Grief. We don’t choose it, but we will all have to face it. Two precious PWs have recently shared their experiences of grief with me. I want to pass on some of what they wrote and lessons we can all learn from them.
Louise lost her son, Jedediah, on Christmas Eve just 52 days after his birth. She said,” When I had slept through the night and I woke at the first light, I knew. I knew that something was horribly wrong. I went to his bed and he was not there; only his shell remained. My son had gone on before me. I felt that I had abandoned my baby. My intellect would tell my heart that this was not true. SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) deaths happen all over the world, living in Mongolia had nothing to do with it. Jed was healthy. He had a full checkup by an American doctor just a week before he died. Still, my heart was not listening. When a blow this devastating comes to a heart, it shuts down
“We buried Jedidiah three days after Christmas on the windswept, frozen Mongolian steppe, overlooking our small city. We had to hack away at the frozen earth for an hour, to make a small hole for his body. The ice-cold wind blew and, when we cried, our tears froze before they hit the ground. Our son was the first American to be born in Erdenet, Mongolia, the first American to die in Mongolia, and perhaps the first Christian to be buried.”
Almost a year later she said, “In some ways the pain of my loss is more real now, than it was, on that cold December morning. God provides a protecting anesthesia that cushions the blows and jolts of the first months after a shock like this. The Novocain has worn off now and the reality of my loss is settling in. The sense of loneliness has taken me by surprise and left me stumbling to get my balance. It camps out at my door and dogs my footsteps at every turn, like a hungry street urchin begging for money with outstretched, grimy hands and imploring eyes. If I give in and acknowledge this pest, will he go away and leave me alone or will he dog me to my grave? Some days the loneliness is overwhelming, it feels that the whole world has gone off and left me with my guts hanging out, the raw Siberian wind whistling through the vacuum left behind by my son’s premature departure. Other days I feel abandoned by Jedidiah, how could he do this to me, doesn’t he know that he was supposed to bury me? That’s the way it’s done. Children bury their parents not the other way around. How unfair of him not to play by the rules!”
From the vantage point of six years, Louise wrote, “Dealing with the grief was very difficult. We were so isolated and it was back in the “olden” days before email and we had no phone. Communication from home was very limited. The local believers were so petrified of death that the mere mention of my son’s name would send them running. I can look back on it now and see how they needed to see someone grieve with hope but at the time it was very hard. My biggest earthly help was the 23 year old, peace corps worker who was in our town. She would come around and take me on walks and just talk. You never know what God will use.”
Diane lost her son, Andrew, a little over a year and a half ago. Diane wrote, “Despite the medical diagnosis in which he was expected to live only a few weeks, he made it to 3 ½ and turned our world upside down in the process. The Lord definitely used this time in our lives where we had to lay down all our plans at His feet and to His control for our good. We’re so much richer for having had him a part of our lives as long as we did.
“Andrew received a measure of healing in his face(cleft lip), heart and eyes(cataracts) through the skilled hand of medical professionals. Each time we fully knew that we must hold his little life loosely for the inevitable time that the Lord would take him back into His arms.”
I asked Diane some questions about how they coped with Andrew’s life and death. They were in England at the time of his birth and lived there, except for a few trips until about a year and a half after his death. The medical care was excellent for Andrew and they were able to find work in England until another position came open overseas.
At one point Andrew’s older brother said, “So, I guess this means I’ll be your only son.” “No,” Diane replied, “you will always have had a brother and our family will always have had two boys…but Drew’s body doesn’t work and Jesus may take him to live in heaven sooner than us.”
She said, “Thankfully, Aaron could verbalise the times that it all got to be TOO much and we’d try to balance out our time with him. We’d work out some things to do that were special for Aaron alone.”
I asked if there was anything special people did that helped them cope or made life harder for them. Diane said, “The hardest thing to handle was well-meaning Christians stating the obvious that Andrew had gone to a better place… of course we knew that, but it seemed to equate his disabilities with a lack of quality of life.
“Those who just came to help clean, cook, iron, hug and cry with us and didn’t feel compelled to have to ‘explain’ life to us were the greatest balm and comfort in the days that followed.”
Here are some ways we can comfort those around us who grieve:
- Reach out to the grieving person: show your interest and share your caring feelings.
- Listen: Your greatest gift to a grieving person can be your willingness to listen.
- Ask how you can help: Be specific in your offer to do something and then follow up with action.
- Remember holidays and anniversaries: Do not allow the person to be isolated.
- Suggest activities that you can do together: walking, biking, or other exercises can be an opportunity to talk, and a good source of energy for a tired body and mind.
- Help the grieving person find new activities and friends: include grieving persons in your life.
