Grief Lessons

It is spring time and the trees are budding. Life is moving forward. Since starting my new job 5 weeks ago I have been so tired from everything I am learning and experiencing that I think I put all of my emotions on hold. Don't get me wrong I have felt joy and experienced sorrow. Listened to music and lifted my voice in song, had dinner with Nicole who teaches me how to walk with courage through her daily life and kept up with all of the tasks of life. But I have had nights when I could not sleep and it wasn't because I wasn't tired, I was too tired! I had forgotten that in order to continue to heal that I had to continue to express what I am feeling. My answer to everyone has been "I am doing okay". Well I was doing okay but I wasn't sharing the tension that I was feeling. Friday started my step back into God's arms. I experienced joy this weekend as Rick and I went to see "To Kill A Mockingbird" at Lincoln Park Performing Arts Charter School. It was done with such skill and with such sensitivity! One of "our teens", Nic, had a major role in the play and he was so good. I cried at the various parts and rejoiced at the hard lessons of life learned by the kids in play. Then on Saturday we saw "Fiddler On The Roof" at Beaver High School. Several other of "our teens" were in this play. Braden, Josh, Rachel and Megan all did a great job. Braden played Motel the Tailor and he did a fantastic job singing "Wonder of Wonders". I am so proud of all of their hard work and talent! This was the first musical I have seen since Tonia died and it was one of our favorites so I found myself crying even as I was singing along with all of the numbers. It opened up the floodgates of emotions that I have been ignoring. I have been ignoring the pain of losing Tonia to the extent that I have pushed several people away lately. I allowed the business of life to take over and instead of walking through and learning from my emotions I have been shutting them into a box. I haven't even written in my journal for a few weeks. This has been a huge mistake because yesterday I walked into church and everything came crashing down. I cried before the service, during the service and even after the service. My heart was breaking all over again. Missing Tonia, missing Danny, missing Chris, missing the youth group students, regretting the people I have pushed away lately. I fell into a chasm of grief as deep as I experienced after Tonia's funeral. The storm broke, lightening flashed, the wind roared and then...peace began to gently and slowly cover me. Rick was there handing me tissues and sending one of the students to give me a hug. Linda and I cried in each other's arms. Claudia, Jodi and Mary all came over just to love on me. The music reminded me that God was there and he was holding me up and listening to my anguish. Prayers were being said all around us as people watched and understood that I was in pain. I fell into the arms of God and once again I could see the light. After the storm passed I felt clean. I have to take the time to clean up the mess left behind once again but the air smells sweeter and the sun is peeking through the clouds! The sermon this week was entitled "For Such A Time As This". Ironic how the messages seem to come just when I need to hear them!

This morning my body has responded to all of the emotions by shutting down on me! I don't have a voice today and I slept for 8 hours. God is definitely saying TIME OUT. Rest in me today and allow me to heal your body and your heart. Stop running and start responding to me. I have things to teach you and to show you. You have been created for such a time as this. Be still and listen. Walk through the pain, I will be there.
Once again I am reminded that my joy will come in the morning for God has promised this but my sorrow will never fully go away but it will be transformed and if I respond it will change me into the person that God wants me to become! Faith, hope and trust; I will rest on these!
I know that my grief will always be a part of me but I have learned that I can't ignore it. It won't go away but what I need to do is to allow my life to be transformed by the grief into something new. Maybe even something better as I can listen with ears tuned to the pain around me and maybe respond with God's love. So today I will rest and write and praise the God who gives me a reason to keep moving forward with belief and hope.

Women's Retreat

Yesterday I spoke at my church's annual women's retreat. I shared part of our story with a very special group of ladies. On Thursday night before the retreat I was feeling very nervous and very insecure. I had doubts about my ability to share God's glory and I even started getting sick to my stomach. Who am I that anyone would want to hear from me? What can I say to show how God's grace has worked in my life? I was full of self doubt.

Then later on Thursday evening I got an email from a friend of mine who was directly involved in the night I found out about Tonia's death. She wrote to me about how she had found out about Tonia's death and her reaction to having to figure out how to let me know. God's hand was very evident in her email and what she told me had happened the day Tonia died! It gave me the strength to trust God; at least long enough to get to the retreat and hear from everyone that they were praying for me :) By the time I spoke on Saturday morning I was much calmer and much more at peace. On Friday evening, Susan Reichert from Pine Valley Bible Camp and her daughter Hannah spoke. Their testimony about how God led them through the valley and into their ministry at Pine Valley was awesome. It was truly a testimony to God's work in their life. They are doing amazing things working with inner city youth every summer at camp.

On Saturday morning I was able to get through my story with out breaking down. I had to cut a bunch of it out because of the time limitations but I think that I did okay. I wanted to let the ladies know how many gifts we had been given by God and to testify to how I will continue praise him through this time even while we are walking through the valley.

