Grieving Parent

Tag: Grieving

  • The Four Month Report

    The Four Month Report

    It has now been 4 months since the “official” date of Richard’s death.

    Just thought I’d list a few observations about where we are in our grieving process.

    I don’t cry as much. Not openly. I cry inside just as much. I still miss my kid.

    Debbie and I go to work everyday. We’ve done this since about 3 weeks after Richard’s funeral. I don’t know how effective Debbie is at her job, but I find myself staring off in la-la-land a lot.

    I still think about Richard all the time. It’s like I have the Richard channel running in my brain. It’s 24/7 programming. Anything else must somehow rise above this channel to get attention.

    I feel an enormous emptiness inside. Richard was our baby. He was the last one that was dependent on us financially. He was a full time college student. We paid all his tuition and lodging expenses. We also provided him a car and insurance. I was paying these bills on a pay-as-you-go basis. It took everything I could make to keep up. It was my focus and my purpose in life. That is now gone. Yeah, it’s much easier financially. But I feel like a boat that’s lost its rudder and I just drift around where the currents take me. I don’t have a purpose anymore.  I just go through the motions.

    Debbie still cries when we attend a “Richard Mass.” These are the masses that supporters have said in Richard’s memory. There has been at least 1 every week since after his funeral. We’ve been to every one of them.

    I still feel a great sense of guilt. I should have been able to keep this from happening. I knew how Richard was, because he was very much like me. I knew that he would trust the medical establishment to not give him bad medication. I knew he wouldn’t ask his doctor before taking the generic form of his seizure prevention medication. I should have nagged him into it. Now he’s gone.

    It still chokes me up when I think about the tremendous support we’ve been shown by everyone around us – family, co-workers, fellow parishioners. The prayers and thoughts help.

  • The Big Game

    The Big Game

    Richard was a big sports fan. His bedroom is decorated in Miami Dolphins colors. They were his favorite NFL team.

    We had many sports talks. The sports minded members of my family are University of Kentucky fans. I went to school there in the 70’s . My parents had season tickets to the football games. My dad and I still go to all the home games along with my brother and his wife. So Richard decided he would be the fly in the ointment and be a University of Louisville fan. UK and UofL don’t like one another.

    I think he did this mostly to irritate my brother Stuart.

    I always felt he was mostly faking it. He always followed UK a lot more closely than he did Louisville. He just liked to argue.

    This fall Richard was supposed to be attending the University of Kentucky for the first time. He was excited about it.

    He had big plans for the annual UK vs UL football game. It was a home game for UK. Richard planned to wear his UL red t-shirt to the game. Right in the middle of the UK student section. We talked about it often.

    I was really looking forward to tailgating with my son and his girlfriend at all the games this fall. I have been going to these games with my dad for many years, and looked forward to continuing this tradition with Richard for many more years.

    But Richard never got to attend UK.

    I thought about wearing a UL shirt in memory of him. But I knew the emotional load would be too much. I would have spent the entire game remembering why I was wearing the wrong colors.

    I guess the games will never be the same.

  • Franklin on Death

    Franklin on Death

    The founders of our nation were pretty smart folks.

    Following the death of his brother John Franklin, Benjamin Franklin wrote this letter to Elizabeth Hubbard, his brothers stepdaughter, on February 22, 1756

    Dear Child,

    I condole with you, we have lost a most dear and valuable relation, but it is the will of God and Nature that these mortal bodies be laid aside, when the soul is to enter into real life: ’tis rather an embrio state, a preparation for living: a man is not completely born until he be dead: Why then should we grieve that a new child is born among the immortals? A new member added to thier happy society? We are spirits. That bodies should be lent us, while they can afford us pleasure, assist us in acquiring knowledge, or doing good to our fellow creatures, is a kind and benevolent act of God. When they become unfit for these purposes and afford us pain instead of pleasure — instead of an aid, become an incumbrance and answer none of the intentions for which they were given, it is equally kind and benevolent that a way is provided by which we may get rid of them. Death is that way. We ourselves prudently choose a partial death. In some cases a mangled painful limb, which cannot be restored, we willingly cut off. He who plucks out a tooth, parts with it freely since the pain goes with it, and he that quits the whole body, parts at once with all pains and possibilities of pain and diseases it was liable to or capable of making him suffer.

