Grieving Parent

Tag: Grieving

  • Do You Watch Old Home Movies?

    Do You Watch Old Home Movies?

    My aunt Sally died last weekend. Her funeral was today.

    The funeral home people provided my uncle and cousins with a nice memorial page that included a slide show of pictures of Sally.

    I remember going through pictures of Richard on that night when we found out he was gone. The next day, Sarah, the cousins, and Richard’s girl friend Ivy went through boxes of pictures to pick out the ones to be used on the big montage. There were a lot of funny stories from the girls, and the day after we found out our son was dead, we found ourselves laughing.

    I have several pictures of my aunt Sally. I also have a very funny video of her.

    We have a family reunion every year at “the farm,” my dad’s home. It’s a big event. Everyone brings food. There’s enough fried chicken for an army, and all manner of side dishes.

    One year Sally was carrying a container of biscuits into the kitchen. Several biscuits fell out and landed on the floor. She made a quick look around, and seeing no one, she picked them up and put them back in the container. Unfortunately for Sally, I was in the next room with a video camera and caught the whole thing on tape.

    It was a big hit with the family when we played Sally sneaking the spilled biscuits back into the box. She got teased about it for several reunions afterward.

    I’m sure her family would like to have that video.

    But that would require me to go into that dangerous box. The one with the family videos.

    And I’d have to watch those movies to find the one with Sally and her biscuits.

    I’m just not that brave yet.

    There are so many wonderful memories on those VHS tapes. Archives of happy times. And Richard’s smiling face.

    I loved that face, and those smiles. I see them in my mind everyday.

    But I can’t watch them on the TV screen.

    Those memories are a treasure. They’re also a reminder of the great loss we feel. And that brings such pain.

    So I’m not brave enough to open that dangerous box.

    Not yet.

    Can you watch your old home movies?

  • Two Years

    Two Years

    It’s now May 23rd… two years from the day Richard died.

    Yeah, I know the “official” date is the 28th of May. But that wasn’t when he died, it’s when they found him in his apartment. In my heart I know he died on this day.

    We were at the farm that day. I remember sitting on the porch that evening looking up at the stars, and I was thinking of Richard. I looked out into the heavens and thought, “I hope you’re alright.” I had an uneasy feeling. Somehow I knew, though I wouldn’t understand that feeling for several more days.

    The intensity of the pain is just breath taking – even two years out.

    I miss you kid.

    This is one of your mom’s favorite pictures of you, so I put it up here today.

    Even with that damned Louisville hat on your head.

  • Grief Gut

    Grief Gut

    Let’s get one thing clear right at the start… that isn’t a picture 0f me.

    Most of the images used on this site came from my camera. But not that one. I bought that one. And I’ve never eaten more than half a pie at one time.

    Oh, and another thing. Debbie tells me she’s gained weight since Richard’s death too. I’ve never noticed. Nope. She still looks just the same to me. Being the sweet lady she is, I think she was just trying to make me feel better, because….

    I’ve gained weight since Richard died.

    Since my first days in college at the University of Kentucky, I’ve had trouble staying thin. My meal plan at the cafeteria let me have one helping of the main entre, and as much of everything else as I wanted. They had good french fries. I think I had about ten plates full a day. Loved those fries.

    I was also much less involved in sports. Not being on a team anymore, I no longer had a mandated training schedule.

    So I got fat.

    But a couple of years before Richard died I lost weight. They had a “Greatest Loser” contest at work, and I signed up.

    Losing the weight turned out to be pretty easy for me. I just changed the way I ate. What I call, “Eat Less, More Often.” Smaller meals but more of them. Healthy snacks like raw fruit and vegetables.

    And I kept the weight off after the contest ended. It was easy. So easy, I gave away all the clothes I had shrunk out of. I wasn’t looking back.

    And then the world turned upside down.

    Jon Gabriel is author of The Gabriel Method – The Revolutionary Diet-Free Way to Totally Transform Your Body. He’s a really smart guy, and he’s put a great deal of energy and research into finding a way to lose weight. He did it because he was huge, and probably not going to be around long if he didn’t shed some pounds. He lost over 220 pounds. That’s more than I weighed when Richard died.

    Gabriel attributes weight gain to mindset, mostly a response to stress.

    Having one of your children die causes stress. LOTS of stress.

    When I feel stress I like to nibble constantly. I’m always snacking. And when I’m stressed out, I can tell you, I don’t look for carrot sticks. I want something fast and easy. Something salty like chips. Or chocolate. Ice cream is nice too.

