The Worst Has Already Happened

The Worst Has Already Happened

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Growing up, I wanted to think I was a “glass half full” kind of person. But the truth is, I was always anticipating and worried about the next bad thing I was sure would happen to me. I lived amid the constant feeling that life around me was unpredictable, chaotic, and often unfair. That is a bitter pill for a little kid to swallow.

My solution to get rid of the ever present anxiety was to continually try to change myself and my behavior.

It was a desperate attempt to control the people and situations around me. I’m sure you can guess that this never seemed to work. It might have an effect for a short while, but then something would “go wrong” again.

Ironically – and unbeknownst to me at the time – it caused even more anxiety. I was constantly trying to mentally catalog the apparent cause and effect my behavior and actions had. If I did A, then B happened. Except that sometimes when I did A, then D, G, or even L happened. It was too confusing and hard to keep track of. But being prone to perfectionism, I kept trying.

Looking back, I have to wonder what my ultimate fear was.

I know for sure I didn’t like the feelings of sadness, loneliness, shame. And certainly didn’t like feeling like I was at the mercy of this unfair universe. But what was it that I was scared would happen if I didn’t keep trying to keep it all under my control? To this day, I’m still not sure.

Those feelings of anxiety and desperate attempts to control the people and situations in my life followed me into adulthood. It just became a way of life for me. And it became more complex as the years went on. There were more people and more situations I had to juggle to try to control. And bigger risks at stake.

Instead of just making sure I was getting good grades in school to get into college, I now had to make sure I kept my employers happy so that I could keep a roof over my head and food on my table. After having a family of my own, I felt the responsibility of not only trying to keep my own life under control and happy, but theirs too. The anxiety intensified, and it became overwhelming.

Overwhelming or not, it was my life, and I did the best I could at trying to balance all of it.

Amid the anxiety and complexity of my life, I was able to find some happiness. My children were beacons of light and love that I held tight to. After ending a disappointing marriage, I found love again and added a stepson and then a daughter to my beloved family.

We were a tight-knit family that focused all our free time on finding new adventures and memories to share. The anxiety and challenges never went away, but it was better balanced by the rewards my family brought.

That all ended on September 30, 2009. On that day my 4-year-old daughter, Margareta, drowned in our pool while we were at home.

On that day, I learned my ultimate lesson: no matter how tightly we try to control our lives and everything in it, we are not in charge of what happens to us.

That stark reality is scary and horrible and can be incredibly unfair, but we cannot change it.

At first, the grief of losing my daughter was like experiencing all those feelings of anxiety, sadness, loneliness, unfairness, and chaos over the course of my lifetime times infinity. True to my lifetime of experience, I tried desperately to overcome the intense feelings of grief by controlling my actions and behaviors. It didn’t work; it seemed to have the opposite effect of just intensifying them instead.

This beast that was grief was unlike anything I’d ever encountered. The harder I fought to suppress it, the worse it seemed to get.

The pain remained unbearable, so I waged this battle against grief for several years. Just as I had done before, I mentally cataloged all of the grief triggers I experienced in hopes to avoid them the next time. I adjusted my response and behavior to each trigger to try to find which ones made the pain lessen. To my frustration, none of them did and the triggers remained unpredictable and intense.

At some point, I realized that my lifelong urge to try to control my life was actually making things worse. And made the choice to stop fighting grief. In doing so, I finally began to understand what I had always been looking for. The irony that I learned this lesson in the face of my worst nightmare come true was not lost on me. It became the silver lining around the dark cloud that I was immersed in.

The reality is that the worst has already happened. My daughter is dead and there is nothing that I can do to change that.

Knowing that I survived the worst pain I will ever face has significantly reduced my anxiety and changed my perspective forever. Challenges that used to seem insurmountable or cause for alarm now appear manageable in comparison. I now know I have the inner strength to handle whatever comes my way. I now have the humility to know that I cannot control the emotions or reactions of anyone else. Showing my vulnerability and asking for help is not a sign of weakness, but one of courage and strength.

