Welcome to my Keyboard Culture blog and to the topic of Healing Stages of Grief!

My name is Ken Matthies, and I’m a father still walking the healing path I discovered in the shadows of my own grief after the sudden death of my youngest daughter in 2002.

In future posts I’ll be talking about the many aspects and experiences of loss, grief and bereavement and how they touch your life.

Most importantly, I’ll also be talking about the ways I’ve discovered to help you find your healing from the painful effects that accompany them.

In fact, these posts will often be actual stories (and occasional poems) taken from my own early or continuing journey of healing, passed on to help you find your way along your personal healing path.

There’s little question in my mind you’ve been told by now that finding your healing from grief is a process – a series of stages we all have to go through to come out recovered on the other end.

Many different interpretations and expressions of these stages exist in the written materials available on the subject (including within my own published Stages of Grief – Healing Your Grief  articles/audios available on my website), but in essence, these entire variations boil down to three key stages:

• Avoidance (Walking the Edge)

• Confrontation (Entering the Depths)

• Integration (Mending the Heart)

I’ll talk in greater detail about these stages in later posts.

As you’ve no doubt discovered by now, grief is the loneliest and most painful individual reality you can have on earth. Once experienced, you’ll know for yourself how true this is.

Because grief is such an intensely personal experience there’s a strong tendency to at first be unaware of these stages - or once aware - to ignore them in the throes of your pain. But you will find as you gain knowledge of them you will find your way through them more quickly to the healing which waits for you within.

Maybe you’re still in denial that these stages exist, let alone that you have to pass through them.

Some of you reading this may still be fighting the inevitability of these stages of grief in your own experience, and still be insisting (as I did for far too long) that you can “deal with it yourself” or “do it on your own”.

In my own experience of denial, I eventually realized how wrong I was to think that way and went looking for expert help to give me knowledge of these stages and my progress through them. Understanding the stages of grief led much more quickly to finding and walking my healing path from loss, grief and bereavement.

So I want you to find reassurance in the truth that these stages do in fact exist – and that gaining a clear understanding of them will help you heal with greater certainty and far better results than “doing it on your own” will ever be able to achieve.

Exploring these stages and talking about your experiences in them will also help you understand that you really aren’t as alone in your grief as you feel, and make you aware that the light of healing really does exist at the end of them.

It’s a light and a healing you will no doubt welcome into your life.

With Love and Understanding

Ken Matthies

HeartSpun Posts from the Crucible of Experience
 

How often during the course of your grieving days and months has something like this happened to you, and helped you in your healing by its happening?

You’re in a public place somewhere, perhaps bent on work or a mission of some kind to try to stay focused on living life despite your pain, or perhaps just wandering aimlessly because you feel so lost and empty inside and someone – sometimes friend and sometimes a stranger - shows up seemingly out of nowhere to involve you in a conversation.

Depending on where you’re at in the stages of healing from grief you might or might not feel much like having a conversation at that particular moment of time, but something deep inside you urges you to accept the opportunity, so you allow it to happen.

Inevitably the conversation seems to come around to you and how you’re feeling. A friend will ask this question of you because they know the circumstances of your loss and are genuinely concerned about your welfare. A stranger will sometimes ask the question simply out of common decency, or because they sense in their heart of compassion there is a need to ask it and are willing to hear you share the answer.

In either case you found yourself talking fully from your heart, finally able to express a slice of the deep and biting pain of loss, grief and bereavement which is consuming your life in bite sized chunks and leaving you feeling hopelessly mired in a swamp of emotions from which there seems no escape.

And often even the stranger will listen with rapt attention as you pour out a piece of your grief between great gulps of air for your starving lungs, releasing some of those tightly bound emotions running rampant in your heart of endless night. A friend knows of this need within you, and has come to you with a heart already open to helping you release those emotions.

Then you suddenly spot the gleam of moisture in their eyes or the track of a tear gliding down their cheek, as your words of grief and longing reach out to touch their hearts and show how much they care about and are feeling your time of pain with you.

Often their tears are joining the ones already spilling from your own eyes.

Sometimes these kinds of conversations only last for a few minutes and sometimes they can last for hours, depending on time and the circumstances which allowed them to happen during those moments of need for expression in your life.

After whatever duration of time is allotted to it the conversation is finally over, and you’re left to walk away from it on your own again – still alone in the physical sense, but no longer feeling nearly as alone in the senses of your heart, which has found a brief and somehow healing expression of the void left in your life by the loss you’ve suffered.

Have you noticed how much lighter your sodden spirit of grief feels after encounters such as this? Even if only for mere minutes or hours after they occur.

Both your heart and your steps on this earth you walk on is lifted and elevated above its former burden for these seemingly magical and blessed moments following such a conversational time – and a tiny piece of you feels healed by it having happened to you.

I remember those hundreds of spirit-touching conversational occurrences in my own early time of loss, grief and bereavement as I came to healing terms with the death of my daughter. In fact they continue to occur on a near regular basis even now as I walk my healing path – and I am grateful beyond mere human words to know that they do.

I’m utterly convinced in the heart of my beliefs these healing times, moments and opportunities are orchestrated for us in a process by a Power far beyond that of our own – one who knows our hurting needs intimately and cares deeply and lovingly about our welfare and our healing.

So when the boundaries of your grief seem endless and the shape of your tomorrows still feels twisted by the blight of pain, know that someone else will come along, sent to offer you another opportunity to open up your heart of grief and allow you to talk about your feelings.

