A Mother's Journey Through Grief: My Path to Healing

A Mother’s Journey Through Grief: My Path to Healing

by Maria Miller

The funerals are over, the holidays have past, the memorials are taken down, a new year has begun.  For most people life goes on, with hope for a better year in 2013.  For the families who lost a loved one in the Newtown tragedy, life does not go on as usual.  Life will not be better in 2013.  For them, life just got worse. These families can’t return to normalcy but will need to find a new normal.   

For all the parents who lost children in Newtown, I not only cry for you but I cry with you, for I know that no pain is greater than the pain of losing a child.   Feeling your pain and realizing your long journey, compelled me to share my story of grief and healing and how I survived.    

On February 5th 2005 I became part of a club that I never intended to belong to.  This club has no membership fees but many members, none of whom joined willingly. In this club we don’t train for marathons, we don’t share recipes or discuss books, or play cards.  As a matter of fact, its members may not even know each other, but we all share a deep bond.  We all share the pain of losing a future that we had once vividly imagined.   We all share a pain that no one can or wants to think about. Yes, this is a club that no one wants to belong to.

Those first few days after my five year old son Christopher’s death were surreal – writing an obituary, making funeral arrangements, choosing a funeral home, choosing a casket, choosing the right readings and music for the service, who would deliver the eulogy, where would he be laid to rest.  These are not the typical decisions a parent should have to make and there is no way to prepare for them.  Thankfully, my husband Bruce and I were surrounded by the love of our amazing family who helped us with these difficult tasks, while trying to assuage their own feelings of grief and despair.  Somehow it all came together.  Our family was with us for several weeks after the funeral but eventually they too needed to get back to their homes, jobs and the reality of their own lives.

For most of the first few days, weeks, months I was in total shock over what had just happened.  My son went from being a healthy, active, five year old boy, to succumbing to the toxic effects of a virulent strep throat infection within 48 hours.   This couldn’t be real, it couldn’t be happening to me and to my family.  I cried myself to sleep and woke up in tears, hoping it was just a nightmare and I’d soon wake up.  I walked around numb and wondering if I could ever live a normal life again.  After all, why should I be privileged to live a normal life when my five year old just lost his entire future?

I searched everywhere and reached out to anyone who might possibly have answers to how a parent survives the loss of a child.  My husband and I became immersed in books. Reading became therapeutic.  Every night we sat in bed with our piles of books by our side, critiquing each one as we searched for ways to heal.  I read books written by other grief-stricken parents, inspirational books, religious books, and in a desperate attempt to understand where my son was now, I read books about the afterlife and near death experiences.  Some were helpful and others were not.  One of the books that helped me get through each day was “Healing After Loss”, a book of daily meditations for working through grief by Martha Whitmore Hickman.  This book provided short, inspirational messages that were just enough to give me a little hope and peace at the end of each day.  My Faith was shattered and my husband and I sought comfort from members of the clergy to try to understand why God would take young children from their parents.  They didn’t have answers either but only confirmed that things happen on Earth that can’t be explained and we will never understand.

I found myself calling perfect strangers who had lost a child, crying on the phone asking them how they got through the first birthday, the anniversary, all the milestones their child was missing.    What I began to realize was that there is no right answer.  There is no rulebook or easy way through grief.  It is a journey and you have to follow where it leads you.  There is no detour around it and the road is not the same for everyone.

I tried to find little things in my days to make me feel better.  I looked forward to getting the mail every day and reading the beautiful cards and sentiments from friends, family and even strangers.  I surrounded myself with family and friends who brought me comfort and were always there for a special hug when I needed it.  Meals were delivered almost every night from our community of friends for at least a month.  This was most appreciated, as I had neither the energy nor the desire to cook.  One thing people may not understand about grieving is that it is both physically and emotionally draining.  It takes every ounce of energy from you. I was so exhausted by the end of each day but dreaded going to bed knowing that I would cry myself to sleep and when I awakened it would be another day without my son.

With each passing day I had to keep telling myself that this was real and I had to find a way to get through this, somehow, someway, if not for me, then for my then three - year old son, James, who had just lost his older brother. 

One of the most difficult things my husband and I had to do was tell our son that his brother wasn’t coming home from the hospital.  It took us three days to work up the courage and to prepare for this.  We consulted with doctors and therapists on how best to explain death to a three year old.  When we told him that his brother was too sick and the doctors couldn’t fix him so he had to go to heaven, his first response was, “so will he come back after he gets better in heaven?”  No, we had to tell him that once you go to heaven you can’t come back but his spirit will be with us forever.  He accepted this answer and went about playing with the toys he and his brother shared and loved.  Having not yet reached the “age of reason” he did not fully understand the permanence of death. His young age was a blessing that protected him from the harsh reality we were facing. 

