posted December 06, 2010 09:27 AM            

My son had a closed casket.I didn't want to see his head ,shot.
At the funeral home, there was a woman in an open casket.
Her face was green.
It stayed in my memory, indelible,like many things .

posted December 06, 2010 09:30 AM            

I think she did not complain when she should have, did not fight when someone needed a punch ,not a caress.
I think she caressed too much.

posted December 06, 2010 02:30 PM            

Do you blog?

I think it would be a healing exercise for you.

You write because you are dying to express yourself, and you need to be heard. You want to shout into the universe! The anonymity of the Internet allows you to be expulsive with your thoughts, to post the secrets of your soul.

But then you ask us not to comment because you don't necessarily invite opinion...you just want to speak, to introspect. You also fear humiliation and rejection of those inner parts that you reveal.

A blog would allow you to have the best of both worlds. You could make it as private or as public as you wish, personalize it, and you could put the link to it in your sig so that your LL friends could read it as they willed, but you would also reach others...random others who would be so interested in what you think and feel.

If you want comments, you can leave it open to comments. If you don't, you can lock it.

It's like having a diary or journal (which you desperately need if you don't have one already), but open to the public, which I know you want, because you crave that interaction with others.

I am not saying this to discourage you from this method, and you can do both, but I think blogging would give you the best of both worlds.

Go here and check this out: www.blogspot.com

Have I read you right? Please consider it.

posted December 06, 2010 02:46 PM            

The principle behind the casket being open is so that you are forced to accept that the person is dead.

Sometimes with horrible deaths, or when the person is disfigured, the loved ones don't want to remember them that way.

I would have accepted that she was dead if it was closed. How could I not? She's certainly not here anymore. Every day I know she is dead. I thought it was a little macabre to walk past her dead body but it wasn't my decision (they do not leave the body at the front of the church during the ceremony in my family to avoid hysteria--it is present when you walk out).

If my child died, I don't think I could bear an open casket though. No matter how he died. I would scream and scream and never stop.

I am sorry about your son. The loss of a child is the most traumatic occurence that can happen to a soul on this plane of existence.

I haven't posted about my grandmother's passing yet. One day I will.

She died on January 29, 2006. If I allow myself to think of it too much, it feels like yesterday. Time does not heal those types of wounds. They remain open and gaping forever. I know you know this. But it does lessen their pain a little each day so that you can go on living.

When I first discovered synastry, I was not at all surprised to learn that we enjoyed an exact conjunction of Sun and Moon. She was the Sun and I was the Moon.

The depth of your love is the depth of your grief. A forever love is a forever grief.

posted December 06, 2010 03:09 PM            

I cannot fathom the depth of grief one must feel in losing a child. Or rather, I guess I can but cannot comprehend how life goes on. It must alter you at the deepest level.

I had a dream, not long after my daugher was born. I was walking along a cliff holding her hand and she slipped, right off the edge of the cliff. I turned, looked at my husband (I was still married at the time), and jumped off the cliff after her.

posted December 06, 2010 03:13 PM            

Life is a series of small victories. Some of them are infestimal.

A friend of mine, someone I never met in person, but who was there for me during a very difficult time in my life, suffered an unimaginable loss about a year ago.

She lost her full-term baby only days before she was due. The child stopped moving in her womb and when she went to the hospital to have her checked, they sent her home. When she went back to insist they check again, the baby was dead. Have you ever seen a tiny casket? THAT is pain.

Neither she nor the father originally wanted that baby. She was divorced and close to 40 with that pregnancy, with 2 grown daughters. The father abandoned her shortly after the death. I can't describe to you the grief, guilt, shame, loss, and "what ifs" she experienced.

Since then, she has suffered financial losses, a job loss, relationship failures, depression, alientation from her family, etc. Every day she wakes up alive with breath in her body, knowing she hasn't suicided is one of those "small victories".

