MartyT

Dear Karen,

There simply are no words to express the sorrow we all feel as we read of the death of your darling daughter, and I can only imagine how devastating this must be for you. Of course your life is forever changed as a result of Lucy's death -- because there is nothing, nothing, nothing as painful as losing a child. After all, we are not supposed to outlive our children, are we? It goes completely against the natural order of things, it is so terribly unjust, and it is so very hard to accept.

I'm sure you already know that the bond you have with your daughter will be with you always, just as long as you keep her memory and the love you share with her alive in your heart. You will always be Lucy's mother, and Lucy will always be your beloved daughter. Death may have ended her life, but it certainly does not end the relationship you have with her. Although she is no longer physically present, it doesn't mean you cannot continue to love her in her absence.

As you have discovered, grief is exhausting and saps every ounce of energy you may have, which makes it very difficult to be there emotionally and in every other way for your eight-year-old son. Of course you still love your remaining child dearly -- but he is not the daughter you have lost, and you have every right to miss your precious Lucy as much as you do.

Since it's only been eight weeks since she died, I sincerely hope you've found someone to talk to about all of this. Grieving is difficult enough without having to do it all alone. Sharing your feelings, reactions and experiences with another gives you a safe place to express yourself, helps you understand that what you're feeling is normal, and may give you the hope that if other mothers have found a way to survive a loss like this, then you will find your own way, too.

You say you've looked into counseling and "there seems to be a waiting list"-- but please don't rule out talking to a trusted friend or relative, a neighbor or co-worker, a clergy person, even someone on the Internet. I also encourage you to contact The Compassionat Friends (at http://www.compassionatefriends.org ) to see if there is a support group near you comprised of other grieving parents. Even if counseling isn't available to you right now, try contacting your local library, mortuary or hospice organization to find out what other bereavement resources are available in your own community -- and if you don't have the energy to do this research yourself, perhaps you can ask a friend, relative or neighbor to do it for you. (Remember all those people who have said to you, "If there is anything I can do please let me know." This would be a good assignment for them!)

I'm so grateful that your friend directed you to this Discussion Group (which can be a wonderful source of support and is always available you). If you haven't already done so, I hope you'll also take time to visit each of the pages on our Grief Healing Web site (at http://www.griefhealing.com ) -- it contains a wealth of information as well as links to many other helpful sites, each of which I've visited and reviewed personally. See the Links/Human Loss Links page on my site, at http://www.griefhealing.com/HumanLossLinks.htm. Scroll down the page to the category labeled DEATH OF A CHILD/GRANDCHILD. See especially these sites, each developed by parents whose feelings and experiences may be similar to your own:

Baby Steps, at http://www.babysteps.com

Bereaved Parents of the USA, at http://www.bereavedparentsusa.org

The Compassionate Friends, at http://www.compassionatefriends.org

Love Never Dies: A Mother's Journey from Loss to Love, at http://www.loveneverdies.net

Mothers in Sympathy and Support, at http://www.misschildren.org

You can also go to your library, bookstore or on the Internet to find and read some of the wonderful books others have written about coping with the death of a child -- they will help you learn what to expect in the weeks and months ahead, and they can reassure you that, although no one can do it for you and you must find your own way, you are not alone in this terrible grief journey of yours. See the Articles and Books page on my Web site, at http://www.griefhealing.com/columnsbooks.htm for suggestions. Once there, scroll down the page until you come to the section labeled Suggestions for Further Reading. Click on any title and you can read a description of each. (You don't have to buy these books from Amazon unless you want to; if you see a title that interests you, write down the title and ask for it in your public library.)

Please know that we're all holding you in our thoughts and prayers, and we hope that from time to time you'll let us know how you and your son are doing.

Wishing you peace and healing,

Marty T

How awful for you to have lost both your precious poodles at once; I can only imagine the pain you must be feeling, and how empty your home and heart must feel without those cherished fur babies beside you.

Although there is nothing I can say to make this any easier for you, I would like to share some thoughts with you.

