The Deep End and John Travolta--Death of a Child
Without Prejudice
These are not my words but I thought them apt for anyone going through the loss of a child
Grief fills the room of my absent child
Lies in her bed, walks up and down with me
Puts on her pretty looks, repeats her words,
Remembers me of all her gracious parts
Stuffs out her vacant garments with her form,
Then I have reason to be fond of grief
Fare you well.
Had you such a loss as I
I could give better comfort than you do
King John, Act 111, scene 1v By William Shakespeare, my apologies to the Bard for changing the gender from male to female.
I feel for John Travolta and wife Kelly Preston, they lost a child, faced all the questions about Scientology and Johns sexuality. Can't they be left alone to grieve for their son?
And so it begins, this journey that you must continue for the rest of your life, hurting but not being hurt, grieving but not feeling grief, being a better person when you don't feel like being one, In memory and to give reason to your loss. Some days you will only feel pain and hatred. You will hate the world and every one else that is in it for being "alive".
People will say they understand as they lost a granny, or a friend, brother, Father, Mother but they will not understand. They can't and you don't want them to as it would mean that they too would have lost a child.
Someone said to me once,
"But it was such a long time ago"
But its not for me, it lies under my skin, a pulsing vein that at any moment can be scratched into life. I have a thin skin, made more translucent and wonderful by hurt. I understand better, I empathise better, I am what I am because of loss. Its beauty and its agony.
I do not speak as much as I did in the beginning, I do not cry as much its all too deep and covered over by manners and civility and bravura I sometimes don't feel or believe.
I connect on a deeper level. I love more, I care more, I am more because of loss. I sometimes feel a whole day goes by and I haven't thought of her and immediately feel guilty, but I shouldn't. She would not want that for me the endless spinning like a fly trapped in a web. Just spinning and thinking it's all hopeless and the fact that we are born, live and die and we all will die and for what?
To make life better for ourselves, for others ???
There are times when it makes you completely selfish, grief, it makes you want to scream in peoples faces and say,
"Why aren't you LIVING?"
Why do you trouble me with your petty concerns and your bullshit?
You smile at people that hand you platitudes that are trying to soothe or say, well I would be braver if I were you. You are not me, you imbecile and then you step up a notch or two and think you are superior because you alone have gone through the fire and have come out the other side a changed forever person.
But they won't know and they don't know and you can not hand them your experience and say "Fix It", Fix Me, because its already happened and you have to make your own peace with that.
I know now why she was born and why she died, I know its not something you "Get Over", its not something you can stare too long at. Its like a toothache, if you wiggle it just a little the hurt and pain will come. So you leave it there and you leave it alone. You live "around" it, this awful truth, this ache in every fibre of your being and you smile and you nod and you go on living.
But not like before, never like before. no laugh will be as rich, no love be as profound, no pleasure as keenly felt as "Before". Gregory Peck lost a Son and when asked how often he thought of him he said.
"every second of every minute of every day",
thats of course how you feel and mourn but you still have to live. At first you tip toe around it, not to wake up what I call the sleeping "Monster". You go about your day and you work and strive and do all tthe normal things you do day in and day out. But there sleeping at the base of your brain is the awful truth and you don't want to wake it up.
The monster strikes when you least expect it, a sunny day full of warm promise and beauty, a wedding with lovestruck couple, beginning a journey together. You know that your child will never marry, have kids, love another. Have more of the Joy that life can bring because they no longer exist. They stepped off the end of the world one day and were lost to you forever.
You alone can still see them , hear them, catch their scent one day which grabs you by the throat and hurls you down into the abyss of loneliness. Not one other person on this earth can share that pain with you and it is intensely lonely. Then come the tears of frustration and real loss that leavee you spent and empty. Real tears of Joy and sorrow that sedate you a little and make you feel a littlle better
How do you share that with someone?
