Advice from Win

My wife recently had the following to say to someone:

There are two stories that I want to share with you.

My daughter Courtney turned a year old just 2 weeks after my oldest daugthter died. I was not emotionally ready to celebrate anything, AND, at a year of age, Courtney would not know the difference. So .. No party. 11 months later, Courtney died. I still feel guilt that I never had a party for her.

When my oldest daughter was in the hospital and we found out that she was not going to live, a friend stopped by. She had lost a son at the age of 4. She made a statement that has stuck with me. She said, " You are going to have to decide how much else you are willing to lose." I gave her a confused look. She continued, " When you lose a child, it is all too easy to make that loss your focus. If you do that, you will lose other things also. You will lose your marriage, your other children, your job, your friends. Everything else will be gone. You have to decide how much more you willing to lose."

"How much more am I willing to lose?" That became the statement that I would repeat to myself in my head. That statement made me get up and do things with my other children. It made me focus on my marriage, it made me try to interact with other people.

Your son's death had nothing to do with goodness and evil, wrong or right. You did nothing to "earn" or "deserve"
this tragedy im your life. Horrible things happen in this life. I don' think we really notice all the tragedy in this world until we are personally involved. Grief opens our eyes and our hearts to different emotions. I think it connects us-- as individuals to the rest of humanity.

It is hard to breath somedays while learning to handle loss. Work on it. Make yourself breath, and walk, and care. Claim your life, make yourself love again. You will lose too much if you don't force yourself to move forward. Take the memories of your son, think of all the things you would do with him if he was still here, and do those things with your other children. You don't know what your future holds .. Love them while you can.

Take your grief, hold it tightly, don't let it go, but keep moving forward. I know that you can do it.