The Original Vessel

The loss of our precious cargo....

"The Original Vessel" is described in  honor of a single father named Howard, whose only daughter, Lori, had been murdered. For years after it happened, Howard lost interest in everything he once valued. He felt 'completely gutted' inside and could hardly muster the energy to do more than 'go through the motions." When asked if anything gave him pleasure or even a moment of joy he looked out the window and stated,
It's like those cargo ships down there. Once they dock and unload, they re down to the original vessel -- you know, the core structure, empty and waiting. Well, that's me now. I used to take on things I thought gave me joy --my house, my car, my boat---but now they mean nothing. With Lori gone, I don't care about loading up again. Or let me say this: You can bet if anything remotely interesting comes along, I won't just acquire it and throw it in the hold like I used to do. I want to decide what has meaning for me and what doesn't.

This idea of the essential vessel --the 'core self," the "essential you," the "person you really are" -- is the one part of us that remains after tragedy empties us out. But if there is any benefit to grief (and for years I would have sworn there was none), it lies in the possibility of building a new and even fulfilling life from the ruins. We learn that when we're young, we may not give much thought to the decisions we make, because if we've made a mistake, we live with it and go on. But later, something happens---the death of a child ---that leads us to 'unpack' or reexamine our choices and see if we're on the journey we've always wanted. (1)

Even Sigmund Freud, on the day his deceased daughter Sophie would have been 36 years old, wrote in a letter to a friend:
Although we know that after such a loss the acute state of mourning will subside, we also know that we shall remain inconsolable and will never find a substitute. No matter what may fill the gap, even if it be filled completely, it nevertheless remains something else. (2)

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross stated that facing such a profound loss means facing the ultimate of life. To live to the fullest requires an awareness that life is ultimately short and that everything we do must be made to count. When the unthinkable happens we are forced to see that we ultimately do not have the final say.(3)

Thinking about those perspectives challenges us to find a way to look beyond the fiery pain of loss. Though our vessels may feel like they have been emptied, important treasures are still in that hold for which we can be thankful. Identifying and acknowledging those treasures and allowing them to 'bloom & grow' offers hope that our ship will sail again....with precious cargo. Like Howard, adding 'new' cargo could become a very selective process, yet profoundly meaningful.

The bumper sticker phrase "What Would Jesus Do?" has presented itself to me through the years when I'm 'out-and-about' town. These days I've added to that...."What Would My Child Want Me To Do?"
~Marsha Abbott

Recent Articles:
The Day The Music Died: Discusses experiences and lack of joy from things we previously enjoyed.
Our Children Are Not Lost: Discusses how we look at what has happened to our child.
How To Talk To a Bereaved Parent: Discusses the sadness of 'silence'.


*Homepage for A New Journey Blog: Want to receive new posts/articles when they are posted? Become a 'follower' of the blog and you'll be notified when new posts have been made.
*Visit Facebook: A New Journey, for quotes, links, and articles of hope regarding the death of a child. -

(1) From: Sugar Cookies And A Nightmare: Carol Kearn
(2) From: Sugar Cookies And A Nightmare:Carol Kearn
(3) Quote from Elisabeth Kulber-Ross w/link to information about her

LOSS: When The Future Seems Bleak

In the last resort it is highly improbable that there could ever be a therapy which gets rid of all difficulties. Man's challenge is to maintain health through his difficulties. ~Carl Jung

When catastrophic loss occurs, transformation follows. Sooner or later all people suffer loss, some are big, some are smaller, some are sudden, some are drawn out, some are private and some are public.

It is not the experiencing of loss that becomes the defining moment in our lives. It is how we respond to it. The quality of our remaining years will be directly related to our response.

The death of a child plunges parents and family members into a vast sea of despair. It is akin to nightmares we can't control or high fevers from illness. The blanket of darkness comes, no matter how hard we try to stop it. However threatening, we must face that blackness, and no matter how many people gather to help us, we must reconcile it within ourselves, alone.

Initially the pain is so intense we cannot reason, we often complete tasks in robotic fashion, finding ourselves hoping our child will walk through the door and we'll awaken to discover this was a horrible dream. As time progresses, the reality sets in and we try to find understanding, to no avail. But somewhere along the journey we come face to face with decisions about how we will respond.

Will we search for a spiritual connection, finding the strength to seek or will we shrivel, decaying in spirit and energy? Will we consider the broader purpose for our lives or crumble into the unfairness of such a crippling loss?