With each occurrence of these encounters know that your pain is being touched by a divine direction in a process meant to help you – and know that you will walk away from it finding yourself raised up from your grief by the healing touch of friends and strangers.

Welcome those times when they happen. Know and understand they have a purpose and a reason for occurring.

They are a true and meaningful part of the stages of grief healing in your life.

With Love and Understanding

Ken Matthies

HeartSpun Posts from the Crucible of Experience
 

Today’s post touches on an issue concerning surviving children in a family in which one child has died, and begins with this question…

Has a similar kind of situation depicted in this story happened to you with any of your surviving children?

It’s a fair question to ask, because in the aftermath of the loss of one child parents sometimes have to struggle to remain connected in a loving way to those children still alive within their family.

It’s an aspect of the grief experience for some of us that needs to be talked about openly and with honesty. This post is an example of that openness and honesty taken from my own family, and one which I hope will illuminate the issue in a helpful way for you to come to healing terms with if it exists in your family as well.

A recently visited Walmart store is hardly the place you’d expect to be confronted with the kind of question you see in the title of this post. In my case it’s been asked by a woman who knew both of my girls, and she’s just learned from me that one of them has died, and that the other is presently lost to me through the pain of my own harsh words used against her in the cruel period of loss and bereavement following her sister’s death.

It’s a tough question to be faced with, because I’ve had to learn the hard way in the midst of my grief experience that losing a second daughter in this manner is every bit as painful to me as the sudden death of her sister has been.

But sometimes your continuing path of healing from grief and loss brings you to nexus points of personal confrontation with family issues that require you to deal with them – especially if you’ve been avoiding doing so for whatever reason has justified it in your mind.

In the instant of this kind of confrontation though, how are you supposed to handle the sudden pain this type of question brings to a heart and soul still healing from the death of one of them?

How do you get past the hurtful thoughts pouring helter-skelter into vocal chords frozen with a sudden inability to express themselves?

What happens first at moments like this is that you find yourself breathing deeply to get air back into your lungs, so it’ll give strength back to the voice which deserted you seconds ago. It sure happened to me like that at the time.

I chose to handle the situation by consciously embracing the pain brought about by the question. I did it this way because I’ve learned by this point in my healing experience that doing so will allow the light of love and memories that live in my heart for my dead daughter to restore my balance – which allowed me to then answer the question honestly.
You see, I’ve also learned by now that the honesty of the answer is crucially important to the outcome of the situation at hand (for this question and all the others I’ve faced to be able to find healing) – so I embraced that truth into my heart and mind as well as these thoughts, feelings and events unfolded within their span of seconds.

Then I answered the lady truthfully and succinctly, shared a heartfelt hug of sympathy and caring with her and smiled past the tears glittering in my eyes. Then I thanked her for asking and being willing to hear my answer.

Even though my throat still felt constricted as I walked away, I allowed myself to remember that the tears brought about by my answer were diamond drops of healing for my still wounded soul – pure and sparkling gems of love and memory for both of my daughters which had been graced in those moments to touch the life of another caring human being, and in the process remind me of my loving obligation to the daughter still alive in both heart and reality.

Then I deliberately chose to let the pain of the question go, with an attitude of gratitude for having been asked it, and took the next step of my life and healing path – which was to choose to go to work on finding my healing and peace about my estranged daughter by believing this connection too can be healed.

She still lives. That single truth alone is enough to give me hope for what is yet to come – and faith that it can happen in a good way, despite the unyielding pain within me of the circumstances with which I caused it to happen.

Sometimes you need to ask your wounded child for forgiveness, as I have already done in my situation, and then simply let it go into the hands of a Creator who is able to help both you and your child find healing from the pain of this kind of mutual grief.

If you’ve got a similar situation in your family, consciously choosing to ask forgiveness and then allowing room in your heart for faith and hope in a healing outcome is a good first step in the right direction.

I’ve become a firm believer that unconditional open hearted love can overcome any obstacle we face along the path to find healing from loss, grief and bereavement –whether from the loss of one child, or from the estrangement of one still alive and waiting for a loving reconnection within your family.

With Love and Understanding,

Ken Matthies

HeartSpun Posts from the Crucible of Experience

How could anyone think it possible to find ‘golden moments’ in a loved one’s long term dying?

There are many among you out there in the world who are grieving from the loss of a family member or close friend who faced a long term dying.

You probably felt like a piece of you was dying right along with them over the many long months or years before their end finally came, and your grief for their loss broke loose to become a living reality within you.

It’s not an easy process to remain a living breathing part of yourself, when you know their breath will one day cease to be and you have to keep on living in the pain of their passing.

You need to know that you’re not alone in your feelings of loss, grief and bereavement since they went away. Uncountable thousands are walking the same path as you, aching for their healing just as much as you are.

It’s also important for you to know that a powerful portion of the healing for your grief already lies within you.

I’m one of you too, because that’s the way it was for me as I watched, lived with, and fought to come to terms with its finality over the long seven years of my adoptive Native mother’s inexorable passage from vibrant vitality, to the final stillness of her death.

It was in the aftermath of her passing, in the midst of the grief of her loss that I discovered and will forever hold on to the golden moments of her long term dying.
Golden moments are those that live on in your memory, in your heart of love and caring, and in the thoughts you’re willing to share with yourself in death’s aftermath of those superbly special and intimate times you shared something either entirely ordinary, or extraordinarily unique with them.

