams, I didn’t wake up in a panic just before plunging in. Instead, I went into the water and instead of struggling for breath, I surrendered to the situation and relaxed. And in doing so, I didn’t feel pain or panic. Instead, I felt completely at peace. I just had a dream like this two nights ago. This time, after going into the water and not struggling, but surrendering myself to the situation, I found myself floating peacefully in the starry sky with images of millions of everyday objects surrounding me. I tried staying in that wondrous place, but found myself slowly waking up moments later. The fear of death to me is the ultimate fear of the unknown. What these dreams are teaching me is that the unknown doesn’t have to be scary. I just need to embrace it rather than fight it. Anyway, I’ll leave you with my most cherished, precious dream I’ve ever experienced. It happened maybe six months after Margareta died. It was at the end of a random dream. I don’t remember anything else about the dream other than walking into a backyard where my extended family was. My husband was barbecuing, and everyone was happy and talking. It was apparent in the dream that I knew Margareta was dead, but my husband was explaining to me that there was something that allowed her to be back with us. I grabbed her in my arms and hugged her tightly and kissed her. Then she cradled my cheeks in her hands, looked into my eyes, smiling, and said, “Mama loves me”. And like that…the dream was over and I woke up with wonderful, happy tears in my eyes. It was exactly what I needed to hear: that my daughter knew how much she was loved and adored. It is one of the few things that make her death bearable – that she had a happy, love-filled life...even if it was only for four short years.
  5. 4 years, 42 years, 100 years - I don't think there is a day that will ever go by that we don't think of the children we lost, and remembering the day we lost them will always be hard. And like you, in my mind my daughter will always be the age she was when she died (4), though I sadly wonder what she would have been like now or in the future. I'm glad you have had the joy of watching your other children grow. I have four boys - one born after my daughter, Margareta, died - and they are my saving grace. I'm so sorry you had to lose your dear Kevin Dale. You are in our thoughts. Maria
  6. I've been thinking a lot lately about how my efforts over the last few years of learning how to recognize what I can and can't control in life seems to recently be showing some fruits of my labors. It really took the death of my daughter to get me to this point, and in hindsight I now understand why. I wrote about it on a grief support site I manage (www.aliveinmemory.org) and wanted to share with all of you in case it might help anyone. Maria Grief and the Loss of Control Possibly one of the hardest aspects of grief for me has been that I can’t control it. I spent the majority of my life trying desperately to control everything in it. I wanted life to be predictable and – above all – peaceful. The problem has been what I tried to control and how I’d gone about it. I spent many, many years trying to control the people and situations around me through careful, strategic use of my own words, actions (or lack thereof), and responses. It was exhausting and depressing. And as you can imagine, it never really worked. Maybe I could temporarily create the illusion of control; but it would never last. Many, including myself, try to control our lives out of a need to feel safe or secure in our surroundings. Fear of the unknown can be incredibly scary, and even panic-inducing. When situations or people around us cause us to experience uncomfortable feelings like hurt, anxiety, frustration, anger, or guilt, we tend to want to do anything and everything to make those feelings subside. Sometimes, we can take various actions to change the situation or influence the person to behave differently. But sometimes, we are completely at the mercy of unpredictability and the unknown. Death and grief are one of those times. On the day my daughter drowned, amid all the chaos of trying to revive her, I remember pleading with whoever happened to be listening to save her. I can hear myself screaming: “Please save her. Please. Please. Oh god. NO. PLEASE SAVE HER. SHE CAN'T DIE,” amid hysterical sobs and falling to my knees. The idea that she was dead and couldn’t be saved was unacceptable. No. Through sheer determination, I would will her back to life. And yet even on that day while I watched the paramedics and then the ER staff desperately work on her, part of me knew she had already died. The grief that took over in the aftermath of her death was overwhelming. Looking back, I’m not sure what was worse: the excruciating pain of missing my daughter, or the complete and utter lack of control of anything. I couldn’t change what happened and bring her back to life. I couldn’t control my thoughts or emotions and was a complete wreck. Things that used to be automatic and easy, like cooking or showering were unbearable and almost impossible. I could no longer tell my other children that “everything would be ok” when I couldn’t possibly imagine that anything would ever be “ok” again. But it wasn’t just a loss of control. It was being face-to-face with the unknown. Questions raced through my head. What if I had just stopped to play with her the last time she asked? What if I had brought her with me that morning? Why did it happen to us? Will I ever be ok again? What is going to happen to my family? My other children? My marriage? What happens after we die? Will I ever see her again? None of these questions could be answered. I couldn’t control any of it by choosing the “right” words or actions. As time went on, my grief took many unexpected twists and turns. I never knew how I would feel from one moment to the next. I never knew what would trigger my emotions and leave me a crying mess, or in an angry rage, or in a state of panic. And the triggers themselves were random and unpredictable. I would desperately try to figure out what triggered me to try to avoid it in the future. But most of the time, I felt completely out of control. And despite attending counseling and support groups, there was nothing I could really do about it. I’m not sure when I came to terms with it. I’m not sure when I accepted that grief, in its very nature, is unpredictable and uncontrollable. But when I did finally accept it, it had an unexpected result: I felt relief. It was as if a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. Now, when intense grief appears seemingly out of nowhere, I am better able to accept it, process it, seek support for it, and know that it will eventually pass. I don’t know what the future will bring, but for the first time in my life, I’m ok with that. I no longer hope for the best while expecting the worst. I no longer try to control others with my words and actions. Instead, I try to speak the truth and express my feelings and needs. I’m ok with focusing on the here and now, yet not forsaking planning for the future. It takes less energy. It produces less anxiety. It provides more contentment. It allows me to enjoy the moment. But I would be lying if I didn’t admit I still wish I could change the past. I love and miss you Margareta.