First, what you are feeling is normal. Grief is not a pathological condition; rather it is a normal response to the loss of someone we love. How you're reacting to the loss of these two darling poodles depends on how attached you were to them, on your relationship with them, and on the role that they played in your life. Notice how you say that since you cannot have children these little ones were like your kids and you did everything together; that right now it feels as if the best part of your life is gone. It's only natural that, when we lose that which we love the most, we feel the overwhelming pain of loss. No matter who or what we love, the greater the love, the worse the pain feels when we lose the object of our love. Grief is indifferent to the species lost, and your loss of these two poodles is worthy of the grief you are experiencing now.

I’m not at all surprised to learn that you “went off”on your mother for arranging for you to go look at poodle puppies right away, even as you are in the very midst of grief. You might want to explain to your mother that you haven’t yet had an opportunity to grieve the ones you’ve so recently lost. You can tell her that grief takes an enormous amount of energy, and you don’t have a lot of emotional energy left over right now to place onto another puppy. It wouldn’t be fair to you and it certainly wouldn’t be fair to the new puppy.

There are very good reasons why you may be reluctant to go out and obtain another puppy right away. For one thing, you know that if you allow yourself to love another dog, you certainly don’t want to have to go through all this pain again at some future point when that dog dies, too. I can tell you that the one sure way to avoid repeating the pain you're feeling now is to decide never to love like that again. Yet you know (in your head, if not your heart) that whenever we take a companion animal into our lives, sooner or later we are going to lose that animal, simply because the life span of a dog is so much shorter than our own. We like to think our animals will be with us forever, but deep down we know that cannot be. This reality is very hard for us to accept when we are confronted with the death of our cherished animals. Far better that we acknowledge that harsh reality when we opt to bring an animal into our lives in the first place. Grief is the price we pay for loving our animals so much. You cannot grieve deeply unless you’ve loved just as deeply.

What also often stands in the way of our loving another pet is our sense of loyalty to the ones who just died. We confuse loving another animal with "replacing" the ones we've lost, and you may think no one could replace the precious poodles that you lost. It feels like an act of disloyalty, a violation of your dogs’ memory, an intrusion. After all, no other poodles could be like the ones you’ve just lost. No other dogs will have their unique qualities, nor should you expect them to. Instead of viewing your next puppy as a "replacement", try to think of him or her as making a new friend, one that you will learn about and come to love over time. Remember, too, that we humans have an infinite capacity to love.

Think about what your poodles wanted from life, and what they would want for you now. One of the most endearing things about our animals is that they just want us to be happy. If death takes them away from us, once we've expressed and worked through our sorrow over losing them, wouldn't they want us to be happy once again, and to open our hearts to other animals in need of all our love? Some folks are so full of love that they can always find another chamber in their hearts to accommodate another precious animal -- others could never do that -- and still others discover that it's not so much that they go looking for another animal, but another animal just seems to find them when the time is right. Let your own heart be your guide. No one knows you better than you do.

But if the day ever comes that you decide you’re ready to get another poodle, go ahead and do it. If you want to try a totally different breed of dog, that’s okay, too. I happen to believe that there is nothing wrong with wanting another dog to have characteristics as similar as possible to those of the ones we've loved and lost. Good heavens, that's why breeders work so hard to preserve the best qualities that distinguish their dogs from everyone else's! There is nothing wrong with being partial to a particular type of dog! That's why some people like Chihuahuas and others like Great Danes! (I happen to have a Tibetan terrier now, and I know that when Beringer joins all my other fur babies at the Rainbow Bridge some day, eventually I will want another Tibetan, simply because before I got him I researched the breed and he turned out to be exactly what I wanted him to be, based on what I had read about Tibetan terriers. To me, his breed is the best in the entire universe, and I would never settle for anything else. If I cannot have another Beringer, at the very least I can have another Tibetan terrier!)

