The Power of Escape

One thing I'd like to do one day is to start a non-profit agency that pays for trips for families who have lost a loved one.  I know a trip to Yellowstone was better than any medicine just after we lost Alli.  It helped us all bond as a family and escape from day-to-day living.  When your world has changed as completely as it does for those who are fresh to the world of deep mourning, it can really help to get away from the mundane.  I know I, personally, looked around with raw, painful eyes that had been so fundamentally transformed and felt what I saw should reflect the pain I felt inside.  It just didn't feel right that headlines didn't shout that I'd just lost a baby.  It felt wrong that this piece of furniture or that blanket sat exactly where it sat when that person was alive.  I just wanted to escape my own skin.  I've been to Yellowstone several times before and since that day, but none of those trips have felt quite so magical as that one trip.

We were pondering sending my friend, who has just lost her husband, on a trip somewhere but then found out someone had beaten us to it.  I haven't had the chance to talk with her about it, but I'm sure it will help her state of mind to get away for a while.

Even after I came back from the physical trip, I found that reading and watching movies, a mental escape, helped some.  It helped to read and experience other people's (real or fictional) stories, so I didn't have to be stuck in a world so full of my own pain.  Sometimes, it helped when I was able to read other stories like mine because it allowed me to realize I'm not alone.  It also helped me see how others make it through.  Escape was such a good thing for me.  I know I'm not alone.

Funerals

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Funerals were once no big deal to me, back when they aid last respects to people with whom I had some emotional distance.  I never felt truly close to my grandparents, so their funerals didn't devastate me.  Those ceremonies simply meant they were moving onto the next logical step in their journey.  They were no longer in pain or in a world of dementia fog.  My grandma's also meant they could be together since hers came second.  Then my half-brother was cut down in the prime of his life by a murderer, who later ended up on the FBI's most wanted.  It felt like the specter of death was slowly closing in on my life where grandparents and cats could be lost but no one else.  However, I hadn't seen that brother much over the years.  I mostly felt for his wife and children and for my dad and his.  Loss had not become a meaningful companion.

Then came the year when my husband lost his father, I lost my closest brother, and, worst of all, my husband and I lost our baby, the center of my world.  They all died within about four months of each other.  Loss rocked my world and fundamentally changed me forever.  I was no longer a spectator to other people's loss.  Mourning became part of my identity.  Funerals became painful, almost impossible places to be.

A few days ago, we went to the memorial service of that friend's husband I mentioned last blog.  It was in a park and didn't exactly feel like a chapel-type funeral since it was mostly secular.  But any funeral brings up shades of pain.  I point blank refused to go to the viewing.  The real person, the person's soul that gave them light and life, is gone.  All that is left is an empty shell.  There are few things more painful than looking at that shell, especially when the person meant so much to you.

My heart broke for my friend on that day.  It continues to break every day when something brings to mind her pain.  My friend and I spent two hours just talking and crying together one day recently.  It didn't feel like enough.  When someone has had their heart ripped from their chest like that, nothing is enough.  But mourning with those that mourn is something, which is certainly better than nothing.

I know we can live with our loved ones again.  I know their spirits are still around, loving us.  I know families can be together forever, that love never dies.  But I also know it hurts today.  Funerals hurt.  We need them for closure, but they hurt.  Visiting graves hurts.  Loss hurts.  It helps to have an eternal perspective, to know that this life is just a short piece of a much longer journey.  It helps to know that our hearts can be healed by the Savior.  But it still hurts.  The best thing we can do is to show each other empathy and understanding, to show love and that we are there for each other.  No matter what and for as long as it takes.

Survived another Angelversary

I zoomed toward the seventh anniversary of my baby's loss with the usual dread.  Her birthday four months ago was worse than any for years.  I was expecting more of the same but worse.

Then, the day before my baby's angelversary, an incident thit me like a speeding brick wall, too close to home.  My long time friend told me her husband had just died in a car crash.  She's one of the most sensitive, sweetest people I have ever known, and her husband had been her childhood sweetheart.  They've been best friends and confidants forever.  Her whole world revolved around him.

Since my loss, I've been perpetually terrified of losing another family member.  My series of miscarriages have only made my fear worse.  Right after my baby died, we went to support groups in which recent widows and widowers spoke of the pain of losing the other half of their mind, their greatest support, and the love of their lives.  And now, my good friend faced that agony.  I can only imagine what she's going through.

We went on a mini vacation for the angelversary to be anywhere but at home, in our own skins during that painful day.  I also had work I had to do time-sensitive work on the trip that I hadn't managed to finish before.  Between our campout trip to Craters of the Moon and grading papers, I scarcely had time to think about the significance of the day.  Every time I did, any self-pity or sorrow turned into mourning for my friend's loss.

I highly recommend staying busy on any anniversary and taking the time to reach out to others who are struggling.  The scriptures tell us to mourn with those that mourn.  There is no question that crying with her, lifting her, lifted me as well.