Perspective can be easier to develop if we consider the wishes of our child. What would they want for us? Suffering such agony puts the most extreme pressure upon the soul. Like a lump of coal placed under intense pressure we can emerge a diamond with light to share with the world.
 ~Marsha
_________________
See articles for bereaved parents on a variety of topics: Search





*Visit Facebook: A New Journey, for quotes, links, and articles of hope regarding the death of a child

Author Tom Crider Describes Losing His Daughter

The writer's only child, Gretchen, died in an apartment fire at age twenty-one. From Give Sorrow Words: A Father's Passage Through Grief -by Tom Crider

At night when he can't sleep, he reads books on death and religion. Some of them say she is not really dead. Some say God has other plans for her. He has never believed in a God who controls human lives or decrees their deaths. Now, with his mind and emotions in turmoil, he seems to be scavenging for ways to keep her from having vanished. He finds himself ready to believe just about anything. He's like a beggar in winter, clawing through box after box of old coats, look for one that fits....

I will walk through the valley of the shadow of death, but unlike the psalmist, I fear evil everywhere.

It's deeper than fear, really, it's dread. He feels like a dog who's lived through being run over once and who jumps at the slightest sound to make sure nothing is coming at him again. When the phone rings, his heart bounds. He thinks someone else has died; his mother, his brother, a friend. In a store or on a street, he hears a child scream, but instead of delight, he hears horror, and turns to see if the child needs help. Several times a day, spurts of fright splash up from a sea of dread.

In addition to the expected definition of dread- "to anticipate with anxiety, alarm, or apprehension; fear intensely," he finds this also; "fear mixed with awe or reverence."

Yes, there is awe in what I feel. It's what I imagine a mole might feel when the top of its burrow is scraped away by a grizzly. It comes from being one who is tiny in the presence of a greater, malevolent power. This power snatched my daughter Gretchen away from me. What will it do next?...

At the health club a guy asks him "Do you have any children?" He hesitates before saying, "No." Would someone waiting to play racquetball want to hear what happened to Gretchen?

He feels the role of father, a silk robe he once wore, slipping from his shoulders. Everything it meant to be a father is gone, suddenly and forever.

When Gretchen was born, her infant life gave his a bright new purpose. She depended upon him for shelter, food, guidance, and love. Her development into genius or ignoramus, aggressor or peacemaker, may not have been entirely up to him, but it felt that way. And he believed he'd have some influence, through his child, her children, and her children's children, on the future of the human race.

Now for him, in addition to his only child, his fatherhood and all that it meant has vanished. He has no daughter or son to care for a and no lineage going out from himself into the future. He still has a lingering fatherly pride and love, but the object of it is gone, and he stands on a severed branch of the family tree. -Tom Crider
_______
Tom's honesty goes to the core of this type of loss. It brings to focus the deeply personal feelings trapped inside our souls. Our child represented the future. A legacy from which we defined the continuum of life. There is something about this bond and the broken chain that creates this unique agony. It often triggers an intense search for the meaning of life, a connection and understanding about what exists beyond this world. -Marsha

* See Thought For The Day
* About A New Journey
*Visit Facebook: A New Journey, for quotes, links, and articles of hope regarding the loss of a child

Mark Twain Discusses The Death Of His Child

To his close friend Rev. Joseph Twitchell, Clemens (Twain) pours out his heart in a letter from London, five months after his daughter Susy died. While Clemens was frantically booking a return steamer from England, "Uncle Joe' had been at Susy's bedside while she died. A hearbroken but grateful father, Clemens wrote to his friend Joseph, "I would have chosen you out of all the world to take my place at Susy's side and Livy's in those black hours". (From the selected letters of Mark Twain)

Twain's letter to Rev Joseph:
You have the touch that heals, not lacerates. And you know the secret places of our hearts. Your know our life - the outside of it - as others do - and the inside of it -which they do not. You have seen our whole voyage. You have seen me go to sea, a cloud of sail (referring to his success in writing) and the flag at the peak. And now you see me chartless, adrift -derelict, battered, water-logged, our sails a ruck of rags, our pride gone. For it is gone. And there is nothing in its place. The vanity of life was all we had, and there is no more vanity left in us. We are even ashamed of that we had, ashamed that we trusted the promises of life and builded high --to come to this.

I did not know that Suzy was a part of that vanity. I did not know that she could go away. I did not know that she could go away and take our lives with her, yet leave our dull bodies behind. And I did not know what she was. To me she was but a treasure in a bank, the amount known, to be counted on. I did not know it could be taken away. And now it is too late. They tell me my treasure is not there, has vanished away in the night, the bank is broken, my fortune is gone, I am a pauper. How am I to comprehend this? How am I to survive? Why am I robbed, and who is benefited?
-Mark Twain