    Our friend and we are invited abroad on a party of pleasure–that is to last forever. His chair was first ready and he is gone before us. We could not all conveniengly start together, and why should you and I be grieved at this, since we are soon to follow, and we know where to find him.

    Addieu.
    B. F.

  • Grieving Sucks

    Grieving Sucks

    Grieving for a lost child takes pain to a whole new level.

    This site is the story of our journey through grief for our lost son Richard. Therapy maybe.  I’ll probably also share some stories about Richard. We were very proud of him and like all grieving parents, we don’t want him to be forgotten.

    By sharing this story I hope I can help you, if you too have lost your child.

    Richard would have been 23 today. So this site is a birthday present to him.

    Happy Birthday son. I miss you.

    Why this website is here.

    Richard’s story.

    We recommend Compassionate Friends

  • Richard

    Richard

    Here’s a quick tip for you.

    If you miss a call on your phone, and don’t recognize the number, and when you call back they answer, “Fayette County Coroner” – your day is about to go in the toilet.

    Mine did.

    It got worse.

    After apologizing for breaking the news to me over the phone, the coroner lady told me they had the sheriff stopping by our house to inform us of are sons death, but no one was home. My wife Debbie was at a class in Louisville that night. I didn’t want her coming home to have a deputy sheriff waiting for her in the driveway. I knew I had to be the one to tell her that her baby was dead. So I called her.

    No wonder I hate phones.

    Our son Richard was 22 years old, would have been 23 at the end of August had he lived.

    Three years before his death, Richard got sick. The whole story is long, but the short version is he had a sinuous infection that broke through his skull in the area over his eyes. It then abscessed into his brain.

    This required two brain surgeries to remove successfully. His doctors decided to not return the part of his skull that formed his forehead because of possible infection. He had to have another operation after all the infection was cleared to replace this bone with a plastic replacement plate.

    The operations left him with scare tissue in his brain, just as a cut leaves scar tissue on the skin.

    This scar tissue was a place that could trigger seizures.

    He had seizures on two occasions. The first time he wasn’t on medication. It’s believed he was being lax taking the medication on the second time.

    Both seizures were massive. They caused his entire body to convulse. They came nonstop. They were medical emergencies and he ended up staying in the hospital for several days after each.  A couple of days in intensive care after the second seizure.

    But he was taking medication – Kepra – and things were going well. He had been more than a year and a half seizure free.

    Richard was a full time student. He had a part-time job. He lived in an apartment by himself. This of course made us pretty nervous. We knew that if he had a seizure in his apartment alone, the outcome would be disaster.

    Richard was very close to his cousin Hannah. They grew up together and went through all of our family big events together. Hannah was graduating from college. Richard should have been too, but he lost a couple of years school work during all his medical adventures. He told Hannah he had brain surgery so she could have a graduation party all to herself.  We were having a family gathering to celebrate her accomplishment on a Saturday afternoon. My wife Debbie talked to Richard on Friday night and he said he couldn’t make it to the party because he had to work. But he might come home on Sunday.

    I sent him a text message on Saturday night to see if he was coming home. He didn’t answer. That wasn’t too unusual – I didn’t know what hours he was working. He didn’t make it home that weekend. I sent him a message early in the week to see how he was. I got no answer. That made me anxious. But there had been another time he didn’t respond to calls or text messages. I got concerned then. It turned out his phone had quit. He was using cheap Walmart phones and they didn’t last. So I tried to stay calm.

    On Thursday evening I sent him another text message from work to see how he was. No answer. More nerves. Then about 10pm I got a call over my radio at work to come to a phone. I looked at my cell phone and saw I’d missed a call. I didn’t recognize the number. But it was from Lexington where Richard lived. I thought maybe his phone was dead again and he was calling from work or a friends place to touch base. I called the number.

    And the nightmare that never ends began.