The poignant anniversaries and there are so many for the unwary. Christmas and Easter, birthdays and Mothers Day and Anzac day and Fathers Day and groundhog day as all are anniversaries and reminders that they are not here. You will go mad at first and then come to some sort of peace. You will want to kick people that thoughtlessly say,
Well its a long time ago now.
Because they have no idea what they are saying. And you, before the loss, might have been the same. I will miss my child till the day I die but I can't give up on life. But allow me to grieve at least and if you have to say something say.
" I am sorry for your loss, tell me about her".
It will not upset me I love to talk about her. I loved her annd she loved me and she was s great child.
Let me talk about her wide eyed curiosity at the world, her love of what she loved, her personality, what she said and what she did that made her "her"
I had one lady that remarked to a friend that what was my child doing at a pool at night, never mind that the whole thing was unusual and out of character but that dismissing it like that makes it somehow her fault, my fault, how does that help?
She didn't know the story but commented on it anyway in a negative way and that told me more about her than she could ever know. It happened, O.K. it happened for whatever reason and commenting on it will not bring her back or help me or her Sisters. We are the ones still here and we have to cope the best way we can. I never saw that woman after that and I wasn't impressed with the friend that relayed it either.
How stupidly hurtful and unproductive, as if their negativity can maybe "help" me in some way. How can that "help" Oh the next time I have a 12 year old daughter I will be more careful.
I will not "lose" the next one. Do you know what it was like for me to even lookat a 12 year old gil for years after. How I wished they were mine and darkly jealous of the parents as they still had their 12 year old and I didn't.
How I would stand in queues at Supermarkets and see young girls with rivers of long hair and want to just "touch" it, just once. Or how I stood crying at the Supermarket staring at Muesli Bars and realising I no longer needed to buy them for school lunches. And how I hated Supermarkets for that reason for years. That I can only go in them now and enjoy the experience, and I actually love them now after all these years.
Do you realise what a conversation stopper the death of a child is and how people will actively avoid you as you are somehow "tainted" or broken, unlucky and you might bring that bad luck on to them.
Me who loves children with an unholy passion and always have not being allowed to see "your" child or mind "your" child as I am not such a good parent if I managed to "lose" one. Thats how you make me feel and thats Ok is it? I realised a long time ago I did not take my child by the hand to the pool. She was there becasue of a dare that tragically went wrong, led on by another girl. And yes, my child went willingly, she was a good swimmer and she hardly had done anything naughty in her life, truth be known.
The middle two were the rebels of the family, not the youngest nor the oldest. But you don't know that you only see what you want to see. You tthink if it was you, you would have done something different or deal with ongoing grief by strength of will. believe me you wouldn't.
And I cannot bow down to grief or even fight the "Monster" because at times it overwhelms me. And I am a rational, considerate, intelligent person.
I did the counselling when my Foster Daughter laughed and sniggered in the corner. I listened to the grief tapes they loaned me as my Husband, then, told me after six weeks I was not to talk of her any more. And I told him to get stuffed. And had the courage to ask him to leave months later when I was scared to death of him. Mr miserable, I hate the world and I am hoing to beat everyone up in it including my wife and kids. And after 23 years still says those horrible things. Especially about me, me who bore him 4 kids and put up with his shit.
As my Mother would say,
"I wouldn't piss on him if he were on fire"
I am a completely different person than when my daughter lived. Before she died I was a door mat trapped in a loveless violent marriage to a man that was NUTS. I mean really nuts, why do you think my son in laws and my brothers call him Crazy Bob, duh, thats because he is. And he would call my Mother "Crazy" and tell me I would ned up just like her. My poor schizophrenic Mother.
And I put up with his shit as I had tried to leave form the first year of my marriage, he was violent for the first time six weeks after our first child was born. And like a sad sack I thought with love and understanding he would change. Ha Ha, never fall into that trap. As it is a trap and a very hard one to get out of.
I'm not whingeing its just the way it is and was. I can't even begin to tell you the stories but what is the point. He's gone, I'm ok , alls well that ends well .
