Tag: death

Daily Prompt- 1838 – Death

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I’ve always known that we each owe a death- that, eventually, death comes to us all. However, it never really hit home with me until 2005, when I lost both my father and maternal grandmother, both exactly ten weeks apart.

Up until that year, at the age of thirty-four, I was fortunate not to have lost anyone who was close to me. And I look back now and think that I might have taken things a little for granted before. The death of a loved one really puts things into perspective.

It has a way of changing our view. It reminds us to appreciate each day we’re giving and to show more love to the people we love. We must let our loved ones know how much we love and appreciate them each time we visit them or see them in the supermarket. For we never know when it could be the last time we ever get to talk to them.

Taking Life for Granted

When we’re young, we don’t take death as seriously as we should and don’t yet understand the finality of it. However,  as we age, and with each passing loved one, we look at this life a little differently.

The older we get, the closer we get to our own appointment with death. As such, we’re more grateful with each morning we rise. Speaking for myself personally, I have made a vow to stay away from drama and people who bring it. Life is too short to spend time with people who drain the oxygen out of the room.

Also, I make it a point to love hard the family I have left- my mother, aunts, the uncles I have left, and my siblings, husband and children.  I don’t know how many years I have left. The average lifespan for a woman is around 80 years old. Therefore, statistically speaking, I have about 28 years left if God allows. And I want to make the next 28 years, the best of my life.

But more importantly, I want to love and embrace my living family while they’re still here and to savor each day given me.

I Could Never Find the Right Words to Comfort Anyone Affected by Bullycide

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positive peace candle

Since I’ve been advocating for the bullied, I’ve met and talked to so many families- parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, spouses, children, cousins and friends who have lost a loved one to suicide. I’ve read, heard about, and listened to their heartbreaking stories. I’ve watched them cry, and I’ve often struggled to find the words to tell them how my heart breaks for them. What are the right words to say to someone who has suffered so significant a loss?

I’ve listened to stories from grieving parents who have lost a child to bullying and suicide. While they told me the story of the events which led up to their child’s death, I could hear the anguish in their voices. I could sense the many questions which continue to flood their minds that may never be answered! I could feel the injustice of it all, and let me tell you; it shook me to my core!

I can’t help but feel a wide range of overwhelming emotions- heartbreak and empathy for the surviving parents and family, intense anger toward the bullies who pushed that child over the edge and disgust at the school and school district, who did nothing to help, or worse, only intensified the child’s suffering. I feel nothing but rage and contempt for a system that failed this young person and their family and at the people in power who were in a position to help the poor young man or lady but didn’t!

Although I have lost a spouse to suicide and know what it is to experience the loss from it, I realize this: The loss of a spouse is terrible and heart-wrenching. Yes. But it isn’t quite the same as losing a child.

Child abuse with the eye of a young boy or girl with a single tear crying due to the fear of violence or depression caused by hunger and poverty and being afraid of bullying at school.

I try to put myself in the parent’s shoes, but it’s unbearable. I cannot imagine what a parent goes through. The unanswered questions, having dreams of their child’s future, disappear! Not long ago, I looked into the eyes of one grieving mother, and I wanted to cry but managed not to. I wanted to be strong for her because she needed me to be!

My oldest son went through a period of bullying, so I know this could just as easily have been him years ago. And I honestly don’t know if I could have held up as well as this mother has!

Try to imagine having that baby you once carried for nine months- the baby you felt move and kick inside your belly- ripped from your life forever! Imagine losing that precious, tiny creature, you once held for the first time in the hospital, whose sweet little face you gazed lovingly on, and were unable to take your eyes off of!

