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Twas the Night After Christmas

Twas the Night After Christmas

-By Author Laura Diehl

 

Twas the night after Christmas and I was still numb;

The holidays felt like they had not really come.

It’s hard to explain, but it didn’t seem fair,

That my child is now gone, and I cannot share

The laughter and joy of this fun holiday

In our wonderful, traditional family way.

She is not nestled all snug in her bed

With memories of another Christmas filling her head.

“Will it ever get better?” I ask in my heart,

Knowing that each year we will remain apart.

As I cry out to God full of heartache and tears,

He reminds me His presence remains very near.

And though I don’t feel a desire to celebrate

The reason to do so remains very great.

For Jesus came as a baby on earth

To give life here meaning, value and worth.

And even though I have said goodbye

And I am confused and don’t know why,

The truth remains I will see you again

And there will be no more tears or pain.

But until that day comes and it’s my turn to go

There is one thing that I certainly know,

The love that I have for you is without measure

And you remain in my heart, as a beautiful treasure.

And while dreading to go into a year that is new

I realize each day brings me closer to you.

My Christmas may not have been merry and bright,

But because Jesus came, someday, it will all be made right.

 

 

Are you a newly bereaved parent, having lost your child in the last year or two? If so, we would like to send you a word of hope and encouragement from someone who has been right where you are. You are not alone. Let us here at Grieving Parents Sharing Hope (GPS Hope) walk with you on this unwanted life-long journey.

(Along with this PDF, you will be added to our email list to receive a Weekly Word of Hope, which you can unsubscribe from at any time.)

Expressions of Hope is written by author, speaker and singer Laura Diehl. She and her husband, Dave, are the founders of Grieving Parents Sharing Hope (GPS Hope). Dave and Laura travel full time in their Hope Mobile (a 38-foot motor home) to be more easily available for speaking and ministry requests, including being invited to hold one-day GPS Hope & Healing conferences.

 

If you would like more information about Laura as a speaker for your next event or want more information on hosting a GPS Hope & Healing conference, click here.

 

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Is There Such a Thing as Grief Recovery?

Several years ago, in my searching for how to deal with my grief from the death of my oldest daughter, I came across an article called “Grief Recovery.” As I started reading it, I discovered it was for any kind of loss including jobs, moving, pet loss, death, divorce or any kind of breakup, starting school, etc.

It talked about how recovery is when we can have memories without the pain. I had a hard time reading it without getting angry. It is just impossible to compare grieving the death of a child to all these other things. I’m not saying those things are not painful and that there is not a level of grief involved, but this article was basically saying after you grieve the right way, you can move on with life and put the past behind you.

I might be able to move forward, but it isn’t by putting the death of Becca behind me! She will always be in front of me. Our children are our legacy. They are supposed to keep going when we leave this earth. Even if she isn’t with me anymore, I can’t leave her in my past and go on without her.

Even if we wanted to do so, the things that trigger us and remind us of our loss can come unexpectedly out of nowhere and bring back the memory, accompanied by unwanted pain once again.

I am a parent who took a lot of trips to the grave site for probably a year or more. One day while I was there, the med-flight helicopter flew over me. I totally lost it and found myself sobbing uncontrollably. Later, I wrote on Facebook about what had happened, and a friend told me it was a sign of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). I guess it made sense.

The last year and a half of Becca’s life she had around a dozen ambulance rides, because of her heart issues. For many, many months after Becca passed, whenever I heard an ambulance I would freeze in panic and my mind would immediately question, “Where is Becca?” And of course, there was always the realization of where she was, and the siren I was hearing was definitely not for her.

The first year of special dates is always difficult for anyone who has lost a loved one, but for a parent who has a child missing it can be almost unbearable. For us, Thanksgiving came first and brought with it the memory of how the year before, Becca had insisted on hosting the family, even though she was wheelchair bound. Then came Christmas, Becca’s favorite holiday, and then the pain of the first time she was not there to celebrate her birthday, and so on. Eventually it came around to the one-year anniversary of her death.

