Originally posted as a facebook note 12/22/10 - Reading the compassionate friends discussion boards is part of my "grief work". There I see that so many people are struggling with the same issues I have and I find hope and comfort in ways I cannot explain or understand. I have connected with many of them, become FB friends, and we walk together, encouraging each other and praying for each other. I am so glad God provides fellowship for all purposes, how could we ever do anything like this alone?
CF has a "question of the day", and today it revolves around those horrible images of our child dying or dead that parents see. Even if you have never actually seen them, or even seen pictures, those images are there. For me, it is imagining what Max must have gone through physically to get where he was .... lifeless on the side of the highway. I saw pictures taken for the accident report. I saw him at the funeral home three days later. Oh how I would love to "change the channel" when my mind goes there. Usually happens when I am trying to get to sleep at night. My therapist says this is all part of the process of acceptance ... and allowing your mind to believe it is real, it really happened. And it cannot be rushed. You just have to push head first into the grief and experience every part of it - that is the "fast track" to healing. MAN IT SUCKS.
I found several posts that really spoke to me on this subject and wanted to share some of them. There are hundreds posting similar thoughts ... so sad. I have started working through in my brain what death might look like from the other side, from the side of heaven. Although I can only imagine ... it gives me great comfort to think about what that moment in time looked like as God walked through the valley of the shadow of death with my son and took him to eternity.
"After we found our son on our living room floor, and knew that he was gone, I struggled for a long time with the images. I could not bear the thought of "leaving him" on the floor like that...as if I was abandoning him there...as if that was the last image I would have of him in my life. So I finally developed the following thought process. I pictured him on the floor, helpless, lifeless, broken. I pictured myself reaching out and tenderly, gently picking him up and holding him for as long as I needed to. Then I pictured him melting into me, folding into my heart and mind and soul. He was safe. No matter where I went, he was with me. No one could take him away, or hurt him any more. He was mine, all mine, and yet I knew that anyone else who loved him could do the same and it would not take anything away from me. This was a great comfort to me. Since he died at home, I agonized that if I left the house, I would leave him. Now I know that is not going to happen. He's with me, safe and loved and whole again." --Vicki
"I change the vision every time it starts. Instead of my son's broken body, I picture the smile on his face as Jesus put His hand on my son's shoulder and called him home. I see the empty body fall but also the joy of my son rising with his Savior. The death part was an instant, the home going was the beginning of true life that will last an eternity and eventually I will join them." --Nancy
"It also always helps me to tell myself "He only died once. Just because I keep re-experiencing it, doesn't mean he does too."" --Anna
"It's like that with the flashbacks especially in the beginning year(s). What has helped me was to read about medical facts and other to know my son passed with no pain in spite of the violent nature of his death. Every time a horrible flash...back of what the terror must have been like haunts me, I flood my mind and heart with vivid visions of what must have happened to the essence of my son in the spiritual world. I imagine how he must have been greeted into Heaven and treated with the greatest loving care unlike what took place here on earth at death." --Rachel
I have said before that the yard stick of measuring healing is when you can think of your child's life rather than his death. I long for that day!!
No comments:
Post a Comment