recent loss

mitzey:

I am so sorry for your loss.  Grieving the death of a parent, especially after watching them be robbed of their strength and ability to live a normal life is devastating to a child, no matter what your age….and then to watch those who loved this same person suffer from the grief…well, it just makes the grieving process even harder.

No words from others can help you or your mother ease this road through grief…it is a process and one that you should try not to avoid.  Stuffing your emotions of grief will only make things much worse…you need to work through the stages at your own pace.  It took me ten long years to work through the grieving process of losing my own father to colon cancer….but I made it.  I made a lot of mistakes and made some very poor decisions in the process…all because I kept on stuffing the grief, building up resentment and anger, while not dealing with my grief in a healthy manner.  Much of my grief was caught up in unresolved issues from childhood and the fact that I thought I had disappointed my father through some of my decisions I had made throughout my life.  It took some intense counseling to go back and realize that I had never disapponted my father..he had been my hero…he uncondtionally loved me.  I needed to forgive myself. This may not be the case with you…but grief can be compounded by unresolved issues that were never dealt with while the person was alive.  

Also, everyone deals with their grief differently and the timeline is also varying…some people never get over teh death of someone that they love…they get stuck in the stages of grief.  My mother never did get over the death of my father…she remained in the anger stage of grief until the day that she died, which was this past April.  My siblings and I were never able to get her past this stage.  She became a very bitter, resentful, angry old woman, never quite appreciating the blessings God had given her.  A person has to choose to move through the stages of grief…you can not force them.  Yes, you can gently encourage them…but grief is a very personal and intimate process…you can only control your own process, not others.

This is my only advice to you:  Be gentle with yourself.  Lean in and depend on your faith.  Know and understand that there will be a time in this process that you will be angry with God for taking your father…this is okay…God knows and understands this…He will wait for you to understand His intent, eventaully God will reveal amazing things to you about why this has happened and one day give you the gift of acceptance and bless you with insight that will grow your spirit and life.  He will turn the most negative in to a positive…He will lead you out of the shadow of the valley.  Your only job is to ensure that you don’t get lost in the vally of shadow by allowing yourself to fall into a depression, giving in to a mid-life crisis and blaming others for what has befallen you.  Do NOT let anyone set a timeline for your grieving process.  Those who say to you six months or a year out from the death of a loved one that you should be over this by now…know nothing about about your grief, have not grieved themselves and if they have…they are people who have stuffed or silenced their own grief and will ultimately have to deal with it one day.

The death of a loved one is the beginning of a season of change…change hurts…but it can be a period of your life that God will reveal things, grow you even further in your faith and in your spirit…it can be gift of strength, maturity and possibilities.  It is up to you to decide how this will truly affect your life.  I am sure your father would want the best for you and not have you swimming in a sea saddness over his passing.

Mitzey,
I’m so sorry to hear of the loss of your precious father.
I lost my oldest son AJ 3 years ago, he was 21 years old.
It has been the hardest thing on earth to deal with, I have taken it one day at a time.
Grief is such a personal thing, we all handle it differently. There is no right way or wrong way to grieve.
My heart and prayers are with you and your mom during this difficult time. God bless you…..

Im sorry for your loss but look at it this way he is with the Lord right now. In a place filled with milk and honey where everything is beautiful. The flowers the fields he is still watching over you from afar. He is out of pain and suffering but he is walking with the Lord right now in green pastures. And one day you will be with him again,  

Sara

Mitzey,

I am so very sorry to hear of your loss. I feel your pain, and truly understand what you are feeling, as many of us do.
And it is so very helpful to find new friends who do understand. But, for me, as I went through the loss of a husband after being married for a significant number of years, it was staying “ever so” closely to the Lord. He was my one true strength.  I had been going through a slight period of questioning God’s existence, I am embarrassed to admit. I was raised as an infant to into Christianity and I suppose one does, as a certain age, start to think outside the box.
EVEN though I had MANY certain PROOF God was real, I still began to question. BUT, when my husband died I clung to the LORD and he sustained me. There was no one, nothing that gave me what HE could.

I ask God to hold you close and to give you comfort as only He can.

God Bless You and Your Mom!
Della