Category: A Mother’s Grief

A Mother’s Love explained in poetry


Thank you Shirley!!

Ray's Mom's avatarJUSTICE FOR RAYMOND

A MOTHER’S LOVE
Helen Steiner Rice

A Mother’s love is something

that no one can explain,

It is made of deep devotion

and of sacrifice and pain,

It is endless and unselfish

and enduring come what may

For nothing can destroy it

or take that love away . . .

It is patient and forgiving

when all others are forsaking,

And it never fails or falters

even though the heart is breaking . . .

It believes beyond believing

when the world around condemns,

And it glows with all the beauty

of the rarest, brightest gems . . .

It is far beyond defining,

it defies all explanation,

And it still remains a secret

like the mysteries of creation . . .

A many splendored miracle

man cannot understand

And another wondrous evidence

of God’s tender guiding hand.

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An elephant cow’s mourning


We are spending a couple of days on a Game Reserve. It is a beautiful place where you are able to make peace with your soul. It was one of Vic’s favourite places. Vic loved the Kruger national Park too and on her last visit there witnessed a Cheetah kill!!

When we were told that Vic was terminal she fled to Mabalingwe. When she got divorced – Vic fled to Mabalingwe. This was Vic’s bit of Heaven on earth.

Vic has not been able to come to Mabalingwe for a couple of years. The roads are bad and it is a 2.5 hour trip. Just too far for her frail little body. Last year Vic was too ill and it was also Jared’s confirmation weekend.

Jared helping his Mommy to her seat in Church. 23.9.2012

The last time Vic came to Mabalingwe was in 2008. She photographed a herd of elephants. My Christmas gift, that year, was a beautifully framed enlargement of the elephant cow with her babies. Vic wrote a touching note on the back on the picture saying that I was just like the elephant cow – the matriarch of the family. This photograph is one of my most treasured possessions.

Vic's Photo
Vic’s Photo

The first time I was compared to an elephant cow I was appalled! I have however learnt so much about these amazing animals from Vic.

Elephants are widely believed to mourn the deaths of members of their herd, and even pay homage to long-dead elephants.

A 2005 study in the UK found the creatures displayed traits similar to humans and, coming across the remains of an elephant, would gently touch the skull and tusks with their trunks and feet. It is thought that hovering around the carcass and examining the bones and skull by smelling, touching and moving the bones around, is an attempt to recognize whom it was… Some elephants have been seen to weep and others make sounds associated with grief as they cover the body with leaves and branches before keeping a silent vigil. When a member of the herd has passed away, either due to fights or injury, the entire herd would gather around the dead elephant and stay there, not eating, and not allowing anything near it for 18 hours to 24 hours. Mothers of stillborn infants appear to grieve for days over her dead infant, crying and trying to revive it, before finally moving on.

“Elephants, the largest land animals on the planet, are among the most exuberantly expressive of creatures. Joy, anger, grief, compassion, love; the finest emotions reside within these hulking masses. Through years of research, scientists have found that elephants are capable of complex thought and deep feeling. In fact, the emotional attachment elephants’ form toward family members may rival our own.

 Joy is an emotion that elephants have no shame in showing. They express their happiness and joy when they are amongst their loved ones-family and friends. Playing games and greeting friends or family members all elicit displays of joy.

But the one event that stirs a level of elephant happiness beyond compare is the birth of a baby elephant. In Echo: An Elephant to Remember, the birth of Ebony is one such occasion. The excitement of several of the females in Echo’s family can’t be contained as they are heard bellowing and blaring during the birth of the new baby.

An elephant reunion is a joyful meeting between related, but separated, elephants is one of exuberance and drama. The greeting ceremony marks the incredible welcoming of a formerly absent family member. During the extraordinary event, the elephants about to be united begin calling each other from a quarter a mile away. As they get closer, their pace quickens. Their excitement visibly flows as fluid from their temporal glands streams down the sides of their faces. Eventually, the elephants make a run towards each other, screaming and trumpeting the whole time. When they finally make contact, they form a loud, rumbling mass of flapping ears, clicked tusks and entwined trunks. The two leaning on each other, rubbing each other, spinning around, even defecating, and urinating (for this is what elephants do when they are experiencing sheer delight). With heads held high, the reunited pair fill the air with a symphony of trumpets, rumbles, screams, and roars. Bliss.

