Wreaths Across America

On the second Saturday of December, coordinated wreath laying ceremonies occurred at Veteran cemeteries sponsored by Wreaths Across America. I did not attend the ceremony on Saturday; instead, I went to Great Lakes National Cemetery today. I did not attend the ceremony because my time at the cemetery is filled with quiet reflection.

I am thankful for this group and the many volunteers who gave up their precious time to attend the ceremony. Personally, I know kindhearted people who attended the ceremony, people who knew and loved Shane and everything he stood for. I know the young boys who placed the wreath on Shane’s tombstone.

It was a bitter cold morning, but the sun was shining, which has a tendency to make everything a little bit better. As I turned into the drive, the first things to catch my eye were the flags. Today, all the flags were raised and waving in the wind. It is a magnificent sight – the red, the white, and the blue. It is a brutal reminder of the ultimate sacrifice that Shane freely made to help keep us safe.

I pulled over and parked near Shane’s tombstone. I can sit in the Jeep and view Shane’s final resting spot. I have my little rituals for my visits to the cemetery. Today, we listened to the new cd by the Black Keys from start to finish (no skipping songs because that is one of Shane’s rules for listening to a new album).

I always read poetry when I visit Shane’s grave and today was no exception. On some visits I know which poems I will read, but today, I let the book decide for me. I opened the book and let the page come to me. I brought John O’Donohue’s To Bless the Space Between Us. When I opened my eyes and saw the title of the poem, I closed my eyes and said – no, this must be a mistake, but I did not change my draw. Instead, I read the following poem. And even though the tears did not stop flowing for the longest time, I knew in my heart, this was the poem for the day.

“For Grief”

~ John O’Donohue

When you lose someone you love,

Your life becomes strange,

The ground beneath you gets fragile,

Your thoughts make your eyes unsure;

And some dead echo drags your voice down

Where words have no confidence.

Your heart has grown heavy with loss;

And though this loss has wounded others too,

No one knows what has been taken from you

When the silence of absence deepens.

Flickers of guilt kindle regret

For all that was left unsaid or undone.

There are days when you wake up happy;

Again inside the fullness of life,

Until the moment breaks

And you are thrown back

Onto the black tide of loss.

Days when you have your heart back,

You are able to function well

Until in the middle of work or encounter,

Suddenly with no warning,

You are ambushed by grief.

It becomes hard to trust yourself.

All you can depend on now is that

Sorrow will remain faithful to itself.

More than you, it know its way

And will find the right time

To pull and pull the rope of grief

Until that coiled hill of tears

Has reduced to its last drop.

Gradually, you will learn acquaintance

With the invisible form of your departed;

And when the work of grief is done,

The wound of loss will heal

And you will have learned

To wean your eyes

From that gap in the air

And be able to enter the hearth

In your soul where your loved one

Has awaited your return

All the time.

As I continue to “put one foot in front of the other.”

Peace-

Always and forever,

Shane’s Mammy and Beth’s Momma

Time Doesn't Heal Wounds, It Just Passes

"Time heals all wounds" is a popular saying. I used to believe that it was true. Any heartbreak that I had, any mistake that I made, any bad day was always made better with time. Sometimes it would take days or weeks to make whatever wound I had to start to heal, but the wound would always start to scab over. 

This time, though, nothing. Time isn't healing anything. My wounds are just as open as they were the day that Shane was killed. They're slightly different wounds, but they still hurt like hell.

Part of me wants to forget about Shane for just a few minutes. To find a place where he hasn't been, a song that he hasn't heard, a meal he hasn't eaten. Even if I were to find a new location, I couldn't get rid of Shane if I tried because he permeates every part of my brain. And then another part of me just feels immense guilt for thinking such thoughts. And then the cycle repeats. 

I suppose that time has allowed me to cope with Shane's death. But coping with something and having something healed are two completely different things. I know that I've become better at coping. But I haven't started healing. And part of me thinks that I never will.  

"It's All Right to Cry. Crying Gets the Sad out of You."

I often find myself wondering whether I'm where I'm supposed to be on the grief scale. Am I grieving enough? Too much? Was I laughing too much the other day? Is it okay that I still cry in the car every day? It's tough to say. I haven't read any literature on grief and I don't really talk to people about my it except for those closest to me. And everyone says basically the same thing -- that grief is a very personal journey and it's never the same for any two people. 

There are days that are more difficult than others. Yesterday I woke up feeling melancholy and could not figure out why. The not being able to figure out why occurs rather often. I will have a sense of sadness or start crying and I'm not quite sure why. I almost have to remind myself that maybe I feel blue because I'm grieving the loss of Shane. I think the reason behind this is that I don't want to admit to myself that I'm still being sad. 