- Pay attention to danger signs such as: weight loss, substance abuse, depression, prolonged sleep disorders, physical problems, talk about suicide, and lack of personal hygiene. (Excerpt from Hospice Net: A Guide to Grief. To see the entire article and many other good resources go to:Hospice )
If you are grieving the loss of a loved one, reach out today. Do not try to “tough it out” alone. If you need to “talk” and you don’t have anyone near by, write to us and we will pair you up by email with someone who is further along the road to healing.
Louise says
Jedidiah’s Lullaby
I had a baby in Mongolia. This alone is not a remarkable statistic, after all, people have been having babies in Mongolia for centuries, but those were Mongol babies. My baby was not a Mongol baby. Jedidiah Patrick was born November 2, 1994, in Erdenet, Mongolia, to PW parents, and three older sisters, who all loved and wanted him very much. Jedidiah lived for 52 days in Mongolia, and now he lives in heaven. He died Christmas Eve morning and when he left he took a piece of me with him. I wish you could have met my son. I wish you could have held him and seen how beautiful his hands, eyelashes, lips, . .. everything was. He learned to smile in his last week. He had a smile more gorgeous than a Mongolian sunrise. Jed used to stare so intently at my face, as if he were memorizing every detail. With Jed’s older sisters I had a special lullaby, that was just theirs, that I always sang to them. For Jed, I never could find the right lullaby. I know lots of lullabies, but none seemed to fit. The song I sang to him was the song from Sleeping Beauty, “I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream”. After he died I found myself humming that song. I always cried and remembered my son and what seemed like a dream. One day I sang it all the way through and realized what the words said “…but if l know you, I know what you’ll do. You’ll love me at once, the way you did once upon a dream.” This brought me such comfort, somewhere on the other side of this life he will know me. He was memorizing my face for a reason. He will love me the way he did once upon a dream.
That first day was a nightmare I never woke up from. When I had slept through the night and I woke at the first light, I knew. I knew that something was horribly wrong. I went to his bed and he was not there; only his shell remained. My son had gone on before me. That day seemed endless. I would stand and stare out the window and watch all the people pass. Where do they have to go? What do they have to do? Don’t they know the world has ended? Can’t they see that nothing will ever be the same again? I felt that I had abandoned my baby. My intellect would tell my heart that this was not true. SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) deaths happen all over the world, living in Mongolia had nothing to do with it. Jed was healthy. He had a full checkup by an American doctor just a week before he died. Still, my heart was not listening. When a blow this devastating comes to a heart, it shuts down and can’t hear from the brain. There was no reasoning, my heart kept saying I had left my son when he needed me most. What kind of mother are you?
My thoughts flew over the oceans and continents to my home. I thought of my friend Ellen, who was dying of cancer. Where was she, somewhere between here and heaven? It suddenly became imperative that I know where she was, I had to know. Overseas mail in and out of Asia, being what it is, it was two weeks before I knew. Ellen had gone home two weeks before Jedidiah. Ellen left behind an eighteen month-old son. Her doctor detected breast cancer days before he was born, so she never fully enjoyed her son. I can’t pretend to understand what heaven is like, but when I heard the news about Ellen I knew she had my baby. She took him in her arms seconds after his last breath in life and she sang him the lullaby I could never find. She nursed him on perfect breasts and she loves him the way I do. She will hear his first laugh and words and watch his first steps and teach him his first songs. She knows what color his eyes are. Maybe they are brown like mine. Someday, when the time is right, she will tell him about his mother. Reflecting on this scene has brought me comfort, because I know that I did not abandon my son. He is with someone I know and love and trust.
We buried Jedidiah three days after Christmas on the windswept, frozen, Mongolian steppe, overlooking our small city. We could see for miles away over the winter landscape. The whole memory seems so surreal. We had to hack away at the frozen earth for an hour, to make a small hole for his body. The ice-cold wind blew and, when we cried, our tears froze before they hit the ground. We laid him to rest in a blue crocheted blanket, sent by my 8th grade math teacher. When she made it, she had no idea that she was making a burial shroud. My husband found a lichen covered rock to serve as a headstone and he bordered the grave and made a cross with small stones. Our son was the first American to be born in Erdenet, Mongolia, the first American to die in Mongolia, and perhaps the first Christian to be buried.
