Grieving Parent

Tag: Grieving

  • A Father In Need Of Prayers

    A Father In Need Of Prayers

    Father Mike is the pastor at our church. He gives some pretty good homilies. He gave one a few weeks ago that’s had me thinking since.

    He was talking about sins of omission and sins of commission. He likes to bring in examples from recent news, and this Sunday one of the examples he used was the story of a father that caused his only child’s death. This man was supposed to deliver his eight month old son to daycare on his way to work. He forgot about the baby in the back seat, went to work, and the little guy got left in the car on a 90 degree day. You can guess the result.

    Father Mike admitted his first reaction toward this forgetful dad was not one of charity. This is the second time an accident like this has happened in our area in the last few years. I tried to remember back when our kids were babies. If they were in the back seat I couldn’t take my eyes off them. I constantly checked the mirror or grabbed a quick look in the back seat. I probably was a danger to them because I wasn’t watching the road and could have easily crashed.

    How could you forget about your baby?

    But then I’d have to admit there have been times I was going to town or to my dad’s, and when the time came to turn at the corner, I would cruise straight on through, like I do when I’m going to work. In the small space of a few hundred yards to the corner, I’d gone into complete autopilot mode and started driving to work – like I’ve done everyday for nearly 40 years. I’d completely forget where I was supposed to be going. It’s happened more than once.

    So maybe I shouldn’t judge.

    Father Mike went on to explain how our job as followers of Christ is to forgive. To fight off that urge to judge. He talked about what this guy will be facing in the future. The incredible pain and difficulty he will have.

    I think almost every grieving parent I’ve met has blamed themselves for the child’s death – even when they had nothing to do with it at all.  I know I have.

    Why didn’t I insist that Richard take the generic seizure meds to his doctor and make sure it was OK to take? He told me some new allergy medicine he’d been prescribed made him throw up and he stopped taking it. Why didn’t I connect that to possible seizures? He’d had vomiting in the days leading up to his other seizures. Why didn’t I make that connection?

    Parents whose kids died in car crashes blame themselves for letting them go out that night.

    As parents one of our jobs is to protect our kids. When they die, we just know we’ve failed, and it’s our fault. The truth is, these events weren’t in our control. None of us really could have prevented this awful thing from happening.

    But what if it was your fault? What if your actions directly caused your child’s death?

    How could you live with that?

    How could you look in the mirror at your face every day? How could you face your wife, knowing you killed her baby? How could you go to work, knowing your coworkers would be looking at you and thinking baby-killer?

    How could you forgive yourself?

    I don’t know. But it probably has to start with us forgiving him first.

    This man didn’t do this on purpose. It’s safe to assume he loved his little son, just as we loved ours. His kid is dead, just like ours is. He has to face going on in life without his child, just like we do. He faces all the pain and emotion we’ve faced. He didn’t want to join this exclusive little group anymore than we did, but he’s one of us.

    He was human and made a mistake resulting in tragedy. He now has to face that. He’ll probably have to face it with much less support than we’ve had. He has priests using him as an example in sermons, and we don’t. His road seems much longer and harder than ours. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

    I’ve said lot’s of prayers for him. I’ll continue to pray for him. I hope you’ll join me.

     

  • A Prayer Request

    A Prayer Request

    Tonight my cousin Denise lost her daughter Jessica.

    It brings back memories of that night two and a half years ago. Debbie and I were sitting on our couch going through every picture of Richard we could find. We sat there crying, hugging and, if you can believe it, laughing as we looked at the images of the smiling face we’d never see again.

    Maybe Denise has been doing the same thing. See that playful picture of Jessica above? Denise just posted it to Facebook to let friends and family know about Jessica’s death. She says she likes this picture. And no, that’s not Jessica’s real hair.

    I’m sitting here now trying to think of some magic words to say to my sweet cousin. I’m searching for something, anything I can tell her to ease her pain and grief.

    But I have no magic words. There are none.

    So all I can do right now is pray for her. I hope you’ll help me if you’re a praying person. I believe in the power of prayer, especially prayers said by many people in many places.

    Denise has spent many worry filled days and sleepless nights in hospitals and at home nursing her daughter after the brain surgeries she had. She has one last earthly task to do for her little girl. I pray she’ll find the strength to get through taking Jessica to her final resting place. I pray that she’ll make it through the nightmare that never ends and find peace in the coming months and years.

    I pray. It’s all I know to do.

  • Crazy Thoughts?

