Ragmuffin; allow me to share a story from my own life. 7/8/07 my 12 yr old daughter was murdered. i turned against God in my anger. we were never a Christian family really to start with but my now ex-husband and i were both raised in the church family. in our intense grief we both reacted with anger. I was angry with God and with the person who killed my girl, my ex was angry with the whole world and himself because he was the one who gave her permission to go babysit for the man who murdered her that night. we tried to be strong for our sons, then 17 and 19 years old. i felt i had to be strong for everyone and thought that counseling was showing weakness and how could someone who had never suffered that intense loss understand and help me to cope, so i didn't go to counseling. i should have. maybe things would have turned out differently, who knows. instead of getting lost in the sports station my ex got lost in the bottle and became an active-alcoholic after not drinking for awhile previousely. my sons went on with their lives as close to normal as possible but they were different boys after their sisters death and are now emotionally distant from everyone, although you wouldn't notice it unless you knew them well before that. after almost a year of dealing with the constant anger and drinking, and being able to do nothing about it i ended up wallowing and feeling totaly alone in my own grief. i left my ex-husband after a final fight, he'd gone out drinking and driving, gotten arrested for it, and lost his job all in the same night because he still went to work after bailing himself out of jail, and thereby went against the 'morality clause' in his contract and was immediately fired for it. and then i left him that night. my boys opted to stay with their father, and we have a very fragile relationship now. my oldest son calls me by my first name now because he says he doesn't want me as his mother but will accept me as his friend. my youngest son and i get along really well when we do talk but he doesn't care for my new husband so we have limited contact. the man who killed my daughter is in prison for life now, so there is some closure in that. it's been three and a half years, two and a half years since i began my 'new life', but it is only these last few months that i have found some answers and some peace. i don't know why things happened the way that they did, except that if i hadn't been through what i did then i wouldn't be able to help anyone else. losing a child, especially a mother losing a daughter, is the most intense grief , beyond imagination. i can look back and see the mistakes i made. i should have gone to counseling, i should have let myself off the hook and not carried the weight that i had to be strong for everyone else, i should have allowed myself to feel the brunt of that pain and delt with it by turning to God instead of away from Him. i probably could have handled the marriage differently but there were problems long before we lost Shyanne, i just used that as my excuse to finally leave a destructive cheating marriage. and when all was said and done, i should have clung to my faith instead of crushing it , there are so many 'should have's', but that doesn't help. all we can do is take that pain and the questions and go to God in faith knowing that he understands our pain and that he really does have all the answers, we just need to open our hearts and really listen for those answers. most importantly we need to make sure that those children that we have left behind get counseling, in an environment where they are free to express how they feel regardless of what those feelings entail, and that they know that we love them just as much as we love the child we lost. sometimes we get so involved in how much we love the one in heaven that the ones left behind feel that they don't measure up, that we don't love them as much, and we need to make sure that they know how we love them and that we feel so blessed to have them, as individuals for who they are not because of what they represent of the one lost. and above all else... talk to God, you can tell him anything and he understands and won't hold it against you even if you call him every ugly angry thing in the book, and then listen. listen because he will speak to you, and he will comfort your soul and give you peace. i don't know if anything i said has helped, i hope so. learn from my mistakes and don't repeat them. and if you truly love your husband, then try to understand how his 'guilt' is makeing him put distance between all of you, maybe he fears that if he is too close to you then the pain of possibly losing again would be too much for him to handle and so he puts up walls to try to protect himself. only time with God will ease the pain. go to counseling, then come home and talk to him about what you're learning from it. but if you love him, then give him time, and pray for him constantly. don't repeat my mistakes , learn from them. now i am on the right track with God, i have peace, I know that this world wasn't good enough for Shyanne but Heaven is her home, and i have a new husband and a new life now. don't push aside your grief, and remember your baby girl and know that she still feels your love and she would want you to be at peace. anyway, sorry i took up so much space. let me know if i talk to much... and above all else i wish you peace.