I choose to no longer look at life with a “glass half full” versus “glass half empty” mentality. The glass is what it is.

We will have good days and bad days. Our experience will include joy as well as sorrow. We will be filled with love and with pain. And we will continually be faced with challenges and uncomfortable feelings.

This is the ultimate lesson I have learned: I am not in control of my life. I never was. The only control I have is the choice to allow life to happen to me without fighting it. To accept each situation – no matter how difficult or painful. And instead, focus my attention and energy on answering the question, “What do I do next?”

The Club Nobody Wants to Belong To

The Club Nobody Wants to Belong To

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I am a member of a club I don’t want to belong to.

I didn’t voluntarily sign up for it, yet I’m forced to be in it for the rest of my life. The cost of admission to this club was at an impossible price, but it was taken from me anyway. The price was my child’s life. My membership card is my child’s death certificate.

I am the parent of a dead child.

I have found that this club tends to keep to itself because its very existence makes most non-members too uncomfortable. Members of this club are the unwelcome reminders that a family’s worst fear can come true. The death of a child has often been described as “unnatural.” And yet it happens every day, all over the world. Still, these parents and their families often grieve in silence long after the funeral ends.

There is no “getting over it.” People grieve as long as they are a member of this club. Until their own last breath.

It doesn’t matter the age of your child when they died; membership in this club changes you forever.

It changes your understanding of life itself. Your demeanor changes, as do your reactions to everything around you. And these changes can have some nasty side-effects.

The death of a child can cause long-standing marriages or relationships with family or friends to abruptly come to an end for a variety of reasons. It can challenge your faith and rock your belief system to its core. You can develop health issues or go into deep depression. It isolates you from the world.

Membership in this club also brings a torrent of everyday challenges that non-members just don’t understand.

Once simple questions like, “How are you?” or, “How many children do you have?”, become sources of great pain and internal debate. Should you answer honestly and risk exacerbating your pain and feelings of isolation due to the expected horrified look or obvious discomfort of the person asking when they hear your answer? Or do you lie and give the expected answer based on whether you think you’ll ever see the person again, but then feel further isolated or even guilty for seemingly betraying your dead child? This is just one of many examples of dilemmas you never thought you’d have to face.

Even though the pain will last forever, over time, being a member of this club can offer some unexpected benefits.

The death of a child can give you a greater appreciation of how precious this life of ours is. You no longer take certain things for granted. It can teach you a deeper sense of compassion, empathy, and gratitude. In some cases, it can even improve your relationships with yourself and others. It can even lead you towards a life with a greater sense of purpose and meaning.

I have experienced all of these benefits, and am truly grateful for these gifts. But given the choice, I’d give up my membership in a heartbeat.

I’ll always hate being the parent of a dead child.

Today is a Bad Day

Today is a Bad Day

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Today is a bad day.

It is a day where I feel defeated by grief; defeated by life.

It is a day where I feel like crying. And I wish that I would let it all out—but the tears won’t come. I feel the pressure behind my eyes, but not enough to break the dam. I’m left with immense feelings of heaviness and sadness.

Today is a day where I’d rather be back in bed than have to deal with everything and everyone around me. But I don’t have the luxury of sticking my head in the sand and checking out. So I do my best to stay quiet and keep to myself for fear of snapping at the next innocent person who does something ordinary that I just don’t have the patience for.

Today is a day where everything—every little task or idea—seems overwhelming. Not because it’s too difficult, but because I just don’t care. I don’t care enough about anything today to find the energy to give to it.

Why don’t I care? Because my daughter is dead—and today everything else seems completely unimportant and irrelevant in the cold darkness of that reality.

Today is a day in the middle of a difficult month that is book-ended by painful reminders of her death. Her birthday was on the first day of this month—another year passed where she didn’t grow older. The anniversary of her death is on the last day of this month. Part of me thinks this month can’t end soon enough—yet come next month, my daughter will still be dead.

