My name is Nicky, I'm in my 40s and originally from the Midlands, UK; my mother still lives in the house where I was born. I'm married with 2 children, 2 of 3, the middle one being stillborn. I'm a photographer now my children are older, but I was a fulltime Mum for 11 years.
DW: Who was the person that died?
NH: When my son was not quite 3 we lost our first daughter Kim, stillborn at term, with no apparent reason why, and no answers form a post mortem. I found the lack of answers strangely reassuring, if nothing was found, I felt it was unlikely to happen again, though it was hard to go through 3 early miscarriages before finally becoming and then staying pregnant with our second daughter, at which point worry just drifted away - her due date was Kim's birthday which we took as a good omen.
DW: How old were you at the time?
NH: I was in my mid-30s
DW: Can you tell me about her birth?
NH: Kim had a healthy heart beat through the labour, but once born, she didn't breathe and couldn't be made to breathe, and so drifted away minutes after she had arrived.
There was no clue that Kim was not going to live, it was a shock and I was initially numb, entangled with the fatigue from an overnight labour, it was as if it was happening to someone else, almost like an 'out of body' remote experience.
DW: Had you experienced any other deaths in your personal life before Kim died?
NH: I attended my first funeral at the age of around 7, a lady who had been 'like a second mother' to my father after his own mother died, and I saw her in her coffin in the front room of the house, with the curtains partly drawn, as used to be the tradition. That's all I remember, just her in her coffin in that room, I don't remember the service or anything else. By the time I was 14 other family friends were having cancer treatment or heart attacks then suddenly Dad himself had cancer diagnosed when I was 16. He died when I was 19. The year of the movie "Four Weddings & a Funeral", I attended 4 funerals and a wedding as elderly uncles and aunts began to die - my mother was the youngest of 8 by several years. A colleague died of Leukaemia at age 24 when I was 22. Death was all around. Perhaps all of that loss was preparation for the greatest loss of all, the loss of a child. My brother lost a child when I was expecting my son. Losing a child goes against the natural order, you expect to lose your parents at some point, but not a child. I became familiar with grief.
DW: Were people supportive of your grief or did they shy away when you were grieving?
NH: Immediate family and friends were very supportive, though my mother found it almost impossible to tolerate. Through having my son I had built a wide network of other Mums, friends to one degree or another, on whom I could lean a little so not becoming a burden to one or two. I also sought counselling through my doctor. One person wondered if I was 'grieving properly' as they had not actually seen a tear fall. I dislike crying in 'public' so she didn't see me on the days when I cried, until she made me cry, then she seemed happy.
DW: Was Kim buried or cremated?
NH: Kim was cremated after just me, my husband, our midwife and 2 friends present at a short service with a couple of readings. We did not feel a large funeral appropriate, and unnecessary for us. We had a huge number of cards and armfuls of flowers at home and wanted to say our private goodbye.
DW: Did you learn anything about the grieving process that you'd like to share?
NH: Grieving is exhausting and if you find you are having a 'happy day' - a day where you feel optimistic, uplifted, positive, not sad - then embrace it and don't feel guilty. A day off from varying degrees of despair and heart-wrenching pain can be a good thing, so Have a Happy Day, once in a while, if it comes, run with it, its ok, let yourself be happy. Ultimately, for most of us, life does go on. It doesn't mean that we have forgotten the lost loved one. Its a bit like pulling into a lay-by for a rest from driving along grief's road, which can seem endless, especially at the start.
I put a signature in my emails at the time which said: "The body is well, the mind is managing, and the love of Kim's healing gift is keeping the heart from breaking." The healing gift was that Kim's birth went very well and was a positive experience despite her death, after a very traumatic birth with my son 3 years earlier which had left me severely traumatised. (I was hospital-phobic at that time, which was a serious problem.)
DW: Were any songs played at her memorial?
NH: We made a conscious decision not to play music and then forever have a sad association with something that could come on the radio and upset what might be a stable day that day. Instead we had 2 children's stories read out, as well as poems we had each written, my husband and I. The books were No Matter What and Time for Bed. The first one talks about a mother loving her child no matter what, and includes a line "Love like starlight never dies". We had to hide them for a few years as we couldn't read them at bedtime to our son, but eventually we were able to read them to our 2nd daughter without getting choked up. We still have them.
Thank you Nicky for sharing your experience. Nicky will be back on Wednesday. She is a photographer with Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep in the UK.
I'm looking for contributors for both my Monday and Wednesday posts. Do you work with death in your profession? Or know someone who does? Let me know. And thanks for stopping by and reading. If you like this blog, please share it on Twitter, Facebook or Google or do it the old fashioned way and tell someone about it in person.
