We have put our hope in Him that He will deliver us again while you join in helping us by your prayers.
2 Cor. 1:8
The life lessons I have learned this past year have given me clear goals for the future:
Love DEEPER, Live TRUER, Listen LOUDER, Care KINDER, Forgive MORE, Pray PURPOSEFULLY, Communicate CLEARER and practice COMPASSION with intention.
As is always the case, it's hard not to reflect on a past year with a new year coming. "Time flies over us but leaves its shadow behind" ~Nathaniel Hawthorne. The shadow of 2019 is my biggest one yet I would have to admit. Suffering presented itself in a real way to me as a mother, daughter, sister and wife. Each role presented with it's own individual challenges sometimes combining with others. God made us as women uniquely able to multi task and I guess you could say that gift truly helped me to navigate these different valleys LAST year. I am gradually working my way through each of them. My grief over the loss of Joey will be an ongoing valley that I walk through for the rest of my life because I will be his mother always and I cherish that. The change I experienced in my parents this year as a daughter witnessing my mom's memory start to slip away presented a different type of challenge. This was more where I started trying to give the care back to my mom that she blessed me with my whole life. She was always a strong woman of faith who's light shined so bright despite her humble nature. There was the the news of my brother's wife and her battle with late stage ovarian cancer. This happened later in the year but it came at a time when your suffering causes you to deeply love and care about your loved ones who have now been afflicted. I go back to the song played at the funeral, "through it all, my eyes are on you, through it all, it is well". God showed me so much through it all. I was able to see that it could be worse. While I may be experiencing loss (son, parents as they once were), I have still gained. I have gained insight and wisdom in my reflection. I have gained a new perspective on life. I have gained new friendships and rekindled some old ones that have been a true blessing. I have gained blessings from so many who are lifting our family up in prayer. God is faithful and will CONTINUE to carry me through my journey called life.
Love DEEPER
Experiencing the loss of a child to suicide affects your sense of love. Your love for your remaining children is now deeper. It may even seem desperate at times. I have teenagers and Jacque is an adult so it doesn't exactly go over great that mom is a perpetual hugger now and wants to go on dates with them but I make it clear that my love for them is unconditional and they need to know I will help them in any way I can. My love relationally has also changed. I can tell you that there are those this year who I truly believe were sent to me in the perfect moments to help me through an oncoming crisis or an ongoing crisis. As many of you may know I am a people person but this year I found that social groups were a bit of a challenge for my grief, I found it much more helpful to be able to spend quality time with one or two at a time. I leave our time together feeling a deep love for that moment and the blessings that came out of it. The conversations, prayer together, laughter all helping to heal a hurting mother's heart. So, my hope for everyone is that we love with a depth we have not had before. Years ago when I was a child I wanted to go to bible camp so badly in the summer. My mom and dad said it would be possible but I had to memorize a chapter of the bible first. I memorized 1 Cor 13: 4-8. I have never forgotten those words and when it comes to love, Paul writes it best. "Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not conceited, does not act improperly, is not selfish, is not provoked, and does not keep a record of wrongs. Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends."
Live TRUER
Our nation is experiencing a sad trend that has come about in the last few years. Due to several circumstances including suicide, the life expectency of those in the US is on the decline. There is a term called "deaths of despair" which includes deaths from addiction and suicide deaths which are included in this term. Why is that? There are numerous factors that could play a part in this trend but one we cannot deny is social media. For so many especially our youth, social media presents the ideal of who they should be. Our children start to believe that if they are different or have a struggle, it must not be "normal" since that's not what is presented online. Of course this is not new when I was young we had tigerbeat magazine and we looked at pictures but for us it wasn't instant news. It was something we had to see in a magazine or on the TV on one our shows that we only saw once a week. It is now 24/7. I look at it from a wife and mother perspective and it can be similar. We see all the posts and start to question ourselves but then we realize we are all unique in our own way and don't have to meet that standard. For some that perspective is lost. I have always relied on social media to post news about my family since I have family all over the country but maybe I wasn't being completely TRUE always with my posts. My hope for all is that we live truer, especially online. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/us-life-expectancy-declines-again-a-dismal-trend-not-seen-since-world-war-i/2018/11/28/ae58bc8c-f28c-11e8-bc79-68604ed88993_story.html%3foutputType=amp
Listen LOUDER
This phrase actually doesn't really make sense. How can you listen louder? It came to me as I am someone who is so used to noise having four children it has become a norm in my world. But in the midst of the noise, I missed my son hiding his suffering from me. I will do my best now to stop talking (yes I know this will be hard for me) and listen LOUDER. Listen to what God wants from me. Listen to those around me. Listen in the silence. I will do my best to listen with my eyes. That is a gift my mom always had down. She could look at my eyes and just know if I was struggling. She would then ask in her nurturing sweet voice, "is everything okay honey?" and I would of course completely breakdown and she would hug me. Even with her memory challenges she would walk into a room in March when they stayed at our house and I would be crying. She would embrace me and say, "you were the best mother he could have ever had". There are moments recently when she has not remembered he is gone but I know if I was there and we were making eye contact she would remember because my mom listened so well with her eyes.