If I know anything about my brother, it would be that he would not want the people he loved to sit around mourning him. He would want to be remembered, absolutely, but he would also want us to carry on with our lives. To find happiness, to find love, to live our lives. I try to remember that when I start feeling a sense of grief overcome me. I allow myself to feel anger or pain or fear or sadness or loss. But then I move on with my day. Shane is always with me, in my heart. But I don't allow the sadness that his death created to overshadow my life. Because if I were to do that, it would just consume me and I would be trapped in the Nothing. 


The people who told me at the funeral home that this will never go away were right. I was talking to Shane in the car about that the other day, a place where I often find myself having conversations with the air. How those people really knew what they were talking about. It never stops hurting. It will never go away. There will always be a hole in my heart that cannot be filled. And I would even say that it doesn't ever get easier, it just gets "different." 


Shane isn't someone capable of being replaced for anyone whose life he touched. And for me, he isn't someone capable of being moved on from. He was my only brother and I will never get another one. Sometimes I wish that I had other siblings so that the loss of Shane could be cushioned by having other brothers or sisters to lean on. But most of the time, I'm content with having had 23 years with one amazing little brother. 


So I guess for now, it's alright to continue crying in the car. Maybe one day I'll be able to take a car ride by myself and not feel the familiar wet sting on my face of tears. But that day probably won't be today. And it probably won't be tomorrow.

Untitled.

Well I survived Christmas. I didn't think that it would be as difficult as it was. I felt so much love during the time that I spent with my family and friends. And for some reason all of that love made everything that much more difficult. Maybe it's just because Shane wasn't here to feel it.

My mom and I were talking the other night about all of the wonderful people who have come into our lives since Shane's death. She said that, while we've met so many wonderful people, it's bittersweet because many of them we have only come into contact with because Shane is dead and he will never be able to share time with all of them.I guess that I choose to look at all of those people as gifts from Shane to help make things not quite so unbearable.

I think that with death, it's all about how your perspective on things. I could choose to stay in bed and mope all day and dwell on things that I cannot change. And some days I do that. But most days, I manage to make it out of bed, shower, and at least pretend to be a productive member of society. Sometimes I'm even happy. Because I know that what Shane wouldn't want is for everyone to sit around being sad all the time. So when I do get sad, I let the sadness linger for a few minutes. Sometimes I even cry. But then I make myself move on from it. Because I refuse to mourn for the rest of my life. I know that part of me will probably always be mourning Shane. And I know that I'll always miss him and that there's a hole in my heart that is never going to go away. But there's also enough love in my heart to keep the hole from seeming so big all the time.

Dignified Tranfers, Death

My family was notified of Shane’s death the day it happened – November 6, 2010. The following day, on November 7, 2010, still reeling and shocked from the news, we were on a plane with our Casualty Assistance Officer, headed into a Pennsylvania airport, where we would then be driven to a hotel, where we would then be driven to the Dover Air Base, where we would then witness a Dignified Transfer.

A Dignified Transfer is essentially a body in a box, covered by a flag, being carried off of a plane and placed into a truck that will head to a morgue. When looked at in that manner, it’s nothing special, let alone emotional. It was explained to us that no one was allowed to touch or view the body and that we would have to stand a good distance away from the plane. I felt prepared for this event. It seemed cold, mechanical. As I would have no proof that Shane’s body was actually in the box coming off of the plane, for me this was going to be fine.

When we arrived at the hotel somewhere in Dover, a hotel that I will never remember the name of, let alone what room I stayed in, there was paperwork. There was a room with snacks and candy and muffins and sandwiches and prayer shawls and books and pamphlets on death and grief. There were people in Army and Air Force uniforms who looked at us with solemnity.

After settling into our rooms, we were instructed that we would be meeting with a chaplain. I do not really remember what he said. I was quiet. I didn’t want to listen to a man tell me about God and faith and how Shane was in a better place, and the fact that this man was a chaplain meant that he might say those things. So I tuned out as he spoke to my parents and me. After asking some questions of my parents, the chaplain turned to me and asked, “Elizabeth, are you okay? Do you have any questions?”

I surprised myself by answering. 

“Yes,” I answered. “What are we supposed to do now?”

“Well, we’re going to wait to hear from the Air Base as to when the flight will be arriving and then we will all drive over there –“

“NO. What are we supposed to do NOW?!?”

I wanted the chaplain to give me something that he could not – a schedule, a checklist for grief, anything that would tell me how and what I was supposed to do to get over the death of Shane. I did not realize this at the time, but none of that exists.

