The answer to “Where do you find peace” is as varied as our children were. As Trish notes below we might find peace in an unexpected place, in the company of dear friends, or perhaps in our home. Alive Alone provides support for bereaved parents suffering from the loss of an only child, or of all their children. Adapted from a newsletter article by Trish Myers
It’s early Fall now, and I’m struggling to find a message for the holidays of 2020. It’s been a tragic and remarkable year in so many ways, but especially for our newly bereaved parents. Our hearts go out to all of you, who are navigating through the tumultuous terrain of child loss at this time in our history. As we look for our own place of peace, we are surrounded by people in every kind of pain imaginable.
Holiday celebrations typically make most of us feel even more powerless to cope with our heartbreaking and gut wrenching grief. With 17 years of hindsight, I’ve thought that the biggest error in judgement I made in 2003 was in leaving our home, my place of peace, to socialize with my husband’s extended family on Christmas Eve. Without my own parents and brother present, I was adrift in a sea of pain, made only worse by the isolation I felt. As I told my therapist later, it was like having open heart surgery without anesthesia. Please know that my experience of pain does not reflect on the family that gathered. And it was a choice that I might make again for my husband and others. The “take away” may have been that I left my place of peace at a time when I needed it the most.
This past week, amidst the beautiful autumn colors, I was at great peace while in the cemetery where my daughter and parents’ remains rest. I now like going there. Years before I was even a mother, I recall relatives saying that there are those who are “cemetery visitors” and those who are not. It made sense to me. I had never felt a connection to a grave. For me, the soul of the person is gone and at peace. Yet as I got older, I knew bereaved mothers who visited their children’s graves with ritual regularity. I still wasn’t sure. Is that “healthy”? Some would say, “No, keep moving forward.” Well, sadly, now I know the answer for me.
Your place of peace is wherever and whenever you can find a small moment of love and warmth that translates into an expression of closeness with your child. The cemetery or resting place may never be that place for you. It might be your porch, your child’s bedroom, a place of worship, outdoor spaces, a garden, hugs from a family pet, the inside of your favorite books, the sounds of birds or music, or the embrace of a special friend or family member.
Every bereaved parent has to discover sources of peace for their very troubled, aching hearts and minds. Don’t give up looking, and be patient. Places of peace will change as the years tick by. Just imagine me, visiting a cemetery, and actually coming away feeling full of love. I could never have imagined such a thing.
It helps me that Allyson’s resting place is where my husband and I will rest one day. And my brother and wife will join all of us. We are a family of cremated remains, and a friend, who oversees my small hometown church cemetery, assured us that there is room for all of us. In fact, Allyson died long before my parents, but I saved all 3 urns to be interred together. I picture all 3 in a warm embrace as their souls are at peace.
I’ll close this with you picturing me sitting on the ground before her flat rose granite plaque that was designed with her symbol, a dragonfly. Her name takes up the whole lovely stone, while my family’s names are on a stone that stands erect at the far end. Allyson’s stone is flush with the beautiful grass, and the sun warms the granite to a gorgeous hue. I place my fingers and hands along the etched letters of her name, and I speak to her as I would if she were alive. I pray. And the whole time, my hands move over and over her beautiful name. I am filled with the love that I carry with me for my Allyson. And I know that she is still loving me.
May you all find your place of peace. It may seem impossible now, but time is actually on your side. Our children understand the eternal before we do, and they help lead us to the sense of peace and love that knows no bounds.
Sending blessings and love,
Trish Myers
Allyson’s Mom
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