Everyone grieves differently, and I wanted to be sensitive to that. Some of the family wanted to get together and celebrate her life, and others didn’t want anything to do with that. I was torn, and to be honest I don’t even remember what ended up happening that first year for her birthday or the anniversary of her death.

The part I do remember, though, is a precious memory I now share with Becca’s daughter. That first year, my granddaughter asked what we were doing for her mom’s birthday. Knowing how some of the family did not want to do anything, I suggested I come to her school for lunch on that day and bring birthday cupcakes for the two of us. She was thrilled, and we continued doing it for a few years (until she hit Middle School).

What I wasn’t expecting was to have the second year be harder than the first! I see two reasons for this. First, I braced myself for those one-year markers. I knew they were going to be hard, so I tried to prepare myself for them mentally and emotionally. The second year it was more like I was caught off guard. I’ve been through this before; it should be better this year, I thought, so all of a sudden, those dates were here, and they just hit me like a brick wall.

Second, I was still in such a fog of unbelief the first year. So as the fog started to lift that second year, the loss was hitting me with full force. By the third year, it was more like a painful acceptance, trying to figure out how to live this new life without my daughter.

I feel like I need to say this to the parents who are still in deep grief. Do not look at any dates to see where I or others were emotionally in our grieving process and use it as some sort of a timeline to force on yourself. We are all on our own individual timeline and need to go through the process at our own speed. Yes, there are some “patterns” (for lack of a better word) that some of us seem to fall into, but don’t expect yourself to fit into that. Give yourself grace to walk your own necessary path. As long as you are putting one foot in front of the other, you will get there.

Grief recovery for a bereaved parent? No, not really. Yes, it is possible to get to the point where we can have memories without the pain. It happens gradually, but for the rest of our lives there will be times where the pain returns, because all we have are the memories of our child. The goal is to have that happen less and less, but it is naïve to think we will get to the point where we no longer feel pain within the memories and therefore have “recovered,” as the article I read suggested.

Like someone with an amputation, (which Becca had her leg amputated at three years old) we will never fully recover. But we can eventually learn how to live around it, adapting our life to that part of us missing.

If you don’t think it’s possible, that’s okay. Most of us thought the same thing, which is why we and others are here. We want to be that hope and light to you, like someone was to us.  So make sure you stay connected to those who are further down this path, who will always validate your painful loss, and share your memories, whether they come with tears, or a smile.

Do you find it hard to find ways to find comfort in grieving the death of your child? We would be happy to send you our list of thirty suggestions to bring ourselves comfort. Just submit your name and email address below.

 

Expressions of Hope is written by author, speaker and singer Laura Diehl. She and her husband, Dave, are the founders of Grieving Parents Sharing Hope (GPS Hope). Dave and Laura travel full time in their Hope Mobile (a 38-foot motor home) to be more easily available for speaking and ministry requests, including being invited to hold one-day GPS Hope & Healing conferences.

Laura is a national keynote speaker and has also been a workshop speaker for events such as The Compassionate Friends and Bereaved Parents USA national conferences, along with being a guest on radio shows, podcasts and other media channels such as webinars with Open to Hope.

 

If you would like more information about Laura as a speaker for your next event or want more information on hosting a GPS Hope & Healing conference, click here.

 

GPS Hope exists to walk with grieving parents through the suffocating darkness of child-loss, guiding them to a place of hope, light and purpose.
 We also support families, friends and coworkers who want to know how to support these parents both short and long-term.

 

 

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How Do I Do It?

I am guessing that reading the following sentence will make you want to move on to something else, but I beg you to please read this all the way through because there are so many who desperately need you to understand them. July is National Bereaved Parents Month. There, I said it, now please stay with me to the end of this blog.

Up to this point, I have not even mentioned that fact, even though we have a national ministry to grieving parents. Why haven’t I? Because there are no words to describe what it means to be a bereaved parent.

