Grief Follows No Plan...

Grief follows no plan, no stages, timetable, formula, or schedule. There are no road maps; there are no absolutes. We know that everyone grieves differently. Grief is like being lost. The familiar things we relied on to live each day are gone. We must find new anchors or stabilizers along the way and learn a new way of relating to the world and people around us. We are forced to learn to live without our child.

Grief is all consuming, distorts reality, and we begin to mark time in “before or after our child died.” No one can hurry the process of grief; no one can do it for us. Not even our spouses, parents or other children can help us in those early days. The truth is that when our grief is new, we feel exhausted physically, emotionally and spiritually. We barely have enough energy to breathe. We feel as though we have no control over our lives any more, nor do we care.

We realize on some level we are helpless. We might even feel hopeless or purposeless. Some of us feel isolated, lonely and misunderstood. Some feel like everything is trivia compared to the loss we have experienced.

We feel like the world is spinning on around us, and nobody really cares that our child died. All of these feelings are normal and part of the grieving process. And yes, we also need to realize it is a process-a very long, gradual and difficult process. Time does not heal all wounds, but time softens the intensity of the grief. What helps is finding those who will listen with their hearts and give us hope and understanding.

Our relationships with family, friends and yes, even God can be strengthened or challenged as we look for new ways to connect with them. We may lose old friends who don’t really understand. We learn that problems in life are not overwhelming. We are handling the worst thing that can happen to us; what else can happen? We learn to more deeply cherish those we love. We help others in grief without batting an eye.

Sometimes we pick up “gifts” along the way by becoming more caring, compassionate toward others, and appreciative for what is important in life. New strengths can develop as we find our new selves along the way. Life will be different as we learn to cope, but still have meaning.

For those of you who are new in your loss, I hope that you will continue to share your sorrow with us and learn from those further ahead on the path of grief. Someday it won’t hurt as much as it does, and you won’t always feel “this elephant on your chest.”

I will be with you and hold your hand every step of the way... Just let me know, touch base with me...

Child Loss...

Grief over the death of a child is the hardest work

that most of us will ever do.

While we wish for the pain to stop,

we need to remember that we grieve

because we loved so intensely.

It is unrealistic to expect the grief

to ever totally go away

because the love we have for our child

will never go away.

Grief only becomes a tolerable

and creative experience

when love enables it to be shared

with someone who really understands.

My hope for all of us is

that where there is pain, let there be softening.

Where there is bitterness, let there be acceptance.

Where there is silence, let there be communication.

Where there is loneliness, let there be friendship

and where there is despair, let there be hope.

The Loss of our Children...

The hurt never goes away. We never forget. We never get over it. We don’t want to. We hurt so much because we loved so much. But the focus on death and the event can lessen and the warmth of good memories replace it. Oh, we can still go back there in an instant. Back to the visit, the call, the good-bye, the tree, the apartment, that moment when we found out our child has died. Time helps a lot.

I have fewer friends. Better friends, mind you, but fewer. I am out of the circle now. But the amazing thing is how much I don’t care. I miss some special people so I go out of my way to stay in touch. And that is enough. I have new and different priorities. I move through life a little slower, a little more tuned to life around me, and to life gone too soon. I brake for sunsets. I hurt for the people who share this walk with me.

Since my yougest son, Greggy died, hundreds and then thousands and then tens of thousands of children have died. I feel for them and for their families in a way I could never have understood before. I value people more than things; moments more than milestones and I no longer equate what I do with who I am.

I think of how much I was blessed to have my son for 18 years, 7 months, & 24 days... It's more than some & less than some, but us grieving parents don't compare the time or even the how, we are just mourning the loss of our child. No matter what happened, no matter who did what to whom, we still relate to the Loss of our Children... 

Why Does it Hurt So Much?

Why does it hurt so much? Why is this grief so incapacitating? If only the hurt weren’t so crushing.

All of us have known hurts before, but none of our previous “ouches” can compare with the hurt we now feel. Nothing can touch the pain of burying a child.

