There may come a time, in the process of your grief journey, that you will hit the floor, on your knees, for there is no where left to go. You will bring all the grief, anger, pain, despair, emptiness, and desperation with you, as you say okay, this is bigger than I, enough is enough. After the ranting at God, the endless tears, the questions of why that are never answered, if you get quiet, and go within, you will feel yourself  succumbing to surrender, if it is your time. Surrender for me, was putting my trust again into the hands of my higher power. Whether it be God, Goddess, The Source, whatever name you choose to call it, in there lies your power for life to slowly begin again .I did not look at surrender as a giving up, rather a giving in to the acceptance of what God had allowed to come into my life, for whatever purpose. I came to a stage in my grief, that I did not possess the skills needed, to get me through this time in my life, on my own. My faith was shaken to the very core of my being. I read everything that I could get my hands on, from the Bible, metaphysics, Spirituality, to everything written on how to deal with the loss of a child. Looking for anything that could possibly answer my questions .  One question led to more questions, but in short, it produced for me a truth that I could understand. I am still on this journey of discovery, for there is still much to learn, yet I found this concept of willingness to surrender, to a higher power than I, to help me so much that I wanted to share it with other grieving parents. It may not work for you, it may not be your time, but if or when it happens this may be what you experience. You will surrender to the pain, as it will always be with you, softening around the edges with time, but always present, just beneath the surface. It will remain your silent cross of life, but how you respond to it will be up to you. You can use it to fuel the good things of life, or you can allow it to harden your heart, and in turn, close yourself off from the very love that you will need to see you through. You will surrender to the emptiness. Nothing, nor anyone, will ever fill that hole in your heart. You can try filling it with drugs, alcohol, food, lovers, other children, but no one will ever fill that special place in your heart reserved just for that child. On second thought, do you really want that? Isn’t that the place in your heart, reserved just for you and your child, never to be shared with anything or anyone else? Why would you want something else to fill that space, is it not sacred? This space should remain open, so that you always have a place of solitude that is yours alone to come and spend time with your child. Make it a special place, where no one can tell you how you should be feeling, or how you should be letting go. You will surrender the desperation. In a split second of time, your lives were forever changed. You no longer know who you are, or what you believe in, or even what you stand for. In this mode of desperation we feel that God has abandoned us, no one understands our pain and we are out here battling all alone. Out of this desperation will come change, we will never return to what was, and we may have to find a new direction, or a new way of life. Hold on to this change, get to know this new person, but be prepared for conflict, as change also causes fear.
You will encounter people along the way, who will not be comfortable with these new changes taking place in you. They want you to be the same person you were, and of course that will never be. People will leave your life, for reasons you may not understand, but let them go in love, and continue on your journey. For it will be their inability to deal with your pain, or understand your grief, that will cause them to go. If  they are not able to stand with you during this most tragic of times, when your need is the greatest, why would you trust that they ever would be able to again? Forgive them and continue on. You will surrender the anger. Anger gets us through what we are not yet able to face. The gut wrenching agony of the loss of our child. Many of us have lost our children due to illness that was so unfair, or at the hands of another’s negligence, as my loss was, or worse yet to premeditated circumstances. Whatever the reason, the loss of a child is unbearable and in trying to cope with this tragedy we try to find something or someone to hold accountable. Anger provides us an outlet for a time, which allows us a brief respite from the inevitable, the heart breaking pain of grief. Let anger have its place, but then in time, try to release it, for anger has a way of turning inward, and have we not suffered enough, without putting ourselves through more heartache? You will surrender the need to control. Up to the time of losing my child, I thought that I had control over my life, and its events. I thought it was up to me, to make the correct choices that would bring me all that I wished from life. I was incorrect. I have no control over life or its events; I only have control of my reactions to it. It is a humbling experience to learn this lesson. Do all that you know how to do, and then stand back, and place your trust in God, or your higher power, that all is as it should be, even though it may appear otherwise. If no good were to ever come from the loss of your child, would not their death be in vain?  You will surrender to Acceptance. I have never believed that I must accept the death of my child. The death of a child is unacceptable on all levels. It goes against the natural order of life. My child is no longer on earth, but I am still here, and in order for me to move on with any quality to my life, I must accept the changes, and try to find a new direction. That feeling of completeness will never again be mine, but in its place maybe a new way of looking at my world, with a new awareness.  I have noticed a shift in priorities, truly spending my time on the valuable things in life. This loss of us is sometimes as difficult as the loss of our child, but coming to a place of acceptance of these changes in us, must be done before we can truly facilitate change. There is no going back, we must continue moving forward, for life will never again be what it was, but it can be different. I did not come to these concepts easily; to be honest I fought against them for a very long time. On my hard days I still do.  They do not dissolve the grief or make the loss of my child easier to bear, but they did bring clarity to my life that I have never really experienced before. To the newly bereaved they will be difficult to grasp, had someone shared them with me before the first year of my son's death, I probably would have dismissed them.  Finding the second year of grief much more difficult than the first, I was floundering with the full force of the reality of my child’s death.  I was in desperate need to find some way to cope with all these feelings of utter despair. Thus my journey began. Please be patient with yourselves, you will start on your own journey of discovery, when you are ready. There is no timetable on grief, or your reactions to it.  No matter where you are in your grief, please know that you are never alone. There are so many wonderful and caring people in this world, that all you need do is reach out, and a hand will meet you where you are.
Blessings to All 

~DIARY OF MY HEART PAGE INDEX~

~EMPTY ROOM