  7. Thank you for sharing this Mary. It really resonates, as I have always had difficulty recieving - and still do. Chalk it up to a lifetime of distancing myself from others for fear of getting even more hurt than I already felt - and never properly grieving the emotional losses I felt throughout my life (I still haven't). When my daughter died, for the first time ever I felt compelled to seek out and receive support because I felt completely helpless in an alien world. I could barely take care of myself, much less my surviving children. The devastation of losing her was like having a natural disaster distroy my home and having to rebuild from scratch. Only my "home" was the life I was used to living. None of my usual emotional defenses to pain and hurt worked anymore. That included the uneven balance of giving far more than I allowed myself to receive. I simply didn't have it in me. I was truly in bare bones survival mode. Thank goodness for counseling and support groups. I honestly don't know what I would have done without them. I understand now the importance of recieving, but I still find it hard to do much of the time. Old habits are incredibly hard to break. But, I figure taking baby steps is better than taking none. The small strides I have made in learning how to break down my defenses and allow myself to receive has begun creating much better relationships with my husband and children - and, more importantly, with myself. :-) Thanks again for sharing, Maria
  8. Thank you for all these great articles and ideas. I've never been a fan of New Year resolutions because they never worked and just made me feel worse about myself. Recently, I read an article about focusing on how to change habits rather than goals that were too big and vague. Combined with my memory of the first New Year after the death of my daughter, it inspired me to write an article, "Looking for Hope in the New Year". Small, baby steps to inspire new, healthy habits when faced with overwhelming grief.
  9. Thank you all for your kind words. It has gotten much better since I first posted this. I wrote it when I was in the depths of the "sinkhole" you talk about and couldn't find which was was up. I managed to get out with support and have continued to march forward. I personally get much of my healing through wiritng, and have created a site, http://www.aliveinmemory.org, where I write about grief and memories of my daughter. Her birthday was this past Sunday. I wrote a letter to her, as I did on last year's birthday. I didn't have any idea of what I wanted to say when I started writing it, but what came out was representative of both the pain and hope I feel since her death. I'll paste it here so you can read it. Thanks again for being a supportive place I can lean on. Maria Dear Margareta, On September 1, you would have turned eight years old. It will be the fourth birthday we have to celebrate without you here to celebrate it with us. The fourth time we have to sing “Happy Birthday” while holding back the tears. After this month is over, you will have been gone longer than you were alive. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. You were supposed to live a long, full life. A life full of adventure. A life full of creativity and quirkiness. You were supposed to continue to surprise us with your choices and path in life. You were supposed to be my best friend and confidant. You were supposed to continue to challenge my status quo and widen my horizons. You were supposed to… Whatever you were “supposed to do” was lost the day you died. My dreams for you will never come true. I am left sitting here holding my shattered dreams of raising a daughter. I kindly brush off the question, “Are you going to try for a girl?” when some stranger sees or hears I have four boys. I can’t bring myself to prolong the conversation by saying that I already have a daughter…because the pain that comes with that statement still feels like a knife was just stuck in my heart all over again. Despite my continuing anguish over not having you by my side, you still continue to teach me each and every day. You have taught me a deeper appreciation of life than I could have ever imagined. Everything has more meaning now. The joy I have learned to feel again is that much sweeter. The love I feel is that much more profound. The respect I have for this earth and all its gifts is that much more substantial. I pause longer and savor the beauty around me more than I once did. And while the sadness and violence throughout this world can now be overwhelming and bring tears more easily, I feel more compassion than I did before because I now understand pain that transcends words to describe it. I am no longer satisfied to just “survive” life as I once did. I am no longer able to just bury painful emotions and pretend that it will magically get better someday. I now truly understand that our lives require a lot of work, and we cannot just sit idly by and blame others and lament that they are not acting or being the way we need them to be. I have fully learned that only I am responsible for my own situation and path in life. That is not to say that I don’t still falter and fall back into old bad habits and thoughts. But now that I have seen this gift that is life so quickly taken away, I am compelled to keep moving forward whenever I stumble. I look forward to your many signs and whispers to me every day. They not only remind me of your continuing presence and importance in my life; they keep me grounded in the moment. They keep me tuned to love. For if I have learned anything from both your life and your death, it is that love is always within us, around us, and the way through. I often hear other parents faced with the tremendous pain of losing a child ask, “How do I go on?” Many times, both I and others answer, “You just do. One day, or one moment, at a time.” But the real answer is love. Our love is what gets us through the darkest moments. Margareta, it is through you that I’m able to fulfill a lifelong dream. Since I was a little girl, I’ve known that I want to help people. I’ve never quite known how, but here it is. I’m helping others through their grief by being honest about my own. I’m able to show others there is hope. I do this in your name and in your honor. With only four short years on this earth, you left an indelible mark on the hearts of those who knew you, but you weren’t able to make your mark on the world. Here is your mark. You are helping others make it through their darkest hours. And you’re leaving your mark through love and compassion. Your light shines on, and it shines ever so brightly as it did while you were here with us. You truly are our sunshine, and I continue to bask in your loving light. With all my love, Mama
