Long Road

Hey everyone -

Louise here. It's been a long time between posts here at GirlyRanch, for a lot of reasons. We've just celebrated 4 months together (yesterday) and are doing well! Recently there was some family drama, however, that left us quite shaken up. We're hoping that has passed and will be a blip on the radar, in the long run.

Tonight we'll be going to our first meeting of a grief support group geared just toward parental bereavement. I should have gone to such a meeting long ago...after all, my girl has been gone for 5 months now...but I kept thinking I could handle it. Just as doctors make lousy patients, people who have studied thanatology (the study of death, dying, and bereavement) think they can help themselves. I was doing my first (and probably only) semester in that discipline when my daughter died, and my term paper for that semester was on - you guessed it - parental bereavement. Had I know how much I would need the information in that paper, I could never have written it. As it turned out, though, I really needed the info. One of the national organizations I studied about has a chapter in this area. I'll be meeting with them tonight and will probably go through a box and a half of tissues while telling my story.

That's what I'm finding lately - that I cry at everything. I'm already on an anti-depressant, but you can't medicate away this kind of grief. It pervades everything I do. What I'm hoping to get out of this support group is a set of peers who have been in my shoes, a group of people who really understand what I'm going through on a personal, core level. Lots of people have given me their love, support, and sympathy, but I want to know some people who have come out okay on the other side of this grief. Later, I can offer to be supportive to newcomers. I was going to be a grief counselor, after all. Now I am too frozen in my tracks to know what I want to do.

I got my belongings shipped to me over the weekend. Included in them were things that belonged to my daughter. Among the things I have encountered so far: clothing that still smells like her, her cherished make-up case that contained her nail polish and piercing supplies (she did body piercing for people), a note she wrote to me about 5 years ago, and her purse. When I opened her purse, I saw her glasses case. I opened it and saw her eyeglasses, just as they were when she took them off for the last time before falling into a sleep from which she would never wake.

My blood felt like ice water, and my vision seemed to narrow. I closed her purse quickly and put it into the plastic bin. I'll deal with things like that later, when I'm stronger. I still can't believe she's gone. There is very little comfort to be had some days because nothing anyone says or does (including my dear Thelma) takes the sting out of my torn heart. Maybe this support group will be good for me.

Anyway, I hope you will keep checking back with us at the ranch. We will post updates as we can, but we are still both going through divorces. Maybe you will keep us in your prayers, if you pray. We would both appreciate that.

Love, L.