He left us to sit in the room and for my parents to deal with me. We waited. And waited. Until finally at around 11:30 p.m. we were told that we needed to leave for the Air Base. We piled into a van with another family whose son/brother had died the day before Shane did. As we drove along in the dark, small talk ensued. I probably answered some questions about my age, what I did for a living, what type of law I wanted to practice. I listened to some guy from U of M tell me within 10 seconds of meeting him that he, in fact, when to U of M, something that I found a small amount of humor in, since almost all people from U of M do this, apparently even when death is happening. But mostly I just wanted everything to be over with.

We were escorted to the actual airfield shortly after midnight, where there was a rope we were to stand behind, a plane to the right, and a white van to the left. It was bitter cold outside. I was asked if I wanted another coat or blanket but refused. 

I wanted to be cold. I wanted to feel. 

We watched the body belonging to the killed son/brother of the other family. I had no reaction. This was okay, I could handle this, I thought to myself.

But then something happened. When the 6 guards carefully gripped onto the box containing Shane’s body, it was the first time that I really realized he was dead. That my baby brother whom I had at times tried so desperately to protect and for whom I would have done anything in the world, including taking a bullet myself, was a cold body in a cold box, being carried my cold men in the bitter night wind. 

I wanted so desperately to run out onto the airfield, to grab the box from the guards’ hands. To lie next to it. To hug it. To tell Shane to wake up and not be dead.

Instead, I howled. I screamed a guttural, ancient sort of noise at the top of my lungs. It was the loudest, most violent scream that will ever come from my mouth. I felt bodies rush around me as my legs started to give. I felt my mother pull me into her chest. I was told to sit down, to go back to the bus. Attempts were made to give me Kleenex, to just shut me up, probably. I refused everything that was offered. I cried until snot poured out of my nose, until spittle came out of my mouth. And I let the tears and the snot and the spittle fall down my face onto my clothing and onto the ground, the same ground which held the guards’ feet. The same guards’ feet that belonged to the bodies of the guards, whose hands held a box. The box that held my dead brother’s body.

On the airfield, I realized that Death is anything but dignified. Yes, the ceremonies that are performed may be called that. But actual Death is the most hideous monster, an all-consuming tidal wave of nothingless, anger, and grief. Death is the most skilled and cunning of hunters, striking when its prey least suspects it. Death is sometimes quiet, sometimes violent, sometimes both. At that moment, Death was screaming at the top of my lungs until I thought my vocal chords had been ripped. Death is all of these things, but Death is not dignified.

"Grief is itself a medicine." from William Cowper's "Charity"

I didn’t realize it until now, but today is the first day that I have had a chance to truly mourn Shane. Up until today, my family and I have been busy with paperwork, funeral home arrangements, funeral arrangements, burial arrangements, receiving 100s of messages, letters, and phone calls, etc. Today, there are still some cards in the mail and, as I lay in Shane’s bed typing this, I can hear the phone still ringing. But that’s the thing. I’m in bed. I cannot bring myself to shower. I cannot bring myself to change my clothes. I feel the emptiness and darkness consuming my heart and now my mind. And these things – the emptiness, the darkness – are what comfort me today. 

Right now, I have no desire to be happy. I want the emptiness and the darkness to stay with me for the time being. Not forever, but until I’m ready to tell them to go. I have had very dark moments in my life before this. But those dark moments were with my inner demons and something that I had the power to conquer. They were things that would pass, that I could tuck into the back of my mind. Before Shane’s death, whenever I felt weak, I would think how I overcame my dark moments and how I wasn’t going back to that place.

This dark moment, this new place, this one I am powerless against. I cannot summon my inner strength to make everything go away. I cannot take a pill to balance my seratonin levels and norepinephrine levels because that’s not really what Shane’s death is about. There is no pill which, after 4-6 weeks of proper usage, will make me feel like normal people feel. Because I am no longer capable of feeling normal. Shane’s death has forever marked me.

In the Jewish faith, a practice known as shiva performed when someone dies.Those within 7 degrees of the decreased mourn for 7 days, they cannot bathe or change their clothes, among many other restrictions.

As I lie in Shane’s bed, surrounded by all of the little things he felt were important enough to have in his life, I feel as if I am practicing my own form of shiva. I do not want to change my clothes. I do not want to eat. I do not want to move. I do not want to listen to anything but sad music. I want to peel my skin off. I want to scream but do not have the energy. I want to somehow be consumed by the sheets and blanks and pillows, to be surrounded by safeness and the quiet. I want to disappear.

So I will continue to mourn. I know this mourning will not last forever, but I am holding on to it tightly until it ends.