Yet most of us have discovered that the sun still comes up. We still have to function. We did not die when our child die, even though we wished we could have. So we are stuck with this pain, this grief, and what do we do with it? Surely, we can’t live like this forever.

There are no magic formulas for surviving grief. There are a few commonly recognized patterns of grief, but even those are only guidelines. What we do know is that the emptiness will never go away. It will be come tolerable and livable. Some day.

Time. The longest word in our grief. We used to measure time by the steps of our child, the first word, first tooth, first date, and first car. Now we don’t have that measure anymore. All we have is time.

So what do we do? Give ourselves time to hurt, to grieve, and to cry. Time to choke; to scream. Time to be “crazy” and time to remember.

Be kind to yourself. Don’t measure your progress against anyone 

else’s. Be your own timekeeper. Don’t push. Eventually you will find the hours and days of grief have turned to minutes and their moments. Yes, we will always hurt, but one day it become tolerable and livable.

Change your focus a bit. Instead of dwelling on how much you lost, try letting the good memories come over you easily as the awful ones do. We didn’t lose our child. They died. We loved the love that flowed between us. It still flows, but differently now.

Does it help to know that if we didn’t love so very much, it wouldn’t hurt so badly? Grief is the price we pay for love. And as much as it hurts, I know I am very glad I loved and knew my daughter.

Don’t let death cast ugly shadows, but rather warm memories of loving times you shared with your child.

Even though death comes, love never goes away.

I Am In The Light...

A shadow of joy flickered; it is me. 

I told you I wouldn't leave..

My spirit is with you. 

My memories, my thoughts, are deep in your heart.

I still love you.

Do not for one moment think that you have been abandoned.

I am in the Light.

In the corner, in the hall, the car, the yard -- 

these are the places I stay with you. 

Love does not diminish, it grows stronger. 

I am the feather that finds you in the yard, 

the dimmed light that grows brighter in your mind, 

I place our memories for you to see. 

We lived in our special way, 

a way that now has its focus changed. 

I still crave your understanding and

long for the many words of prayer and good fortune for my soul.

I am in the Light.

As you struggle to adjust without me,

I watch silently. 

Sometimes I summon up all the strength of my new world to make you notice me..

Your love sends me new found energy.

I am adjusting to this new world.

I am with you and I am in the Light.

Please don't feel bad that you can't see me. 

I am with you wherever you go.

I protect you, just as you protected me so many times. 

Talk to me and somehow I will find a way to answer you. 

I am learning to help wherever you are, wherever I am needed.

This can be done because I am in the Light.

When you feel despair, reach out to me. 

I will come. 

Our love truly does transcend from Heaven to Earth.

Finish your life with the enthusiasm and zest

that you had when we were together in the physical sense. 

You owe this to me, but more importantly, you owe it to yourself. 

Life continues for both of us.

I am with you because I love you and I am in the Light.

Grief Sneaks Up on you...

Grief sneaks into every corner of your life, and sometimes springs up just when you least want it to. It is this surprise factor that is most upsetting – just when you feel like you are getting on top of it, a fleeting image, or overheard song will send you reeling.

Imagine any of the following, which are quite common during grieving, under any other circumstances:

§ A constant fog over your thinking
§ Memory and concentration problems
§ Trouble keeping track of belongings
§ Fatigue, muscle pain, headaches, stomach trouble, chest pain
§ Lack of initiative, inability to perform usual functions
§ Irritability, mood swings, anxiety
§ Fear of performing even familiar activities
§ Feeling hyped up, wired; exaggerated startle response
§ Disorientation
§ Nightmares, trouble falling asleep or staying asleep
§ Unpredictable bouts of crying
§ Avoiding friends and family, hiding out
§ Despair, fears about a desolate future, helplessness
§ Appetite changes
§ Constant yearning, pining for what you have lost
§ Sighing repeatedly
§ Regret, guilt
§ Feeling visited by a lost loved one
§ Change in sexual interest
§ Idealizing or waiting for return of your child

That’s grief for you.