In my mother’s case an example of the ordinary would be the times I accompanied her to her beloved Bingo games in town, where despite her growing pain and discomfort, we would share special looks, smiles, jokes and laughter as she watched eagle-eyed over my Bingo cards as well as her own to make sure I never ever missed a number being called.

In the life of my mother and me an entirely ordinary but now highly treasured event in memory.

As a Native woman born, raised in and intensely traveled throughout the forests, trails and byways of northern British Columbia, Alaska and the Yukon, it seemed there was no place I could take her that she hadn’t been to or seen before in her 71 year travels over the land, or for which she couldn’t tell me their names in her native Tlingit tongue.

And yet it was in this same context of places seen that a short month or so before her dying I was privileged to share the extraordinarily unique with her, and create a truly shining golden moment of both reality and memory.

It was both chosen practice and an honor for me to take my mother on many short drives throughout the incandescent beauty of the mountainous region we live in during the final months of her illness.

Because of her increasing fragility even traveling in my vehicle, we had been waiting for the spring thaw to melt the roughness of ice and snow on a dirt road leading to a local lake. For once mother wasn’t certain she’d ever traveled this particular trail before, and I was excited at the prospect of showing it to her.
Arriving at trail’s end in the soft glow of early evening light, we sat in the vehicle together gazing out over a small lake still covered in ice. The simplicity of the lake was back dropped by a sweeping view of a magnificent seven-peaked mountain range sheathed in brilliant layers of snow, which watched in turn over a valley from which a single huge round mountain rose out of the flat land of its origins.

I remember looking over at mother and asking her if she’d ever been here before. Her shining wonder-filled eyes and simple answer of “No Ken, I’ve never been here or seen this place before; thank you so much for bringing me here!” was the reward of a lifetime to me, especially given her extensive first hand knowledge of the land which surrounded us that evening.

I found myself overwhelmed in the moment (and forever after) with the joy of how much it mattered to her that I had brought her here, to be seeing for the first time the vantage point and stunning beauty of what lay before her slowly dimming eyes of life.

This and countless other experiences large and small have all become the golden moments of memory of her long term dying to me. They can be assessed no price to the heart, and have a value beyond the boundaries of human suffering or pain to the love I still carry in my heart for her.

And therein lays the secret of these golden moments to the grieving which happens to you in the painful vale of their having passed from your life.

These are in fact golden moments of healing for your grief, offered up from within your still living love and vital memories of those priceless moments of sharing your life together in ways that mattered, that counted, and can forever be held in high esteem inside your secret heart of hearts.

Look for your own ‘golden moments’ in the long term dying of the one you loved and lost. Allow them full and free rein of their beauty within you – and you too will find ever greater measures of healing from your loss, grief and bereavement of a long term dying.

With Love and Understanding,

Ken Matthies

HeartSpun Posts from the Crucible of Experience

For many people dealing with issues of loss, grief and bereavement there’s also a spiritual aspect which can play a powerful role in their healing and recovery.

 
Within the community of religion and faith in a living afterlife of the spirit to be found in peoples around the world, there is an acceptance of death which transcends beyond the human pain of those left behind to mourn their passing.

 
And within that transcendence there exists a huge reservoir of inner peace to be found about the death of their loved one. Within that peace itself lies the greatest personal healing tool of all – the belief that you will see your loved one once again when your own turn comes to join them in that afterlife.

 
The sheer healing power of this single truth alone cannot be calculated in the personal journey of someone who is healing from loss, grief and bereavement within this reality of spiritual belief.

In the throes of the actual pain which follows their death, and the unleashing of all of our very human feelings of grief and bereavement about their loss, this truth can become temporarily overwhelmed in the rushes of these completely understandable and very normal emotions.

 
Yet it is this single truth of belief which becomes the sustaining factor of the healing process as you learn to deal with the human elements of the grief process. It allows the tempests of your pain to be calmed once again by your knowledge of and faith in that reconnection of your spirit to those that went before you.

I’m reminded of members of my family in this context, and how my own belief in that afterlife of the spirit has sustained me and helped me to recover from the human emotions of loss, grief and bereavement following their deaths.

There’s a lesson of spiritual healing for you in these memories I share.

 
Sometimes that inner peace can even be so strong right at the outset of a loved one’s dying that it carries you beyond their death directly into the final ‘Integration’ cycle of the healing process itself, as it did for me at my grandmother’s dying.

 
My grandmother was a real and vitally formative presence in my early life, and from the age of comprehension I had never been in doubt as to the power of her faith in God, and her unshakeable belief in an afterlife that would reunite us once again.

 
As a 16 year old youth called to her home and bedside her bed in the final hours of her life, my birth mother and I arrived to find her with eyes closed and already unable to speak because of her immense physical pain, able only to lightly squeeze our hands in recognition of whom we were to her.

What struck me immediately on entering the room was the presence of a wonderfully soft and joyful smile on her face – a smile which was to remain in place until her very last breath. Along with my grandfather, mother and other close relatives, we gathered around her bedside and sang hymns together to help her along on the final journey of her life on earth, even as her physical body itself visibly broke down in its final stages of the cancer claiming her life.