FILE – In this Monday, Sept. 16, 2013 file photo, pallbearers wearing anti-bullying T-shirts carry the casket of Rebecca Sedwick,12, to a waiting hearse as they exit the Whidden-McLean Funeral Home in Bartow, Fla. One of two teenage girls charged with stalking Rebecca Sedwick, a Florida classmate who complained of being bullied before her suicide no longer faces any criminal counts, her attorney said Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2013. (AP Photo/Brian Blanco, File)

I cannot fathom the despair of having to bury the child I was sure would someday bury me! Understand that this goes against the natural order of things! I cannot imagine the total shock and disbelief- that feeling of being kicked in the gut that goes with such a loss! And I struggle to find the words to comfort any parent who has lost a child to bullycide!

What are the right words? How do you communicate to a grieving family member how much you hurt with them and how much you long to ease their suffering and wish you could? And how you wish that there was some way- SOME way you could bring that loved one back to them.

If you have a heart as I do, you want to reach out and hug that person! You want to hold them. You want to console them. You want to take away their pain. But anything short of doing the impossible, you know, will never be enough to ease their suffering.

Sympathy card with burning candle and rose on open book

Like me, you try to imagine how you’d feel if it were your child, but you can’t. You can’t bear the mere thought crossing your mind. But these families have lived it, and they continue to live it every day. Understand that this is a massive loss that this mother, this father, this sibling, this grandparent will carry for the rest of their lives!

Nothing will ever be the same for them again. Realize that this is a new normal (if that’s what you want to call it) that they will never be able to adjust to. Every day from here on will be another day of struggle- another day of fighting to keep it together- another day to act like you’re okay because you’re afraid of overwhelming the people around you. How long can these broken parents keep up the charade?

Again, words can never say how my heart breaks for them. All I can do is be there for them and listen as I struggle to find the words of support and compassion they so need to hear.

Maybe the reason I struggle for the right thing to say is that there are no words! There are no words that could ever quell the grief of a loss so heavy and so devastating! No words can ever provide complete consolation or comfort. And no words can ever bring justice to the loved ones left behind.

To all, who have lost a family member- a spouse, a parent, a sibling, a grandparent, especially a child, to suicide or bullycide, know that I’m here for you. It doesn’t matter if we know each other or are total strangers. And even though I struggle to find the words to tell you, rest assured that I care. My heart cries with you, and I have the utmost love, sympathy, and compassion for you!

You are always in my thoughts and prayers!

How Many People Go to Their Graves Never Realizing Their Confidence and Potential

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There are many people in the world who are broken children and never realized their true potential or their value. Perhaps they were abused at home or bullied in school. Maybe some jealous bully in their lives made it their mission to bring these people down because their confidence was a threat to the bully’s overinflated ego. Whatever the case may be, other people attacked their confidence and goodness at some point during their childhoods and gave them an evil gag gift of insecurity. And they carried this heavy gag gift into adulthood.

These people were wounded so deeply that they were never again the same. Many became bullies because they felt that the only way they could feel good about themselves was to make someone else feel inferior. Sadly, feeling good by these types of means is only temporary and it wears off quickly.

And once it wears off, these people must deliver another put down to get back that ego boost. Because their spirits were crushed, they now have an insatiable need to crush the spirits of others to feel whole again.

It takes a miserable and broken person to go through life putting others down to feel good about themselves. It takes a person who lacks confidence and doesn’t realize their own potential to attack the confidence, goals, and dreams of another. Instead of working toward their goals, practicing self-care, and using their intelligence and merit to achieve confidence and self-actualization, they take the easy way out and achieve it through such superficial means as tearing some poor soul down.

Again, understand that these superficial means are only a temporary fix.  But legitimate means, such as working on and cultivating your dreams can last a lifetime.

With that said, I have to wonder just how many people have wasted their entire lives taking this toxic path. How many people have died while weighed down with a mountain of insecurity? How many people have carried their anger, bitterness, and hatred to their graves? And how many people have gone to their graves without realizing confidence and their true potential?

Honestly, this is something that I don’t want to know because the answer just might be that it’s a vast majority of the people who are lying in the cemeteries around the world. There are millions upon millions of tombstones engraved with the names of people who had great ideas and dreams but never worked toward them because they allowed another person to cause them to underestimate and undervalue themselves. And sadly, their ideas and dreams, which could’ve made a positive difference not only in their lives, but in the lives of others and in the world, died on the deathbeds with them.

