A MOTHER'S LOVE

I've felt guilty for neglecting this blog for so long.  "People will think I've forgotten you" constantly runs through my head.  First, let me assure you, that couldn't be further from the truth!  A mother's love for her children begins the moment she knows she's pregnant and carrys on til death, her death to be specific.  Nothing that child does (or doesn't) do can sever that or lessen that love.  As a mother I can can only imagine the grief mother's of people like Jeffrey Dahmer or other violent publicly hated figures must endure. 
People tend to disappear from your life during the "storms" in even the best of circumstances.  Whether they don't know what to say or do, don't like the ongoing negative vibe, or don't like feeling helpless?  I honestly don't know the reason.  I can tell people, when someone needs you even if it seems like there's nothing you can do to change their situation, your mere loving presence is helping. Anyway, to have to grieve in such solitude as those mothers would likely have to would be so horrible.  We long to hear our children's names, living or not, said with love.  Every mother wants that for her child and the grave doesn't change it, nothing changes that.  While they're alive we have the privilege of nurturing them, hugging them, kissing them, listening to them, watching them grow and ...well hopefully be loved and love life.  A grieving mother is robbed of all the "normal" privileges of motherhood with that child.  We must create a new normal. We maintain their graves, hold memorials...write blogs.  Anything that gives us that sense of still being a mom, still loving our child and if it prompts another to lovingly share a memory, say (or write) their name, light a candle... Essentially keep at least their memory alive, we're loving part of them alive. 
Since becoming a GM I've come to understand how very important this is.  I experience it and have yet to meet one single GM who doesn't.  This doesn't end in a year, not in two years, not in even twenty years.  We carry it with us til we are joined with that child again.  Come to think of it, I don't know yet if it ever ends.
So if you know a woman who has lost a child, let her know you think of her child with love.  Just as seeing our living children get love and praise fills any mothers heart with joy, your little moment of acknowledgement is one of the greatest gifts you can offer.

Nothing New

I intend for this to be short.  I'll explain later, unfortunately there's someone who might use some information if I post it to try to hurt me and right now I'm not strong enough to handle that.

Its been rough.  I've been down sick which has left me with a lot of time to just think.  You should have graduated from college, maybe got married, maybe even had a baby by now.  Instead there will be none of that.  There will be no new "happy pictures" of you on my wall.

Acceptance comes a little at a time...probably because that's the only way we can face it.  I love you Amdy-Roo!!

MAY 16, 2014

Ugh, this is what I get for not blogging for a while, so much to say I don't have a clue where to start.  That's the thing about grief. it's this rapid change process which we don't choose, don't know when it's coming, don't know where it's taking us or when if ever it will end.  Normally writing is one of my primary ways of dealing with my emotions but if I'm being honest with you, and I said I would be, with this, there are times it is so deeply personal and overwhelming that it's difficult to write about it.  Difficult to share my feelings and sometimes just plain difficult to identify exactly what it is I'm feeling.

I can say that I have never felt more alone in my life than I do these days.  It's been 27 almost 28 months since Andy passed.  I'm far from healed but I guess people in general feel that I should be by now.  Very few people speak of him anymore.  I've even been called selfish and told that I make his death all about me.  These two individuals who stated this have no clue what it is to lose a child.  My grief and speaking of it is one way that keeps me tied to him and keeps his memory alive.  When I say how much I miss him and how much I still love him I feel that he can hear me.  I want to be sure that nobody makes the mistake of thinking that he will EVER be forgotten like it seems he has been by so many.  There is not a day that goes by that his voice, his smile, his silly jokes and little nuances don't cross my mind and I don't ache for him.  HE IS PART OF ME.  One of the two who stated that I know is simply trying to be hurtful and stir up as much hurt, pain and trouble as he possibly can.  That's just how he is.  Further nobody who knew my son would ever be so hurtful and disrespectful to his family.  If they truly KNEW him they would have known how very important his family was to him and how very important he was to us.  They would know that their cruel words were disrespecting HIM.  He never would have tolerated their words/actions.  Andy was a family man and dare I say a mama's boy in a good sense of the word. a big brother who put his younger siblings first.  It gives me an idea of where many of the nasty rumors that spread thru our small town concerning his death started.  Ironically from one who is spiteful and jealous and one who was never around.  It takes balls to desert him when he's alive and needs his friends the most (especially when you lived so close) then call me selfish for grieving his passing hard.  Maybe if you were around that last year you'd understand.. 

Mother's Day

I'm not sure what to do with myself this holiday.  I'm in a hurricane of feelings but these days I don't think anyone cares.  I guess others can get over the most important people in your life during and suddenly  just being gone but mothers day reminds me that BOTH  my son and mother are gone.  Its a very difficult time and I feel like I don't dare talk about how I'm missing them or how badly I'm hurting.  I've recently been told I'm selfish and that one girl hasn't visited since my son's death "because I'm making bit all about me". I'd ask her one question- having not been to the viewing or his funeral or around me at all, how would you know how I'm handling his passing?

Andy Hensley's 23rd Birthday Memorial

NO GOODBYE

How would you feel

if you were told to make your heart let go?

not let it show?

don't let other's know

the pain is still there

very much alive

inside?

Why am I

responsible for their comfort

when it's my son who died?

Live a lie

so they can go by

their daily lives

like nothing ever happened?

I want to scream

HE LIVED!

DON'T YOU REMEMBER?

HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN HIM ALREADY?

NOT I.

NEVER COULD I.

I cannot live THAT lie.

I miss him

every day

every hour

 every second that goes by...

THAT'S MY LIFE.

And I cry

For the life he was denied.

I can't nor do I want to hold it all inside.

My son has died!

No Goodbye.

If that is something

you think you could survive

and not suffer the rest of your life?

Bully for you!

That's you!

Not I!

I pray you never have to try..



I BELIEVE

 

 

 

OF COURSE I'M HAPPY

I'LL SEE YOU AGAIN ONE DAY

AND YES I TRULY BELIEVE THIS

BUT THIS DOES NOTHING

TO LESSEN THE PAIN

OF EVERTHING ABOUT YOU

THAT I MISS.