 
What remains so clearly etched in memory for me throughout this entire time is that smile of joy which never left her face, despite the ravages occurring to the physical shell housing her spirit. I remember standing in wonder as I witnessed the power of her faith carrying her above all pain, and into the realm of the spiritual grace sustaining these final moments of her existence.When it appeared to us that her final breath had been taken, it was I who stepped to her side and put my ear to her chest to listen for heartbeat, and to her mouth to learn if she still breathed. And when neither was found it was I who kissed her cheek, closed her eyes, and raised the blankets to cover her face as a sign of her death.

 
What was striking to me in the reality of those moments, and their aftermath of a funeral placing her body at final rest was that I never once felt the need or desire to weep my sorrow at her passing. Nor have I ever in the years which have flown by since she left us.

 
As mentioned earlier, it’s become clear over the passage of my years and accumulation of the knowledge surrounding the grieving process that I had immediately moved into the ‘Integration’ stage of the grieving process – completely bypassing the Avoidance and Confrontation stages because I knew without shadow of doubt where my grandmother’s spirit now lived.

 
Complete and utter acceptance of this spiritual truth – undoubtedly because I had witnessed her passing with my own eyes - had in this instance done away with the normal human need to experience those painful earlier stages of grief. It’s true that my humanity missed her physical presence, her immense love and wisdom, and the tastiest baking this side of heaven which regularly came forth from her oven – but I have never been grief stricken by her death. Both my spirit and mind have always known where she is, and look forward with anticipation to greeting her once again in this afterlife of faith and belief.

While this is not the typical situation for most of you currently dealing with issues of grief, there is still a potent lesson within its example – that of the power of your spiritual beliefs to help you overcome grief and find healing from its effects in your heart and life.
It’s a power that should not be overlooked or bypassed on your personal journey of healing from loss, grief and bereavement.

With Love and Understanding

Ken Matthies

HeartSpun Posts from the Crucible of Experience

Avoidance (Walking the Edges)

Every single journey of loss, grief and bereavement is individual and different
for each person experiencing it. There can be no hard and fast rules, saying
that it’s the same for everyone or telling anyone going through the experience
how long or short a time period it should last till they break through to their
healing.

What can be said though is that there are ‘marker stones’ along this journey
that can help you identify your own exhausted progress through it, and give you
a sense that you’re at least moving in the right direction.

Each reality of your grief cycle represents a ‘stone’ in the context of what I’m
writing about today. You can either continue to trip over them without knowing
what they are, or you can come to understand them and know that your progress
through grief actually will lead to your healing from it.

You’ll be able to look back later and recognize this about your journey more
clearly. But allow me to explain the first of these marker stones and cycles of
grief in a little more detail now, to help you understand their significance to
the healing awaiting you along your journey.

Confrontation (Entering the Depths)

It’s in this second of the grief cycles that the waters of emotion get deep and run heavy with the hidden currents of your pain – but again there are marker stones within this part of your experience to help you understand your journey and know it will eventually lead you to your healing.

The hard simple truth is that you have to endure the journey – but enduring it is so much less difficult if you understand what it is that you’re enduring.

These are the marker stones of this middle phase of your grief cycles in ‘Confrontation (Entering the Depths):

Integration (Mending the Heart)

The third cycle of grief is where the good news of your healing journey finally begins to outweigh the bad news and feelings of your experience of loss, grief and bereavement prior to this point, during that eternity of time when it felt like it’d take forever for you to arrive here.

Here are the marker stones of this final cycle of grief, ‘Integration (Mending the Heart):

• The decline of your grief

• The waves of their intensity getting farther apart

• The start of social and emotional reentry into your life

Your grief hasn’t gone away, but its edges have begun to soften with the knowledge that it’s become a part of your past experience in life. You’ll still have times of intensely missing your loved one, usually associated with those anniversary dates of death and memory centered on important events of the life you had shared with them.

It’s even likely you’ll feel the odd touch of guilt about the fact that you’re moving forward in your life despite the hellish experience you’ve just endured - but this too will pass as your understanding and healing advances.

This is a good time to sit back and review the marker stones of your loss, grief and bereavement along the huge distance you’ve traveled in your healing journey. It’s in the looking back at this point that you’ll clearly see and appreciate how important it was to understand the marker stones of your journey as you struggled your way along it.

Now is when you’ll begin to find that you’re having a lot more good days than bad ones, and are able to look back and remember things about the one you’ve lost with a sense of comfort in your heart. At this point, finding meaningful ways to include and make your lost loved one an important part of your new life is a vitally important thing for you to do. You’ll want to be able to talk about them naturally and comfortably now, in ways that show you remember and honor them for who they were to you.

Making significantly new and important choices designed to enhance your quality of life is another important aspect of this time of reevaluation and reintegration into your newly healing life. It’s also a time to acknowledge the personal growth that’s evolved inside you as a result of having survived – and continuing to survive – the loss you’ve suffered.

At this third and final step of the grief cycles which have led you on your healing journey, the most important and valuable accomplishment you can and should achieve is to reinvest your new energy of life back into those relationships and pursuits of life that have value and meaning to you.

This site, these posts, and the book available on my website are examples of such a reintegration into life after the loss of my daughter, and of the marker stones of the healing journey I traveled to arrive here.

I’m grateful I came to understand their significance – as you will be too on your own journey to find healing from loss, grief and bereavement.

With Love and Understanding

Ken Matthies

HeartSpun Posts from the Crucible of Experience
 

Every single death that occurs brings loss, grief and bereavement to someone who loved or cared for that individual, and its significance never can or should be discounted in its impact and meaning to those suffering and finding healing from its effects.