Any sane person should shutter at the thought that this could be them one day. It certainly scares me to death just knowing that I could’ve died never knowing my worth nor potential. It would have been a complete waste!

Understand that life is only a one-shot deal. There are no do-overs. If you are a bully who must use superficial means to feel whole or a target of bullying who feels useless, you must realize that as long as you’re still breathing, you still have a chance to change your ways and to realize the value you bring to this world. You still have a chance to find confidence and reach your potential. You still have a chance at reaching your higher self.

It won’t happen overnight and neither will it come easy. Nothing positive ever does. In fact, it may take years or decades and there will be forces in this life that will fight against you in the forms of toxic people and adverse circumstances- the devil doesn’t like positive change. But better late than never. And better hard-won than never. Don’t wait until it’s too late. And don’t put it off until tomorrow because tomorrow may never come for you.

Find a way to turn your pain into power- legitimate power- the type of power that isn’t harmful to another person. Find the will to turn your trauma into triumph. Began doing the inner work needed to better your spirit. Most importantly, do it while you still can. Make the rest of your life the best of your life.

The time is now.

With knowledge come empowerment!

Gone Too Soon: “They Should Still Be Here!”

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peace happiness hope beautiful day

A year or so ago, while driving Roxie, my little reddish-blonde Pomeranian to the groomer’s, I passed what was once the home and property of my Dad and Stepmother, who are now both deceased. At the age of only 53, my father passed away from complications of Acute Myelogenous Leukemia in the summer of 2005. My stepmother passed away eight years later of complications from Lupus. She was only 63.

Each time I pass that beautiful two-story home and spread of property spotted with gorgeous flower beds and bushes and covered with fresh green grass, I cannot help but gaze at it, remembering how overgrown the place was when they bought it. During the fifteen years my dad and stepmom lived there, they transformed the place from the eyesore it had once been to the gorgeous stretch of property it is today.

Those flower beds and bushes, still present today, are the footprint they left behind.

bullycide suicide death remembrance sympathy memorial

Even now, years after their deaths, the blood, sweat, and tears they both poured into the place is still evident! And I find myself thinking, “My Goodness! They should still be here!”

I go on thinking, “I should be able to pull into the driveway even today and see my father sitting on that wrap-around porch, taking a draw off a cigarette and looking over the property. He should be beaming with pride at the results of years of hard, often hot work. I should be able to see my stepmother crouched in one of the flower beds, pulling weeds with gloved hands.”.

I often ask myself if these thoughts are sinful…if thinking this way is, in fact, the same as saying that maybe God was wrong in taking them at such an early age. So I think this with caution.

Then I remind myself…or maybe it is God reminding me that I am only human and it is only my mere mortal and human mind which cries out, “They should still be here!”. And that God’s ways are beyond all comprehension…beyond our human understanding.

The reality is that, in the grand scheme of things, God’s plan is that some will not grow to a ripe old age like others. But that’s okay because although I miss them terribly, I can take comfort in knowing that my dad and stepmother are in a much better place than any of us left here on Earth.

Nevertheless, each time I drive past that old house and stretch of property, my heart can’t help but cry out, “They should still be here!”.

I Can’t Find The Words of Comfort for Anyone Affected by Bullycide

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positive peace candle

Since I’ve been advocating for the bullied, I’ve met and talked to so many families- parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, spouses, children, cousins and friends who have lost a loved one to suicide. I’ve read, heard about, and listened to their heartbreaking stories. I’ve watched them cry, and I’ve often struggled to find the words to tell them how my heart breaks for them. What are the right words to say to someone who has suffered so significant a loss?

I’ve listened to stories from grieving parents who have lost a child to bullying and suicide. While they told me the story of the events which led up to their child’s death, I could hear the anguish in their voices. I could sense the many questions which continue to flood their minds that may never be answered! I could feel the injustice of it all, and let me tell you; it shook me to my core!

