Tonight's picture was taken in November of 2008 after Mattie's second limb salvaging surgery. Despite Mattie being hooked up to IVs, drainage tubes, and pain pumps... look at his will to find a way to move and smile. This required great effort because he was in a lot of pain, confined to his bed and with a life greatly altered. Trying to give him a quality of life was challenging both on a physical and emotional level. Which is why there are certain people from our days in the hospital who will always hold a special place in our hearts! They went out of their way to make this sheer torture more bearable.
Quote of the day: Great opportunities to help others seldom come, but small ones surround us every day. ~ Sally Koch
Later today as I was checking my email, I noticed I received an article from The Washington Post from my friend, Debbie. The article is entitled, No, you don't have to "move on." It's okay to grieve forever. The death of children and siblings affects the quality of the rest of our lives. The title alone caught my attention! So I was compelled to read it.
This was actually a very brave article to write as a PhD student! I give Zoe a gold star, but then again she lost a brother at an early age and saw a family transformed by such an unexpected and tragic death. I have no doubt that such a personal loss has influenced her lens and how she interacts with any client who walks through her door with a grief and loss issue. Do I think it is important to have gone through a loss of a child in order to help someone with such a loss, not necessarily, but it can help!
Zoe's commentary that is most noticeable from the article is:
Like many therapists, I get a lot of people who come through the door thinking there’s something wrong with them because they’re feeling the loss of someone who has died, left or disappeared long ago. Often they ask me why they still sometimes cry. Sometimes I ask them to tell me why they think they shouldn’t still be sad. And most of the time we come to the conclusion they’re in my office so I can somehow put a cork in it for them so they can stop upsetting their families and the rest of the world.
What Zoe is writing about is unfortunately spot on. Many of the issues faced by those who are grieving is feeling different in the world around them. Friends and family want you to return to your former self, they want you "fixed," "happy," and adopting the philosophy that life "must go on." But what that attitude results in is only frustration for the griever. Frustration because it is constantly challenging to have to justify one's heart ache, one's sorrow, and one's feelings. Yet the more one wants to talk about these feelings and thoughts, the more the griever is deemed odd or as Zoe puts it "ghoulish." I think the term ghoulish is quite apropos. Living with the sights and sounds we have experienced during Mattie's battle and death will always be a part of us. They live within us and yet no one can see them. We do not talk about these things for the most part, but that is not to say that they do not exist and they do not influence our lives. They do, which is what makes childhood cancer ghoulish in a way. It is the part of our lives which we must hide and keep in their place so as to not scare those around us.
Yet what would grief work really look like for a bereaved parent if we lived in a world where we did not feel the pressure to protect those around us from our true feelings, our hurts, our turmoils, and of course from being judged for having these thoughts and feelings?!
No, you don't have to "move on." It's okay to grieve forever. The death of children and siblings affects the quality of the rest of our lives:http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/11/17/no-you-dont-have-to-move-on-its-okay-to-grieve-forever/?hpid=z12
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