Yet the death of a child – grown or otherwise – carries a burden of grieving for a parent which exceeds all human boundaries of comprehension or understanding at the time of its happening, and involves enduring a grieving and healing path unique among the losses to be experienced by mankind.

In this and the following four posts to this site I’ll be sharing a story of grieving the death of a grown child – in poetic form – and allow you the readers to experience its journey through grief to find healing. It’s a prayer of my heart that you will be touched and encouraged by its ever growing message of hope.

Her name was Leila Gray (Brennan), a 26 year old helicopter pilot at the time of her death, and she was my own beloved daughter.

This was the poem written for her funeral day, and in its topic involves a gift of grace (a ‘found’ feather) given to help us as parents endure the day – and find hope for its aftermath.

The Feather

We picked up a feather the other day
That lay on the floor at our feet;
And in it we saw the wings of flight
Of Leila, our daughter Sweet.

A feather, you know, is an amazing thing;
It lifts each bird to the sky;
To soar the heavens and sail the winds
That raise their wings on high.

The death of a child – grown or otherwise – carries a burden of grieving for a parent which exceeds all human boundaries of comprehension or understanding at the time of its happening, and involves enduring a grieving and healing path unique among the losses to be experienced by mankind.

In this Part 2 and the following three posts to this site I share the ongoing story of grieving the death of a grown child – in poetic form – and allow you the readers to experience its journey through grief to find healing. It’s a prayer of my heart that you will be touched and encouraged by its ever growing message of hope as you read all five parts of the story these poems tell.

Her name was Leila Gray (Brennan), a 26 year old helicopter pilot at the time of her death, and she was my own beloved daughter.

This was a poem written a month and a half after she left us, a last ditch effort to hang onto my faith before a deep spiral into the despair ‘marker stone (*)’ of Confrontation (Entering the Depths)*, the second of grief’s cycles which led to my healing.

(*) See three posts immediately previous to this five-part series for more information about the ‘marker stones’ of your healing journey.

A Father’s Hope

A grieving dad? Yes, he’s all of that
For sure and for all of the time;
That he waits for the call that brings him Home
To quote her these verses of rhyme.

Leila love, it’s hard down here
To live with this huge empty place;
Buried deep within your dad’s aching heart,
And the tears that still stain his face.

The death of a child – grown or otherwise – carries a burden of grieving for a parent which exceeds all human boundaries of comprehension or understanding at the time of its happening, and involves enduring a grieving and healing path unique among the losses to be experienced by mankind.

In this Part 3 and the following two posts to this site I share the ongoing story of grieving the death of a grown child – in poetic form – and allow you the readers to experience its journey through grief to find healing. It’s a prayer of my heart that you will be touched and encouraged by its ever growing message of hope as you read all five parts of the story these poems tell.

Her name was Leila Gray (Brennan), a 26 year old helicopter pilot at the time of her death, and she was my own beloved daughter.

This was a poem written in trembling anticipation of the second anniversary of her death, due to arrive in its full fury and force the following day – an experience every grieving person will know to be true.

REALITY
(A Daughter’s Death)

It’s been two years since my daughter’s death
and my heart still feels empty and tight!
I know and accept all the reasons she died
and still – it just doesn’t feel right!

A mechanical failure – a part that broke –
and a shattering plummet to ground!
The reasons make sense – yet the words have teeth,
and I can’t dodge the way that they sound!

The television networks we’re watching these days
are all focused on “reality” shows;
Well I’m sorry to say that these pale in the mists
when you’ve seen your daughter in casket clothes!

The death of a child – grown or otherwise – carries a burden of grieving for a parent which exceeds all human boundaries of comprehension or understanding at the time of its happening, and involves enduring a grieving and healing path unique among the losses to be experienced by mankind.

In this Part 4 and its following fifth post to this site I share the ongoing story of grieving the death of a grown child – in poetic form – and allow you the readers to experience its journey through grief to find healing. It’s a prayer of my heart that you will be touched and encouraged by its ever growing message of hope as you read all five parts of the story these poems tell.

Her name was Leila Gray (Brennan), a 26 year old helicopter pilot at the time of her death, and she was my own beloved daughter.

This was a poem written in still dreaded anticipation of the third anniversary of her death due once again to arrive the following day – a landmark day on which I would finally allow myself to remember and experience its full effects for the first time, in order to be able to give outlet to those deep feelings of grief still trapped within me.

Anniversary Memories

I’m feeling the bite of the pain again
and the emotions that memories bring;
Of a daughter who died just three years ago
and the songs that her spirit would sing.

Anniversary times are tough at best,
When worlds will again collide;
To bring back the news of the fateful day
That she flew her last gallant ride.

A spirit so strong and so full of life
Should not have been snuffed out so young;
That’s the cry of my father’s heart
For her songs that remain unsung.

The death of a child – grown or otherwise – carries a burden of grieving for a parent which exceeds all human boundaries of comprehension or understanding at the time of its happening, and involves enduring a grieving and healing path unique among the losses to be experienced by mankind.

In this last of the series Part 5 post to this site I share the final segment of grieving the death of a grown child – in poetic form – and allow you the readers to experience its journey through grief to find healing. It’s been a prayer of my heart that you’ve been touched and encouraged by their ever growing message of hope as you read all five parts of the story these poems have told.

Her name was Leila Gray (Brennan), a 26 year old helicopter pilot at the time of her death, and she was my own beloved daughter.