Today is a day where all the beauty around me cannot seem to penetrate the fog of despair. The loving smiles and embraces of my other children; the quiet serenity of nature around me; and even the daily reminders of my daughter and her continued presence and importance in my life. None of them can overcome these painful feelings today.

Today is a day where I accept being trapped within a wave of grief that has brought me to my knees.

I will handle it the best I can. I will be kind to myself. And I will be patient with my emotions. I will try not to push myself to do more than I can handle, and lean on others for support. I will look for the love within the pain and light within the darkness.

Today is a bad day.

I hope tomorrow will be better.

The Keepers of Your Flame

The Keepers of Your Flame

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When you died, the whole world did not mourn you.

You were not a celebrity, a world leader, and didn’t make the nightly news. You didn’t invent things that changed the world and will not end up in history books. But you made an indelible mark in our lives and in our hearts.

You meant the world to us.

You are our spouses, mothers and fathers; our grandparents, sisters and brothers. Our favorite aunts and uncles and cherished cousins and friends. You are our children; who may have only lived a few precious years or never even lived to take your first breath.

Long after the funeral is over – long after the rest of our world appears to have forgotten you – you stay fresh in our minds. We think of you in the quiet moments. When your favorite song comes on. Or when we see something we think you’d have liked…or hated. We think of how you’re missing from the special occasions in our lives. In our times of sorrow, we wish you were here to give us the hug and reassurance we desperately need from you.

We think of you.

Your legacy is not that of the job you held or the number of houses or cars you owned. It doesn’t matter how much money you made or how much influence you had in your community. Your legacy is that of tender moments and loving embraces. It is how wonderful and important you made us feel while you were with us. It is the smiles you put on our faces and the laughter we shared. Even if we never got the chance to hold you.

You mattered to us.

Your body died, but you live on in our memories. You live in the sparkle of our eyes every time we speak your name or hold you in our hearts. There will never be a time when we don’t remember you.

We miss you and love you.

We are the keepers of your flame.

Forever Four?

Forever Four?

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Next week will mark the day my daughter would have turned nine years old.

She died almost five years ago. But as a mother, I feel the responsibility to always remember how many years it has been since she was born. Just as I know the ages of my other children. I don’t want to have to fumble for the number and do the math in my head. I just want to know it, just as I know the ages of my sons whenever someone asks how old they are.

But, of course, she’s not nine years old. She only lived for four years.

So which is it? Is she forever four? Or was she four when she died and “would have been” nine now?

Whatever the answer, it serves as a painful reminder that I’ve lost the joy of seeing my daughter grow. I’m trapped in a world where I’ll always be wondering what she would have looked like? What would she have been interested in? What sports would she have played? Or would she have hated sports and preferred some artistic pursuit instead? The questions are endless.

Having all boys at home, I have no points of reference for what might have been. I have no close friends with daughters who are nine that I can hang out with and longingly see how they act or what music they’re into or what clothes they wear. 

I get glimpses of girls her “would have been” age every now and again, but they are sparse and intermittent at best.

I’m quite sure I’d be sick of the Frozen soundtrack by now, which most likely would have been on heavy rotation in our house. She would have had her own funky sense of style, and drawers and closets overflowing with a variety of clothes based on her love of them in the four years she lived. I’m quite sure she’d still be driving her brothers nuts, yet endearing herself to them at the same time.

But that’s just it – it is the underlying pain of not knowing.

No matter how far I’ve come in my journey of grief, I will always be left longing for the future I’ll never get; a future that contains all my children. So I’m left with a future that contains five children. Four of whom I’ll get to watch grow and mature, and one who will be four when she died and would have been…

The Terms of My Surrender

The Terms of My Surrender

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From the moment you came into my life, I hated you. I despised you. You came on the heels of my worst nightmare come true – the death of my young daughter.

I didn’t know your name at the time. I just knew that you brought with you all the horrible feelings and emotions I had spent a lifetime learning how to repress and ignore.