 There is no greater love in elephant society than the maternal kind. Nobody who observes a mother with her calf could doubt this. It is one of the most touching aspects of elephant social customs. The calf is so small compared to the adult that it walks under its mother, who, incredibly, does not step on it or trip over it. Mother and child remain in constant touch. If a calf strays too far from its mother, she will fetch it. The mother often touches her child with trunk and legs, helping it to its feet with one foot and her trunk. She carries it over obstacles and hauls it out of pits or ravines. She pushes it under her to protect it from predators or hot sun. She bathes it, using her trunk to spray water over it and then to scrub it gently. The mother steers her calf by grasping its tail with her trunk, and the calf follows, holding its mother’s tail. When the calf squeals in distress, its mother and others rush to its protection immediately. It is easy to see why the bond between mother and daughter lasts 50 years or more.

 One of the most moving displays of elephant emotion is the grieving process. Elephants remember and mourn loved ones, even many years after their death. When an elephant walks past a place that a loved one died he or she will stop and take a silent pause that can last several minutes. While standing over the remains, the elephant may touch the bones of the dead elephant (not the bones of any other species), smelling them, turning them over and caressing the bones with their trunk. Researchers don’t quite understand the reason for this behaviour. They guess the elephants could be grieving. Or they could they be reliving memories. Or perhaps the elephant is trying to recognize the deceased. Whatever the reason, researchers suspect that the sheer interest in the dead elephant is evidence that elephants have a concept of death.

 Researchers have described mother elephants who appear to go through a period of despondency after the death of a calf, dragging behind the herd for days. They’ve also witnessed an elephant herd circling a dead companion disconsolately. After some time, and likely when they realized the elephant was dead, the family members broke off branches, tore grass clumps and dropped these on the carcass. Another researcher noted a family of African elephants surrounding a dying matriarch. The family stood around her and tried to get her up with their tusks and put food in her mouth. When the rest of the herd finally moved on, one female and one calf stayed with her, touching her with their feet.

Terror, rage and stress, unfortunately, are also commonplace in the elephant repertoire of emotions. Terror afflicts baby African elephants who wake up screaming in the middle of the night after they have witnessed their families murdered and poached — a type of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Some researchers suggest a species-wide trauma is taking place in wild elephant populations. They say that elephants are suffering from a form of chronic stress after sustaining decades of killings and habitat loss. The recent surge in cases of wild elephant rage reported by the media is a sad indicator of the kind of stress that wild elephants are undergoing. Nearly 300 persons are killed every year by wild elephants in India. But the increasing numbers of deaths are closely correlated to the ever-increasing human presence in traditional wild elephant habitats, as well as the the effects of climate change, and loss of territory and resources. The ongoing competition between elephants and humans for available land and resources is leading to ever more unfortunate and often deadly consequences.

 Human activity does more than put a stress on elephants to find resources. It can often disrupt the complex and delicate web of familial and societal relations that are so important in elephant society. Calves are carefully protected and guarded by members of the matriarchal elephant family. Any perception of danger triggers a violent reaction from the matriarch and, subsequently, the entire family. The extremes a family will go to protect a vulnerable new calf are reported in the news stories as fits of unprovoked “elephant rage.” Charging a village, storming into huts where harvested crop is stored, plundering fields and, if disturbed, turning violent are some of the instances reported by the media.

 Compassion is not reserved for offspring alone in elephant society. Elephants appear to make allowances for other members of their herd. Observers noted that one African herd always traveled slowly because one of its members had never recovered from a broken leg. And in another case, a park warden reported a herd that traveled slowly because one female was carrying around a dead calf. One perplexing report was of an adult elephant making repeated attempt to help a baby rhinoceros stuck in the mud. She continued to try to save the baby rhino despite the fact that its mother charged her each time. Risking her life for the sake of an animal that is not her own, not related to her, or even her own species is remarkably altruistic in nature.

 While there is a great deal more to learn about what elephants feel, such accounts are astonishing. They reveal a creature that weeps, revels, rages and grieves. They lead us to believe that the depth of elephant emotional capacity knows no limit. They are striking for they suggest that elephants act on feelings and not solely for survival.

So my baby girl, tomorrow I shall start looking for the elephants. I will remember your exuberant excitement and joy when you saw the herd. I will remember your words “Mommy, you are just like that elephant matriarch. You also protect and care for your family.”