This was my poem of decision, written in the realization that it was time for the ‘rubber to hit the road’ of my future life in a meaningful way – finally – despite the fact that I was still a healing dad. I knew I was on a journey of healing, but felt the compelling force of these questions within me of…”where do I go from here, and how do I get there?” I needed to know their answers.

This was the poetically written step that made the difference for me – my first reaching out towards the Integration (Mending the Heart)* cycle of grief – the one that would ultimately lead me to the healing of journey’s end, and the beginning of the newly reintegrated life waiting there.

I Choose It Now

I don’t know where the road will lead; I just know it’s still up a hill.
I think I’ve finally found a healing creed; but it’s all controlled by my Will.

So will I let it lead me right; or maybe take another wrong turn?
I know I’m tired of this long, long fight; and the hurt of its awful burn.

I’ve got more choices to make this day, and for all of the ones yet to come.
With my heart out front I’m feeling the Way; and I’m hoping I’ll be healing some.

A chopper flies by way up in the air; and my breath still stutters to a stop.
I can’t help but see her then in His care; yet my soul harvests pain as a crop.

There’s a hole in my life that I can’t fill in; there’s no patch that’ll cover the wound.
To say it’s not true would be a mortal sin; so the notes of my song still aren’t tuned.

In today’s world of rapid change on all fronts the integrity of family units has not been exempt from the effects of those changes. This has resulted in ever greater numbers of broken relationships, divorces, separations and new children, partners and spouses being added to the mixed equations of their family lives.

This has also resulted in a growing number of mixed-status families who have to learn to deal with their loss, grief and bereavement in whole new ways as they struggle to cope with their individual grieving within those changes to their life structures.

Often this mixed-status is the cause of great differences in emotional impact from a death within such fragmented families, resulting in additional feelings of hurt to add to the crushing load of grief affecting those members more closely related to or aligned with the one who has died.

It’s not uncommon for resentments to build up under these kinds of conditions, and left unchecked or unattended to these can lead to estrangements and another family breakup, a negative perpetuation of the cycles of change, and the experience of even greater loss than has already been suffered.

My wife came home from the office last week with a discovery from among her filing which has brought me much comfort as the still healing father, son, brother and friend that I am.

The simple beauty and imagery of these words has cast a new and profoundly peaceful outlook on the journey of all those whom I’ve lost throughout my life to dying…and eased my pain.

Whether you’ve seen this before or not, read it for yourself and take hold of the comfort and easing of pain it offers you as well in the beauty of its perspective…

Dying

I am standing at the seashore.

A ship spreads her sail to the morning breeze and starts for the ocean.

She is an object of beauty, and I stand watching her until at last she fades on the horizon. Someone at my side says, “She is gone”.

Gone? Gone where? Gone from my sight, that is all – The loss of sight is in me, not in her.

And just then, at the moment when someone says “She is gone”

There are others who are watching her coming. Other voices take up the glad shout, “There she comes!”

And that, my friend, is dying.

(An adaptation of a poem written by George W. Meek)

With Love and Understanding,

Ken Matthies

HeartSpun Posts from the Crucible of Experience

Your thoughts about my blog content are always welcome. Please feel free to post your comments to as many of them as you like.

How often in the midst of your loss, grief and bereavement have you found yourself feeling as though you were about to drown in sorrow, not knowing what direction to reach out for in order to find the safety of something to hang on to and not go completely under from the pain of it all?

Sometimes Mother Nature provides us with examples of her events that parallel our own real life experiences of loss of a loved one, examples that in their own way we can not only see and learn from, but can also take a huge measure of comfort, strength and healing from.

Because if you notice, Mother Nature always restores and heals the land she has laid waste to with her catastrophic events – maybe just as a way to show us mortals that we too will eventually find restoration and healing from the pain of our individual devastation.

I’m seeing an example of her handiwork in my own geographical back yard this year – and can’t help comparing its inevitable progress to my own journey of healing from loss, grief and bereavement. Perhaps you’ll be able to identify with and find help from this example yourself.

The huge area of interconnected lakes I live among is under flood warning conditions this summer resulting from the melt waters of a huge winter snow pack, as well as unusually high rainfall levels and the global warming effects of melting mountain glaciers. Some homes built too close to these lakes have already been filled with the floodwaters, and the owners are facing grievous loss.

I’ll understand if you’re wondering what a grief buddy* could possibly have to do with the tail rotor of a Bell 206 helicopter…or what lesson of healing value could be found in either one of those subjects.

Bear with me here, and see for yourself the values of healing from loss, grief and bereavement to be found in both.

Almost five years after the sudden death of my helicopter pilot daughter in a crash I found myself reading another book about grief, this one entitled Understanding Your Grief – Ten Essential Touchstones for Finding Hope and Healing Your Heart by Dr. Alan Wolfelt. It’s a really good book for a bereaved parent to be reading, no matter how far down the pike you’ve come since your loss happened.

It was in this book that I first came across the term grief buddy* under the category of Caring for your Social Self. It refers to the fact that although no one else can grieve the death you’ve experienced just like you do, you’re not alone because there are fellow travelers along the road of grief who’ve had similar experiences…someone who is also mourning a death and needs a companion in grief right now.

Ancient peoples of many diverse cultures knew what they were doing, in honoring a long-standing tradition among themselves – that of storytelling.

This was the medium through which their culture grew and became strong, in the telling and retelling of the important values, legends, rituals and events of their lives.

