In June we celebrate our Fathers. This month I encourage you to spend some time getting to know a little more about the man that your mom fell in love with. We can never know the way the death of our mom truly affected our him. Some people grow apart from their father after losing mom and some grow closer. I hope that each of you can take some time this month to make contact with your dad and let him know that you care. If your father has also passed or if he is no longer around for you, spend some time celebrating the good times you remember with him. Because sometimes re-living happy times from our past can bring warmth and understanding to us today. Afterall, it was your parents who brought something special into this world: You.
Listen to this month's podcast. It's a discussion about the difference between a father's grief and a child's. And then take a look at these notes from the podcast on tips for relating to your father's grief after the loss of mom.
Other news - This month we highlight a Mom's Halo forum member: Jewls. Jewls, or Julie, is a strong young woman who wants to help others. You can read Julie's story about her mom, Martha in this month's cover story.
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. I'm looking for articles, news and poems as they relate to motherloss. |
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June Member Spotlight: Julie, daughter of Martha |
Julie's story:
My mother has and always will be my hero. She was everything to me, and when I lost her on November 13, 2007 my world shattered. We lost her in just five short days and never knew what was coming. She had started to complain of abdominal pains, but being the woman that she was thought she had just taken too many aspirin. We told her to go to the doctor but she was so stubborn, and kept insisting that she would be fine in a couple days. A few days later she told me that she thought she should go into emergency. She tried to get out of her room and down the hallway but she couldn’t make it. She got back into her bed and told me to call an ambulance. I did just as she asked, and when they got there they couldn't really get into the room so she had to walk out of the room in all the pain she was in, to the front door where they then put her on a gurney. I rode with the ambulance and we took her to the nearest hospital. From there it seemed as if everything was moving so fast but at the same time in slow motion. They wheeled her in to a spot in the ER with a curtain around it, got all the necessary information from us and were trying to get her vitals. After what felt like an eternity, they were able to get her vitals under control enough to give her something for the excruciating pain. They then took her to get x-rays of her lower abdomen, and when the doctor finally came back with the results he told us that my mother was going to have emergency surgery. He said that she had a perforated colon, and later we found out that because of that her blood was contaminated.
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June Podcast Notes: Understanding Dad's Grief |
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After we lose our mom we go through a huge range of emotions which are all a part of grieving - sadness, depression, anger, rage, insecurity, selfishness, hopelessnes, helplessness, fear. It can pretty much run the gamut of almost every negative emotion you can think of! And when we are going through all that - we expect that our siblings and even our father are going through the same thing. But that is not necessarily true. I write about how grief is unique to each one of us, but at some level when we grieve we tend to expect that since our siblings and our dad all lost the same person, that we are all grieving the same. It's as if we are so wrapped in our own grief that we begin to feel as if everyone in our imediate family should be (or is) feeling the same way as we do. Unfortunately that is rarely (if ever) the case. Our grief may be similar to that of our siblings - and we'll talk about that in a future podcast - but for our dad - it's a totally different 'ballgame.'
Here is the key difference. I know this will sound very obvious but it's important to point out: we lost our mother - our caregiver. Dad lost his life partner. Just as the relationship between a mother and child is different from that between a mother and father - so too is the grief. |
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