All of a sudden the house was quiet.  The noise of two rambunctious little boys chasing each other now turned to one little boy playing alone.  The quietness drove me crazy.  Sitting down for a meal, setting three places rather than four, was another reminder of our loss.

As the initial shock began to wear off and the reality set in, things got worse.

I needed to get out of the house yet roamed aimlessly through the supermarket, forgetting why I was there and trying not to make eye contact with people, fearing that they would see in my eyes that something was terribly wrong.  People who knew me avoided looking at me, perhaps out of fear of not knowing what to say or perhaps, they were just shocked to see me out and about, expecting that I would be curled up in bed.  At any given moment, in any given place, I might start crying.   It could be a song on the radio, a commercial on TV, seeing a mom shopping with her two little boys.  Anything could trigger an uncontrollable emotional response.  Going to Church after the funeral was painful.  I couldn’t sit through a Mass without crying through the entire service, especially if one of the songs played at the funeral was playing.   The everyday activities that most people take for granted tormented me.   All I wanted to do was hug my son again, brush the hair away from his forehead, give him a big kiss on the cheek and feel his hand in mine. By the end of each day I was completely drained.

My refuge became my shower or sometimes my car.  These were my places to be alone, to scream silently, to clench my teeth and cry out, “why, why, did this have to happen.  I just want my baby back.”  This is where I cried my heart out to Christopher, “I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you from this.  I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.”  As a parent, no matter how your child dies, you always feel guilt.  We are supposed to protect our children from everything.  That is our job, right?  I quickly learned that there is more in life that we can’t control than there is that we can control.

It didn’t take my husband and I long to realize that we couldn’t do this alone so on the advice of our doctors, we attended weekly therapy sessions at The Center For Hope in Darien, both as a couple and individually.  This was a tremendous help.  Here we were given tools for coping with our grief as well as reassurance from a professional, that all the crazy thoughts going through our minds were a normal part of the grieving process.  We needed a place to go where it was okay to talk about what we were feeling and to cry to someone we didn’t know.  We also needed to hear from a professional that things would get better, that it wouldn’t be this bad forever.  I was treated for post -traumatic stress disorder (it’s not just for soldiers) and through a series of techniques I learned to compartmentalize my grief.  I was shown ways to stow away the painful flashbacks of the day he died.  I was told to always have an escape or a way out of a situation in case I started to panic. And so I did.  Everywhere I went, I made sure I was near an exit so if that sudden rush of anxiety came over me, I could run out the door.   I learned to give myself permission to say no to going to places that were uncomfortable and difficult to bear.  I avoided most children’s celebrations, especially five-year old birthday parties.  If I did attend, I needed to leave before they sang happy birthday.  Most importantly, therapy helped me to make decisions that were right for me and to not feel pressured to follow what society might say is “normal” grieving.

My therapist encouraged me to write and this also brought me comfort.  My biggest fear was that as time went on I would forget all of my son’s favorite activities, foods, movies, toys, etc.  After all, I didn’t have a lifetime of memories with him.  I only had five years.  I kept two journals, one as a memory book of all things Christopher loved, including stories/memories from friends and family, the other, a diary of my personal feelings of grief and despair in those first few months. His memory book sits on a table in the corner of my living room where I can easily pick it up and be reminded of my special little boy.  I also wrote a poem titled “Forever Five” which I read at a memorial service held for Christopher at his preschool.   A friend and my cousin each wrote beautiful music ballads to this poem, which I will cherish forever. Taking some time in my day to sit and write allowed me to feel at peace and to feel Christopher’s presence.

Walking also became therapeutic.  Alone or with friends, sometimes I talked about my grief, other times I just listened to my friends’ conversations about things that seemed so trivial compared to what I was going through.  Being close to nature helped to clear my mind and made me feel closer to Christopher.  I would sometimes go to the Stamford Arboretum or Nature Center and sit on a rock near a stream, listen to the sounds of nature, watch the dragonflies surround me and allow myself to feel the presence of Christopher’s spirit with me.  Dragonflies became symbolic of new life after reading a book, given to me by my aunt, called “Water bugs and Dragonflies” written by Doris Stickney which tries to explain death to children. 

Our son James became our source of hope for the future and our closest connection to everything Christopher knew and loved.  He consoled us when we were sad and reminded us of the funny things Christopher would say and do.  He was our reason to get out of bed every morning and he made us smile if even for a brief moment each day.