Under any other circumstances, you’d be terrified that you were ill or going crazy.

Grief captures body, mind, emotion, and spirit, and holds them hostage,

lets them go, and then turns around and captures them again...

PLEASE Share this video from Sarah's Brother...

As you all know my niece & God-Daughter

Committed Suicide 2 weeks before her 23rd Birthday.

{7-24-1991 - - - 7-10-2014}

Her Brother James Armor

made a video to let others know there are people

who care and Suicide is not the answer.

Please follow this link to YouTube

http://youtu.be/Hg10uw9_j9I

Watch the Video

Wipe your eyes

& then Share It 

(without the preview)

On AS MANY Sites as Possible.

We all want to stop ALL Suicides from Happening...

This is James with his sister Sarah

If you would like to see more photos Click the link Below.

http://youtu.be/qtV5vnDb_ds

Happy First Heavenly Birthday Sarah!

Happy First Heavenly Birthday to you!

Happy First Heavenly Birthday to you!

Happy First Heavenly Birthday to Sarah!

Happy First Heavenly Birthday to you!

The Mask we wear...

How do you look to the outside world as time has passed after your child died? Do you wear the mask well? Do you answer the question, "How are you?" with a "fine". Do you shop for groceries, run errands and have small talk with others, while out of the safety of your house, and act okay?

Of course you do.....

Then we get angry that others make statements like "I do not know how you do it", or "you are so strong". These are statements that we want to throw something or break something, because we do not feel this way, but this is the image we are projecting.

And why do we do this?

Because this is what everybody else expects of us. Let's see. Child dies, parent grieves, a little time has passed....okay, back to normal.

I remember that prior to Engel being killed, I used to entertain every weekend. I loved to cook and bake and it was not unusual for us to have at least 4 or 5 couples over every weekend with myself doing all the cooking.

I kept this up for an entire year after Engel died, because I thought it was expected of me and I thought it would make me feel and look more normal.

Well, I am sure you can guess that the energy of trying to pretend everything was okay while I was so heavy in grief and pain, basically made me crash and burn.

When year two rolled around in my grief journey, and I could actually started thinking somewhat coherently again, I backed off of extra pressures. Everybody was "what is going on?" "You were fine before"

Of course they thought I was fine, because that was the image I was projecting. How would they know that every night, I cried myself to sleep.

I continue to hear from grieving parents how they are disappointed with non grievers. I would ask you to re examine the perception you are giving towards others. Are you pretending everything is okay at the sake of acceptance? Are you afraid that nobody really wants to know? Or what is it really?

Why are we so concerned about others' feelings, but we can overlook our needs and feelings?

If you are perceived as being okay, then everybody thinks you are okay.

Either express yourself and be brave enough for the ones that will walk out of your life, or continue wearing the mask.

By the way, that mask gets really comfortable after awhile.

Our new normal

With the death of our child everything we ever believed in is shattered. In my own case, I had to struggle for a long time to even figure out what I had believed in; I was so confused.

Our egos and our beliefs in ourselves, are badly shaken because, as parents, we truly believed we could protect our child from
anything. We were careful, good parents, and now our child is gone. We have failed to keep our child alive and our ego tells us we are a failure.

This devastates us; we can no longer believe in ourselves; we feel that obviously we are incapable of doing anything right. We have no self-confidence, no longer any self-esteem. These are all natural, normal responses to the horror of your child’s death.

Remind yourself to be patient, to be kind to yourself. You are not a failure, you did the very best you could, and you surely would have given your own life to save your child’s. You did not fail; life just isn’t always fair. These feelings, and others as bizarre, may cause you to think you are going crazy. Ask any bereaved parent of some years and they will all tell you they thought the same thing at some time or point.

You are a changed person now, you will never again be the same as you were before your child died. Someday you will accept that fact. Out of the ashes of grief you can grow, if and when you choose to do so. Look around you to the other bereaved parents; you will find role models and hope in them.