Almost a year has passed since that day and in some ways the pain of my loss is more real now, than it was, on that cold December morning. God provides a protecting anesthesia that cushions the blows and jolts of the first months after a shock like this. The Novocain has worn off now and the reality of my loss is settling in. The sense of loneliness has taken me by surprise and left me stumbling to get my balance. It camps out at my door and dogs my footsteps at every turn, like a hungry street urchin begging for money with outstretched, grimy hands and imploring eyes. If I give in and acknowledge this pest, will he go away and leave me alone or will he dog me to my grave? Some days the loneliness is overwhelming, it feels that the whole world has gone off and left me with my guts hanging out, the raw Siberian wind whistling through the vacuum left behind by my son’s premature departure. Other days I feel abandoned by Jedidiah, how could he do this to me, doesn’t he know that he was supposed to bury me? That’s the way it’s done. Children bury their parents, not the other way around. How unfair of him not to play by the rules!
When we came to Mongolia, I had two goals for myself: I wanted to learn the language like a native; and have close intimate friendships with the local women. Well, I speak Mongol well enough to survive, and I have one close Mongol friend who speaks English. I do not consider this success. I realize that I am looking at my time in Mongolia from an earthly perspective and God looks at me from a heavenly perspective. Man makes his plans but God directs his footsteps. If He had told me what his goals were for me before we had left California, I would have never boarded the plane. The price we paid to see Satan’s kingdom pushed back was costly, but what we bought was priceless.
Our time in Mongolia is coming to a close soon. No matter where we go in this world, even if I never come back to this country, I am always, eternally, irrevocably linked and bound to this land. There are two sides to grief, on one hand I have complete assurance that my son is rejoicing with Jesus. As a mother this is my ultimate goal for my children, I have one down and three to go. On the other hand Jedidiah’s death has left me wounded and in need of healing. God is gracious and in his timing that healing has come and continues day by day. Because I still live in my physical body, there is a ripping and burning that I feel about leaving the place where my son’s body is buried. When I leave here, I leave behind a piece of me. As I move on from this place I realize I will always carry a tiny piece of this sorrow with me until I hold my son in heaven. There are many questions that I will never, in this lifetime, know the answers to. It is a mystery to me how one so small can leave a hole so large, how one so tiny can leave behind a path of destruction and grief a mile wide. But I know this “..I’ll love you at once, the way I did once upon a dream”.
from Louise
Diane says
The Assignment
Precious one
Loaned from above
Who’d believe you’d give us
Such reconciling love?
Only He
Who took on body frail
Could fully understand
When it was time to lift the veil.
At who’s request?
For it was not ours
That you stepped back home
In those quiet hours.
So many times we thought you’d gone
But you came back to do more
The life you had was a borrowed one
For the lessons we’d yet to store.
We wanted you forever, so far yet to run
But somehow you knew you’d finished
Though we’d only just begun
To embrace the changes
Your assignment had brought on.
Then I saw Him seated
High up on the Father’s side
In His rightful place and there you were
Upon His knee with pride.
With the cheekiest grin I ever saw
This side of heaven.-
Returned to your greatest love
Your assignment sealed
From this bruised world
Your brokenness was fully healed. In memory of all God used you to do in our lives, dear Andrew.
Your Mum (with help from Papa) – 8 July 1999
Lea says
Grief Unexpressed
Sometimes Christians have a difficult time coming to terms with grief. On one hand, we know that our loved ones have gone to a better place, they wouldn’t come back to us if they could. All of their suffering is over, they are in the presence of God – yet we are left with an empty space.
For some reason, I think that some of us may feel guilty or selfish (or whatever you may want to call it) for wanting that person to return to us and not let them go on. We put on the “I am okay” face, even in the saddest of times. On one hand we want to talk and on the other, we can’t allow ourselves to open up and be truthful to others about what we are going through.
My own grief, that I’ve tried to come to terms with, may not be classified by some as a real death or reason to grieve. That perception may be the reason it took me so long to come to terms with my loss. I miscarried four different times a number of years ago between the births of our first and second children.
The first time, it happened while we were living in the US and many people told me that lots of women have miscarriages, it happens unfortunately but you will get over it. This pregnancy was unplanned, our baby boy (Tommy) was only 8 months old at the time and I was also trying to come to terms with being a mother for the first time. I laid in the hospital room awake while they did the D&C – trying to be brave. The baby had died some weeks before. There was no heartbeat and for some reason my body just failed to expel what was left of the pregnancy on its own. The Dr. called it a “missed abortion.” We waited for a couple of weeks to see if I would miscarry on my own but I didn’t. So, I did my best to get over it.
I miscarried the second time while I was in the US caring for my two year old son who was ill. I had returned from Zaire where we were serving to have some tests done on Tommy. It was a very stressful time. I didn’t tell anyone that I was pregnant although I had suspected it for several weeks. While at the hospital with my son, I had a blood test done to confirm my suspicions and the test came out positive. I was happy, praying that this baby wouldn’t be lost like the first. I did end up telling one or two people, but in the end I was sorry that I did.