Pamela
Monday Mournings: The Death of an Uncle
Hello. My real name is Anna, but I blog and write under the pen name Carrie-Anne, which I adopted for myself in May of 1993 after The Hollies' song. I'm 32 years old, though I still pass for someone in her twenties. No one ever guesses my age right. I've been writing since I was four years old and last year took my long-deferred dream of being a published writer off the back burner. I write 20th century historical fiction sagas and sometimes write soft sci-fi. I'm originally from the Pittsburgh area, but I've lived most of my life in Upstate NY. I also lived in the Berkshires for awhile, during which time I went to UMass Amherst for a degree in history and Russian and Eastern European studies. In the near future, I may finally be going to grad school for library science, though I still dream about getting a master's degree and doctorate in 20th century Russian history, my passion. Most of my hobbies and interests stem from my lifelong love of history, like silent film, antique cars, vinyl records, coins, stamps, old books, old cemeteries, and genealogy. Speaking of genealogy, one of my nine-greats-grandfathers came to Colonial America in the 1640s, supposedly to escape Oliver Cromwell, and I'm extremely proud to have such vintage American roots on that branch of my family tree.
DW: Who was the person that died?
CA: My maternal uncle Paul. I always had so much fun with him, and loved going to his house. He had an awesome dollhouse I loved playing with, helped get me started in my lifelong hobby of numismatism (coin-collecting), loved giving me toy dinosaurs and telling me neat facts about dinosaurs (one of his interests), enjoyed playing board games with me (even if he sometimes cheated at Candy Land because he didn't want to be beaten by a kid!), and had a great sense of humor. We had the kind of close relationship where, had he lived long enough and had I chosen to go to college in Pittsburgh, he would've unquestioningly let me stay at his place. And I'm sure he would've been supportive of the decision I made about what religious path I wanted to follow when I was eighteen, even though it was a different faith than his. I firmly believe he was watching over me when I was run over by a car in 2003 and miraculously got away with relatively minimal injuries, a broken leg and some burns. To this day, I still have the posthumous last present he ever gave me, three $2 bills his widow sent me for my birthday at the end of that year with a note saying he would've wanted me to have them.
DW: How old were you at the time?
CA: Eight.
DW: How old was your Uncle?
CA: I think he was 33.
DW: Was it a sudden death or did you know it was going to happen?
CA: He and his wife were driving to work on St. Patrick's Day 1988, and the car skidded on black ice and went through a rotting wooden guard rail. It was completely unexpected for everyone. His wife was a nurse, so she immediately knew he was dead. One week later, the guard rails were replaced with proper modern metal ones.
DW: Had you experienced any other deaths in your personal life before your Uncle died?
CA: Because I was so young, I hadn't really personally experienced any deaths of friends or relatives. At most, I remember my great-grandpap Ben passed away a little before this, and that did upset me, since I'd really liked him. But since I was only seven years old when he died and we hadn't had an extremely close relationship, I wasn't hit that hard.
DW: Were people supportive of your grief or did they shy away when you were grieving?
CA: I didn't even know he'd passed away till my mother came home from the funeral in Pennsylvania with my little brother. Even today, I'm still upset I wasn't told right away and was denied that chance to say goodbye. Even more upsetting was when I learnt, years later, than my paternal grandma actually counseled my mother not to tell me right away. As a result, I felt like I never really got closure on his death and kept everything bottled up inside for years. It didn't help that I was also having some social, emotional, and behavioral problems at this point in my life, the reason for which was finally figured out three years ago. It's only really been in the last nine years, since my own car accident, that I've been able to open up and talk about my uncle, and his death, instead of avoiding the subject or closing down. The first time I was really able to bring myself to cry over his death was when I was in the hospital after the first of my surgeries in August 2003.
DW: Is there anything you wish you'd done differently with this person?
CA: I wish I hadn't refused to hug him one of the last times I saw him, and hadn't been such a stubborn kid or had those childhood issues that contributed to my being not so touchy-feely at that age. And I wish my family had spent more time living in Pittsburgh instead of relocating to Upstate NY, so I could've seen him on more than visits. But in spite of not wanting to hug him, I knew he wasn't upset with me. I've never forgotten how my mother told me, when she went to his house after the death, the last letter I ever wrote him was on the refrigerator, along with a picture. It had meant so much to my southpaw uncle that I'd written him a letter and drawn a picture with my left hand, and I'm sure that from the other world, he's very proud of me for having finally come out of the closet about the true extent of my left-handedness.
DW: Was he buried or cremated?
CA: He was buried in the Pittsburgh area.