It was also the medium through which those who had gone before them were honored, and held in high esteem by those remaining behind in an earthly existence, as well as a way for them to heal from the pain of their loss. They understood the healing value of doing this.

Never forget, the pain of losing a loved one has been around since Man first drew breath as an emotional species, subject to all the feelings of our kind.

This historical and time honored medium, used so effectively in ancient cultures, was also a powerful way for them to remember their loved and revered ones, with the knowledge of them passed on from generation to generation.

Today’s post tells a brief story of the grieving process from a mother’s perspective – and serves as an example of acceptance and hope for all of you readers looking for the affirmation that there are others out there like you, who are also grieving the pain of separation from their child.

If you’ve kept up with previous posts to this site you’ll already have become familiar with my daughter Leila, a helicopter pilot lost in a crash five years ago. It was her mother Marie’s encouragement which resulted in the writing and publishing of a book about my daughter’s life and loss – and my healing from it.

This is a story taken from that book.

“Marie had been totally serious when she encouraged me to write a book about Leila and I. And she’s backed up this encouragement with a package she’s sent on ahead via Greyhound to one of my anticipated locations.

It thoughtfully contains a copy of the newspaper with Leila’s second-year memoriam she’s placed in it for this year.

This two-year memoriam, in the form of a short letter to her daughter from a mother whose heart has been shattered way harder than mine, deserves to be written here.

Because it tells you who it is that carried her through those times on an empty beach when there’s only one set of footprints; when you’re crying out asking, “Where are you God? How come there’s only one set of footprints here? I thought we were walking together!”

And the answer you get back in your broken heart is His voice saying, “There’s only one set of footprints my child, because that’s when I was carrying you.”

Here’s what it has to say…

One thing that seems certain about the grieving and healing process as time passes is that it’s a process of change for those of us in grief. How the earthquakes of pain we feel in the earlier anniversary days of our grief evolve over time is a perfect example of that process of change.

For instance, last week was the fifth anniversary of my daughter’s death, followed immediately by her birthday. I fully expected to be rocked down to the ground again emotionally on those back to back anniversary days just like in previous years, but that wasn’t the way it happened this time around.

Instead what I discovered was that the pains of anticipation of the anniversary days in the two weeks prior to them were far outweighed by the quietness of heart I actually felt on the days themselves!

I was both blessed and amazed to discover this time around that I was able to use those two days as days of quiet and heartfelt reflection, with long walks and loving talks to my daughter, during which the flow of rich and wonderful memories about her and our life together brought peace to both heart and mind.

On a recent visit to the beauty of Southeast Alaska I was privileged to encounter an Elder who had recently lost his wife after many years of an illness which led eventually to her passing.

I refer to this encounter as a privilege because it validated – above all other reasons for my being there – the true importance of being at this spot on the earth at that moment, willing to listen to and share another person’s story of loss, grief and bereavement with an understanding and non-judgmental heart.

Too often in our busy world and our even busier lives we push aside those in grief – let alone grant them the time to sit down and listen to their stories of heartbreaking pain. Because we find it ‘uncomfortable’ to have to deal with the subject of death, we expect them to just “get over it and get on with your life” as though it had never happened.

Nothing could be further from the truth for someone in grief.

Every single person experiencing the pain of grief would like to know that there’s a hard and fast rule that can tell you when you can expect the pain to go away, so your life can get back to “normal”.

In the first place, who’s to say what “normal” really is after a death that’s taken away everything you ever considered to be normal before it happened?

The simple truth is that no hard and fast rule for such a thing exists, although some cultures have “supportive grieving structures” which seek to help define and guide the length of the grieving process for those suffering the pain of loss, grief and bereavement.

Yet as excellent and helpful as these structures are, even they cannot govern the private levels or length of grief experienced within the individual human heart – a heart that must find its own way to a grieving and healing length of time that’s right for that person.

The healing aspects of the grief process are cyclical in nature, often returning you to those places and times in memory where the pain of your loss becomes overwhelming yet again. At times like those you can’t help but question if the pain of it will ever change or end for you.

My granddaughter turned ten years old the other day, and it was as I was calling her to wish her happy birthday that I realized she was already twice as old as the day her mother died. On my granddaughter’s scale of years she has lived another whole lifetime over the past five years.

Anyone who has experienced the pain of a loved one’s loss can identify with the concept of a whole lifetime having passed since that death occurred. It’s for certain that my granddaughter can.

In the early days of grief amid the numbness and shock of loss the thought of memorial symbols is not yet a part of your grieving or healing process. But there comes a point in the days following where suddenly it seems that’s all you can think about, and a drive to remember the one you’ve lost compels you to do something of lasting value to honor them and maintain your heart link to them.

It’s good for your eventual healing that you experience this drive, and even better when you allow it to guide you into creating memorial symbols which are uniquely representative of your loved one – something you’ll treasure always and keep in the forefront of the changed life you live in the aftermath of your loss.

The form your memorial takes is important only to you and can consist of anything your aching heart chooses it to be – from a simple framed picture all the way up to an organization begun in their memory, or beyond. Only eternity can or should limit your options, or the actions you take to create a memorial symbol of healing value to you.

“This little light of mine…I’m gonna let it shine…” So go the words of a Sunday school song of ancient memory as I sit down to write today’s blog post – and in them I’m finding a source of solace and strength as I continue walking my healing path more than five years after a daughter’s loss.

It seems to take forever for light to show up again in your life after the death of a child – or after the death of anyone else in your life that you loved with all your heart. The loss is just so huge and the darkness of death so complete at the time that the concept of light becomes an alien subject for your mind to comprehend.