While I knew my life would be forever changed, I felt the need to keep things as close to “the same” as possible for James.   He returned to the preschool where he and his brother both attended.  This surprised many friends and was very difficult for me but I needed to keep his world as routine as possible.  This was his safe haven surrounded by his friends and teachers.  Contrary to what some people thought, or how we might have felt at the height of our emotions, we knew we couldn’t run away from grief.  We knew it would follow us wherever we went.  People would ask if we were going to move out of our house after our son died.  While we wanted to escape the pain of losing our son, we had no desire to leave behind all the wonderful memories we had of him.  This was his home.  As difficult as it was to go into his room, look at his pictures, do the laundry that was left in his hamper, pick up his dinosaurs and fire trucks, this was part of the process we needed to go through.  It took a long time to go through his things but I had to do it on my time.  Many people offered to help but this was one thing I wanted to do myself.   I took my time and saved the things I couldn’t part with and stored them in decorative boxes in his room. I still have some of his clothes hanging in the closet and over the years, when we were ready to part with them, we’ve given some of his special things to special people in our lives.

After several months of private therapy, it felt like we needed something more than clinical advice.  While this helped us get through the initial shock, we knew that the only people who could truly understand what we were going through were other parents who had lost children.

In the summer of 2005, we joined The Den for Grieving Kids in Greenwich.  Here we could bring our son James and he would meet with other children his age, who’ve experienced loss, while we met with our group.   It was very difficult to talk about our loss but the more we talked about it, the easier it became.  We met amazing families who had survived the loss of a child and could now share their stories to help give hope and strength to people like us.  We finally felt like we were in a place with people who we could connect with emotionally.  Here, we did not get advice, but we got “understanding.”  Over time we became a source of hope for others who joined and this too helped us heal.  The friends we met at the Den continue to be a significant source of healing and inspiration in our lives. We are forever grateful to all of the wonderful families and volunteers at the Den who helped us through our darkest days.

While we were relieved at how well James had adjusted, after a couple of months of watching him without his brother at his side, it was clear to both of us that we wanted to have another baby.  We wanted James to have a sibling to share his life with and we wanted to bring joy back into our hearts, and life back into our home.  

In May 2006, our beautiful baby girl, Juliana, was born.   This was a true blessing for me and somewhat of a miracle, given my age of 43 at the time.  It was also a turning point in my grief. Having a new baby to take care of kept my days consumed by dirty diapers and feedings and less by grief. It also gave me another person to love.   While I knew another child would never replace my son, having a new life to hold in my arms helped me realize that somehow there is room for both joy and sorrow to live side by side in my heart.   This was probably the most enlightening part of my journey through grief.   Bringing new life into our home taught me to accept the sorrow of losing my son but to also welcome the joy of new beginnings.  Once I was able to accept this, I felt more at peace with my life.

Over time, it has become easier to manage the emotions that used to take over without warning. I’ve worked up the courage to not run away from the triggers that cause emotional pain but to face them.  This took time and patience.  I’ve also learned to be more patient with myself and with others.  In the first few years I found it difficult to meet new people for fear of that inevitable question they always asked, “how many children do you have?”  Now I am comfortable saying three and depending on the situation will explain my story for this is part of who I am.

As I watch James and Juliana grow and pass so many milestones that Christopher never got to see, I’m constantly reminded of all the things Christopher missed in life.  But I am also reminded that life can go on and that with patience, hope, faith and love, the human spirit has an amazing way of regenerating.

Christopher is still part of our lives and we talk about him in daily conversations.  I want my children to always remember their brother and to know that he is watching over them every day.   To honor his memory, we started a fund through the Fairfield County Community Foundation, to help children’s causes.  His name is still on our Christmas card every year as our “angel in heaven”, and we have started new family traditions to keep his spirit alive.  Every year on Chris’s birthday, which is four days after Christmas, we donate toys to “David’s Treasure”, a toy closet for patients at Stamford Hospital, so that with our help Christopher can still put a smile on another child’s face.

Every day I think about the Newtown families and pray that they find comfort and peace in the love and support of others as they begin their long journey to healing.

Most people probably think that now that the funerals are over and the media is gone that these families can finally be left alone to grieve privately.   Only some of us know that the opposite is true.  Grieving the loss of a child is something no one chooses to experience, and, grieving the loss of a child alone is something no one should have to experience.  It is a lifelong journey but it doesn’t have to be traveled alone.

It is now, and in the days, months and years ahead, that these families will need the love and support of friends and family as they are left alone to face the reality of their loss.   Yes, they will need their moments to grieve alone but a simple note, a simple card, a simple hug, a short visit or phone call to say hello and to let them know you are still there for them, can go a long way in helping them in their journey toward healing.   If you don’t know what to say, say nothing and just listen.

I hope that by sharing my story, other grieving parents will feel less alone in their journey and that they too will find ways to heal.  I also hope that friends and family of those who’ve lost a child can better understand the grief of a parent, and bring comfort to them.  I don’t know that I can ever fully heal but I have learned to live with my grief, make peace with it and in helping others through their journey I find that I am also helping myself.