Tara, I also am thinking of you and Mila and feel moved by Diana's post to share that my grandmother also lost a child to drowning. He was 14 and hit in the head by rock thrown at him hard enough to cause him to fall into the Maumee River. His grieving father, who worked as a longshoreman at the Presque Isle coal and iron ore loading docks on Lake Erie, fell to his death less than two months later. My grandmother's grief in losing both her husband and son was profound and crippling, but she had eight more children to raise alone and she did, surviving another thirty years after that double tragedy. She inspires me in my grief as I mark the seventh anniversary of the death of my daughter this week. It's truly a most excruciating pain to lose a child.
Oh, Shirley. What grief that woman must have endured and held so that she could go on to raise those children on her own. What kind of woman did she become? I wish I could meet her. I wish I could talk to her.
I am so sorry for that horrible, heinous anniversary. Seven years. What does your world look like now? Is it different? Is it true that things "soften" with time? I somehow pray for that and dread it in equal measure. I fear the world moving on and forgetting. Who is left to remember?
She endured. Although she lost her home and two of her daughters went to an orphanage, they all survived. My 96-year-old aunt, who was one of the daughters sent to the orphanage, tells me that my grandmother's Catholic faith sustained her. I am in awe of the strength she summoned to overcome her grief. My world is far emptier seven years on. As you wrote, "if God decided it was my time now, that would be just fine by me."
Tara I was thinking about Mila and you these past two days. I'm reading 'Under the whispering door' by Tj Klune and with every other chapter thoughts of her where she may be now popped up. I wish I could do what the Buddhists say inhale your pain and exhale happiness but I cannot imagine the pain I can only grieve with you from across the ocean and hope better days will come for your entire family.
My grandmother lost a child to drowning. He was 14, my father watched from the shore. He was 7. She told me the story over and over. The funeral details, the weird feelings she had all day at work and the aftermath. She said she went to the grave every day for a long time. She couldn't remember for how long, crying and knocking the fresh dirt and asking to be dead as well. She said and I quote: 'I didn't think I could live anymore without him but here I am talking to you thirty years later.'
I don't know if it is appropriate to even write this and if it gives you more pain please ignore me, but he is not forgotten. He lives in the stories that were shared and the memories he helped create.
Thank you for sharing this beautiful story with me, Diana. Nothing gives me more pain, I don't think it's possible. I wish I could hug your grandmother, share in some of that pain with her. Somehow I think that you allowed this in some way with the sharing of her story. Thank you for that. It is warming and harrowing to be in even the smallest of ways connected to her sorrow. ❤️
Tara, I also am thinking of you and Mila and feel moved by Diana's post to share that my grandmother also lost a child to drowning. He was 14 and hit in the head by rock thrown at him hard enough to cause him to fall into the Maumee River. His grieving father, who worked as a longshoreman at the Presque Isle coal and iron ore loading docks on Lake Erie, fell to his death less than two months later. My grandmother's grief in losing both her husband and son was profound and crippling, but she had eight more children to raise alone and she did, surviving another thirty years after that double tragedy. She inspires me in my grief as I mark the seventh anniversary of the death of my daughter this week. It's truly a most excruciating pain to lose a child.
Oh, Shirley. What grief that woman must have endured and held so that she could go on to raise those children on her own. What kind of woman did she become? I wish I could meet her. I wish I could talk to her.
I am so sorry for that horrible, heinous anniversary. Seven years. What does your world look like now? Is it different? Is it true that things "soften" with time? I somehow pray for that and dread it in equal measure. I fear the world moving on and forgetting. Who is left to remember?
She endured. Although she lost her home and two of her daughters went to an orphanage, they all survived. My 96-year-old aunt, who was one of the daughters sent to the orphanage, tells me that my grandmother's Catholic faith sustained her. I am in awe of the strength she summoned to overcome her grief. My world is far emptier seven years on. As you wrote, "if God decided it was my time now, that would be just fine by me."
Tara I was thinking about Mila and you these past two days. I'm reading 'Under the whispering door' by Tj Klune and with every other chapter thoughts of her where she may be now popped up. I wish I could do what the Buddhists say inhale your pain and exhale happiness but I cannot imagine the pain I can only grieve with you from across the ocean and hope better days will come for your entire family.
My grandmother lost a child to drowning. He was 14, my father watched from the shore. He was 7. She told me the story over and over. The funeral details, the weird feelings she had all day at work and the aftermath. She said she went to the grave every day for a long time. She couldn't remember for how long, crying and knocking the fresh dirt and asking to be dead as well. She said and I quote: 'I didn't think I could live anymore without him but here I am talking to you thirty years later.'
I don't know if it is appropriate to even write this and if it gives you more pain please ignore me, but he is not forgotten. He lives in the stories that were shared and the memories he helped create.
Thank you for sharing this beautiful story with me, Diana. Nothing gives me more pain, I don't think it's possible. I wish I could hug your grandmother, share in some of that pain with her. Somehow I think that you allowed this in some way with the sharing of her story. Thank you for that. It is warming and harrowing to be in even the smallest of ways connected to her sorrow. ❤️