She is incredibly strong. It is agonizing to watch her do it. Because I have been there in my own life, struggling to fight against depression, when it seemed like EVERYTHING was against me.

I am incredibly proud of her. And I know her soul is forged of steel, and she will reap her rewards for her strength in this life or the next.

People don't avoid you, diss you, or humiliate you because they hate you, Ami. They do it because they fear you. Your struggles are their struggles. My struggles. You are just more public about it.

I want you to be strong. And I know you can do it. It is there, inside of you. It's inside of all of us. That's why we're here. But no one can find that strength for you. You will have to fight your own battles. You will either conquer your demons or they will conquer you.

Start with small victories.

That's all I have for you

I appreciate the opportunity to share a part of myself with you.

Be kind to yourself. And for every action or thought you consider, ask, "Is this not only true to myself, but true to my HIGHEST self?"

posted December 06, 2010 03:30 PM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by eskimono:
The memory of that dream brings tears to my eyes even recalling it. I don't even want to imagine never waking up from the dream.

---

I had a similar dream once. And was SO RELIEVED to wake up. I can't imagine not waking up.

Prayers to every mother right now who can't wake up, or anyone who has every suffered a terrible loss.

I used to dream about my grandmother dying all the time. One time I even called her at 2 AM after such a dream, just to reassure myself that she was safe. I was in college then. I made up an excuse about needing to talk about a boy. She was amused. She couldn't hear my heart pounding in my chest

Ami--I understand.

posted December 06, 2010 03:35 PM            

I went through something like you did not too long ago, where I was in love with someone who was hurting me. But, he was also hurting the ones that I loved and my friends... and my friends and family grew angry with me, and left me - thinking that I was going to go down with him...

I felt really betrayed at the time, that people either wanted to like fix me in the most aggressive way, but also abandon me when I did not live up to their expectations of me...

Hindsight, I realize that it was unfair of me to expect people to not react to the danger I was putting myself in, and the damage that my complacency was doing to my life and everyone that I loved...

I, in my own broken way, was being selfish and disloyal to the people who had invested great efforts to my life - great, positive efforts.

So, I guess what I'm saying to you, is although you may want positive feedback, it is difficult for those outside of the circumstance to look "down inside the pit of despair" and not want to either pull you up, or jar you from your abyss...

It's just human nature for others to "fight" against the bad and difficult things in this world...

posted December 06, 2010 03:36 PM            

quote:

---

People don't avoid you, diss you, or humiliate you because they hate you, Ami. They do it because they fear you. Your struggles are their struggles. My struggles. You are just more public about it.

---

I know this.

posted December 06, 2010 03:48 PM            

quote:

---

Most of us do not want to sit and make nice with things that will destroy us... It goes against our will to survive and heal.

---

The amount of time I have spent chasing after things (actually, let's be honest...PEOPLE) that would destroy me, is laughable.

Everyone has their limits. In the most extreme cases of physical or emotional abuse, some don't realize they have reached theirs until they are dead. Some people, especially women, have an incredibly high tolerance for pain.

Friends can only wipe away tears, not stop them from falling.

You know, it's funny that people say friends catch you when you fall. Sometimes friends walk away too, so that if you lay there long enough you come to the realization that you'll lay there forever if you don't learn to get up on your own...

I did that to a friend once. She hated my guts. And then told me that my demonstration of tough love was REAL love. Then I had it done to me. And hated her guts. Until I realized that the most loving act was letting me go to figure out my own **** .

Like a mother and a newly walking baby. Stumble, get back up. Sink or swim. Fall or fly.

posted December 06, 2010 03:51 PM            

There are many friends and family members who will fight to stop someone from hurting themselves, before it's too late.

This quote sounds so... helpless:

Friends can only wipe away tears, not stop them from falling.

posted December 06, 2010 04:00 PM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by StarrofVenusGirl:
Friends can only wipe away tears, not stop them from falling.

---

tell that to a scorpio and she'll prove you wrong

------------------
Consider anything, only don't cry...