I hope this information is helpful to you, my friend, and I hope that others will offer suggestions of their own. Animal people are very special folks, and I’m so glad you found your way to this forum where I know you will find the comfort and understanding you deserve. Grief is very hard work, but you need not do it all alone.

Wishing you peace and healing,

Dear Randie,

I don’t know whether you’ve learned the results of the biopsy of Missy’s tumor, but I want you to know we are thinking of you and hoping for the best. I’d also like to offer some information that may be helpful as you face whatever lies ahead for you and your cherished companion.

As you await the results of Missy’s tests, you may find yourself experiencing all the emotions of grief in anticipation of losing her. This is known as anticipatory grief, and the physical and emotional reactions involved are the same as those experienced in normal grief. It’s extremely difficult to watch your precious animal's health and quality of life deteriorate over time. If you’re thinking about euthanasia, you may be struggling with anxiety over separating from your dog, uncertain how you'll ever bring yourself to say good-bye. Torn between not wanting to see her suffer and not wanting to lose her, you may continue to go to great lengths to postpone or to avoid the decision all together.

Deciding when and whether to euthanize your cherished pet is probably one of the most difficult choices you'll ever have to make. Exploring all aspects of the decision with your veterinarian and with others whom you trust is very important. Keep in mind, however, that in the end, the decision belongs to you and to you alone. And if and when you do decide to choose euthanasia for your dog, remember that you will be doing it for reasons of mercy and compassion. You will be choosing to end Missy’s suffering and to create for her a dignified and painless death.

Most of us find it very difficult to think about planning ahead for the death of our pets. We act as if merely thinking or talking about the pet's dying will somehow make it happen – or we act as if not thinking or talking about our pet's illness will somehow make it go away. Yet the reality is that none of us has the power to cause the death of another merely by thinking or talking about it – and illnesses aren't prevented or cured simply by choosing not to think about them.

Detaching from a cherished pet is just as difficult whether it happens suddenly or over an extended period of time. But having time to prepare for what lies ahead can be one of the more positive aspects of anticipatory grieving. As you come to this difficult decision, I encourage you to use this time to gather information and to think through whatever questions you may have about the actual procedure, so you can discuss your concerns with your veterinarian. Then when the time comes, you'll be better prepared to use your own good judgment based on the reality of your particular situation.

I'd like to refer you to the following articles posted on my Grief Healing Web site, in hopes that they'll help you as you make the most of the time you have left with Missy:

“Anticipatory Grief: Anticipating the Loss of a Pet,” at http://www.griefhealing.com/article1.htm

“Thinking It Through: Exploring Questions about Euthanasia,” at http://www.griefhealing.com/article3.htm

“Euthanasia, The Merciful Release,” at http://www.griefhealing.com/blessing.htm

“The Fourth Day,” at http://www.griefhealing.com/fourthday.htm and

“Making the Euthanasia Decision,” at http://www.avma.org/care4pets/losspetl.htm

I've also written an on-line e-mail course about pet loss, which (if you're interested) you can get a sense of, at

http://www.selfhealingexpressions.com/pet_loss.shtml

I hope this information proves useful to you, Randie. Please know that we are thinking of you, and when you feel ready to do so, we hope that you will let us know how you and Missy are doing.

Wishing you peace and healing,

Dear Emma

I'm so sorry to learn of your dear father’s death barely five months ago. As you say, his death has left an emptiness inside you that cannot be filled. Even if you didn't see him very often, still you knew he was there for you, loving you, caring about you and worrying about you. My own dear father played a similar role in my life; he died in 1977, and I still miss him terribly!