Shortly after that test, I began to experience all of the symptoms that I had the first time. I tried to hide it, and I think I did successfully. One morning I got up and was in very bad pain with cramping in my abdomen. I went to the bathroom and miscarried and flushed the toilet. I was all alone and didn’t know what else to do – except try to take it easy and hope that I didn’t have to go to the hospital and tell everyone what had happened. Thankfully, I recovered without having to go through a D&C.
Not long after that I flew back to Africa with Tommy and in the busy-ness of taking care of him and getting resettled back into our life there – I tried not to think or talk about what had happened. After all, it was kept pretty secret. Only one or two people knew about this second miscarriage and I didn’t even talk to them much about what happened. I remember the only time that I cried over this miscarriage was when I ran into my sister-in-law in the foyer of the church one day. She asked me how I was (she was one of the few I had told) and I cried and told her I lost the pregnancy. She hugged me tightly – which I needed so much. Then I walked away and dried my face hoping no one saw, lest I’d have to explain to them what had happened.
We waited for a while after this second miscarriage. I reasoned within myself that perhaps the stress of work, Tommy’s illness, travel, etc. was too much. I did my best to reason with myself and deal with how I felt privately.
The third time I miscarried, I was back in Zaire. It was about a year after the second miscarriage. I had suspected that I was pregnant. I had a test done which confirmed my suspicions and we were all ecstatic – congratulations all around. For some reason, we didn’t keep it a secret and told everyone. After 2 months, I began to experience bleeding and pain. I had terrible pain in both my back and abdomen. I passed what I thought was the whole pregnancy in the bathroom one morning and I hoped that that was the end. The pain, however, didn’t cease. I kept having back pain and bleeding and after a couple of days, I began to have high fevers.
After 5 days of this, I was in the bed, not knowing what to do, the pain and fevers wouldn’t go away. Medical facilities in this part of Zaire were humble at best. The 5th morning we heard a plane fly over the city (Kalemie, was so small that no planes flew in on a regular basis, there was no easy way to get me out). Someone went out to meet it; it was flying into the interior. They agreed to take me to Nairobi the next day on their way back. The next day after flying into Nairobi and being just miserable on the plane from Zaire, I was taken into surgery.
The Dr. performed a laparotomy, D&C as well as an appendectomy. The Dr. said it was most likely the appendicitis that caused the miscarriage – not to worry, you’ll be fine and have more children. Recovery was painful but I thought that all would be fine and we would have another baby when I got better.
After almost two years, I discovered once again that I was pregnant. We were on furlough in the US during this time. My husband was scheduled to fly down to Haiti from Florida (where we are based) – but when I began to experience those familiar pains just a few days before he was supposed to leave, he cancelled his trip. I did everything I was told to do – I stayed in bed, I slept, I ate good food, I avoided stress – but the pains didn’t stop. My husband was out early one afternoon and while I was at home I once again had terrible pain and lost the baby.
This last time I saw everything. All the other times I hadn’t been brave enough to look. This time was different and I somehow thought that if I could see what I had lost, it would be easier to deal with. There was a small person, hands, feet, eyes – only about two inches long, but a person. I didn’t know what to do. I wondered about the other three. Should they have been buried? What do I do with this one? I tried to think of a way to save this baby’s body and bury it – what was I to do. This miscarriage was different in that I began to bleed a lot more than with the other three. I did finally flush that baby’s body down the toilet – the Dr. said I should’ve kept the body (they called the body a fetus) so that tests could have been done to determine why I was miscarrying all the time.
The bleeding didn’t stop so I ended up having another D&C in the hospital. There I laid and finally allowed myself the first really good cry for all of the babies I’d lost. I have come to realize that it is okay to unleash the tears when they come and tell people, “No, I am not okay today, but with God’s help I will get better.”
The grieving process I went through after that last miscarriage helped me deal with the loss of that baby, but also with the first three. That last miscarriage was 12 years ago this April (2001). I still remember every detail of every loss vividly and wonder sometimes what we would’ve named them and what they would’ve looked like. But I do take courage in the fact that I believe I will see them one day and they will recognize me and the rest of their family.
We were blessed with two more children after the 4th miscarriage. Our daughter, Amanda, is now eleven years old and our youngest son, Stephen, is seven. Our three kids don’t know of their four siblings in heaven yet, someday we will tell them. For now, I take comfort in their presence and in the joy of having them in our home.
