As I’ve been periodically writing about, I’m attempting to let go of things that I can’t control for Lent. It’s been a rough road and one day I will share more, but for now I think I found the root of why letting go has been so difficult for me. In other words, I took the phrase, “If it is to be, it is up to me” to the extreme. This dates back to eighth grade, the night before my dad’s job was eliminated from the company where he had worked his entire career. I remember my parents preparing us (Denise and I were the only two left at home at the time) from some time ahead of the date. He’d had hernia surgery, anticipating this would happen. I will be the first to admit I was never a prayerful child. I followed the rituals because I was supposed to (good Catholic kid that I was) but I can’t say I particularly believed in God or the importance of letting anything go. That night I prayed to God that Dad’s job would still be there. I had a lot of fear at the time about the future of my family. If my dad lost his job, it meant he would be home and it would make us an oddity in the community at the time where most dads got on the train to go downtown Chicago to work. I didn’t quite understand what it meant financially but it couldn’t have been good since Mom wasn’t working full time. The day after he returned to work following the hernia surgery, he came home and promptly retired from the company because his job as project engineer had been eliminated. And I promptly ended my relationship with God (of course that doesn’t mean God ended his relationship with me). As life went on (Mom went to work in the airline industry), I believed that I didn’t need anyone to help me. If I wanted something, I had to go out and get it without anyone’s help, especially God’s help. Quite honestly, this backfired but it only was in the past few days (that’s right, in 2011 rather than in 1986) that I have begun to understand that and connect the dots. Instead of letting go, I held onto everything tight and it kept me from accomplishing many goals early in my life. Through time this would change although it’s only now that can see the entire picture. It’s almost as if I’m standing at the top of the mountain looking over at the view going, “Oh, I get it.” None of us needs to do anything on our own. Letting go is the true way to make something happen because we allow ourselves freedom rather than a grip that keeps us stuck where we are. I think of the Pat Benatar song called “The Art of Letting Go.” It truly is an art but it’s one I intend to master.
The importance of ritual March 27, 2011
I don’t attest to being a church-going person. But what I do appreciate about the Catholic church in which I was raised is the opportunity to go just about anywhere in the world and know the ritual is going to pretty much be the same. I have stumbled on a Cathedral in Sydney Australia and attended Mass with my friend Barry in Northern Ireland. And now looking back on my life, I can see the times when I’ve reached out to the church, mostly for that ritual, when life is challenging me. As I wrote several weeks ago, I started to attend church again to help me let go of things I can’t control and I’ve made it a game with myself each week to remember all the prayers I knew so well at other times in my life. I don’t go to get forgiveness for any sins- I don’t believe in sins, we all do things in life because we need to learn from them- and no one can be harder on me than me. But I do find that going forces me to think for an hour and take time out of my day to reflect about what I want, who I am, where I’m going, and so forth. I believe that when life is difficult, when our routines have changed (or been forced to change because of a loss and/or change in situation), that we can find a lot of hope in rituals, in the familiarity. I may not have been a regular church goer throughout my life but as I look back now, I can see how it has been woven through the fabric of my life experiences and that comes from knowing the ritual is there waiting for me when I need it to serve as a stabilizing force in my life.
Red Chocolate Elephants: A resource for children bereaved by suicide March 23, 2011
Red Chocolate Elephants is an activity book and DVD resource for children bereaved by suicide. In a world where children are often forgotten mourners, this unique combination of text, pictures, and voices – all in the words of bereaved children themselves – will be a treasured safe haven for young people to hear their fears, questions, and difficulties put into words by other children just like them. On the accompanying DVD, these same youngsters speak their words aloud as we see their drawings of their experience. The book and DVD are an excellent resource for parent and child to use together in trying to face the suicide of a loved one. This is also a valuable resource for those supporting children in schools and others therapeutic settings.
Order through Amazon.
SAVE creates new blog to help caregivers of the suicide bereaved March 23, 2011
SAVE has created a new blog to help caregivers of the suicide bereaved. Check it out here.