DW: Did you learn anything about the grieving process that you'd like to share?
CA: It's not right to hide the news of a death from a child and not give her the chance to say goodbye. There are always age-appropriate ways to convey the news and help the child to start grieving in normal time. It's worse when you keep it a secret and think it's better to find out after the funeral.
DW: Last but not least, were any songs played at the memorial that were important to your Uncle?
CA: I didn't attend the funeral, as I've mentioned, though years later I saw a scrapbook in my uncle's memory in my grandparents' home. I believe "Amazing Grace" was one of the songs listed as being played at his memorial service. He was a person of deep religious faith, though it was certainly never something he was overt about.
This one goes out to Paul
Okay blog readers, what are your thoughts and opinions about discussing death with kids? Should they be allowed to attend funerals? Know of any good books for kids who are grieving? (I get asked this quite a lot)
Monday Mournings: The Death of a Child
My name is Elizabeth vonTauffkirchen and I’m often called Liz or Lisa by my friends. Since 2006, I’ve worked at the Lavenia McCoy Public Library in Bayfield, Colorado. I am Head of Children’s Services and IT.
DW: Who was the person that died?
Elizabeth: We lost our firstborn child: a daughter named Julia.
DW: How old were you at the time?
Elizabeth: I’m really not sure why this is relevant but I was 30ish.
DW: How old was Julia when she died?
Elizabeth: Julia was eight and a half months old.
DW: Was it a sudden death or did you know it was going to happen?
Elizabeth: Well, this is a complicated question. Julia was born with Apert’s Syndrome which is extremely rare (about 1 in every 180,000 live births). Apert’s Syndrome brings with it some physical differences, including mitten-hand syndactyly (the fingers are fused together, the thumbs separate) and craniosynostosis (premature fusing of the cranial plates). Sometimes, but not always, Apert’s is accompanied by more serious issues like kidney problems (which Julia did not have) and heart problems (which she did). Although Apert’s does require multiple surgeries, it is rarely fatal.
Julia’s heart condition was known as Tetralogy of Fallot with pulmonary stenosis. The Tetralogy of Fallot was apparently fixable and the pulmonary stenosis turned out to not be. Julia developed congestive heart failure. We flew her to Denver and had emergency heart surgery 9this was her second heart surgery). The surgery seemed to be successful. At 4am the next morning, Julia went into ventricular fibrillation and cardiac arrest. The CICU nurses kept her alive through CPR and were able to stabilize her. Julia never regained consciousness. After more than a week, the neurologist came to us with the information that she had no brain activity and we made the impossible decision to discontinue life support.
DW: Had you experienced any other deaths in your personal life before Julia?
Elizabeth: Just after high school, one of my best friends died from complications of a bone marrow transplant. This was exceptionally hard for me because until then I had only lost elderly relatives. Ryan (my friend who died) was the first time I had lost someone young and close to me.
DW: Were people supportive of your grief or did they shy away when you were grieving?
Elizabeth: People were overwhelmingly supportive of me and my husband when we lost our daughter. I was moved and shocked when St. Mark’s Church (our parish in Durango) was completely packed for my daughter’s funeral. I mean a baby funeral? Could there be anything sadder? But our friends turned out in droves. So many people came, I was truly touched.
There were those who avoided us after her death. I don’t blame these people. I understand the fear: the fear of death, the fear of the unknown, the horror of even contemplating the loss of a child.
There were also those who avoided us after she was born, because of her physical differences. I don’t blame these people either. I used to be one of them. I was never comfortable around those with physical differences. I just didn’t understand. Now I do.
DW: Is there anything you wish you'd done differently with Julia?
Elizabeth: Obviously, I wish I would have recognized her congestive heart failure earlier. I did take her to multiple doctors (she had an average of three appointments a week and I took her more often in the end). However, in retrospect I realize if the pediatric cardiologist didn’t recognize the heart failure it is unlikely I could have.
DW: Was she buried or cremated?
Elizabeth: Julia was cremated.
DW: Did you learn anything about the grieving process that you'd like to share?
Elizabeth: I attended a hospice group through Mercy led by Norm Gottlieb that was fantastic. Although it was difficult to attend at times, and some weeks I couldn’t bring myself to go, it was tremendously helpful with the process. The hospice group also helped me feel less alone.
DW: Last but not least, were any songs played at the memorial that you'd like to share?
Elizabeth: Julia was too little to have any favorite songs, although she did love music. I sang a few songs to her of my own creation that seemed to be pleasing to her. We sang Amazing Grace at her funeral. You are My Sunshine always reminds me of her and makes me cry to this day.