  10. While I know that the pain and grief from losing a child will last the rest of my life, I had gotten to a point where I felt like maybe the worst of it was over. But over the last 3-4 months, the intensity has slowly grown again to the point where I decided I needed to go back on anti-depressants just to get through the necessities of every day life without breaking down constantly or getting so overwhelmed and frustrated that I lash out at people who don't deserve it and are in fact my biggest supporters (my childen, husband, and co-workers). I have tried to write about it to help get through these emotions (http://wp.me/p2imOE-7r), but I wonder if others experience these major bouts of depression years after their loved one has passed? Should I expect them for years more to come?
  11. My daughter drowned in our pool coming up on four years ago. One of her brothers, now 11-1/2 was at home when it happened. He has always been a "sensitive" kid - very shy and introverted, and has always had night-time fears since even before she died. He told me this past weekend that ever since his sister died, he's been scared that he will die young as well. I tried reassuring him the best I could think at the time. I told him the odds of something bad happening to him were incredibly small. He's adamant that he does not want counseling (he went to a six week class for bereaved kids after her death), and says he feels more comfortable talking with me and his older brother (14 and was home when she died too). I haven't had a chance to talk to my counselor about this yet, but wanted to ask here too. Has anyone else faced a similar situation? If so, how did you handle it? As I told my son, the most important thing for me is for my kids to be happy. I just struggle with how they are going to be able to truly be happy when they've lost their innocence at a young age and have to deal with the pain of losing a sibling for the rest of their life. On a related note, a short time after he told me his fear, we were at his brother's baseball game sitting on the grass near the outfield. I asked him what it was about death that scared him most, and though he couldn't come up with the words, we agreed that it was the not knowing for sure what happens that was most scary. Then I talked to him about the signs I get from my daughter since she died, and it has made me truly believe that life doesn't end at death. The signs I get are numbers, dragonflies, and ladybugs. He had questions about them (including why he didn't get signs from her), and as we were talking about it, a big blue dragonfly flew right towards us a few feet off the ground and then went away. We hadn't seen any signs of dragonflies before or after during the whole time we were there. I pointed the dragonfly out as a sign and although he didn't appear convinced, it was wonderful for me. I told him when I died (we agreed MANY years from now), I would try to give him signs, and he requested "cats". ;-)
  12. Marty, you have my permission to reprint it. Knowing how difficult this journey is, it gives me some solace in the idea that I can help others along their path by sharing my experience so far. Maria
  13. This fall will be four years since my daughter died suddenly. Even though our grief-fearing and pain-avoiding society seems to feel that I should have "moved on" long ago, I still struggle with it daily. Thankfully I have more good days than bad days at this point, but it has taken some time and a lot of grief work along to get here. I know that I have a long road ahead of me still. One of the ways I work through my grief is to write about it. Earlier this year I started contributing to the site Open to Hope (www.opentohope.com). I just submitted an article about how when we lose a child, the idea of smiling or being happy again seems impossible. It is a bit long, but I'm including it here in hopes it might give some others with grief that is new some hope that what they are feeling is normal and will eventually allow themselves to be happy again. Learning How to Smile Again When my daughter died, the pain was so overwhelming, the thought that I could ever feel any ounce of happiness again seemed ridiculous. In those early days of grief, the mere idea of being happy didn’t just feel impossible, it felt wrong. During the first year after her death, I recall an evening when my husband insisted I sit down with him and our three boys and watch a funny show on TV that we had watched regularly as a family for years. My husband was able to recognize that in the wake of their sister’s death, our boys needed life to return to as “normal” as possible in order for them to cope and feel safe, and that didn’t just mean regular daily routines – it meant a return to the personal interactions with us that they had been used to. Begrudgingly, I sat down to watch the show. During the show, something was so funny that for the first time since her death, I actually felt the urge to laugh. Instead of laughing, I actually bit the inside of my cheeks to force