Death Anniversary

I know how to handle my angel's birthday: we throw her a party with an angel food cake.  We make her presents.  We go to the LDS temple.  I can (sometimes) handle it with some good grace.  But there's nothing lovely or inspiring about the anniversary of her death.  There's no way to feel or be in a way that won't hurt.  The day is a landmine.  I just know in advance that it will hurt, and no amount of bracing will help.  As I've said before, most days, I'm fine.  Most days, I can handle loss.  I don't have to think about loss all day every day.  I just miss her, and that's part of my life.

But on the death day, the scar tissue/bandage are yanked off, and the wound is exposed.  The lightest touch will hurt.  I know it will.  It's part of how these days work.  The day comes, and it feels like no time has passed.

Other than a temple trip, the only thing that we consistently do from year to year is to pull out her picture book to open the wound because it will happen whether or not we plan for it.  If we as a family plan a set time to open her book, we also plan a set time where we can cry and let the emotions flow.  And at least once a year, that's okay.  It's simply part of mourning.

Fellow Travellers

The Mourner's Club

There's a club called by many names.  Club members can be called mourners, parents of angels, widows and widowers, and countless other names.  It's a group of people who get it, who have felt some of the deepest emotional pain there is to feel, and who understand what it's like.  This kind of pain is not a normal level of pain.  Everyone has lost something, and most people have lost someone.  But not every loss results in agony like this.  It's a pain that changes one's life, that tears a hole in one's heart and leaves it bleeding on the floor. Those in that club feel like outsiders, aliens in groups wherein they stand alone.  Those who have never felt that kind of pain have a hard time knowing what to say and what not to say to club members.

Those in the club appreciate the empathy found among fellow travellers of those dark roads, but we would never wish club membership on anyone because the dues are too high.  Once one has joined that club, we often find it surprising how many fellow travellers there are.  We run into them in the grocery store, in our church groups, online, everywhere.  We suddenly discover we are not alone.

Jesus Christ: 

There is one Traveller who can bring understanding, empathy, and healing to all of us.  He has suffered greater levels of pain than we could ever imagine, and all for love, all so He could understand what we suffer.  He has taken upon himself all of our pains, not just our sins.  He chose to become a fellow traveller, so He could heal us and help us through the worse of our agony.  Our hearts don't have to stay broken.  The wound does not have to continue to bleed.  We will never be what we once were, but we are somehow stronger than we were before because He has walked with us, strengthened us, taught us how to strengthen and love others.  At one point or another, most people on this earth will join this club.  We can choose to either wallow in the pain, focusing on our isolation, or we can seek the healing offered by the Fellow Traveller who loves us all more than words can say.  We can choose to be weighed down or lifted up by our pain, crushed or refined.  He is there for us.  But it is up to us whether or not to reach out, to pray, to bring his Spirit in our lives and be healed.

Mourning with Children that Mourn

When my baby died, my remaining children struggled in their own way.  It's easy for a mother or father to forget they're not alone in their pain.  But children feel it, too.  They were fairly young at the time.  My boy had a hard time sleeping or staying asleep.  He was afraid of sleeping in his own bed. We had to get him a new one.  My girl didn't want to talk about it, but she was hurting.  She'd had a really strong bond with Alamanda.  She told us her sister was coming before we knew we were pregnant.  She knew details of the accident that took Alamanda that we didn't tell her because her angel sister did.  We got them into a counselor.  Time went on.  My boy doesn't like to talk about death but seems mostly fine.  He's more distressed when I talk about it because I'm distressed.  He tries to comfort me by bringing me water or hugging me.  

My girl, however, still aches.  But she really really doesn't want to talk about it, even though she still struggles through any story or movie in which there is a separation or death.  I learned a few techniques about how to help her from experts and from looking at this website.  I learned from experts that one can have children draw how mourning feels and talk about their drawings.  In general, I learned the power of a child's art to help them through.  We're looking at other options to help her.  

The point is that children need permission to mourn, too.  Children need to know it's okay to hurt inside.  It's okay to talk about, write about, draw about their pain.  It's okay to pray together and ask for peace and healing. Every child is different.  And parents aren't always equipped to know what to do.  It's okay for parents to consult with those who know more, to reach out for help.   We need to help them know we're aware of them, that we acknowledge their emotions, and that their emotions matter as much as an adult's does.  Healing can come for them as much as it can come for adults.