Yet the truth is that the light of your existence remains, forever shining bright beyond the darkness of your grief, and eventually revealing itself to you again as you begin the journey of healing that allows you to once again see and value its brilliance – and its vital importance to the completeness of healing that awaits your open and aching heart.

You’ve probably seen this sort of example a thousand times before in your life and never had cause to think twice about it on any of those occasions.

Returning home yesterday from a visit to a nearby community I passed through a section of road being rebuilt and widened. The signs in advance of this area from either direction warn you of it saying “Road Construction Next ___ Kilometers”, with the empty blank of the number of kilometers to be traveled filled in by hand with a black felt marker pen.

It struck me how well these signs equate to the individual journey of grief itself.

An excerpt taken from page 133 of my book entitled I Know You’re Hurting available for purchase at http://www.kenmatthies.com

“I think it’s probably about this time too (October - three months after her death) that I finally work up enough guts to start pulling the boxes of Leila’s personal effects that she’d left behind out of their storage places around the house and out in the shed. I carry them all into our office downstairs and stack them close to my desk.

I can’t even open them yet. It’s just too hard to think about what I’ll find inside that I know will rip me wide open and leave me bleeding all over the floor. They stay that way all winter. And for the next summer I’m gone too. I still can’t bear facing it, so all I do is look at them all the time.

An excerpt taken from page 137 of my book entitled I Know You’re Hurting available for purchase at http://www.kenmatthies.com

“Somewhere along the line after writing her obituary I eventually get to sliding into disbelief again that this is all real. That’s probably what starts me jumping off the deep end inside again too; and world once more spirals into a rotten kind of personal madness you can’t talk about with human sounding words just yet.

It’s no wonder relationships and families fracture and get scattered into billions of useless shards when something like this happens.

Here you are, living amongst the shattered pieces of your own endless puzzle palace, vainly looking for the pieces that will throw a temporary patch on the most extreme pain of the moment; and of course none of them fit or lock together, so the patch doesn’t work and that particular wound keeps oozing away more of the fluids of your life.

An excerpt taken from page 140 of my book entitled I Know You’re Hurting available for purchase at http://www.kenmatthies.com

“It seems on further examination that I’ve been living a double, or maybe it’s been a triple life during this past endless pain-scape of months.

In the first one of them – the deeply hidden, darkly private and personal one you never ever under any circumstances of life or death show anyone – I’m going through all the great stuff I’ve just described on the preceding pages! You know, rough twisty trails, cute snakes and leaking life fluids. Not the prettiest of pictures, or places.

In the second one, I’m a real regular guy by the name of Ken that everyone knows and loves (yeah, sure!), just plugging along in what appears to be a normal everyday life pattern, otherwise known as Living the Façade or Hiding Behind the Mask!

It seems I only began writing articles for this Keyboard Culture Blog on the topic of ‘Healing Stages of Grief’ a short while ago – and yet time has already flown a total of 30 of them into the cyberspace of your journey to find healing from loss, grief and bereavement.

I truly appreciate all of you who have been coming to this site to read them, and thank you for doing so. I understand how intensely private your personal journey to find healing is, yet it’s also important for me to know if the articles I’m posting are helping you to find your healing – so today I have a very simple request to make to all of you reading these posts.

What are you doing to keep the vision alive in your own heart and mind of the loved one you lost? Finding a way to do so is a vitally important part of dealing with your loss, grief and bereavement because it helps lead you deeper into your healing.

Whatever way you choose to help you do this, know that its constant presence around you will serve to keep that connection vital and glowing in your heart, and offer a healing reassurance to your wounded soul.

For example, sitting on the phone table behind me in my office is the portrait taken of my daughter and I shortly after she arrived back in my life at the age of 19. Even though she’s gone I feel as though she remains, always watching my back (there for me) and encouraging the writing I do in her memory.

The journey of your healing from loss, grief and bereavement will continue for you through a lifetime of learning – and I’m coming to understand that as a good thing – not something negative to drive me to further despair.

The process of healing from grief is designed to be a gradual one for us as human beings because we’re not physically, mentally or emotionally equipped to be able to deal with all of it at once – suffering a grievous loss one day and magically cured from its effects the very next day, month, or even year.

The journey of your healing from loss, grief and bereavement will continue for you through a lifetime of learning – and I’m coming to understand that as a good thing – not something negative to drive me to further despair.

The process of healing from grief is designed to be a gradual one for us as human beings because we’re not physically, mentally or emotionally equipped to be able to deal with all of it at once – suffering a grievous loss one day and magically cured from its effects the very next day, month, or even year.

When I walked into the funeral parlor prior to my daughter’s funeral for a private family viewing time, the powerful music and words of Vince Gill’s song “Go Rest High on that Mountain” was playing on the speakers. The poignant words and haunting beauty of this song drove me into a pew at the time, curled up and covered in pain and tears with the harsh reality of her death before me.

The fact that this was also one of the songs I’d chosen to be played at my own funeral someday only served at the time to drive home the truth of the bond – now forever broken, it seemed – which had existed between my daughter and I.

I’ve thought often about those moments of time when these two universes collided – and over the course of my healing time in the years since, have come to see a higher meaning for myself in the music and words of that song and the events which shattered me on that day.

Today, ‘Go Rest High on that Mountain’ speaks to me of two wonderful truths about both of us.