Why counting blessings doesn't really help - and yet how at times, it does.

 



Tuesday evening at my chorus practice, our director gave us an assignment. He asked each of us to write down five things we are thankful for each morning at breakfast time for the next week. There were a lot of groans among the chorus. It sounded like a class of teenagers complaining about homework, though I think the youngest of us is probably my age. He said it was an attitude-changing exercise.

I didn't object. I've tried this before, several times since Leif's death. I am well aware of all I am thankful for, of I have to be grateful for. The trouble is, even enumerating it doesn't make me FEEL truly grateful when I'm feeling sad about Leif's death. I know what I have to be thankful for, but it's hard, very hard find the joy in all the good things in my life when Leif's death hurts so much.

I read about the stages of grief and I wonder when I will pass this point, when I can let go of grief itself. It's not just letting go of Leif, which is hard enough, but letting go of my grief over his death. It's hard to even remember what it was like not to feel like this, though I look at all the pictures and remember all the good times we had.

I AM thankful for so much, and I have been truly blessed in my life, but that doesn't negate the sadness. It doesn't bring Leif back. Does that make me an ungrateful person who doesn't appreciate what she has? I don't think so. I think it makes me a hurt person who has to take time to heal.

I was working in the yard last week and an neighbor who also lost a son to suicide several years ago said that it's never the same, "You can have good times, but you want to share them and you can't. The loss always comes back."

I fear that. I don't want my life to be like that forever. Somehow, I want to regain that sense of joy I once had, not only for myself, but for Peter W., Peter Anthony and my grandchildren. There are glimpses of it sometimes. I savor them, but I wonder how long it will be before they are more than glimpses, before the tears are not so close to the surface.

Sometimes I wonder how terrible a burden Leif's life was, that he would take his life, how hopeless it must have seemed to him, and I know how much better my life is . . . but that doesn't lessen my sadness. If anything, in multiplies it. It hurts deeply, so very deeply, to know my son suffered like that and we didn't know and couldn't help him.

No, counting my blessings doesn't really help . . . not if it means taking away the pain today, but it does help in another way, which is why I continue to do it. It helps me keep perspective and not succumb to the downward spiral of negative thinking. It helps me to hang on to those blesssings and hope that someday the pain will lessen and shrink away to a smaller corner of my being so that all that's good in my life can shine forth again.
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These photos of Leif, Peter W. and me were taken by my sister, Lannay, when we were visiting her and her family in Greenbelt, Maryland in June 1990. We were in the Charlottesville, Virginia - Washington DC area so that Peter could attend the Judge Advocate General's School course for Staff Judge Advocates, and we were in the middle of our move from Fort Sheridan, Illinois (Chicago) to Fort Buchanan, Puerto Rico.

The Tides of Emotion Keep Coming

I've been avoiding dealing with this all week. I didn't want to interrupt a series on graduation or Leif's drawings, but I think the real reason was that I wasn't ready to write about it. We've had a sad week. I don't know what started it for Peter, but for me it was a news report about a toddler who stopped breathing after an allergic reaction to a medication. The parents were frantically rushing the child to a hospital when the saw a police officer and stopped to ask for help. The officer used CPR to save the child.

Normally a story like that would be heartwarming, but I was flooded with emotion, sadness. Why couldn't someone save my Leif, or the thousands of other people that are dying from anything but old age? Why couldn't *I* save my son?

I know that is a foolish thing to think, but I think it. I wanted to save him. I worried about him for years, prayed for him for years, not asking for anything unreasonable, just "give him a good life, give him something good to hang onto." My prayers were never answered. The worst loss happened.

People who are spared from some tragedy, or saved from death, talk about how their prayers were answered. Or is it just luck and coincidence? Why are some prayers worth answering and not others? There doesn't seem to be an discernible pattern to me. Just imagine people in a war, how many of them must be praying for their safety and that of their loved ones, but people still die, prayers or not.

One of my friends who lost a son to suicide with a gun four years ago says that he never knows what will suddenly set off a flood of emotions and bring tears to his eyes, that something as simple as seeing young people perform at church will make him remember his son performing and bring it on. I've found he's right. Just watching the news and seeing the report about that toddler made me sad. I should have been happy for the family, but no, I was just unhappy that my son wasn't here.

The week dragged on. I had been a lot better the week before and I didn't see why the toddler story was still affecting me like that. I should have been happy anticipating seeing Peter Anthony next week. Peter was feeling down, too, but it wasn't the toddler story affecting him. I couldn't figure out what was eating away at us.

Then last night it struck me. I knew I had found the reason when I really cried hard. It was precisely because Peter A. is coming, because it brings home the fact that Leif ISN'T coming, that he will never be coming.

It was a sad night, but I seem to have gotten past it now and can look forward to seeing Peter A., be thankful for my wonderful son without feeling the loss of his brother so sharply.

Before this, I never really understood why women who have lost children have a hard time being around children, but now I understand.

Before this, I always thought counting my blessings would keep me on an even keel and help me to realize, not just intellectually, but emotionally, how fortunate I am in so many ways. However, in this past week and past year, I have come to realize that no matter how many times I count my blessings, and realize them and am grateful for them, they don't take away the loss and hurt that comes back in waves from time to time. It's like someone who has everything else they always had but loses their sight. They can be immensely grateful for all they have, but those things don't take away the tremendous loss.

I thought that after a year things would get easier, a lot easier than they have.

And yet, there are days when the sadness subsides.

And we have our Peter Anthony to see. How we look forward to that.

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This photo of Leif was taken in Japan in the fall of 1982, featuring his brand new front teeth.