I can’t put words to the agonizing and tormenting darkness of the pit we were hurled into. Or the gut-wrenching pain of having our child amputated from us with no anesthesia.

There is no way to share how this emptiness never ever leaves us, or how there is a permanent gaping wound that doesn’t even scar but is something we have to constantly nurse and give attention to.

We can’t explain in a way that makes sense why we can’t come  to family events, or “get back to normal.” There is no more normal for us, ever, while we are on this earth. We are now a “before” and “after” person.

Everything is now bittersweet, and quite often more bitter than sweet. We want to celebrate the graduations, the weddings and the precious new births and join the family holiday festivities. And we do, in our own way. But each life event is another slap-in-the-face reminder of who isn’t there and should have been. We can’t help but feel the aching emptiness. And being in a happy place surrounded by people who are celebrating, doesn’t necessarily make us feel better like some people tell us it will, but often just compounds the grief and brings it all back.

When you have a child go away, maybe to camp, or to stay with grandma for a couple of weeks, or go on a mission trip, or head off to college, or move across the country for a job, your heart aches. You won’t be able to be part of their lives on a day-to-day basis. We get it, we really do. It is a valid issue. But please know that it is hard for bereaved parents to hear those around us lament about their child being out of their presence for a while, because you still have access to them through the digital highway. And at some point, you will be with them again. We have none of that. Period. For the rest of our time here on earth.

We will never have a conversation with them to hear their voice. We will never hear them laugh. We will never see their face. We won’t know what they look like two years or ten years or twenty years from now. We will never buy a birthday or Christmas gift for them. We will never hear them say, ”I love you” or be able to give them a hug. EVER… all we have now are memories of who they were…

People tell us we are so strong and that they could never do what we are doing. Well, guess what? We had no choice in this event in our lives, and we aren’t strong! There are times we literally cannot breathe. We can’t even get out of bed. Sometimes a good day is making it to the shower or fixing a meal for our family. And when we have to pour all our energy into being at work for the day, when we get home we fall apart, every single day for a very long time. (I am talking for months and years.)

I have had people tell me someone that they know lost a child a few years ago, but they are doing fine now. It always makes me cringe, because I know they aren’t. You see, it becomes our job to make those around us comfortable with our grief. We have to put on our masks and convince those around us that we are okay, because if we don’t, either people don’t want to be around us, or they try to fix us and tell us we should be doing better by now. So we pretend, so they don’t have to grieve with us.

Did you know that most experts say five years and under is considered fresh grief for a parent who has lost a child (of any age)? And that the death of a child is considered traumatic grief? We are dealing with a literal trauma in our lives. And many of us are also dealing with PTSD, depending on the circumstances, such as seeing our child die or finding their body. Those are images that play in our minds over and over and over again. And as grieving parents, we can’t help but torment ourselves with the “what ifs.”

Yes, we can, and do, at some point figure out how to live with a part of our very being amputated from us. We learn to live our lives around the grief as we daily miss our child, seeing reminders of him or her everywhere we turn. But it takes a long time to figure out how to do that, and we will always be hit with grief triggers for the rest of our lives. If you are with us when that happens, please see it as a sacred place and moment, and know that it is an honor for us to let you in. Let us know it is okay to still miss our child deeply, and show grace, allowing us the time we need to lean into the memories and the grief.

As believers in Christ, we are good at rejoicing with those who rejoice, like Romans 12:15 tells us. But we aren’t very good at the second half of that verse, where we are told to weep with those who weep. (Some versions say to mourn with those who mourn or adds “sharing in their grief.”) And by the way, I notice that God doesn’t tell us to try and fix them if they are mourning for what we think might be too long of a time. He just tells us to join them in their place of sorrow.

If you aren’t sure what to do when you are with a bereaved parent, here is something that might help.

 

Another very special gift you can give to a bereaved parent is to let us talk about our child. Ask us questions about him or her. Let us show you pictures and tell you stories. One of our greatest fears is that people will forget our child lived and that his or her life mattered.

