Time after Time

I really found this to be helpful and wanted to share.

"How Long Is This Grieving Going to Last?

We feel so bad when we are grieving that it is not a surprise when we wonder, “How long will I have this terrible pain? Will this suffering ever end?”

To talk about this, we need to think about two kinds of time.

There is chronos time.

This is the kind of time measured by a calendar. Chronos time is counted in days, weeks, months, years. Chronos time describes a continuum of past, present, and future. It is the kind of time measured by clocks. A simple way to talk about chronos is as physical time.

Then there is kairos time.

Kairos time refers to “the time within which personal life moves forward.” The movement we experience as a result of moments of awakening or realization measures Kairos time. Kairos time refers to a deepening process that results from our paying attention to the present moment, a process through which we are “drawn inside the movement of our own story.” Kairos is an ordered but unmeasured kind of time outside space-time.

We might be tempted to measure the time of our grieving in chronos time. “Oh, it’s been a year—four seasons have passed—I should be ok by now.” Someone may suggest, “Give yourself a few months. You’ll feel like yourself again.” But it is not useful to measure our grieving in chronos time. In fact, chronos time is helpful only in that it gives us a span within which to experience our own kairos time. To think that because a certain amount of time has passed we should be farther along in our grieving is to set up a false measure of how well we are going. The mere passing of days and weeks and months and years does not within itself bring integration of our loss.

What matters is kairos time. What insights have I had? What have I realized? What meaning am I making of this terrible loss? We each have our own “entelechy”—to use a term from anthropology—that means our own “immanent force controlling and directing development.”

The amount of calendar time it takes to reach integration in our grieving is determined by our own kairos time, through our own entelechy. That’s why is no right or wrong amount of time an individual should take to grieve.

All that being said, what else can we note about time and grieving?

From my own experience and from the research I’ve done for decades on the grieving process, I can say this: the amount of time each of us takes to reach integration of our loss is usually longer rather than shorter.

What do I mean by this?

That the amount of kairos time it takes each of us to reach a place where the loss is integrated into our lives but does not dominate our lives is longer than “the person on the street” might suggest. Many folks around us would like for the process to be shorter rather than longer because they are not comfortable with the whole experience of grieving. As a society, we have cultural practices that suggest grieving should be short. (Don’t, for instance, many government workers get three days off when they lose a family member?)

The good news is that healthy grieving does result, at the time right for each of us, in an experience of integration. We take stock and say: I am changed by our loss, and I have changed my life as a result of my loss. And we are not shriveled permanently like a dry stick because of our loss. We can feel alive again…probably wiser, maybe quieter, certainly full of gratitude and a desire to contribute from what we have been through.

And all in good time. All in good kairos time." 

by By Elizabeth Harper Neeld, PH.D.
shared from Legacy Connect

Right Where I Am: 5 months

The Right Where I Am Project was created for parents who have experienced pregnancy loss or infant death. People are invited to share about where they are in their grief journey. 
Thank you Angie Yingst for creating this project of healing through community. I so needed to know that I am not alone. This path is unique to each of us but our pain is shared.

I sit stunned on my couch, as I seem to do a lot now. I am overwhelmed with everything. I am heavy. I am wounded.

One of my two oh-so-cuddly feline babies, crawls up on my chest and settles on my bossom. I reach to kiss his head and I begin to sob. I feel the weight of his body on mine. I recognize that at 16lbs he weighs about what you would today. The tears continue. I have become more comfortable with the tears, though sometimes they still feel trapped. When they come I let them, I'm not scared of them anymore. Why wouldn't I be sad?!?! I lost my son! You are so worth my tears!

Today you would be 5 months old. Christmas is two days away. What a celebration we would have had! And we would have loved every minute of it.

I said that I wasn't going to travel this year, that with a new baby, people could come see us. But we still would have done it. We would have proudly driven you across the state and even up north to visit all of your grandparents, great-grandma, aunts, uncles, cousins etc. Mamaw's house would have literally been a zoo. Not only would she have bought all of the stuffed giraffes at the toy stores but she would probably have found a way to bring Wilson, the new baby giraffe, from the local zoo.

This time last year, we were so ecstatic! It may have been the first Christmas since I was a child that I was truly filled with the holiday spirit. At only 3 months, I wasn't really even showing. I was craving beef jerky and kale. We were running the 4-Christmas Marathon. Mom's-dad's-mom's-dad's. Exhausted and ecstatic. I would do it all again.

But we will stay home this year, after all. I will cuddle the kitties. I will cry. No tree. No gifts. Without you here there doesn't seem like much to celebrate.

There is no denying this pain. There is no denying this emptiness. I can't hide it and I won't.

Some days I feel so blessed to be surrounded with such amazing love and support. Other days I just want to sulk in the unfairness of it all. I dont usually comment on the fairness of certain life experiences, but there is really no other way to sum this all up. It is just so unfair. So wrong.

And yet we must continue on. I am seeing a counselor. I am going to support groups. I longed to speak with others who know how I feel. I have made some treasured new friends through our loss. I am so happy to have met them and so sad to have met this way.