Bottom-line, if animals mourn how can we as mothers be expected “to move along”…

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http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/echo-an-elephant-to-remember/elephant-emotions/4489/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2090915/Well-forget-Elephants-say-sad-farewell-month-old-calf-died-heart-defect.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/25/lola-baby-elephant-dies-heart-herd-mourns_n_1232007.html

http://perezhilton.com/teddyhilton/2012-06-22-elephants-mourning-death#sthash.YznTAxLx.dpbs

I just can’t do it…


Today is a bad day. This past week has been a horrific week. I have missed Vic and her unconditional love so much this week.  Not only her unconditional love of and for me and her boys  but also the love that she radiated into the world…

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I have looked through photos of Vic and going through her Facebook page, and I know I cannot do what she did.

I cannot bring the joy in her boys’ lives that she did. Vic was a fun person, and if she had one spare breath of oxygen in her little body she would organize a party. I looked at Vic’s photos, and I saw the fun she had with her boys.

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Vic would space bank energy and willpower to watch Jon-Daniel play tennis or cricket…  That took serious commitment!

I know I am their safe haven.  I can just never be what Vic was in their lives.

I miss laughing.  I miss being happy.

Grief Intelligence: A Primer


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For the past 25 years, I have worked with thousands of grievers. I have sat with widows and widowers, the young and the old. I have offered tissues to bereaved parents in their inconsolable grief. I have normalized, educated, listened to and championed those grievers who, through tremendous pain, still engaged with life.

In the decades since my book Transcending Loss was published, the grieving process has not changed. As I interact with grievers from around the world, I am reminded of the universality of grief. And though each person has their own journey, still they share many common experiences.

Yet, still, I see and hear so much misinformation and confusion around grief. Principally, this comes from the widely-held myths that grief should be easy, that grief should be short, that grief has closure, that people should get on with their lives unchanged and that ongoing connection with the deceased is somehow pathological.

So, in trying to set the record straight, I’m offering seven principles in this primer on grief intelligence.

Most people don’t learn these lessons until life thrusts them onto the roller coaster of major loss. However, if we can get the word out, then perhaps a new generation of individuals will feel more supported and understood when it is their time to grieve.

1. Grief is a normal reaction — Grief is the natural emotional and physical response to the death of a loved one. Although our society desperately wants to avoid the messiness of deep sorrow, there is no way out except through the pain. Typical numbing techniques such as medications, alcohol and food are only temporary distractions to dull the pain.

Letting oneself grieve by going directly into the pain — in manageable doses over a long period of time — is healing. Avoiding the pain simply forces it to go deep into the heart where it subtly affects emotional and physical health.

2. Grief is hard work — Grief isn’t easy and it isn’t pretty. It involves tears, sleepless nights, pain, sorrow and a heartache that knocks you to your knees. It can be hard to concentrate, hard to think clearly, hard to read and easy to forget all the details of life that everyone else seems to remember. Grievers frequently feel that they’re going crazy and they sometimes wish to die. This doesn’t mean that they’re actively suicidal, it just means that they’re grieving.

3. Grief doesn’t offer closure — Closure is an idea that we like because we want to tie up our emotional messes with a bow and put them in the back of a closet. But grief refuses to play this game. Grief tends towards healing not closure. The funeral can be healing, visiting a gravesite can be healing, performing rituals, writing in journals and making pilgrimages can be personally meaningful and healing. But they will not bring closure. Closure is relevant to business deals but not to the human heart.

4. Grief is lifelong — Although we all want quick fixes and short-term solutions, grief won’t accommodate us. Many people want grief to be over in a few weeks or a few months and certainly within a year. And yet, many grievers know that the second year is actually harder than the first. Why Because the shock has worn off and the reality of the pain has truly sunk in.

I let grievers know that the impact of grief is lifelong just as the influence of love is also lifelong. No matter how many years go by, there will be occasional days when grief bursts through with a certain rawness. There will be days, even decades later, when sadness crosses over like a storm cloud. And likely, every day going forward will involve some memory, some connection to missing the beloved.

5. Grievers need to stay connected to the deceased — While some might find it odd or uncomfortable to keep talking about a loved one after they have passed, or find it disconcerting to see photographs of those who have died, it is healthy to keep the connection alive. My heart goes out to a generation or more of grievers who were told to cut their ties to their deceased loved ones, to move on, almost as if they had never existed. Such unwitting cruelty! It is important to honor the birthdays and departure days of deceased loved ones. Their physical presence may be gone, but they remain in relationship to the griever in a new way beyond form, a way based in spirit and love.

