Essays & Poems
Rob's Poem
Please don't forget me
For I am not on earth
Please don't forget me
Many've known me since my birth
Please don't forget me
Though I do not live
Please don't forget me
I had no more to give
Please don't forget me
My smile, my face, my tone
Please don't forget me
For things I had not shown
Please don't forget me
My family I am with
Please don't forget me
I had no more to give
Please don't forget me
Because I am not here
Please don't forget me
Because it may bring fear
Please don't forget me
For I'm at peace in Heaven
Please don't forget me
Please let me be forgiven
Please don't forget me
While living life anew
Please don't forget me
For I will not forget you
Katy Wertz, a survivor
Dear Brunch Guests, Committee Members and LOSS Staff,
Thank you for attending, bringing guests, donating items to the auction, and so much more to make the 17th Annual Blossoms of Hope Brunch such a success. The event would not have been so many things to so many people without your dedication to the program. At this year's event, guests enjoyed the fellowship of friends and family-placing the emphasis on Hope as we enter into Spring.
The Planning Committee worked extremely hard all year long to generate ideas that materialized into the wonderful event. The event Chairs, Kathy Allendorph and Kathy Buehler, shared their endless energy and spirit with each of their committee members. They focused on the heart of the event: the guests' experience, and fundraising for the LOSS program. While collaborating, the committee worked to create several new ways to fundraise, such as registering on the donation website: iGive.com, as well as the addition of the Hope Tree at the event.
Tom and Fran Smith, along with their son Kevin, graciously accepted the 2008 Charles T. Rubey Award and spoke so eloquently to the guests about their own tragedy as they continue to spread hope to others.
Father Rubey and his staff: Bruce Engle, Shaun Williams and Cristina Davila-worked diligently for the program and supported the event in every way they could. The committee would like to thank the staff, the clinicians and facilitators for their dedication to the LOSS program and its members.
This was a great year due to generous sponsors and supporters like you. The Brunch is able to cover almost 50% the LOSS program's operating expenses.
Thank you for your support and prayers.
Sincerely,
Elizabeth Atchason
Blossoms of Hope Event Coordinator
Cultural Diversity & Grieving People*
by J. Shep Jeffreys, Ed.D., F.T.
"Over the ages and across cultures, spiritual beliefs and practices have anchored and nourished families and their communities at times of death and loss".1 Cultural anthropologists say that our grieving patterns are controlled, in part, by our ethnic, religious and other sub-cultural identifications, as well as by the pull of mainstream societal patterns of grieving and ritual practices. Psychologists tell us that we respond to events in our lives based on the individual meanings and assumptions we make about life and living. When we add this all together, we have a mix of various pressures influencing how we feel, think and behave when grieving. We each make sense of our loss experiences by viewing them through the lens of the cultural groups we are a part of as well as our own individual assumptions and beliefs about the world.
When any of us reach out to help grieving people-we must not be blind to the existence of ideas and practices about bereavement and grieving which are different from our own beliefs. I refer here not only to pre- and post-death traditions, but also to family and cultural ground rules for talking about illness, dying, death. Included in this consideration is the way a mourner's expressions of feelings are encouraged or discouraged by others. So often we see in a movie or on television a person comforting another say, "...Hush my dear. That's OK, it's all right, don't cry?" This is an example of a typical model of how one responds to another's crying by shushing them-at a time when most people do need to cry. It's reminiscent of the urge so many have to shove a tissue at a sobbing, grieving person. The message is: "Wipe your tears, or blow your nose and ... stop crying!" In this case, the offered tissue may be seen by the bereaved as an expectation on the part of the family member or friend to mute the outward grieving behaviors. These messages may flow from the beliefs of the comforting individual, but may also be contrary to the style and tradition or the personal needs of the griever. (Just put the tissue box down within reach and let the person take them as needed.)
The rites and practices surrounding death in our society are largely associated with a religious belief system, although military and other organizational rituals may be a part of the ceremony. May religions also specify what appropriate family practices are during the period of active dying, at the time of death and following death. Varying beliefs in an afterlife are presented in tribal theologies as well as in the more widely practiced faiths of today. Even mourners who have long left their religious affiliations behind will often reach back for guidance from their belief systems of origin. On the other hand, just because a family is identified with a religious belief does not automatically mean that they continue to practice their religion of origin. (You must inquire as to how and if they are following a particular spiritual pathway - be aware that not all members of a family may be in agreement regarding faith and rituals.)
As friends, neighbors, colleagues and professional care providers, we must grasp the importance of knowing and respecting a family's cultural heritage, mourning rituals and customs for expressing feelings. The variances affect not only the death-related rituals but also the way that family members communicate to others outside of the family and with each other about their loss and their own feelings. In some families and ethnic traditions, talking about the deceased is typically not done. Many years ago I saw a Middle Eastern young man in my practice whose father had been killed. The family was devastated and he shared with me that in his family's tradition, feelings about the loss of a loved one were not discussed openly. This prevented me from working with the whole family and helping them to support each other by listening to each other's grief. He sought grief counseling because he had nowhere else to talk about his father and his feelings. I became his only support until we were able to locate a person in his faith-community who could also help him.
A report by the National Caregivers Alliance indicates that one-fourth of the elderly population will be made up of racial and ethnic minority populations. What one culture's tradition considers extreme grief reaction may be quite normal in another.