I'm sure you've learned by now that "getting over" the death of someone you loved so much is impossible. We never "get over" such losses; instead, over time, we find ways to get through our grief and live in a world without the physical presence of our loved one in it. I can also tell you that the very special bond you have with your father will remain with you always. He will always be your dad, and he will be with you just as long as you strive to keep his memory alive in your heart and in your mind. As you work your way through this grief journey, keep in mind that it is the pain of losing your dad that you will one day manage to "let go" of -- but you need never "let go" of your relationship with him. As someone once said, death may end a life, but it does not end a relationship. So often we torture ourselves thinking we need to "let go" of our loved ones who have died and say goodbye to them forever more -- but when you loved your dad that much, why in the world would you want to let go of him? Focus instead on letting go of your pain. Think of what your dad would want for you as you live the rest of your life. Surely he would want you to miss him very much, as you do -- but do you really believe he would want to see you suffering and miserable forever more? Perhaps instead he would want you to go on to live a good life as a way of honoring his memory. Remember too that, although you cannot be where your father is now, in a very real sense your father is very much here with you, wherever you are, because his spirit and his memory live on in you, and because you are so very much a part of him. In many ways, you are more inseparable now than you were before, because you are not limited by space and time and distance.

You ask how long you should be feeling this way, and I can only tell you that grief has no specific time frame. It’s a little like asking “how high is up?” You may feel trapped in what you describe as “cuckoo land” at times, but that is because grief can indeed make us look and feel a little “crazy” sometimes. Grief can affect every aspect of our being: physical, emotional, social and spiritual. Take comfort in knowing that grief is not a pathological condition; rather it is a normal response to losing a loved one – and we grieve in proportion to the relationship we had with the person who has died. In that sense, grief is the price we pay for loving.

You also say you're not getting much support or understanding from your colleagues at work, who don't seem to appreciate the very special relationship you had with your dad, or how difficult it must be for you now to cope with your loss of him. Unfortunately, Emma, that too is not uncommon. People tend to be finished with our grief a lot sooner than we are done with our own need to talk about it. But there are many sources of help for grieving people out there -- you just need to take the time to find it.

You might begin by reading a little about what normal grief looks like, so you'll have a better understanding of what you're going through and what to expect in the weeks and months ahead -- it also may reassure you that what you're experiencing is quite normal under the circumstances. My own Grief Healing Web site contains a number of articles I've written on various aspects of grief (see my Articles and Books page), beautiful pieces written by others (see Quotes and Poems/Comfort for Grieving Hearts well as links to other sources of information on the Human Loss Links page. If you haven't already been there, you can get to my site by visiting http://www.griefhealing.com.

Participating in an on-line discussion group such as this one is another positive step, because it enables you to give your grief a voice. Here you can share your story of loss and find emotional support and even inspiration from others whose experiences may be similar to your own. And it's available to you at no cost, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Grief is very hard work, Emma, but you don’t have to do it all alone. It is our hope that here you’ll find some of the comfort and support you need and deserve.

Wishing you peace and healing,

Dear Ally,

Like everyone else reading your tragic story, I am terribly shocked and saddened to read of the death of your precious son Daniel and the horrifying circumstances of the accident that killed him. That your son “paid for his first real mistake with his life” is beyond understanding, and I cannot begin to imagine how devastating this loss must be for you.

I am struck by your statement that no one will tell you how your son actually died, that important details are missing, and that all your questions are being met with a “wall of silence.”

I want to assure you that your need to know the details of what happened to your son is NOT “macabre”– it is a normal and legitimate response to the unanticipated and violent manner in which your son was killed. The suddenness of Daniel’s death, the way you were notified about the accident, the fact that you had no opportunity to get to your son to spend loving time with him before he died, or to see and touch and hold his body – all these factors are complicating the grief you are experiencing now.

Getting to one’s child as soon as possible after a fatal accident is extremely important to parents – even though they may encounter considerable resistance from law enforcement officials and others in allowing them to do so. Read the words of another mother who found herself in a similar position:

Permission was finally granted for me to see Timothy on the condition that I “didn’t do anything silly.” As they watched, I presumed that meant I was not to touch him or disturb anyone. But Timothy was my child; he had not ceased to be my child. (He had not suddenly become a corpse, a body or the deceased.) I desperately needed to hold him, to look at him, to see his wounds. I needed to comfort and cuddle him, to examine and inspect him, to try to understand and most of all to hold him. Yet, I had been told “not to do anything silly.” If I did, I feared my watchers would run in, constrain me and lead me away. So I betrayed my own instincts and my son by standing there and "not doing anything silly." Our society has lost touch with our most basic instincts – the instincts we share with other mammals. We marvel at a mother cat washing her kittens. We admire the protection an elephant gives her sick calf. We are tearful and sympathize when an animal refuses to leave its dead offspring, nuzzling him and willing him to live again. That is exactly what a mother’s human instinct tells her to do. If a mother is not able to examine, hold and nuzzle her dead child, she is being denied motherhood in its extreme (Awooner-Renner, S., “I Desperately Needed to See My Son,” British Medical Journal, 32, 356.)

Family members who aren’t given time with their loved one’s body at the scene of an accident or aren’t told the truth about the body tend to imagine images far more grotesque than reality, and they commonly fill in the blanks between the bits and pieces they pick up from the media, the coroner’s office, the police investigators and others. Given only get minimal facts, their fantasies are often far worse than the reality of what actually happened.

When the time feels right to you and if you still feel a need to do so, I want to encourage you to find out exactly what happened to your son. There is nothing wrong with your wanting to seek out whoever was the final link to your dead son (the first officer on the scene, the paramedic who put him in the ambulance or the coroner who examined his body and determined the cause of death) and asking for details, including seeing whatever photographs were taken at the scene. (The organization Parents of Murdered Children has developed a very effective protocol for viewing such photographs; see http://www.pomc.com/.)

Much of the work of grieving involves remembering – but when remembering produces only traumatic images such as yours, Ally, the value of remembering is lost. Specialists who work with trauma survivors tell us that effective grief work cannot begin until the trauma is dealt with first. If you’re still experiencing anxiety, sleeplessness, intrusive images and nightmares, I want to encourage you to seek the help of a trauma specialist – a therapist who understands that trauma work must be done before you can begin the grief work that lies before you, as you come to terms with this horrible death of your son. Go to the TRAUMATIC LOSS page on my GriefHealing Web site for a list of suggested resources.

In the meantime, please know that we are holding you are in our hearts and in our prayers.

Wishing you peace and healing,

Son by My Side

Early each morning,

long before the roosters wake,

my son instinctively rolls out of bed

and slumbers down the hallway with his pillows in tow.

His daily migration always leads to the foot of our bed

and is followed by our rude awakening as he wedges between me and my wife.

Our bed does not comfortably fit the three of us.

I'm forced to sleep on my left side and my wife on her right.

My wife goes through similar pains as she wrestles back to sleep.

This arrangement leave us tired and sore each morning.

If I find myself resting next to a bed with tubes and wires invading my son

as monitors watch his motionless sleep,

I will desperately pray for him and his pillow to come home

and shatter the morning's peace at the foot of our bed.

If I find myself resting next to a slab marked by a stone that speaks of my son,

I will heartfully beg to reset the clock

to when my side of the bed was not my own.

It's now 3:00 a.m. and I find myself fighting for rest.

My arm is sore and sleep is beyond reach ~

But I silently lie in the morning calm as tears fill my eyes

and I consider how truly blessed is my life

with my son by my side.

-- Copyright © 2003 by Mike Kleiman

Mail to: mikekleiman@cs.com

Used with permission of the author

Dear Cin,

Thank you for suggesting that we add a forum for Sibling Loss. That forum now appears within the "Specific Bereavement" category and is available to you and others who wish to begin posting messages there.

Wishing you peace and healing,

Marty T

Dear George,

We all are so very sorry to learn of your daughter's suicide last year. I can only imagine how horrible this must be for you, and even though there is nothing I can do to take away your pain, I hope that I can offer you a few words of encouragement.

Suicide is one of the most difficult and painful ways to lose someone we love, because we are left with so many unanswerable questions and so many mixed feelings: How could our loved one do such a horrible thing to us? Where do we put all the anger, remorse, guilt and pain that we feel? What more could we have done to help? How can we ever get past the shame and embarrassment we feel when others find out what happened, and seem all too quick to judge us for not foreseeing this and for not doing enough to prevent it?