Alice J. Wiseler says
You Can Help a Grieving Heart
Oh, we talk about the best cold medications and if cherry cough syrup tastes better to kids than orange. We can recommend preschools and sneakers. But the hardest part of parenting is the least often discussed. The roughest aspect of being a parent is losing a child.
Then we clam up. We don’t want to hear. We are threatened. If her child died, mine could, too. What can we do when parenting goes beyond the normal expectations? “What do I say?” friends ask me with a look of agony in their eyes. “I feel so helpless. I can’t empathize, I haven’t had a child die.”
You can help. You don’t have to stand there with a blank stare or excuse yourself from the conversation. You can be informed so that you will be able to reach out to a friend who has lost a child.
“Jump into the midst of things and do something,” says Ronald Knapp author of the book, Beyond Endurance: When A Child Dies. Traditionally there are the sympathy cards and hot casseroles brought over to the bereaved’s home. But it doesn’t end there. That is only the beginning of reaching out to your friend or relative who has recently experienced the death of a child at any age. Here are 15 tips you can learn to make you an effective and compassionate friend to your friend in pain:
-Listen. When you ask your friend, “How are you doing today?” wait to hear the answer.
-Cry with her. She may cry also, but your tears don’t make her cry. She cries when no one else is around and within her heart are the daily tears no one sees.
-Don’t use cliches. Avoid lines like, “It will get better.” “Be grateful you have other children.” “You’re young, you can have another baby.” “He was sick and it is good he is no longer suffering.” There will never be a phrase invented that makes it all right that a child died.
-Help with the care of the surviving children. Offer to take them to the park, your house for a meal, to church. Say “May I please take Billy to the park today? Is four okay with you?” Don’t give the line, “If you need me, call me.” Your bereaved friend may not feel comfortable with asking for help.
-Say your friend’s child’s name. Even if she cries, these are tears that heal. Acknowledging that the child lived and has not been forgotten is a wonderful balm to a broken heart.
-Give to the memorial fund. Find out what it is and give, today, next year and the next.
-Some mothers start to collect items that bring comfort after a child dies; find out what it is your friend is collecting and buy one for her. My son liked watermelons and we have many stories of watermelons and him.Therefore my house now has assorted watermelon mementoes — a tea pot, kitchen towel and soap dispenser. Many mothers find solace in rainbows, butterflies and angels.
-Send a card (I’m thinking of you is fine) but stay away from sappy sympathy ones.
-Go to the grave. Take flowers, a balloon or a toy. How honored your friend will be to see what you have left there the next time she visits the cemetery.
-Don’t use religion as a ‘brush away’ for pain. Stay clear of words that don’t help like, “It was God’s will.”
-Don’t judge her. You don’t know what she is going through each day, you can not know of the intense pain unless you have had a child die.
-Stay in touch. Call to hear how she is coping. Suggest getting together, but if she isn’t up for it, give her space.
-Read a book on grief, focusing on the parts that give you ideas on how to be a source of comfort for your bereaved friend.
-Know she has a hole in her heart, a missing piece due to the death of her child. Holes like these never heal so accept this truth and don’t expect her to ‘get over’ this loss.
-Remember that with the death of her child, a part of her died — old beliefs, ideals, etc. Her life has been forever changed. Let her know your love for her as well as God’s love for her is still the same.
Even as you participate in the suggestions above, you will still feel uncomfortable. It has been three years since the death of my four year-old, Daniel, and even now when I meet a newly-bereaved mother, I am uncomfortable. Talking of the untimely death of a child is never easy for anyone.
However, avoiding reality does not bring healing. You will provide many gifts of comfort along the way when you actively decide to help your grieving friend. When my friends and family acknowledge all four or my children, the three on this earth and the one in Heaven, I am honored. Each time it is as though a ray of warm sunlight has touched my soul.
~ Alice J. Wisler writes for many bereavement publications. Her recent book, Slices of Sunlight, A Cookbook of Memories: Remembrances of the Children We Held stresses the importance of recalling those children’s lives who have died through recipes and food-related stories. The book is available through amazon.com More information is available on Alice’s website http://www.mindspring.com
pwdiane says
One of our PW members died earlier this year after a 50 year long marriage. Her husband wrote to friends he is planning to visit in the next few months.
“You can understand that my emotions are near the surface these days and will be seen in unpredictable moments of tears and the inability to continue to speak normally. When that happens you may feel embarrassed for me or think that you are hurting me and need to withdraw or change the subject. Please don’t do that. Just allow me a few minutes to regain my emotional balance. While there is sorrow in these moments there is also joy. One of the purposes of my trip is to let sorrow and joy have their work in me. Sorrow and joy met in our Lord Jesus and I feel like I am learning a little more about Him in my grief.”