Our friends and family have definitely shown their true colors. The ones that matter have been there through the thick of it to hold us up. It is so hard to watch how difficult this is for everyone else. I can see their pain and their own grief which is excrutiating enough. But then it is so difficult for most to express their emotions. This is an emotional path. We cannot deny it. We must feel this. We must talk about this. We must honor our children.

My dear son, You are my light. You are my hope. I see your graces everywhere.

I love you my sweet little boy. Avery Malcolm Whitlow. I remember you forever.

"The Gap...

The gap between those of us who have lost children and those who have not is profoundly difficult to bridge. No one, whose children are well and intact, can be expected to understand what parents who have lost children have absorbed and what they bear. Our children come to us through every blade of grass, every crack in the sidewalk, every bowl of breakfast cereal. We seek contact with their atoms, their hairbrush, their toothbrush, their clothing. We reach for what was integrally woven into the fabric of our lives, now torn and shredded. 

A black hole has been blown through our souls and, indeed, it often does not allow the light to escape. It is a difficult place. For us to enter there is to be cut deeply, and torn anew, each time we go there, by the jagged edges of our loss. Yet we return, again and again, for that is where our children now reside. This will be so for years to come and it will change us profoundly. At some point in the distant future, the edges of that hole will have tempered and softened but the empty space will remain - a life sentence. 

Our friends will change through this. There is no avoiding it. We grieve for our children, in part, through talking about them and our feelings for having lost them. Some go there with us; others cannot and through their denial add a further measure, however unwittingly, to an already heavy burden. 

Assuming that we may be feeling "better" six months later is simply "to not get it." The excruciating and isolating reality that bereaved parents feel is hermetically sealed from the nature of any other human experience. Thus it is a trap - those whose compassion and insight we most need are those for whom we abhor the experience that would allow them that sensitivity and capacity. And yet, somehow there are those, each in their own fashion, who has found a way to reach us and stay, to our comfort. They have understood, again each in their own way, that our children remain our children through our memory of them. Their memory is sustained through speaking about them and our feelings about their death. Deny this and you deny their life. Deny their life and you no longer have a place in ours. 

We recognize that we have moved to an emotional place where it is often very difficult to reach us. Our attempts to be normal are painful and the day to day carries a silent, screaming anguish that accompanies us, sometimes from moment to moment. Were we to give it its own voice we
fear we would become truly unreachable, and so we remain "strong" for a host of reasons even as the strength saps our energy and drains our will. Were we to act out our true feelings we would be impossible to be with. We resent having to act normal, yet we dare not do otherwise. People who understand this dynamic are our gold standard. Working our way through this over the years will change us as does every experience - an extreme experience changes one extremely. We know we will have recovered when, as we have read, it is no longer so painful to be normal. We do not know who we will be at that point or who will still be with us. 

We have read that the gap is so difficult that, often, bereaved parents must attempt to reach out to friends and relatives or risk losing them. This is our attempt. For those untarnished by such events, who wish to know in some way what they, thankfully, do not know, read this. It may provide a window that is helpful for people on both sides of the gap. 

This is sent with humble gratitude and love for all the kind words, thoughts, deeds, support, and love shown." ~Author Unknown

Please share if you know where this came from.

Everything

You are in everything. You are everywhere. You are in me. I love you, Avery.   I am so proud to be your mother. I will do everything I can to honor your memory.

Tonight is Justin's holiday work party.
Last year I went. I was pregnant, but not really showing much. I wore a new green silk dress and heels. I was so excited to share our happy news with so many old friends. It was so great to see all the kids running and playing, expecting that next year I would be chasing my little one.
So unfair. I sit here alone.

I believe you visited me in my dreams last night. I could feel you, and as I turned to try and focus in on your face it was blurred with those around you. I could see reddish blonde hair and cheeks. I love you sweet boy. I believe your brother also visited me last night. I saw a brandnewborn and quickly checked, its a boy!

How am I doing?

innocence lost

amazing, isn't it

how once she was a happy child

innocent and unaware

of a world that

steals the sweetest part of her

and forces her in to the

realities of adulthood

she never asked for these things

she never wanted to know

she didn't want to hurt and

she didn't want to cry

she was safe

in a shelter she'd created

she was happy

in a picture that she painted

hold her now and

whisper words of songs

she once loved

tell her how

she can have it all again

forget the pains

and the sorrows,

just be happy

free and flowing

down a crisp clean river

that no one can pollute

with the uncleanliness

of their world.

~norine stone, summer '99

Left Broken

My arms, perfect for cradling you, are left empty.
My hips, perfect for carrying you, are left bare.
My breasts, perfect for feeding you, are left swollen and aching.
My belly, perfectly stretched so you could grow, is left loose and lonely.
My eyes, eager to stare at you for hours, are left gray with despair.
My mind, planning our perfect future with you, is left lost.
My heart, loving you in everything, is left broken.
~NMW