Care KINDER
It is so easy to get caught up in our own lives and not be able to take the time to offer care. I would ask you to just approach each person with care. You just do not know what that person is going through and maybe they need some extra kindness that day. Moving my parents this summer truly showed me what care has to be sometimes. They really needed help and I found that in helping them I was blessed in return with lots of laughs, memories and even some new stories. In your kindness to others, you are both blessed. Look at how excited your child gets to see you open something special they made you at school when they were young. It's innately in us to give. We just live in a society that wants us to think of ourselves first. I can tell you for me I have a newfound heart for the grieving suicide loss survivor. This was something I would call lifesaving is those who have connected with me who themselves have walked the path before me. There are those loss survivors who connected with me following the loss of Joey. God is using each of them to help me through this with their story. There are those of you this past year who just showed care and kindness in so many ways, taking time away from your family to help us. There are those of you who simply reach out with such kind words checking in or sending a card. What an amazing thing to be blessed by so many. My family came to visit for the funeral and were so reassured that this community loves our family and will be there for us. So I can honestly say I have experienced so much Kindness and Care this past year it must be paid forward.
Forgive MORE
Forgiveness is such a challenge with suicide. It is so hard for parents to forgive themselves for something they missed. It is also hard for some to forgive their child for causing this pain in the family. There is also a deep part of you that is sensitive to certain phrases, words, judgements and you have to learn to forgive that because letting anger into your heart when your grief is so evident can be harmful. I find that it is best for me to be honest with my responses. I will work on forgiving myself first an foremost and then any others that I harbor any anger with. See, after losing a child, my heart is heavy with grief so there isn't a lot of room to harbor anger or get worked up over things that may have bothered me before. You sort of have that "don't worry, be happy" theme with you. The reason being is that nothing will be that bad again so when others are all upset over something, you just cannot really get to that level because it's not worth it.
One story that I told my kids years ago so they understood forgiveness was the Amish community in Pennsylvania that experienced a school shooting in their schoolhouse. The shooter was their milkman who for some reason had a very bad day and took Amish school children's lives with him. This community donated money to the shooter's wife and attended the funeral of the shooter. Think of the difference that moment made in the family of the shooter's heart. Think of the healing that took place as a result.
Pray PURPOSEFULLY
Prayer is so important in life and it is so easy to get complacent when life is good. God is always there waiting, we just have to reach out. It may not always even be words. Meditate on his word opening your heart. The picture below so perfectly portrays a grieving mother's prayer to God for healing.
Communicate CLEARER
In grief you are vulnerable and it is important that you communicate in order to maintain stability in your journey. Griefshare suggests you write a letter to family members explaining how things will be for you now as a griever. I have found that it is very important to communicate my needs when it comes to holiday and events. I would have always been someone in the past who would have gone along with things to not inconvenience others. I now find that if I say things like, "I may have to step out for a break during this time as it is difficult, I hope you understand" it really helps the others know I am okay and just need to navigate this the best way possible.
Have compassion with intention
For my story this includes using my story to help other kids get help before it's too late. But this applies to all of us. There is sympathy where you may say, "oh poor them that's so unfortunate" and then move on. I have been the recipient over and over again this year of compassion with intention. There was a day at my parents house when someone I knew in childhood (family friend) made the 1 hour drive missing her daughter's sports to help me sort through my parents stuff and just listen. I had not seen her in 20 years. I was so blessed by her that day. We were best friends in the Phillipines 45 years earlier and yet she stops her life fore mine. She practices this regularly though. She grew up in Thailand and I think being in another country for her childhood gave her that perspective we all could so much benefit from.
Compassion with intention for me comes with a task. I hope to eventually become involved in the afsp's high school education program to speak in high schools telling Joey's story so that that "Joey" in the crowd seeks out real help before it's too late. God has gifted us each with so many talents. Being able to see how we can use those intentionally with compassion would change the world.
Memories by Maroon 5
While we do not drink, Joey did love Mtn Dew when we were camping so on Christmas Day we visited the cemetary and toasted a can in his memory. I had never heard this song but it came on a station my daughter listens to while we were driving.
Take it to the Lord In Prayer song by Alan Jackson
I grew up with mom hearing this song on her radio.