Love Janette
These are not my words but I thought them apt for anyone going through the loss of a child
Grief fills the room of my absent child
Lies in her bed, walks up and down with me
Puts on her pretty looks, repeats her words,
Remembers me of all her gracious parts
Stuffs out her vacant garments with her form,
Then I have reason to be fond of grief
Fare you well.
Had you such a loss as I
I could give better comfort than you do
King John, Act 111, scene 1v By William Shakespeare, my apologies to the Bard for changing the gender from male to female.
I feel for John Travolta and wife Kelly Preston, they lost a child, faced all the questions about Scientology and Johns sexuality. Can't they be left alone to grieve for their son?
And so it begins, this journey that you must continue for the rest of your life, hurting but not being hurt, grieving but not feeling grief, being a better person when you don't feel like being one, In memory and to give reason to your loss. Some days you will only feel pain and hatred. You will hate the world and every one else that is in it for being "alive".
People will say they understand as they lost a granny, or a friend, brother, Father, Mother but they will not understand. They can't and you don't want them to as it would mean that they too would have lost a child.
Someone said to me once,
"But it was such a long time ago"
But its not for me, it lies under my skin, a pulsing vein that at any moment can be scratched into life. I have a thin skin, made more translucent and wonderful by hurt. I understand better, I empathise better, I am what I am because of loss. Its beauty and its agony.
I do not speak as much as I did in the beginning, I do not cry as much its all too deep and covered over by manners and civility and bravura I sometimes don't feel or believe.
I connect on a deeper level. I love more, I care more, I am more because of loss. I sometimes feel a whole day goes by and I haven't thought of her and immediately feel guilty, but I shouldn't. She would not want that for me the endless spinning like a fly trapped in a web. Just spinning and thinking it's all hopeless and the fact that we are born, live and die and we all will die and for what?
To make life better for ourselves, for others ???
There are times when it makes you completely selfish, grief, it makes you want to scream in peoples faces and say,
"Why aren't you LIVING?"
Why do you trouble me with your petty concerns and your bullshit?
You smile at people that hand you platitudes that are trying to soothe or say, well I would be braver if I were you. You are not me, you imbecile and then you step up a notch or two and think you are superior because you alone have gone through the fire and have come out the other side a changed forever person.
But they won't know and they don't know and you can not hand them your experience and say "Fix It", Fix Me, because its already happened and you have to make your own peace with that.
I know now why she was born and why she died, I know its not something you "Get Over", its not something you can stare too long at. Its like a toothache, if you wiggle it just a little the hurt and pain will come. So you leave it there and you leave it alone. You live "around" it, this awful truth, this ache in every fibre of your being and you smile and you nod and you go on living.
But not like before, never like before. no laugh will be as rich, no love be as profound, no pleasure as keenly felt as "Before". Gregory Peck lost a Son and when asked how often he thought of him he said.
"every second of every minute of every day",
thats of course how you feel and mourn but you still have to live. At first you tip toe around it, not to wake up what I call the sleeping "Monster". You go about your day and you work and strive and do all tthe normal things you do day in and day out. But there sleeping at the base of your brain is the awful truth and you don't want to wake it up.
The monster strikes when you least expect it, a sunny day full of warm promise and beauty, a wedding with lovestruck couple, beginning a journey together. You know that your child will never marry, have kids, love another. Have more of the Joy that life can bring because they no longer exist. They stepped off the end of the world one day and were lost to you forever.
You alone can still see them , hear them, catch their scent one day which grabs you by the throat and hurls you down into the abyss of loneliness. Not one other person on this earth can share that pain with you and it is intensely lonely. Then come the tears of frustration and real loss that leavee you spent and empty. Real tears of Joy and sorrow that sedate you a little and make you feel a littlle better
How do you share that with someone?