There will be many tears, allow them, they are healing and necessary to survival and recovery.

Many of us suffer from the lack of ability to concentrate. It is a common complaint. You can’t think, you can’t remember from one minute till the next, and you have no idea what you have read.

You will have a strong need to talk. You will find that you can talk more than one person can listen, so seek out several good friends who will let you talk to them. You will need to tell your child’s story over and over again. You will need to talk about the whole life and the death and what you are going through now. Talking is therapeutic. Talk, and talk, and talk, until your story is told.

At night you may go over the events again and again, night after night. Sleep disturbances are not unusual. You either can’t sleep or sleep too much.

We suffer guilt, real or imagined. You will remember things you did and things you didn’t do. You go through the “if onlys.” If only you had or hadn’t.

Beware of isolation. You need to be with people, not alone. When you isolate yourself with no one to talk about your feelings, you become depressed.

You are fatigued, lack motivation, you suffer numerous physical complaints, headaches, stomach disorders, you are either nervous or feel dead inside All of which are normal and to be expected in this time of enormous stress. And always you ask yourself and others, “Why?” “Why ?” ”Why my child?” Simply because life isn’t always fair, my friend.

Your world is topsy-turvy now, nothing makes sense, nothing fits-family balance is upset, the numbers are all wrong, there is one too many chairs at the table now, so you choke on your food and think of the empty chair.

Some days you can’t get out of bed. Some days you work hard and fast like something possesses you. Every day you cry. You find you are very lonely even in the midst of a crowded shopping mall. You want to scream at the busy, happy people. How can they go on as if nothing has happened?

I understand; each one on this page has had at least one child die. We know what you are going through.

I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but I want to share this time of your life with you. I want you to know you are not alone.

Speak my Childs Name

• I wish you would not be afraid to speak my child's name. They lived and were important and I need to hear their name.

• If I cry and get emotional if we talk about my child, I wish you knew that it isn't because you hurt me: the fact that my child died causes my tears. You have allowed me to cry and I thank you. Crying and emotional outbursts are healing.

• I will have emotional highs and lows, ups and downs. I wish you wouldn't think that if I have a good cry my grief is all over, or that if I have a bad day I need psychiatric counseling.

• Being bereaved is not contagious, so I wish you wouldn't stay away from me.

• I wish you knew all the crazy grief reactions that I am having are in fact very normal. Depression, anger, fear, hopelessness and questioning of values and beliefs are to be expected.

• I wish you wouldn't expect my grief to be over in 6 months. The first few years are going to be exceedingly traumatic for me.

• I wish you understood the physical reaction to grief. I may gain weight, lose weight, sleep all the time or not at all, and be accident prone; all of which are related to my grief.

• My child's birthday, the anniversary of their death and the holidays can be terrible times for me. I wish you could tell me that you are thinking of me on these days. And if I get quiet and withdrawn, just know that I am thinking about my child and don't try to coerce me into being cheerful.

The Gate...

There is a gate that each of us has unknowingly passed through. This gate opens only one way... once we have passed through this gate we cannot return to the other side. Each of us stepped through the gate at a different time and in a different way. This gate opens to the world
of parents whose children have died; it is their gate to every tomorrow.

There is no other place that compares with life in this world beyond the gate; there is no sorrow like the sorrow inside the gate. The numbing pain and perpetual agony we experience when first stepping through this gate is so overwhelming that we often don’t immediately realize that there will be no return. 

The new world inside the gate is populated with friends who are strangers and strangers who are friends.

Our perspective on life has changed forever. Few of our friends from life before the gate will linger with us now; these people are now the strangers. Our pain is all encompassing; they have lives to live, things to do, plans to make, happiness to capture. Rare is the friend who stands by us inside the gate.... stands by us until one of us dies and leaves the world inside the gate.

