Beyond Tears: Living After Losing a Child by Ellen Mitchell Page A
Authors: Ellen Mitchell
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answer to our satisfaction.
Barbara G.: “I am saddened by the loss of God in my life, but not nearly as much as by the loss of my son.”
Carol: “I haven’t forgiven God yet.”
Barbara E.: “If you were the type of person who did all the right things, you thought God would protect you.”
Lorenza: “Now when I am in church, I analyze every word in the songs. The words are so painful, songs like ‘Walk Through the Waters.’ Where was God when my son was drowning in the waters? For a while, my husband searched in literature and in religion, trying to find an answer as to why something as horrific as Marc’s death could have occurred. He has stopped searching. He found no satisfying answers.”
Audrey: “Entering a temple and hearing the music dissolves me to tears. I
now go only for the Yizkor service, which is the prayer for the dead, and for Jessica’s Yahrzeit, which marks the anniversary of her death. It conjures up memories of when we were an intact family and Jessie was sitting by my side in temple, her head resting on my shoulder.”
Ariella: “I never found comfort in traditional religion, but my spirituality has preserved me throughout my grief. My parents lost most of their families in the Holocaust. They lost all faith in a religious God and I grew up in an antireligious atmosphere, but with a spiritual belief in the world. My relationship with God is spiritual, not religious. I felt I could connect with a higher power on a one-to-one level. I was never angry at God because I didn’t think there is a God who decides that people will suffer and die because of him. I always thought that life is predestined and that we all fulfill our destinies. It has helped me cope with my grief.”
In our new skins, we try to differentiate between the religion and the people who are the messengers of that religion. We have found hypocritical rabbis and priests who simply could not understand our feelings and fears. But, then again, there are those who have found a strong belief in God to be very supportive.
Rita: “It’s neither the people nor the going to church, it’s the belief. I go to set time aside to have a time and place for myself. And now the stakes have changed. Now God has our kids and I have to believe my kid is okay. It’s very important for me to believe. I have to work on my religion. The more I believe and the better I believe, then I’ll see my son again and I’m connected to him.”
Audrey: “I like the traditions, the rituals, but now it just makes me cry. It’s a reminder not only of Jess, but of my dad. You sit there and wonder. Did you ever think life was going to turn out this way?”
In the Jewish religion, the tradition following a death is to sit in mourning, or “shiva” as it is called, with friends and family for a week following the burial. In the Christian religions, the burial follows several days in which friends and relatives visit and console the bereaved at a wake or at the funeral home.
The expectation in both schools of thought is that the bereaved will have opportunity to talk about the deceased. We were not for the most part consoled; rather we sat numbly as if spectators ourselves. For most
of us, it has caused us to redefine our religious practices along with our shaken beliefs.
Phyllis: “I found sitting shiva to be an obnoxious social affair. In fact, when my mother died recently I told my brother I would not do it, and I didn’t.”
Maddy: “Because Neill died on the way to Atlantic City, some people actually thought it appropriate to discuss gambling at the shiva.”
All of us placed great value on education for our children before their deaths. Now we wonder why? How can we have stressed the need for them to have good study habits, to strive to do well in school when it all came to naught? For those of us who are teachers, the dilemma was particularly difficult.
Lorenza: “As a teacher, how could I tell children to work hard? Why did I insist
Barbara G.: “I am saddened by the loss of God in my life, but not nearly as much as by the loss of my son.”
Carol: “I haven’t forgiven God yet.”
Barbara E.: “If you were the type of person who did all the right things, you thought God would protect you.”
Lorenza: “Now when I am in church, I analyze every word in the songs. The words are so painful, songs like ‘Walk Through the Waters.’ Where was God when my son was drowning in the waters? For a while, my husband searched in literature and in religion, trying to find an answer as to why something as horrific as Marc’s death could have occurred. He has stopped searching. He found no satisfying answers.”
Audrey: “Entering a temple and hearing the music dissolves me to tears. I
now go only for the Yizkor service, which is the prayer for the dead, and for Jessica’s Yahrzeit, which marks the anniversary of her death. It conjures up memories of when we were an intact family and Jessie was sitting by my side in temple, her head resting on my shoulder.”
Ariella: “I never found comfort in traditional religion, but my spirituality has preserved me throughout my grief. My parents lost most of their families in the Holocaust. They lost all faith in a religious God and I grew up in an antireligious atmosphere, but with a spiritual belief in the world. My relationship with God is spiritual, not religious. I felt I could connect with a higher power on a one-to-one level. I was never angry at God because I didn’t think there is a God who decides that people will suffer and die because of him. I always thought that life is predestined and that we all fulfill our destinies. It has helped me cope with my grief.”
In our new skins, we try to differentiate between the religion and the people who are the messengers of that religion. We have found hypocritical rabbis and priests who simply could not understand our feelings and fears. But, then again, there are those who have found a strong belief in God to be very supportive.
Rita: “It’s neither the people nor the going to church, it’s the belief. I go to set time aside to have a time and place for myself. And now the stakes have changed. Now God has our kids and I have to believe my kid is okay. It’s very important for me to believe. I have to work on my religion. The more I believe and the better I believe, then I’ll see my son again and I’m connected to him.”
Audrey: “I like the traditions, the rituals, but now it just makes me cry. It’s a reminder not only of Jess, but of my dad. You sit there and wonder. Did you ever think life was going to turn out this way?”
In the Jewish religion, the tradition following a death is to sit in mourning, or “shiva” as it is called, with friends and family for a week following the burial. In the Christian religions, the burial follows several days in which friends and relatives visit and console the bereaved at a wake or at the funeral home.
The expectation in both schools of thought is that the bereaved will have opportunity to talk about the deceased. We were not for the most part consoled; rather we sat numbly as if spectators ourselves. For most
of us, it has caused us to redefine our religious practices along with our shaken beliefs.
Phyllis: “I found sitting shiva to be an obnoxious social affair. In fact, when my mother died recently I told my brother I would not do it, and I didn’t.”
Maddy: “Because Neill died on the way to Atlantic City, some people actually thought it appropriate to discuss gambling at the shiva.”
All of us placed great value on education for our children before their deaths. Now we wonder why? How can we have stressed the need for them to have good study habits, to strive to do well in school when it all came to naught? For those of us who are teachers, the dilemma was particularly difficult.
Lorenza: “As a teacher, how could I tell children to work hard? Why did I insist
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