So, to answer the question, “How do I do it?” Even though I am almost eight years into this unwanted bereaved parent journey, sometimes it is still just hanging on one day, one minute, one breath at a time. And I am thankful that I don’t have to choose to either lean on God or to fall apart. I lean on God while I fall apart. I continue to find ways to honor the life and memory of my daughter, Becca. I connect with other parents who are ahead of me on this journey who can encourage me, and I connect with other parents who find themselves behind me on this journey.

I also look for friends who allow me to be who I am now, and not try to hang on to the person I used to be. Unfortunately, there aren’t many out there. Most of them are also bereaved parents who get it.

I don’t take it lightly that you have read this all the way through, and we bereaved parents thank you from the bottom of our shattered hearts. I hope and pray that by reading this, you have a better picture of what our lives are like and can now be one of those needed friends for those of us who are bereaved of our child.

 

 

To receive two free chapters from the book Come Grieve Through Our Eyes: How to Give Comfort and Support to Bereaved Parents, and to be added to our Friends of GPS Hope partners email list, just let us know below where to send them. (Your email address will be kept private.)

 

Laura Diehl is an award-winning author, national speaker and singer. She and her husband, Dave, are the founders of Grieving Parents Sharing Hope (GPS Hope). Dave and Laura travel full time in their Hope Mobile (a 38-foot motor home) to be more easily available for speaking and ministry requests.

If you would like to receive monthly updates on their travel adventures click here and submit your name and email at the bottom of the page.

Looking for a speaker for your next event or want more information on hosting a GPS Hope & Healing conference? Click here.

GPS Hope exists to walk with grieving parents through the suffocating darkness of child-loss to a place of hope, light and purpose.
 We also support families, friends and coworkers who want to know how to support these parents both short and long-term.
  • If you are not a bereaved parent but want to support those who are, or want to follow us as we give hope to these precious parents, please connect with us at Friends of GPS Hope on Facebook.
  • If you are a bereaved parent, we encourage you to connect with us on Facebook and subscribe to Laura’s YouTube channel for grieving parents.

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The Support Beam of Grace

When I got off the fifth-floor elevator and turned the corner, I saw what would become a memory forever etched in my mind. Kim was standing in the hallway outside of Becca’s room with that look I’ll never forget. I asked, “Did she make it?” and she just shook her head no and fell into my arms. Kim was twenty-four at the time, but all I saw was my baby girl, hurting that her big sister was gone. I just held her and cried.

While I had my own feelings of finality about losing my first child, my initial thoughts were concern for my family, and I found myself asking God to surround them with His love and comfort.

My eldest son, who grew up often arguing with his big sister, now lost his closest friend and companion. My baby girl in my arms was Becca’s maid of honor and dreamed of the day Becca would be hers. My middle son was thankful that Becca had made his wedding two months earlier, but now she would never meet any of her nieces or nephews that came along. And my youngest son, who was her ring bearer and now sixteen, would never get to have that adult relationship with her.

How was my wife doing? What about Becca’s husband? And how would my granddaughter do, losing her mom at nine years old? All this was swirling through my head as I hugged my kids in the hallway. Of course there was my own pain, but my concern was for my family.

The next several days were a fog as we prepared for a funeral and tried to somehow come to grips with what just happened. It was like living in a foggy black-and-white movie with the exception of some vivid moments that jump out in dull colors in my memory. Each day brought new pain as we looked through photos to prepare for the visitation.

I have written many checks before, but I never dreamed I would be writing a check to pay for my daughter’s burial plot! I could barely see through my tears to sign it.

Yet through all the sorrow, there were moments of great joy as well as we gathered as a family and told funny stories. It was very much an exhausting, emotional roller coaster.

After the funeral, we followed the hearse in the processional across town to the cemetery. There we saw another one of those moments that jumped out of the fog. Seeing our three sons carrying their big sister’s coffin to the gravesite…there are no words to describe it other than this is just wrong!

