Frustration and Sadness

This post is not targeted at anyone.  It is a general overview of the path my grief has taken.  If you read this and get angry at me, that is your right.  But my goal is not to hurt anyone, but to express my pain.  I don’t want to sound ungrateful.  We received a lot of cards, and I know a lot of people prayed for us.  And we felt those prayers and were very thankful.

Many members of my family are not supportive.  No one in my family (in-laws and immediate) except my sister and daddy ever say John Preston’s name.

Many of my previous friends weren’t supportive.  No one gave me hand-made, thoughtful gifts - no one gave me gifts period after John Preston died.  No one ever visited his gravesite after his burial. 

But the average joe is clueless, and a lot of them want to stay that way.  And although I can’t really blame them, it still hurts, it still makes me angry and it still makes it an extremely lonely grief. 

I will tell you this…the friends who did / do support me, the friends who did stick around, the family members who do mention John Preston’s name…they will ALWAYS be important to me, and I will NEVER forget what they have done for me.  I won’t list them here, even though I would love to.  But it isn’t because I would hurt someone’s feeling who didn’t support me, but because I might forget to list someone who did.  Not that I have forgotten them, but I might not think of them right this minute.

Sometimes I get really jealous of my friends who received gifts for their angel babies.  Handmade gifts, purchased gifts, donations, memorials, people visiting the grave sites.  The only thing that we got from anyone when John Preston died was a Christmas ornament at a memorial service that the funeral home performed for all the families who had lost someone buried by them during the year of 2008.  My sister and niece and nephew made donations to St. Jude’s in memory of him.  That’s it.  Nothing else until his 3^rd birthday this year from the board members of CrossHeart Ministries.

This is why it is so important to find a group like CrossHeart Ministries.  The women I have met there understand my grief over the loss of my son.  Many of them will never understand the emptiness that sometimes stretches out before us as a life without children.    But they understand and validate that I have a son, that I am a mother, that my child was REAL, that he IS real, and that just because he is not here on earth with me doesn’t make him any less important than the children who are here on earth with their parents.

I wrote this not long ago to some of my friends after my first Grief Share session:

“One of the things that hit me was that in the midst of grief you find things to be grateful for. One of the things brought up was that as much as you hate to make friends this way, when you find people who have been through what you have been through, strong relationships are built on those shared experiences. And that is so awesome.

BUT, something I find even more amazing and to be honored and admired is this: the friends that haven't been through it, and don't totally know, but that stick around and suffer through it anyway because of their love and their empathy for the friend who is. It is easy for me to sit and listen endlessly to someone whose mom died when they were young because I relate to that, I understand that, I can empathize with it. It is much harder (and close to impossible) for me to sit and listen to someone who has lost their right arm. I don't understand that. I might think ‘why don't they just learn to use a prosthetic?’, or ‘why don't they just learn to write with their left hand?’.  I don't understand the struggle that goes with that loss.. It would take ALOT for me to have the patience and the empathy and the energy to sit and listen to that person hurt and cry and bemoan their loss.

But those rare friends that haven’t been through what I have been through, still sat and listened to me cry, yell, talk, analyze, complain, whine, holler, pat myself on the back, criticize myself, criticize others, etc., etc. for hours and hours and hours on end without one complaint and with lots of understanding and patience and empathy and tears. I have made John Preston a huge part of my life, as I believe I should have. But it has cost me friendships because not everyone had that patience and empathy and they got tired of the John Preston Saga.

Not those friends. Nothing I have ever done deserves that kind of devotion and commitment. Only God sends that type of blessing to mere humans.

I am so thankful to those friends from the depths of my grief, pain, joy and heart. I selfishly cannot imagine my life without them, and can't ever possibly repay such devotion, love and selflessness as they showed me.”