Amanda’s Story

Tonight I was talking to a friend who has a son entering Kindergarten this year.   We were talking about School Supplies and clothes.  Then something I was apparently not preparped for smacked me in the face.  Amanda would be entering Kindergarten this year.  She would be five entering school.  I felt physically ill.  Tightness in my chest,  a knot in my stomach.  As the tears threaten to come, I didn’t know how to make it stop.  I havent’ felt this physically upset in a long time.  Why and how did this blindside me?   I knew it was comming.  Back in the spring I thought about it.   How did I not prepare myself for it?  Busy getting the kids ready for their big day’s missing the fact that this was going to be  a difficult milestone.  I thought the first year had all the really hard firsts.  I guess not!

I have tried to start this post more than once this week but nothing came.   Five years is a long time.  Today would have been Amanda’s 5th birthday.   In the last five years we have moved forward with our lives without our daughter and sister.   She is never far from our thoughts but we do move forward.  We still have bad days but after 5 years there are certainly more good than bad. 

I sit here tonight in the dark with the glow of the computer screen on my face wondering what would be different if Amanda had lived.    Most people think going down that road is only dwelling on things I can’t change.    Normally when you lose a loved one you have specific things to remember about them.   The way they looked  when you knew you were in trouble.  The sound of their voice,  sound of their laugh.  These are the things that people use to get through grief and remember the one lost.   I don’t have any of that.    Amanda never opened her eyes, she never smiled.  I never got to see her personality.   Would she be a tomboy like me or somewhere in the middle like Allison?  Would she like sports or computer games like Alex?    By 5 years old she would have sorted out most of that stuff and pretty much know who she was and who she wanted to be.  But she didn’t get the chance.  I am left wondering who she would  have been.     I usually imagine that she would have been somewhere in he middle between Alex and Allison.  They are polar opposites and she would have been the one somewhere in the middle. 

Other things would be different.. my house would be louder,  we would have less money,  that chair at the dinner table would be filled.    I wouldn’t be walking this life long journey of grief.   We would have presents to open on her birthdays instead of releasing balloons. 

Things would be very different.   I would still be the person that thought bad stuff happened to other people.   But I would have also missed the most beautiful amazing moment in my life.   The moment I held her in my arms and knew she had gone from this life to the next. 

Happy Birthday My Sweet Angel

Its November again.  I wrote last year about how much I dislike this month and why.  I made it almost to the half way point before having an freak out melt down.  I was doing so well.  I have many things planned to keep me busy and my mind off the anger and sadness that threatens to overwhelm me.   But tonight it all came crashing down on me.  In the chaos of what is dinner time.  I was trying to get Tony to help me he was being distracted by the dog, kids and what else I don’t know.  I spilled corn all over the floor and loudly said “Can I have some help please”  I yelled it yes it was not my best moment.  Then he yelled back I am helping he had yet to see the corn everywhere.  I became very upset and yelled at him to stop yelling at me.  He returned the anger and I lost it.  Kicked a gate down ran upstairs in tears where I am currently hiding out.

I never loose it like that with Tony or the kids except this time of year.   Last year I completely avoided putting the Christmas tree up because it all ways ends in a fight and yelling.  A great way to start the holiday season.   Now that the November issues (I don’t even know what to call it) has come upon me I am not sure how I am going to make it through all the stuff I have planned for the rest of the month.

I miss my baby girl and the life I was suppose to have with her!

Kim

This was posted on the Potter’s Syndrome Message board.

Feb. 26, 2006
Copyright: Las Vegas Review-Journal

STEVEN KALAS: When you lose a child, grieving is a lifelong experience

When our first child is born, a loud voice says, “Runners, take your marks!” We hear the starting gun and the race begins. It’s a race we must win at all cost. We have to win. The competition is called “I’ll race you to the grave.” I’m currently racing three sons. I really want to win.

Not everyone wins.

I’m here at the national meeting of Compassionate Friends, an organization offering support and resources for parents who lose the race. I’m wandering the halls during the “break-out” sessions. In this room are parents whose children died in car accidents. Over there is a room full of parents of murdered children. Parents of cancer victims are at the end of the hall. Miscarriages and stillbirths are grouped together, as are parents who have survived a child’s suicide. And so it goes.

In a few minutes, I’m going to address Compassionate Friends. This is the toughest audience of my life. I mix with the gathering crowd, and a woman from Delaware glances at my name tag. Her name tag has a photo of her deceased son. My name tag is absent photos.

“So … you haven’t … lost anyone,” she says cautiously.

“My three sons are yet alive, if that’s what you’re asking me,” I say gently.

She tries to nod politely, but I can see that I’ve lost credibility in her eyes. She’s wondering who invited this speaker, and what on earth he could ever have to say to her.

My address is titled “The Myth of Getting Over It.” It’s my attempt to answer the driving questions of grieving parents: When will I get over this? How do I get over this?

You don’t get over it. Getting over it is an inappropriate goal. An unreasonable hope. The loss of a child changes you. It changes your marriage. It changes the way birds sing. It changes the way the sun rises and sets. You are forever different.

You don’t want to get over it. Don’t act surprised. As awful a burden as grief is, you know intuitively that it matters, that it is profoundly important to be grieving. Your grief plays a crucial part in staying connected to your child’s life. To give up your grief would mean losing your child yet again. If I had the power to take your grief away, you’d fight me to keep it. Your grief is awful, but it is also holy. And somewhere inside you, you know that.

The goal is not to get over it. The goal is to get on with it.

Profound grief is like being in a stage play wherein suddenly the stagehands push a huge grand piano into the middle of the set. The piano paralyzes the play. It dominates the stage. No matter where you move, it impedes your sight lines, your blocking, your ability to interact with the other players. You keep banging into it, surprised each time that it’s still there. It takes all your concentration to work around it, this at a time when you have little ability or desire to concentrate on anything.

The piano changes everything. The entire play must be rewritten around it.

But over time the piano is pushed to stage left. Then to upper stage left. You are the playwright, and slowly, surely, you begin to find the impetus and wherewithal to stop reacting to the intrusive piano. Instead, you engage it. Instead of writing every scene around the piano, you begin to write the piano into each scene, into the story of your life.

You learn to play that piano. You’re surprised to find that you want to play, that it’s meaningful, even peaceful to play it. At first your songs are filled with pain, bitterness, even despair. But later you find your songs contain beauty, peace, a greater capacity for love and compassion. You and grief — together — begin to compose hope. Who’da thought?

Your grief becomes an intimate treasure, though the spaces between the grief lengthen. You no longer need to play the piano every day, or even every month. But later, when you’re 84, staring out your kitchen window on a random Tuesday morning, you welcome the sigh, the tears, the wistful pain that moves through your heart and reminds you that your child’s life mattered.

You wipe the dust off the piano and sit down to play.

Steven Kalas is a behavioral health consultant and counselor at Clear View Counseling and Wellness Center in Las Vegas. Contact him at skalas@reviewjournal.com.