Once I was through speaking and sat down, I broke down into tears. I was exhausted and I had a huge headache. But God had given me the strength to speak and it was okay that I finally hit the wall. I will continue to speak as long as God brings the opportunities to me. It was a very special weekend filled with songs and prayers and hugs!

Thank you to my special friends who have been praying for us. Your prayers have been felt!

I Love you!

Easter thoughts

It has been a very long couple of weeks. God has opened another door in our lives. Last week I started a new job at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh. It has been very tiring, very rewarding and very frustrating. Last year at this time our life looked so very different than it does right now. So many things have changed and I don't think they are done yet. What I have learned is that I am not in control. My job is to continue to walk in faith one day and sometimes one moment at a time. Working at Children's Hospital reminds me of Tonia because she spent time at Children's Hospital of Chicago when she was 7 years old. The atmosphere was wonderful. Everyone there wanted to be on the kids' sides against disease and death. I have seen kids who are so sick yet they walk around the hospital with their IV poles, playing and laughing. It is an amazing sight. God is very present. He is in the faces of the teams of people who are fighting disease and death. He is present in the joy on the kids faces as they see the hospital dogs walking around with bunny ears on this week. He is present when a family says goodbye to their child. The people are an amazing team. I am blessed!

So after going to the Good Friday service last night I have some thoughts about our lives over the last nine months. We have been in mourning over the death of Tonia and we will continue to mourn her loss for a very long time. But we are not mourning without hope.

This weekend has already affected me in ways that I never expected. Last nights service was so powerful. I bawled like a baby. Jesus understands my pain and my mourning. Jesus was mourning over the very people who placed him on the cross; The pharisees, the guards and even his own disciples. They abandoned him at the time of his greatest need. At such a time as this the verse "Jesus wept" is so true and so humbling. He is crying out to God asking, why have you forsaken me, even as he is asking God to forgive them, for they know not what they do. He is mourning the sins of the world, taking them upon Himself and crying out to God. The Good Firday scene ends when he is placed in the tomb. But remember that our joy comes in the morning. God wipes away every tear from our eyes and that promise is seen when the tomb is found empty on Easter morning!

Jesus wept, cried out, asked forgiveness, died and prepared the way for the day when our tears, our suffering will be wiped away. On the day we accepted Christ as our Savior we wept and cried out to God to save us and he wiped away the sins of the past and promised that one day he will wipe away all of the tears and the burdens that we carry on earth!

He is a God that turns mourning into joy. Easter is coming! The promise is kept. Our hope for the future is written in the empty tomb. God is truly amazing and I am humbled by His sacrifice for me.

God has called Tonia home just as he called His own son home. But without the mourning that Jesus did on the cross for us, Tonia would not be celebrating Easter in Heaven. Jesus prepared the way for her and for me. So today I weep over the loss in my heart and in our lives. I cry out to God "why can't I have my girl with me here today" but I also celebrate with eyes and arms wide open; letting Tonia go for this time, this moment but knowing that she is waiting right next to Jesus to welcome me home one day! One day all of my tears will be wiped from my eyes!

May this weekend your hearts be filled with the joy and the peace and the promise of Easter!
I love you all!
Kathy

Critical Communication

My husband, Rick, and I have worked very hard at keeping the lines of communication open during the life of our marriage. When the kids were small and he was traveling we needed to keep each other informed of all of the facts of life: when Sean lost his first tooth, when Tonia was in the school chorus concert. But it went way beyond just the facts. In order for our relationship to thrive as the partnership the God designed it to be, we had to talk about us; our emotions, our needs and even our frustrations and insecurities. There is seldom a day that goes by when Rick is traveling that we don't talk at least 4-5 times in one day. We call each other to say good morning and good night. He calls when he arrives in a new city. I call to let him know what I will be doing during the day.

This habit has saved our marriage! On the day that Tonia died we went to church, had a meeting and then Rick left to catch a plane for California. I stayed at the church to run the youth group evening. It was during youth group that the phone call came into my cell phone from the Sheriff in Ohio. Devastating news: our daughter was dead, Sean was out with friends and Rick was on a plane! Communication just became the highest priority. I had to call Sean and ask him to meet me at church so I could break the news to him. I had to wait until Rick's plane landed in Denver and catch him before he left for California. Breaking the news over the phone was the hardest thing I have ever had to do.

As important as it had been in the past, communication became a critical factor in our lives over the next several months. Statistics say that 70% of couples who lose a child divorce within the first years after the death. I can totally understand that! As good as our habits of communication were they were NOT good enough! I have described our coping with our grief as two trains on different sets of tracks, paralleling each other but going at different speeds. We were heading in the same direction because of the habits we had formed but our journey was so different!