A List Of Mark Twain's Works:
The Innocents Abroad 1869
Curious Republic of Gondour 1870
A Burlesque Autobiography 1871
Roughing It 1872
The Gilded Age 1873
Sketches New and Old 1875
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer 1876
Carnival of Crime in CT 1877
A Tramp Abroad 1880
1601 1880
The Prince and the Pauper 1881
The Stolen White Elephant 1882
Life on the Mississippi 1883
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn 1885
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court 1889
The American Claimant 1892
Tom Sawyer Abroad 1894
The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson 1894
Tom Sawyer, Detective 1896
Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Vol 1 1896
Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Vol 2 1896
How to Tell a Story and Others 1897
Following the Equator 1897
The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg and other Stories 1900
A Double Barrelled Detective 1902
Extracts from Adam's Diary 1904
A Dog's Tale 1904
The $30,000 Bequest 1906
What is Man? and Other Essays of Mark Twain 1906
Mark Twain's Speeches 1906
Christian Science 1907
A Horse's Tale 1907
Is Shakespeare Dead? 1909
Extract from Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven l909
The Mysterious Stranger 1916 uncompleted
Alonzo Fitz and Other Stories
Essays on Paul Bourget
Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offences
Goldsmith's Friend Abroad Again
In Defense of Harriet Shelley
On the Decay of the Art of Lying
Some Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion
The Boys Life of Mark Twain
Those Extraordinary Twins
Mark Twain a Biography Volume I Part 1 1835-1866
Mark Twain a Biography Volume I Part 2 1866-1875
Mark Twain a Biography Volume II Part 1 1875-1886
Mark Twain a Biography Volume II Part 2 1886-1900
Mark Twain a Biography Volume III Part 1 1900-1907
Mark Twain a Biography Volume III Part 2 1907-1910
Mark Twain's Letters 1867-1875
Mark Twain's Letters 1876-1885
Mark Twain's Letters 1886-1900
Mark Twain's Letters 1901-1906
Mark Twain's Letters 1907-1910
Mark Twain's Letters, Complete

After The FIRST Year

Overflow passages that don't quite fit on the A New Journey Facebook wall. `Marsha

Sat January 22, 2011 -Written by Kathleen O'Hara"

"After the first year of your grief, a dangerous time can emerge. Reality and consequences sink in. The shock and numbness have worn off and you realize, sadly, that you will be confronted with the consequences of this trauma for along time, if not the rest of your life.

You may now experience less volatile but more profound feelings of despair, anger, abandonment. People don't talk about your child anymore. You may feel out of sync with everyone else in the world - they have moved on with their lives, while you have not. It might be hard to relate to others because they insinuate that you should have moved on too.

This is often a time when depression can really set in. You are in limbo between your old, pretrauma world and the new one you still don't recognize. You are far from the shore of the life you once knew - you can see it behind you, but as much as you want to , you now know you cannot go back. As much as everyone else has found closure, you have not. There is no way to get over a trauma such as this. Nothing will ever change that fact that your child died.

However there are three principles which can be of help: acceptance, forgiveness, and gratitude.

Acceptance asks us to recognize what we can change and what we cannot - and ask for the wisdom to understand the difference. Forgiveness helps us to work on our feelings of anger at others or at God for this pain, which inevitably harm us more than help us. Gratitude helps us recognize what has been given, taken away, and remains after the storms have passed. These principles are not easy, nor are they meant to be. They take time. "



Visit A New Journey On Facebook:  A place for grieving parents, family and friends

Soul Searching

While reading the book, Memories of the Afterlife, by Michael Newton, I was struck by the passage regarding our souls working together with God to come into this world with a purpose. Experiencing life in the earthly realm provides the opportunity to encounter struggle, make choices, and pursue a greater understanding of what our soul's work is all about. Whether we pursue it or just 'coast' is completely up to us.

Michael described a mother who sought to find comfort after the loss of her murdered son. She connected with her son (explained in the book) and learned that his passing was meant to create a shift in her thinking. Her son reminded her that they were both well aware of this agreed upon journey and heartache before either of them began their lives on earth. He also reminded her that he was waiting for her return to heaven and encouraged her to pray, meditate, and pursue her journey.

It was noted that when 'choosing' a life where the probability for an early death is high, souls aided by God's divine love, must consider carefully which family to choose. The patterns for learning can create a bridge that allows the souls of the chosen family to grow as well. It is often the anguish and most challenging parts of our lives which force us to question the plan for our life. In those moments of pain, it is difficult to make sense of events, to find meaning inside the anguish. And yet it is often the agony that drives us to fulfill the central purpose of our lives. In the afterlife, we are all joined together.

I paused and thought, "What? They agreed? She agreed?" It is written that as souls evolve, their challenges become greater. If my time to leave this earth arrived today, I would probably stomp my way into heaven demanding "Who's stupid idea was this anyway?"

Yet, somewhere deep inside me I feel drawn to know more. Religious text, spirituality and enlightenment all beckon me to... soul search.   -Marsha Abbott



Visit A New Journey on Facebook. A resource and place of hope for grieving parents.  http://www.facebook.com/pages/A-New-Journey/139541632740837
* Originally posted at Bereavement 4 Breakfast; June 30, 2010