    Crazy Thoughts?

    After your kid leaves this earth you do a lot of thinking – at least I do. I come up with some pretty crazy ideas too.

    A few months before Richard died I was involved in a truck crash. My Toyota pickup truck verses a Big Rig. It ran over me on I-64.

    It was the first week of February. That winter had been a bad one for driving. We’d had several ice storms. On that night, as I left work for the 45 mile drive home, the roads were clear.

    There are two exits for Frankfort, KY on I-64, five miles apart. In the middle is the Kentucky River. You pass one exit and then descend down a long slow decline, cross the river, then drive up a long slow incline back to the top and then pass the second exit.

    This area between the Frankfort exits, across the Kentucky River valley, is a moisture magnet. If there is any rain, snow or ice in the air, it will fall between those exits. I’ve been making near daily trips along this stretch of road for more than three decades now, and it’s always been that way.

    So I wasn’t a bit surprised when ice started falling as I began to near Frankfort.

    It was light at first, but like always it got worse the closer to Frankfort I got. The surface was soon covered in a slush and ice combo. As I passed the first exit the ice was much worse. I slowed down and shifted into 4-wheel drive mode. Driving down the hill toward the river I could feel the road grow slicker. I wasn’t in a hurry, so I slowed down more. As I got close to the bottom of the hill and the Kentucky River bridge I was probably doing between 30 and 35 miles per hour.

    As I concentrated on keeping my truck on the road I remember looking up at the rearview mirror. I saw a tractor trailer truck coming up on me fast. I realized he was going to hit me, and there wasn’t a thing either of us could do at that point to keep it from happening. I don’t remember being really afraid about it, it was just a mental calculation of speed and distance, as the headlights rapidly filled my mirror.

    The next thing I remember was looking up at the headliner of my truck. The seat was laid backward, so I was facing the roof. The top half of the steering wheel was bent backwards at a 90 degree angle. I grabbed it and pulled myself upright.

    The truck was pointed uphill in what appeared to be a woods. The still running pickup (gotta love those Toyotas) was backed down in between several trees. I couldn’t see any road from where my truck sat. I had no idea how I had gotten there.

    I unbuckled my seat belt and got out of the truck. There was some guy coming down the hill and asking, “Are you alright?”

    I had a bit of a headache, and there seemed to be a bump on the back of my head, but all parts were still attached and moving when I wanted them to, so I told him I was.

    I did consent to an ambulance ride to the hospital to be checked out when the medics arrived.

    Many hours later the details were filled in.

    The truck driver claimed to be doing 60 miles per hour when he rear-ended me. There was a sliding window in my truck cab, and I knocked the section behind the driver seat out with my head.

    Got a concussion and a bit of a cut on the back of my head.

    My truck was totalled.

    I didn’t even remember the truck coming up on me until a couple of hours after the wreck. Until then I thought it was a single vehicle accident.

    Everyone tells me I was lucky to still be alive. And that’s where the crazy thoughts come in…

    Maybe I’m not still alive.

    Maybe I was killed in the crash and my body is the one buried near my mom at the cemetery, not Richard’s.

    I mean really, couldn’t this be hell?

    I know we all think of hell as some big sea of fire. The devil prances around above with some nice cold sweet tea, and just laughs at the bad people as they suffer in the flames. That’s the hell the good Sisters of Mercy taught me about back in my Catholic grade school days.

    But wouldn’t that be soft time compared to this?

    Maybe when you go to hell you think you’re still alive, and the devil makes bad things happen to your family.

    That’s one of the crazy thoughts I’ve had since Richard died.

    I wasn’t a saint. I didn’t even get close to it. But I don’t think I was so horrible that God couldn’t forgive me and would send me straight to hell. I’m just guessing at his standards here, but I’ve never felt I was that close to the edge.

    So maybe I’m not in hell. And that’s where another crazy thought comes in…

    Could I have made a deal with the angel of death?

    What if I was supposed to die in the crash. But while I was out of it after using my head for a hammer against the rear window, the Grim Reaper offered to let me come back, if I’d offer up one of my beautiful children in my place. Certainly either of them would be a much more valuable catch than me.

    I’ve never wanted to die. The thought has always scared the crap out of me. I always liked it here. Sign me up for the immortality juice.

    Could I have made a deal? Would I have done something so horrible, just to save myself?

    I really love that kid, so I don’t think I would do it. I hope I wouldn’t do it.

    I pray I didn’t do it.