In various regions of our country, there has been an increase in immigration of Hispanic, Asian, Russian, Middle Eastern, Indian, Pakistan, Caribbean and African people to the U.S. We are a mobile society and ethnic sub-cultures are also dispersed geographically due to job and educational opportunities, cost of living finances, climate, proximity of family and other relationships. When we add to this the already existing older diversity in American cultural groups, we have within mainstream society a variety of religious traditions and of cultural practices associated with death and dying. People come to the workplace, schools, places of worship, and communities from their own backgrounds and loss experiences. Cultural diversity is further flavored by the rising rate of interfaith and inter-ethnic/racial marriages.
When you are helping grieving people, you must find out as much as you can about the traditions of a particular family. Before bringing or sending food to a family in mourning, be sure of dietary requirements-especially people of Muslim, Jewish or Hindu faiths. Some people welcome flowers, others do not (traditional Jewish families). There are families who do not talk of the deceased (some Native-American nations) and there are many others who focus on the deceased loved one in the post funeral period. Some faiths cremate the body (Hindu, Buddhist families) while others see this as a violation (Muslim and traditional Jewish families). Some cultural groups encourage open release of the feelings of grief and others view the muting of grief expression as desirable. In some funerals you can hear a pin drop while in others there is an almost explosive atmosphere of outcry at the loss.
There is no one right way to grieve.
1Walsh, F. (2004). Spirituality, Death and Loss. In F. Walsh, & M. McGoldrick, (Eds.) Living Beyond Loss: Death in the Family, (2nd ed. pp. 182-210). New York: W.W. Norton.
©2008 J. Shep Jeffreys, Ed.D.,F.T.
www.GriefCareProvider.com
jeffreys3@verizon.net
Reprinted from the Living With LOSS™ Magazine, Spring 2008, Vol. 23, No. 1.
Musings of a Bereft Father by Alan D. Busch
Why the death of a child?
How should we respond when all that we have is the language of prose and poetry? Our memory's perspective narrows as the years pass. Awaiting us is a grave danger... forsakenness.
We each grieve differently when a child dies. Citing this truism to a recently bereaved mother, she responded to me angrily as if to ask: "Is that the very best you can do?"
Now, I disclaim professional expertise in matters of death, dying, and grief management. On the contrary, together with other bereft parents, our only common relevant credential is membership in the club to which nobody wishes to belong. I became a bereaved father on Wednesday, November 22, 2000, when my son Ben died.
It is a wonder how well most parents hold up in the aftermath of their tragedies and successfully recast their lives into stronger, more productive and creative shapes. By infusing pathos into love and loss, bereaved parents have even authored chronicles of their tragedies. By reading these works, we discern meaning in our children's lives while healing ourselves.
Still...in the face of all we did, all our unconditional love, and all of our willing sacrifices, we could not save them. Though we must return their bodies to the dust, we commit ourselves to sustain the lives of their spirits, of their souls if you like. It's somehow right and fair, isn't it? And it is for this reason that we build shrines to their memories.
A brass memorial leaf appears on a branch of th Etz Chaim, the "Tree of Life" in my synagogue. It reads: "In memory of Benjamin Busch Whose Good Deeds, Kind Nature & Gentle Manner Will Forever Be An Inspiration To Us".
It may seem paradoxical, but why do we affix a memorial leaf to a Tree of Life? Though the leaf serves as a poignant reminder of the end of Ben's life, its purpose is to remind us to celebrate the time of his life-no matter that it ended prematurely, abruptly, and painfully!
Even in the darkest moments, we say ..."L'Chaim"...To Life!
We are eternally optimistic each time we lift a glass together, whether it be in remembrance or celebration.
Jewish custom holds that a mourner recite the Mourner's Kaddish when, following the burial of his loved one, he is most vulnerable.
Neither a lamentation nor a dirge, the Kaddish is a reaffirmation of life that makes no mention of death whatsoever. At such time when the immediacy of death is still near enough to be overwhelming, one might choose to renounce his faith. Though perhaps understandable, our tradition regards this as a misguided approach to grief.
Still, six years later, the very worst part for me remains the deposition of the attending paramedic. Ben was both conscious and able to speak for a brief while before finally losing consciousness forever. Ben understood what was happening while he suffered horrendous pain and he bespoke his fear that he was dying.
As a father, the certain knowledge that my son's last waking moments were consumed by such trauma and fear leaves me cold and quiet, my thoughts unclear...yet, I wonder, "Will I glimpse Ben's face after the passing of 2,190 days?"
The permanence of a child's death leaves one feeling so insignificant so powerless, and so tiny. Navigating these treacherous waters daily is no simple task as we are invariably reminded how vast God's ocean is while we remain adrift in such a small boat.
The only antidote to the pain of our loss lies in the tenacity with which we remember our children. It is incumbent upon us that we refuse to allow their memories to die.
As a Jew, I am thankful my faith is one of eternal optimism and teaches us that life is inherently miraculous, and therefore, holy. We serve as guardians of its sanctity. This belief sustains me when all that tangibly remains are a dress shirt and suit, a pair of old boots, a bicycle badly in need of repair, and his boyish signature on the page of a scrapbook.
Though their bodies are gone, their physicality ended, our linkage to them becomes one of remembrance, dedication and rededication, all of which remind us how fortunate we were to have enjoyed our time with them for as long as we did..."L'Chaim".
©2007 Alan D. Busch
Reprinted from the Living With LOSS™ Magazine