I can’t help but feel a wide range of overwhelming emotions- heartbreak and empathy for the surviving parents and family, intense anger toward the bullies who pushed that child over the edge and disgust at the school and school district, who did nothing to help, or worse, only intensified the child’s suffering. I feel nothing but rage and contempt for a system that failed this young person and their family and at the people in power who were in a position to help the poor young man or lady but didn’t!

Although I have lost a spouse to suicide and know what it is to experience the loss from it, I realize this: The loss of a spouse is terrible and heart-wrenching. Yes. But it isn’t quite the same as losing a child.

Child abuse with the eye of a young boy or girl with a single tear crying due to the fear of violence or depression caused by hunger and poverty and being afraid of bullying at school.

I try to put myself in the parent’s shoes, but it’s unbearable. I cannot imagine what a parent goes through. The unanswered questions, having dreams of their child’s future, disappear! Not long ago, I looked into the eyes of one grieving mother, and I wanted to cry but managed not to. I wanted to be strong for her because she needed me to be!

My oldest son went through a period of bullying, so I know this could just as easily have been him years ago. And I honestly don’t know if I could have held up as well as this mother has!

Try to imagine having that baby you once carried for nine months- the baby you felt move and kick inside your belly- ripped from your life forever! Imagine losing that precious, tiny creature, you once held for the first time in the hospital, whose sweet little face you gazed lovingly on, and were unable to take your eyes off of!

FILE – In this Monday, Sept. 16, 2013 file photo, pallbearers wearing anti-bullying T-shirts carry the casket of Rebecca Sedwick,12, to a waiting hearse as they exit the Whidden-McLean Funeral Home in Bartow, Fla. One of two teenage girls charged with stalking Rebecca Sedwick, a Florida classmate who complained of being bullied before her suicide no longer faces any criminal counts, her attorney said Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2013. (AP Photo/Brian Blanco, File)

I cannot fathom the despair of having to bury the child I was sure would someday bury me! Understand that this goes against the natural order of things! I cannot imagine the total shock and disbelief- that feeling of being kicked in the gut that goes with such a loss! And I struggle to find the words to comfort any parent who has lost a child to bullycide!

What are the right words? How do you communicate to a grieving family member how much you hurt with them and how much you long to ease their suffering and wish you could? And how you wish that there was some way- SOME way you could bring that loved one back to them.

If you have a heart as I do, you want to reach out and hug that person! You want to hold them. You want to console them. You want to take away their pain. But anything short of doing the impossible, you know, will never be enough to ease their suffering.

Sympathy card with burning candle and rose on open book

Like me, you try to imagine how you’d feel if it were your child, but you can’t. You can’t bear the mere thought crossing your mind. But these families have lived it, and they continue to live it every day. Understand that this is a massive loss that this mother, this father, this sibling, this grandparent will carry for the rest of their lives!

Nothing will ever be the same for them again. Realize that this is a new normal (if that’s what you want to call it) that they will never be able to adjust to. Every day from here on will be another day of struggle- another day of fighting to keep it together- another day to act like you’re okay because you’re afraid of overwhelming the people around you. How long can these broken parents keep up the charade?

Again, words can never say how my heart breaks for them. All I can do is be there for them and listen as I struggle to find the words of support and compassion they so need to hear.

Maybe the reason I struggle for the right thing to say is that there are no words! There are no words that could ever quell the grief of a loss so heavy and so devastating! No words can ever provide complete consolation or comfort. And no words can ever bring justice to the loved ones left behind.

To all, who have lost a family member- a spouse, a parent, a sibling, a grandparent, especially a child, to suicide or bullycide, know that I’m here for you. It doesn’t matter if we know each other or are total strangers. And even though I struggle to find the words to tell you, rest assured that I care. My heart cries with you, and I have the utmost love, sympathy, and compassion for you!

You are always in my thoughts and prayers!