I needed to talk, know details, share emotions and grieve out loud. Rick needed to internalize, get actions accomplished and draw strength from God in order to be the rock for Sean and me! Early on I became so frustrated when I thought he didn't care because he was not talking, then I would get angry at him and at myself for being so needy. He tried to explain that he didn't have the need to talk but he would listen. We HAD to learn to compromise and respect the differences in each other. I learned to ask very specific questions, then he would share with me. I also learned to tell him what I needed from him. For instance, everything started becoming overwhelming at one point so I asked Rick if we could get away for a night at a hotel so we could talk and reconnect. The next thing I knew he had used points and we had a hotel room booked!

I also learned to listen to what he was telling me in the middle of other conversations. He mentioned that one of the things he does when he is on a plane is to listen to his iPod. When the song "Healing Rain" (which we played at Tonia's funeral) comes on he cries. That is huge! I heard him say that and I understood how much he hurts over the loss of Tonia! Rick knows me so well that on the way into church services he grabs tissues and puts them into his pocket because he knows I will probably cry during the songs!

We have had to learn new ways to communicate and stay connected to each other and to Sean. We have our challenges and our problems but we are willing to work at being there for each other. This is how God designed a marriage partnership to be but it is not easy but it is so worth it. My husband is my best friend and my partner. That is how we have coped during the loss of Tonia. Otherwise we would be one of the statistics!

Questions I Have for You!

I have been writing a journal since the day after Tonia died and someday I hope to have it printed to use when I speak to other families about grief and hope. I am speaking this April at our church's women's retreat for one session and next year I am the speaker for the entire weekend at another church in Pennsylvania.

I have asked some people to share their thoughts and I decided that I would post these for anyone who wants to share their experiences with me. I want different people to answer so I can understand their point of view and their thoughts. The more people I have answer these then the more examples I can have to answer questions both for others and for myself. My journal is almost 100 typed pages and it is still growing! Some of these thoughts I have shared with you in my blog but most of it I have kept to myself for now. I am in no hurry but I think this will be a great source of comfort to know how others have felt and responded to Tonia's death. I have been amazed at the stories I have already gathered from others reactions to situations in their own lives. It has been a source of comfort to know that I am not crazy in my responses! If you have a story from your own experiences I would love to hear from you!

1. How did you hear about Tonia's death? From who?
2. What was your reaction?
3. What did you notice about the people around you and how they reacted? Immediately and into the present.
4. How were you affected by Tonia's death, the funeral and the events afterward?
5. What questions did it bring up? Did you find any answers?
6. What has affected you the most?
7. Any other comments you want to share that will help me understand how you have learned to cope with the changing situation!
8. Comments and insight into or about the people around you

Please email your response to me at toniainfo@gmail.com.

Thank you for your help on this project!

Hugs,
Kathy

Sponsoring A Child

In November, Rick and I attended a conference for youth workers in Atlanta. At the conference, Compassion International, had a booth set up. During the conference I kept thinking about the daughter I had lost and about other parents in the world who struggled to meet the needs of their children. My heart kept breaking over and over. So on the last day of the conference, we stopped by the booth. We found the sweetest, saddest picture of a 4 year old little girl who lives in Brazil. She was obviously overwhelmed by the camera and she wasn't smiling. But oh how she tugged at my heart strings. Her name is Geovana. Yesterday I received our first letter and colored picture from her! What a joy to read that she loves dolls and she loves to sing! She told us about her family and her three friends. Her favorite color is pink. My heart just over flowed with joy and love for this little girl. We made such a great decision the day we stopped by that booth.

My little girl is not here right now, but maybe another mother will be able to watch her child grow up and become a little bit stronger. It is a very selfish act also because I get to tell Geovana about God's love for her and I get to hear about her cat and dolls. It is good to have another child to love! God is so good and he gives us love enough to go around and it never runs out!

Geovana's picture is on our refrigerator so I can see it every morning when I wake up. What a gift from God!

Joy

Yesterday our son turned 21! Wow. The years have slipped by so quickly. He is turning out to be a great young man and I am so proud of how he is responding to all of the challenges in our life. I love you sweetheart!

Yesterday, God also gave me a glimpse into a familiar place. I was at church for a meeting yesterday afternoon and I found myself running to get some tasks accomplished and then dancing to a song going in the background. I found a piece of joy that I have dearly missed. Someone looked at me and said "Kathy you are dancing!" I responded by saying that I feel that a part of me has come back. I have know other moments of joy in the last 7 months but yesterday it felt very spontaneous and freeing and right! The heavens were praising God and I was joining in the celebration. God has been, is right now and will continue to be worthy of all of my praise and adoration. He has given me strength and peace and prayer warriors who have bathed us in prayer. Thank you Father.

Rick & I had the opportunity to go out to dinner last night with 3 other couples from our church. It was a sweet time of fellowship and fun. The subject of Tonia's death eventually came up and I was able to share with them without breaking down into tears. I was shaky but able to share. This is a victory only because I know that I will be sharing with others and I need to know I can communicate without falling apart.

So yesterday was a testament to God's grace to us once again. It was a good day! Joy and peace are gifts from God and I will cherish them!