The poignant anniversaries and there are so many for the unwary. Christmas and Easter, birthdays and Mothers Day and Anzac day and Fathers Day and groundhog day as all are anniversaries and reminders that they are not here. You will go mad at first and then come to some sort of peace. You will want to kick people that thoughtlessly say,
Well its a long time ago now.
Because they have no idea what they are saying. And you, before the loss, might have been the same. I will miss my child till the day I die but I can't give up on life. But allow me to grieve at least and if you have to say something say.
" I am sorry for your loss, tell me about her".
It will not upset me I love to talk about her. I loved her annd she loved me and she was s great child.
Let me talk about her wide eyed curiosity at the world, her love of what she loved, her personality, what she said and what she did that made her "her"
I had one lady that remarked to a friend that what was my child doing at a pool at night, never mind that the whole thing was unusual and out of character but that dismissing it like that makes it somehow her fault, my fault, how does that help?
She didn't know the story but commented on it anyway in a negative way and that told me more about her than she could ever know. It happened, O.K. it happened for whatever reason and commenting on it will not bring her back or help me or her Sisters. We are the ones still here and we have to cope the best way we can. I never saw that woman after that and I wasn't impressed with the friend that relayed it either.
How stupidly hurtful and unproductive, as if their negativity can maybe "help" me in some way. How can that "help" Oh the next time I have a 12 year old daughter I will be more careful.
I will not "lose" the next one. Do you know what it was like for me to even lookat a 12 year old gil for years after. How I wished they were mine and darkly jealous of the parents as they still had their 12 year old and I didn't.
How I would stand in queues at Supermarkets and see young girls with rivers of long hair and want to just "touch" it, just once. Or how I stood crying at the Supermarket staring at Muesli Bars and realising I no longer needed to buy them for school lunches. And how I hated Supermarkets for that reason for years. That I can only go in them now and enjoy the experience, and I actually love them now after all these years.
Do you realise what a conversation stopper the death of a child is and how people will actively avoid you as you are somehow "tainted" or broken, unlucky and you might bring that bad luck on to them.
Me who loves children with an unholy passion and always have not being allowed to see "your" child or mind "your" child as I am not such a good parent if I managed to "lose" one. Thats how you make me feel and thats Ok is it? I realised a long time ago I did not take my child by the hand to the pool. She was there becasue of a dare that tragically went wrong, led on by another girl. And yes, my child went willingly, she was a good swimmer and she hardly had done anything naughty in her life, truth be known.
The middle two were the rebels of the family, not the youngest nor the oldest. But you don't know that you only see what you want to see. You tthink if it was you, you would have done something different or deal with ongoing grief by strength of will. believe me you wouldn't.
And I cannot bow down to grief or even fight the "Monster" because at times it overwhelms me. And I am a rational, considerate, intelligent person.
I did the counselling when my Foster Daughter laughed and sniggered in the corner. I listened to the grief tapes they loaned me as my Husband, then, told me after six weeks I was not to talk of her any more. And I told him to get stuffed. And had the courage to ask him to leave months later when I was scared to death of him. Mr miserable, I hate the world and I am hoing to beat everyone up in it including my wife and kids. And after 23 years still says those horrible things. Especially about me, me who bore him 4 kids and put up with his shit.
As my Mother would say,
"I wouldn't piss on him if he were on fire"
I am a completely different person than when my daughter lived. Before she died I was a door mat trapped in a loveless violent marriage to a man that was NUTS. I mean really nuts, why do you think my son in laws and my brothers call him Crazy Bob, duh, thats because he is. And he would call my Mother "Crazy" and tell me I would ned up just like her. My poor schizophrenic Mother.
And I put up with his shit as I had tried to leave form the first year of my marriage, he was violent for the first time six weeks after our first child was born. And like a sad sack I thought with love and understanding he would change. Ha Ha, never fall into that trap. As it is a trap and a very hard one to get out of.
I'm not whingeing its just the way it is and was. I can't even begin to tell you the stories but what is the point. He's gone, I'm ok , alls well that ends well .
Love Janette