The strangers who are now friends live inside the gate with us. Some have just come through the gate; others have been here a long, long time. But these strangers who are now friends share our experience; they understand our need to talk about our children, each life and each death. They applaud our tiny advances toward acceptance and serenity and peace. Although we can never go back to life before the gate, we now have our compassionate friends… once strangers but now kindred souls who share our lives and our world.

Life will not be the same again, yet life can be good again. Inside the gate we will each find ourselves with the help of our new friends. They listen carefully to stories about our child. They know our child’s name better than they know our name.

And that’s how we want it to be... remember our children. Remember with us....

Yearning...

Yearning for some rational explanation after the death of your child is as normal as breathing. Asking “why” is a common part of the grief recovery process, but it represents just one step along the way to wholeness.

Recovery depends upon, among other things, letting go of the “why” questions and turning to questions that begin with words such as
“how” and “what.” “How do I go on with my life now that this has happened?” and “What can I do to recover a sense of joy and meaning in my life?”

When we experience a major loss, the only answer to the question, “why?” is that this is a mortal, frail, imperfect world in which the word fair doesn’t always apply. The world is not perfect and life does not follow a perfect script. This is a world that operates by the laws of gravity and physics. Therefore, accidents do happen; suicides happen; deaths do occur. It is a world in which human beings have free will. Therefore, mistakes will be made and cruel,
violent acts will take place.

There is no grand plan or purpose to every loss we face. There is neither a divine nor a demonic plot to “get us”. It is just part of living in this less-than-perfect world.

Grief is not something you can avoid. True, it is more difficult and painful than anything else you will face in life. It takes a long time to get through the experience.

Enduring the stresses and challenges of grief recovery calls for a discipline of hard work to heal. You can emerge from it considerably stronger and more compassionate than you were before. Grief is as much about finding as it is about losing.

Memorial video for Sarah Armor

I decided to make a memorial video,

for my niece Sarah Armor,

who committe suicide.

7-24-1991 --- 7-10-2014

She was Best Friends & cousin

with my son Gregory Whale, Jr,

who died in a car accident.

9-2-1991 --- 4-26-2010

Please watch & listen to the video on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtV5vnDb_ds

Do not judge the bereaved mother

Do not judge the bereaved mother.

She comes in many forms.

She is breathing, but she is dying.

She may look young, but inside she has become ancient.

She smiles, but her heart sobs.

She walks, she talks, she cooks, she cleans,

she works, she IS, but she IS NOT, all at once.

She is here, but part of her is elsewhere for eternity.

-Author Unknown

Patricia Armor, with her daughter Sarah,

who committed suicide on 7-10-2014

(7-24-1991 --- 7-10-2014)

Christina Whale, with her son Gregory

who died in a car accident on 4-26-2010

(9-2-1991 --- 4-26-2010)

Share Sarah's Spirit

Just 2 days ago my niece, Sarah committed suicide. We weren't in time to save her. Now her brother is trying to share her story to help others from choosing this path. Seeing the responses from people around the world has helped to take even the slightest bit of pain away from losing her. We already got word from one individual that because of her brother sharing her story, he is going to seek help because he now believes there are people out there to help him and that care about him. If you could please help us Share Sarah's Spirit to help the family continue to heal and to help someone who may be on the edge of suicide that would be amazing and would truly honor our Sarah.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hg10uw9_j9I

Sarah committed suicide today

My niece Sarah committed suicide today.

Please keep her family (Mark, Trish, & Brother - James) in your prayers..

{{{ 7-24-1991 --- 7-10-2014 }}}
 God, Your word says, 'You are a very present help in times of trouble...' Mark, Trish, & James need Your help right now, for this is a time of trouble for them. Please let Your Presence become very real to them. I ask that you would lift the heaviness of their heart, and that You would bear their burden of sorrow and begin to exchange it for peace and hope.  Father, shower them with unexpected tokens of Your love, so they would know how much You really do care.  God, we do not understand suffering, but we are grateful that You have promised to be with us in the midst of it. Let Your words be a comfort to my friends in this time of tears. 'Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.' In Jesus mighty name. Amen