Only a couple of days after I buried my daughter, it was time to go back to work. It was surreal as I was back in my normal surroundings and the world continued as it always had. Sure, a few people stopped in and gave me their condolences, but for the most part it was like nothing ever happened. I was still coming in and out of this fog. How do I go back to the day-to-day and act like nothing has changed?

It was not easy, and at times I would close my door and allow myself to tear up and grieve some more.

Where Grace Comes In

Grieving is not a sign of weakness, it is a way for us to heal.

I cannot overemphasize how important it was for me to make allowances for my family members, especially my wife, in the way they processed their grief.

We all handle grief in different ways and on different timelines.

My other four children all grieved in different ways and some longer than others. They all still have times when they miss Becca immensely. I encourage all of them to allow each other the space they need to grieve in their own way and not expect the others to grieve in the same way they themselves do.

Personally, I don’t always want to talk about it. I prefer keeping my feelings to myself, except with a few close people. My wife, on the other hand, seems to wear her grief on her sleeve. Laura would post all sorts of feelings on Facebook those first few years. I would every so often, but nothing like she did (or still does). I know it makes some people uncomfortable, even though she always points to God as her source of strength. I would sometimes think, “Is this normal or is my wife having some major issues here?”

Laura has one of the closest relationships to God of anyone I know. She amazes me with her insight, yet here she was struggling with so much intense pain, even though she knew without a doubt where Becca was and the glory she was experiencing. Was it normal for this to be so hard and go on so long? Truth is, absolutely!

I believe that, as devastating as the loss of a child is to a father, it is even more intense for a mother. There is no other relationship on earth like that of a mother and her child. We all know and understand how she carries that child for up to nine months in her womb.

But what we often miss is that not only is she carrying the body of another human being, but she is carrying inside her the very soul and spirit of that human being! Once that baby is born, the umbilical cord is cut and the child’s body is separated from mommy, but I believe that soul tie and spiritual connection is never cut.

I think often as men we want to get past difficult things quickly and then “get on with life,” at least to one degree or another. But for the mothers, I believe in many cases, if not most, it will take months and even years, to “get on with life” the way we imagine they should.

It has occurred to me that often people, myself included, criticize those who post too many feelings on Facebook. I wonder, though, what we would think of King David’s posts if he were one of our “friends.” The Psalms look quite a bit like some Facebook postings, and they are plastered with his feelings!

Losing a child is like an amputation. A part of your very being has been cut off from you. You will never be the same, but you can learn to function again.

When Becca had her amputation as a toddler, it was one of the most traumatic things her little body could go through. There were times when she would feel phantom pains. It took a while for the body and brain to get used to missing that leg. It took time and strength and the will to carry on, but Becca learned to live her life, forever changed, but an amazing life anyway. She had a calling on her life, and losing that leg was not going to stop her.

It can be the same way after losing a child. It can be the most horrific thing to go through. It takes time to heal. It takes time to learn how to function without our child. But even though a part of us has died with them, we can live life again.

The effects of that loss will always be there, but God loves each of us so very deeply and He still has a purpose for each of us. Just like little Becca, in time, we can go on with an amazing life that can touch others. We are forever changed by the loss, but also forever changed by the inheritance our children left us.

 

This article was adapted from Chapter 15 of When Tragedy Strikes. We hope this has given you some new insight as the door was opened just a crack, to see what it is like for a parent who has lost a child.

If this tugged at your heart and you would like to find out how to partner with Grieving Parents Sharing Hope (GPS Hope) in ministering to parents who have lost a child, providing free resources that give hope, light and purpose without judgment or shame in their long grief journey, click here.

GPS Hope exists to walk with grieving parents through the suffocating darkness of child-loss to a place of hope, light and purpose.
 We also support families, friends and coworkers who want to know how to support these parents both short and long-term.
  • If you are not a bereaved parent but want to support those who are, or want to follow us as we give hope to these precious parents, please connect with us at Friends of GPS Hope on Facebook.

