Resilient Spirits

Once again my television was tuned in the Oprah show. I swear the woman pays all the other stations to play crap at the same time her show is on, because it really was the only thing on worth watching. I was actually falling asleep on my couch when the introduction of this particular show announced it was about resilient people and that one of her guests had lost both her baby and her husband. So, I sat up to watch in order to hear what this woman had to say without falling back to sleep. She was the third guest so I had to wait a bit.

Anyhow, the point of this post was that she said a few things that made me nod my head in agreement, and acknowledgment for my own grief has taken similar patterns. The only difference is that she lost both her baby and her husband at the same time, and I lost mine nearly 3.5 years apart. But part of what she said (in bold letters below) is a goal in which I yet need to achieve. I was beginning to make my way to that point after the loss of my daughter, when my husband's illness set me back.

The following examples were taken from the transcript:

"There were days I begged to die," she says. "I didn't want to live without them. Death was just a bottle of sleeping pills away, and I remember being so angry at God and asking him, 'Why did you have to take both?'"

"[I would] just feel like, 'Am I ever going to get out of this cycle? Am I ever going to heal?'" she says.

Instead of suppressing her grief and anger, Laurie got honest about her emotions. "I thought, 'Why not get angry? What else can [God] do to me?'" she says. "It gave me the sense of freedom to feel what I had to feel and go through what I had to go through."

"Instead of living this life of expectation and rules and formulas, I feel like I live this life of curiosity," Laurie says. "I have no clue what's going to happen tomorrow, so I just take this moment to be here. To meet the people I get to meet. To be surrounded by the events and the experiences."

You can see the transcript of the show HERE.

As this segment of the show ended and went to commercial, I came back to this blog and found this comment from my bloggy friend and fellow SHARE mom, Jen Sue Wild. The timing was uncanny. I've copied/pasted it word for word below so you can read it just as Jen wrote it. I hope she doesn't mine me re-posting it!

"TER, I can feel it this year is going to be better year.
I say decover who Ter is and love her all of her not just the easy parts to love but the hard parts as well.
I think if you indulge in self decovery you will see what all of us see The amazeing person that you are!!!
Hugs and here is wishing you a happy healthy new year.."

Thank you, Jen, for these kind words!

I don't know if this is a sign, but it did embedded itself in my brain and I will do my best to think of these words when things get tough.

And things will get tough... then a little better... then tough again.... Grief is a roller coaster and it's a ride I'll be on for the rest of my life. But, sometimes hearing stories of survivors and hearing that people believe in me makes all the difference.... if only for a while.