    I don’t do that so much now. I’ve tried to get back to eating like before. But so far I’m not getting the results I want.

    According to Gabriel, when our bodies react to stress, we store fat like crazy. Some primal force within us makes our metabolism slow down, and all the fat storage chemicals ramp up. Weight gain is a really stupid self defense strategy, but it’s what our bodies do.

    Most grieving parents probably don’t get a closet full of clothes when they lose their child. I did. I was wearing the same size clothes as Richard, so I inherited all his stuff. I wear  them often. Maybe gaining weight is my hearts way of telling me that it’s just wrong I have those clothes now and not him. Could my body be trying to force me out of his clothes in the hope he’ll come back and claim them?

    I’d be glad to eat a whole pie, with a carton of ice cream on top every day if that would work to bring him back.

  • The Suit That Never Was

    The Suit That Never Was

    Our church consists of two separate church buildings connected by a central hall. There is the mid-1800’s era church we now call The Chapel. Our main church, the one where all the Sunday Masses are conducted, is on the other side of the hall. We call that one The Church. The Church’s entry doors are located inside the hall.

    So everyone leaving church after Mass must go into this central area, that we have given the imaginative name of The Gathering Space.

    Parishioners gather in The Gathering Space after Mass to catch up, chat and have a bit of fellowship.

    As we moved through the post-Mass crowd the other day we ran into Carolyn Gregory. Her son Andrew was one of Richard’s friends in youth group. About a half dozen of the guys in that high school group became known as The Posse. As you can see, we’re big on snappy names in our parish.

    As we talked with Carolyn, we of course asked about Andrew. Carolyn told us about his progress in school where he is getting close to graduation and the big job search. She mentioned about how they were going to go shopping for a suit for Andrew to wear on his interviews.

    Oh Oh. I was expecting Debbie to start crying. I had a lump in my throat.

    You see, Richard was getting ready to start his junior year in business college at the University of Kentucky. He was making plans for interviews and internships. He’d asked Debbie to go shopping with him to pick out a new suit for those occasions.

    She was looking forward to it a lot. I’m not sure if Richard was more interested in her taste in suits or her use of the check book, but his momma was thrilled with the request.

    But that shopping trip never happened.

    And our conversation in The Gathering Space served as a reminder of that. And the reason why.

    That’s how easy it is to get tripped up on the grieving path.

    We both left church with a heavy heart, but neither of us cried. I guess that’s progress.

    Photo credit: The image above was borrowed from The Men’s Warehouse website. I hope they don’t mind. If you need a suit or clothing, buy something from them to make it up to them.

  • Another Stumbling Block

    Another Stumbling Block

    After Richard’s death, one of the items I had to decide on was about cars.

    I was using a 1995 Toyota Camry as my driving to work car. Had 160,000 something miles on it. Richard had a 2004 Toyota Corolla with less than a third of the miles my Camry had.

    I needed to figure out which one to keep.

    I liked my old Camry. It was comfy and it had cruise control. But the Corolla was much newer and it got better gas mileage, but only by a few MPG’s. And no cruise control.

    The very last vision I had of Richard, I was watching out the front door, through the opening in the hedges, as he drove past our house on his way back to Lexington. I never saw him again. So there’s some emotional attachment to the Corolla.

    I started driving the Corolla to work. And the Camry just sat in the driveway. I really intended to sell it, but just never mustered the willpower to get it done. It was one of many loose ends that are still just dangling out there.

    The car sat in the driveway for a year and a half. I almost never drove it.

    Out of the blue, people started knocking on our door, wanting to know if the Camry was for sale. It didn’t have a “For Sale” sign in the window and I wasn’t advertising it anywhere. In the space of a week there were 4 people asking about it.

    The last was a young girl. She had a 3 month old baby and was pregnant again. I was at work when she showed up with her husband and her dad. Debbie gave her our phone number.

    The next morning she called and asked if I would sell her the car.

    “I probably would. I haven’t really thought about it much.”

    “What do you want for it?” she asked.

    “I have no idea what it’s worth. I hadn’t been planning to sell it,” I told her. “What would you give?”

    She made me an offer that was what I’d paid for it two years before. In the heated negotiations that followed I managed to talk her down by $500.

    So I sold my Camry.

    Before turning it over to her, I cleaned out the console and glove box of my stuff. Papers and gloves and ice scrapers and spare change that were floating around the interior.

    And that’s where the stumbling block comes in.

    In the glove box I found the receipt from the pharmacy for the last prescription I bought for Richard. The one for the generic substitute for his seizure medicine. The one that killed him.

    It wasn’t a good find.