    So there are just a couple of my crazy thoughts. They are crazy, aren’t they… Or are they? Either of them could have happened. How the heck would I know if they did?

    Welcome to the wacky mind of a grieving parent.

  • The Last Jolly Rancher

    The Last Jolly Rancher

    Richard was a fan of Jolly Ranchers.

    In case you don’t know,  Jolly Ranchers are rectangular blocks of fruit flavored hard candy. Each Jolly Rancher comes individually wrapped in cellophane wrappers.

    He had lots of them in his apartment. There were a couple of containers of them on his desk. There was a cup full on an end table. There was also a huge unopened bag of them in one of his kitchen cabinets.

    Because of the strong chemicals used to fumigate Richard’s apartment after his death, I tossed out all the candy he had in open containers. I didn’t trust the cellophane wraps that were just twisted closed on the ends to keep the chemical fog away from the candy.

    But I was sure the big unopened bag was OK and I brought it home when I cleaned out his apartment.

    Over the past two and a half years I’ve eaten Richard’s Jolly Ranchers. I would think of him with each piece. It was like sharing a little bit of his life again.

    We also “gave some to Richard” at candy giving times by tossing them on his grave – with the wrappers removed of course.

    Today we went to the cemetery and did a bit of Halloween decorating at Richard’s grave. Debbie tossed out some candy for Richard.

    In that candy she tossed on his grave was the last of Richard’s Jolly Ranchers. There were two left and she gave them to Richard.

    They were his of course, and it’s only right he gets to finish them off. The wrappers were getting hard to peel away from the candy and it was time to do something with them.

    But it seems along with the last chunk of the candy he loved and bought with his own money, another piece of my kid is gone.

    Yes, that’s pretty silly when you really think about it. But then, having to bury one of your kids is pretty silly too.

    Happy Halloween kid, I hope you enjoy the candy.

  • Unfinished Business

    Unfinished Business

    Today I’m exhausted.

    I’ve begun the process of taking care of all my unfinished Richard business. It’s a pretty impressive to-do list. There are just so many little things that need to be done, so many loose ends that need tying.

    In the early days after Richard’s death I had a lot of energy to get all the legal and financial things taken care of. I felt like making sure Richard’s money was secured, and his final financial house was in order, was one last thing I could do for my kid.

    But you can’t just go and transfer funds, and close accounts. You need legal documentation that says you have the right to do those things. That’s a good thing, because we don’t want someone to be able to come in and transfer all our money out of our bank accounts without jumping through a whole bunch of hoops.

    But there was a problem. This process all begins with the death certificate. It took three months to get Richard’s death certificate. That’s a long time to wait, and to maintain the desire to force yourself to do emotionally hard tasks.

    It also turns out most financial institutions won’t let you access accounts with only a death certificate. You need court orders that give you authority. This of course takes more time.

    Richard left behind a checking account, a small mutual fund account, a couple of paychecks, a broke down Camero, and assorted credit card bills.

    The credit cards were taken care of as soon as it was legally possible. I had an attorney do that for me. Credit card companies seem to take the news that they won’t be getting any money much better when a lawyer tells them.

    It’s the other items, the assets, that I’m struggling with.

    They’re like little pieces of him left behind. I know it sounds silly, but closing those items out is sort of like he’s dying all over again. At least a little bit.

    He had an automatic draft from his checking account of $50 each month going to his mutual fund. I had to stop that as soon as the death certificate arrived because his checking account balance got too low to make another payment. $50 bucks a month wasn’t much, but it was just an example of Richard’s plans for the future. The future that will never be. But I can still feel his hopes and dreams when I look at his account statements that come to our mail box.

    It’s really hard to let go of those pieces of him.  So, I’ve been putting it off.

    I’ve been forced to deal with it.

    Chase bank has started charging his account a monthly maintenance fee. In a couple of months they’ll have all that’s left in there. I don’t think he’d like that. So I’ve spent the last couple of days dealing with the bank to get his account closed. He had some sort of reward points that I’m having converted to cash. They’re worth nearly $100. It’s taking them a long time to post the funds to his account, so I’m still waiting to close it out.

    The emotional stress of such a simple thing as closing a bank account is exhausting.

    I still have to transfer his mutual fund into my name. I need to do something with his car that’s rotting in our driveway. And I need to have his two final paychecks, that expired before we could get the death certificate, reissued.

    I don’t want to do any of those things. But I guess the time has come.