Hard to believe eighteen years have passed March 17, 2011
Tomorrow, March 18, marks the 18th anniversary of my sister Denise’s death. I’m writing tonight because my schedule is a little full tomorrow for which I’m glad. I have a day of errands and lunch with a fellow survivor, Meredith, who lost her teen daughter to suicide last year. I see tomorrow as a day to celebrate Denise’s life and I hope that in some way Meredith will see that one day she, too, will not feel the need to mourn how her daughter died but rather the life she lived. Tomorrow also marks the official “turn” that Denise will have been dead longer than she was alive. Everything about this time of year takes me back to the March day– the NCAA basketball tournament where I was covering the Ball State-Kanas game at the time when she died, corned beef and cabbage the night before she died at my parents’ house, the greening of spring with the trees beginning to bloom. I know she’s with me, I know that she walks my path of life with me, encouraging me every step of the way as she did when she was alive (something I didn’t realize until long after she had died). I can’t take it all back because I can’t bring her back. But I’ve also come to understand that while many people believe that her death completely changed my life, it’s not true. While, yes, it did alter my path, but I am who I am because of life events that occurred long before she died. Her death only solidified my need to motivate myself and make the most of each day given to me.
Letting go of “things” March 14, 2011
As I write this, I’m waiting for the final proof of Seeking Hope: Stories of the Suicide Bereaved to be emailed to me so that it can go to the printer. I seem to have developed some anxiety this morning and I’m not sure if I can attribute it the fact that I must’ve dumped too much of my husband’s high-powered coffee into my protein smoothie this morning (I was only trying to make sure I could make it through the day after my confusion over the time change) or if it’s because I’m just about done with another project. People don’t realize that there is a sense of loss and transition for me each time I write/edit a book (and this is #5). These books are part of me and when they are printed and published, it’s like graduation day because they go out to be shared with everyone else. So while I’m waiting, I decided to sort through some files. And then I saw some things on the bookshelf I didn’t need anymore. I opened the closet and saw a few more things I didn’t need. For me, letting go of “things” is an opportunity to let new life in. But as I was doing this, I also was thinking about some fiction I am working on now (I won’t say more than that until I finished the rough draft at the end of the month) and the idea that when we clean out a person’s materials things, are we letting go of their life as well? My sister was a pack rat. I still sometimes tell the story about she even kept her dental appointment cards after the appointments. But when she died, it was hard to part with a lot of her “stuff.” However, this past year, when Mom was moving from the house we grew up in, I told my sister Karen she could take the trunk of Denise’s things. I didn’t feel any need to keep them. I know she is with me. The material items were important at one time, especially right after her death and in those first few years, but in the almost eighteen years (it will be eighteen years Friday), I don’t have that sense that I need any of those things anymore. I see that letting go of material items as part of the process as we realize that what is truly important is what we hold inside, the memories of a life shared with that person.
When Ash Wednesday Socks you in the Head March 9, 2011
I had this brilliant idea. I am not a fan of giving things up for Lent although for the majority of my life that’s what I had done (I’m sure in CCD we were forced to say something we were giving up and usually it was candy if I remember right). But in college, a year after Denise’s death, a wise priest named Father Dave said to me that I had given up so much, that I should try to do something good for myself. I’m not sure what I did that year but I always have remembered this (although last year I did give up my one-a-day Cherry Cokes but honestly it was more because I was getting ready for swimsuit season). This year I couldn’t decide what to do. I wanted to do something that would ultimately make me a better person. Something that has plagued me for as long as I can remember is letting go. Any of my high school track and cross country teammates are laughing about now, remembering how difficult this was for me. I have to learn to let go of things I can’t control. I pray for this every morning for various parts of my life. And I know that many people believe I have accomplished a lot but I know that a) I can be a better person and b) that there parts of my life where I feel held back because of not being able to let go. When I was out running Chaco this morning, I saw my friend Jennifer out with her three dogs. Jennifer and I have discussed the difficulty of letting go before so I knew she’d appreciate what I had to say. After saying it was a great idea, she added, “And let me know how you do it.” That’s the part I don’t know! I’m sure I will blog about this path as I travel it over the next 40 days (and what I hope will become a lifelong commitment to myself). I will say that Ash Wednesday Mass this morning definitely socked me in the head. Things were shaken and stirred. The priest said that we “must experience transformation of our whole being” during Lent and I agree with that if we are to truly become who we want and need to be. I don’t have much of a road map but I’m willing to forge my way and figure it out.
Seeking Hope: Stories of the Suicide Bereaved available for pre order March 3, 2011
Seeking Hope: Stories of the Suicide Bereaved is now available for pre order at www.chelleheadworks.com. The book will be released April 4, 2011, and features chapters written by 14 survivors of suicide around the world. Proceeds from the book benefit a fund at the American Association of Suicidology to support suicide bereavement research.