Please know that guilt and anger are the two most common reactions in grief, and most especially so when the death is by suicide. And anger at God is very normal, too. Losing someone we love is so very difficult to accept and to understand, and it is a process that takes place over a lifetime. This news is just too big to take in all at once and way too big for us to digest. We must let it in a little bit at a time over a very long period as eventually our minds come to accept what our hearts cannot.

I understand that you're feeling very guilty for something you may have said or done -- or failed to say or do -- that you think may have prevented your daughter's taking her own life. I hope you realize that when someone is determined to commit this act, there is very little if anything someone else can do to prevent it. We simply do not have any control over the choices and actions of another human being, no matter how much we may wish it to be otherwise. To believe that you could have prevented this simply by saying or doing something differently is to give yourself a tremendous degree of power over another person. If you truly had that much power over your daughter, you could have "made" her do anything you ever wanted her to do, and you and I both know that was not the case. For reasons known only to her, your daughter acted on an impulse and, as someone once said, her suicide became for her a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Unfortunately, you are the one who is left behind to deal with the pain and hurt and guilt that have resulted from her action.

You say you've tried a number of things and you don't know where to go from here. I sincerely hope that you are not trying to manage this grief all by yourself -- especially when you are coping not only with the loss of your daughter but also with a death by suicide. There is plenty of help out there, just waiting for you to find it. I will offer you some suggestions, and my prayer for you is that you will resolve to get busy and get moving on finding the help you know you need.

First, as a survivor of suicide, you need to educate yourself about the subject. Read what others have written about it (see, for example, Silent Grief: Living in the Wake of Suicide, by C. Lukas and H. Seiden, Bantam Books, 1990; you can go to Amazon.com to order it or ask for it at your local library). Visit some Web sites devoted to this subject (begin with SUICIDE: READ THIS FIRST, then see SAVE, Sena Foundation, SOLOS - Survivors of Loved Ones' Suicides, and SOS. Information on these sites will assure you that you are not alone in this tragedy. It will offer you some ways to manage your grief, and it will help you to recognize that if others can survive this most devastating of losses, then you can do it, too.

My own sister-in-law died by suicide nearly 30 years ago, and it still makes me sick to think about it. Since I am a therapist and "should've known how to help," I went through all the guilt you can imagine. But in the end, I had to come to terms with the reality that even though I did do all I could have done, it still wasn't enough to save my sister-in-law from herself. Eventually I learned that the person I most needed to forgive for that was me.

For whatever reason, your daughter obviously believed that life in this world was just too much for her, and at the moment she took her own life, she saw suicide as her only option, as the only way to end the emotional pain she felt at the time. Remember that your daughter's entire life was much more than those few final moments when she chose to hang herself, George. I promise that the day will come when the good memories you have of your daughter will outweigh the bad. The way you come to peace about all of this is one day at a time, and if that's too much, you work at it one hour or even one minute at a time. But if you still find that you're unable to get to that point of peace all by yourself, I urge you to find someone to talk to about it -- someone who knows something about suicide as well as about the grief that comes with having to bury your own child. That can be the best gift you could ever give yourself and your beloved daughter. Pick up the phone and ask your primary care physician to refer you to someone who specializes in loss and grief; call your local library, mortuary or hospice organization and ask what bereavement support services are available in your community. See if there is a local chapter of The Compassionate Friends where you live (Compassionate Friends. If you don't have the energy to do this research, ask a friend or relative to do it for you.

I hope this information proves helpful to you, George -- and to anyone else out there reading this who may be struggling to cope with this most terrible kind of loss. Please know that you are in our thoughts and prayers. Take good care of yourself. You took the initiative to join this discussion group and to post messages here. You can do the rest. You are worth it.

Wishing you peace and healing,

Marty Tousley, Bereavement Counselor

Grief Healing