 

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Making Hard Choices Within Our Grief

When our child died, it was obviously not our choice!

Going through the darkness of grief is not our choice.

The pain that cannot be described is not our choice.

The way our brain is scrambled for so long and we can’t think straight is not our choice.

I could go on, but you know exactly what I am talking about.

Unfortunately, there are no shortcuts to getting off the path of this nightmarish journey we found ourselves thrown onto.

But I am not here to talk about the things we can’t control and the choices we cannot make. I want to talk about the choices we can make.

At the beginning, grief takes over EVERYTHING. But as the weeks and months go by, we find ourselves able to make small choices. We may choose to cook a somewhat decent meal instead of having fast food again or a bowl of cereal. We might choose to try and go out for coffee with a friend (in public). We might choose to pick up our Bible and try to read it (and sometimes put it right back down, for various reasons).

I want to help you move forward when you get to that point of being able to start making some choices, because some of those can be major, such as choosing to stay mad at God and blaming Him and refusing to allow Him to ease the pain in your heart that keeps you an angry, bitter person. (Ouch! Yes, I said it…)

Here is a key that may help you unlock some of those choices you need or want to make.

Instead of choosing to be against something, choose to be for something.

For instance, you can choose to be against facing another week because you can’t bear being away from your child for longer than you already have. Or you can choose to be for going through this next week because it gets you that much closer to being reunited with your child.

You can choose to be against spending time with a friend, because you feel guilty for doing something that might be kind of fun when your child can’t have any fun with his or her friends any more. Or you could choose to be for spending time with your friend, because you might get a chance to talk about your son or daughter with someone who will listen. Or because having an enjoyable evening might be like a needed medicine to your soul. Or because you can picture your child watching you enjoy yourself, and seeing you smile (and maybe even laugh), realizing it would make them happy instead of seeing you so horribly angry and miserable.

It can help even more to take just a minute and write down at least one thing (or a list of things) you are going to do your best to choose to do for something, instead of continuing to choose against something.

I did that recently, after being prompted by my friend Mary. One of the things I specifically wrote down in my list was, “I choose to be a size 10/12.” As Becca went through her severe illness and after she died, I allowed food to be a comfort and a distraction for me, gaining a good thirty pounds, becoming the heaviest I have ever been (including my five pregnancies). I have not been able to get it off for the last three to four years. Truthfully, I have not been motivated enough to want to stop eating sweets and other unhealthy foods enough to follow through. Until now. Since I wrote that down, I am ecstatic that I am down over ten pounds and still going!

Go ahead and write it out. I choose to _______________________.

And if you can’t think of how to flip it around to do it for a good reason, ask the Holy Spirit to show you one. (My motivation to choose to finally get serious about my unhealthy eating is being able to fit into the mother-of-the-bride gown I wore to Becca’s wedding for the red-carpet Author Academy Awards in which my book When Tragedy Strikes is a finalist.)

And with that, I choose to be for climbing into bed , tired but at a fairly decent hour (which means staying focused on working my way through today’s heavy schedule) instead of being against my day, feeling like it is out of control with too much going on (which means distracting myself from what I should be doing and climbing into bed exhausted because it is extremely late by the time I get everything done).

So, what are you going to be for, instead of against, that will help you move toward light and life? I would love to hear from you in the comments below.

We are coming up on the holiday season, when there are many events that are difficult to attend. If you would like a list of ideas on how to handle these events, just let us know and we would be happy to send it to you.

 

GPS Hope exists to walk with grieving parents through the suffocating darkness of child-loss to a place of hope, light and purpose.
 We also support families, friends and coworkers who want to know how to support these parents both short and long-term.

 

Expressions of Hope is written by author and speaker Laura Diehl. Laura is a national keynote speaker and also a workshop speaker for both The Compassionate Friends and Bereaved Parents USA national conferences. Laura has also been a guest on Open to Hope several times, and has hosted her own conferences, a virtual conference and many webinars. If you would like more information about Laura as a speaker for your next event, click here.

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