myself NOT to smile. At that time, the idea that I could ever be happy again felt like a betrayal of my daughter. The logic (or lack thereof) went something like this: if I allowed myself to be happy, it would mean that I was okay with the fact that she had died. Looking back, I think the self-imposed state of misery served several purposes. First, it was a matter of basic survival. The pain of losing a child is so overwhelming and so intolerable; many people say they feel numb early on. I think it is similar to the body’s natural defense mechanism of passing out while experiencing physical pain that is completely overwhelming. When the initial numbness started to wear off after about three months after her death, I tried to maintain it by suppressing my emotions. Since I couldn’t pick and choose, that meant trying to suppress ALL emotions, not just the pain and guilt. In reality, this misguided effort only suppressed everything BUT the pain and guilt. Second, when my daughter died, life as I knew it ended. I was living in a world that suddenly felt alien and intolerable. Not only did I feel like I could never be happy again, I felt outright angry that people around me were happy. To smile, laugh, and have fun again felt like it would mean that there was no longer the possibility that I would wake up from this nightmare I was in. It would mean that I would have to accept that she really did die and life really did go on without her. In a convoluted way, the pain had become the biggest connection I had to my daughter. I could no longer see her, touch her, hold her, or hear her sweet voice. Family and friends stopped talking about her because it had become too painful for them. The pain of missing her was what kept her present in my thoughts almost every minute of my waking hours. It’s what I talked about at the support groups I went to. Talking about her was painful because she was no longer here, but it meant I was still talking about her and acknowledging the continuing importance of her place in my life and in my heart. Before my daughter died, I had heard several times the old adage that those who have died wouldn’t want to see their surviving loved ones living in sorrow and misery. I don’t think I fully understood or appreciated what that meant until I was faced with it myself. Sorrow and pain will come no matter what. However, we can unknowingly allow ourselves to get stuck in it because it may feel like the only connection we still have to the loved one we lost. Over time, the notion of happiness as a betrayal of my daughter faded. At some point, I gave myself permission to smile and to be happy again. I don’t think there was any specific moment I can pinpoint, but instead, it was a slow realization that life was going to go on without her physically here whether I liked it or not. It helped that I still had four other children – one born after she died – and the joy and happiness that they bring into my life is undeniable. The pain of losing her has not gone away, but it does not occupy as much room as it once did. Just like I have chosen to allow myself to smile and be happy again, I have chosen to focus less on my daughter’s death and more on the happy memories of my daughter’s life. I choose love and happiness, and can’t think of a better way to honor her memory.
  14. This fall will mark four years since my daughter's death (at age 4). Since her death, our family tried to think of various ways we might honor her memory. One of my biggest fears of losing a child so young is that she would be forgotten. Not just by the rest of the world, but by time slowly erasing the specific memories our family has of her. She was not old enough to "leave her mark" on the world. At four, her best friends consisted of her four older brothers, who were relatively young themselves when she died. Our memories are all we have left. What we ended up deciding was to create a grief support memory that allows families to share memories of thier loved ones. I realized that no matter how much pain I was in, the best way to lift my spirits was to talk abut her and share my memories with whoever would listen. Writing is also theraputic for me, so I combined them and created, www.aliveinmemory.org. I created this site in hopes that others would find the same comfort in writing down the precious memories of their loved ones. Not only would they be captured and not forgotten, but would allow them to be introduced to new people after their passing, thereby keeping them alive in our collective memories. The site is new, and most of the stories are of my daughter, but I welcome anyone to add their own memories if they think it would help them heal their grief. There are no ads or requests for donations. It is our way of honoring our daughter by reaching out to others in love and support. Take care, Maria
  15. Dear LisaAnnB, Everything you are describing are very common responses to grief. At 5 months, you are still in a very raw stage of grief. I lost my daughter coming up on four years ago, and it is still a major part of my life. Grief is physically and mentally exhausting. It changes our focus in life and changes how you relate to others. Unfortunately, we live in a society that doesn't want to acknowledge or deal with grief because of the pain associated with it. People would rather ignore the pain than deal with it. But as we know all too well, ignoring the pain doesn't make it go away - and often, ignoring or distracting ourselves from the pain only makes it worse. It may be helpful to read an article by Rich Elder at http://www.memory-of.com/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=117737. It is written from the point of view of losing a child rather than a parent, but I think a lot of the same ideas apply. Be patient with yourself, and know that you are not alone. Take care, Maria
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