You broke my defenses down like they were candles trying to stay lit in a hurricane. You pounded me with pain, panic, anger, confusion, hysterics, anguish. And too many more to list.

Mostly you came in waves. Pounding one emotion down on me after another, but in such quick succession it was hard to even breathe or stand. Sometimes the feelings and emotions came in combinations, leaving me a shaking, sobbing, angry mess.

Soon, people around me who knew better told me that you had a name. Your name was Grief.

When I realized who you were and how you operated, I decided to wage war on you. I felt I couldn’t possibly continue the barrage of emotions that constantly debilitated me, so I became determined to stop you in your tracks and send you back to the depths of darkness you came from.

In the early weeks and months, my first defense against you was to “play dead” like an opossum being hunted by predators. My mind became numb to dull your overwhelming pain. I felt as though I had become an automated machine going through the motions of life without really experiencing it. The sensation felt like when you stare at the open road in front of you on a long, boring drive and then can’t remember how you got from one place to another. But over time, you found ways to defeat my numbness.

I then tried distracting myself with work; burying myself with so much busyness you couldn’t force your way in. But you were always there lurking in the shadows waiting for your moment to strike. Most often you would pounce when someone broke me out of my busy stupor by innocently asking, “How are you?” At that moment, my concentration broke and you flooded into every crevice of my body. Enraged, I thought to myself, “Do you REALLY want to know how I am?” But I’d bite my tongue and flatly answer, “Fine,” while you surged your pain through my body.

Having lost these battles, I began scanning over countless books and articles to try to discover your tactics and secret weapons so that I could plot my next moves.

I attended therapy and support groups to learn from the experts and others who had survived you so that I could gleam their winning strategies and use them for myself in defeating you. It didn’t do much good. I found myself withdrawing from everything and everyone around me to try to isolate myself from you and all your triggers. It only served to strengthen your resolve.

Occasionally, I won small victories. Talking about you and your oppressiveness to others seemed to send you away momentarily. But in the quiet moments, you always reappeared. Writing about you made me feel as though I had the upper hand, but the glow of victory soon faded after the last word had been written. Exercising seemed to alleviate your oppression, but in retaliation, you often cranked up your attacks to leave me too exhausted – physically and mentally – to find the motivation to work out. Spending time in nature often gave me a sense of peace and inner strength that softened you some, but could never defeat you altogether.

I spent years fighting you until I finally accepted this fact: I cannot beat you. I cannot make you go away.

In fact, the more I fight you, the stronger your feelings and emotions take over me. I’ve found that you feed on fear and anger. I’ve discovered you thrive and grow from any attempts to control or resist you.

So, if I can’t win, I officially wave my white flag and surrender. But I do so on my terms:

I Will No Longer Fear You

Despite the few times when I thought the only escape from you was to end my own life, I am still here; still standing. I have survived every painful emotion; every panic attack; every uncontrollable rage; every bout of severe depression. I am stronger than I ever thought possible, and will no longer fear your attacks. While I know some will still come out of nowhere, take my breath away and bring me to my knees, I will stay calm and know that your attack will eventually subside. I will ride the wave and let it take me where it will, knowing that eventually I will find my way home.

I Will Support Your Other Victims

Much like others supported me in my time of need; I will reach out a supportive hand to anyone who is within your grasp. I will listen quietly to their story as many times as they need to tell it. I will share my experience with those who seek it in hopes it will bring them a sense of understanding and community.

I Will Learn From You

Since you can be a destructive force to those who resist you, I will instead pull you closer and look to you as my ultimate teacher. For I have learned that deep within your pain and suffering lie kernels of truth and knowledge on how to live a meaningful life: a life without fear; a life filled with love and compassion. As you were created by losing a cherished loved one, you have love at your core. I will learn how to find the love at the center of every pain. I will learn to find the truth at the center of every fear. And when I learn these truths, I will share my knowledge with the world.

These are the terms of my surrender, and I know you have no choice but to accept them.