6. Grievers are changed forever — Those who expect grievers to eventually get back to their old selves, will be quite disappointed. Grief, like all major life experiences, changes a person irrevocably. People don’t remain unchanged after getting an education, getting married, having a baby, getting divorced or changing careers. Grief, too, adds to the compost mixture of life, creating rich and fertile soil. It teaches about living and dying, about pain and love and about impermanence. While some people are changed by grief in a way that makes them bitter and shut down, it is also possible to use grief as a springboard for compassion, wisdom, and open-heartedness.

7. Grievers can choose transcendence — Transcendence has to do with gaining perspective, seeing in a new way and holding pain in a larger context. Seeing one’s grief from a larger perspective allows it to be bearable and gives it meaning. For one, transcendence might mean reaching out to those who suffer. For another, it might mean giving to a cause that will benefit others. Grievers who choose transcendence recognize that they are not alone, that they share a common human condition, and that they are amongst so many who have experienced love and loss. They use their pain in a way that touches others. The pain is still there, of course, but it is transformed.

So I invite you to reflect on these grief principles, how they might be true for you and how they might be true for someone you know and love. Share and share again so that we might spread grief intelligence far and wide. Perhaps we can effect a change so widespread that grievers will know what to expect. Hopefully, we all can be comforted, in small ways, by that knowledge

Reblogged from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ashley-davis-bush/dealing-with-grief_b_3716013.html

 

Vic would have said ….


Life is truly known only to those who suffer, lose, endure adversity and stumble from defeat to defeat. Anais Nin

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“Who wants to die? Everything struggles to live. Look at that tree growing up there out of that grating. It gets no sun, and water only when it rains. It’s growing out of sour earth. And it’s strong because its hard struggle to live is making it strong. My children will be strong that way.” ― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn  

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Sometimes in tragedy we find our life’s purpose – the eye sheds a tear to find its focus.  ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com

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Watch a man in times of… adversity to discover what kind of man he is; for then at last words of truth are drawn from the depths of his heart, and the mask is torn off.  ~Lucretius, On the Nature of Things

When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

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When the Japanese mend broken objects, they aggrandize the damage by filling the cracks with gold.  They believe that when something’s suffered damage and has a history it becomes more beautiful.  ~Barbara Bloom

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The soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears.  ~John Vance Cheney

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The darkest hour has only sixty minutes.  ~Morris Mandel

 

What am I doing?


This is one of the most heart wrenching posts I have read in a long time.  I read a lot of blogs written by grieving mothers.  Why did this post affect me to this extent?   I don’t know.  Maybe because this mother’s grief feels as real as my own grief.  Maybe it is because I am doing the same.  Writing and desperately trying to keep my Vic alive…hugs and tears Gatito.

gatito2's avatarMy Bright Shining Star

What am I doing Kaitlyn? What am I trying to do by my endless blogs about you, the photo albums, the posts on Facebook, the printed out version of my blog, the printed out comments by your friends after you died on your Facebook, in my private messages and by email, the posts I made on Student Doctor Network warning them of what could so easily happen if they don’t heed the warning within them of depression, for posting about you In the off topic sections of forums I belong to that are about motorcycles, RVing, and cats. Posting on suicide survivor forums. Posting every video and song that remotely has to do with what you were and I am going through. Making DVD slides of you. Going through all you music CDs, going through all your recent things, old things, things I put up long ago, things that are…

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Your children are not your children…


Of course I have read the words of Khalil Gibran many times. Yet this morning I read these words with and through different eyes. I read the blog post of one of my favourite bloggers –

http://deodatusblog.wordpress.com/2013/09/10/your-children-are-not-your-children-they-are-sons-and-daughters-of-lifes-longing-for-itself-says-khalil-gibran/ and was overwhelmed with the exquisite words of guidance contained in this beautiful poem.

Read this with me.

“Your children are not your children.“

“Your children are not your children.
They are sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.  
They come through you but not from you.
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the make upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness.
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He also loves the bow that is stable.”                        – Khalil Gibran

As a mother who carried a precious baby in her womb for almost 9 months my eyes lingered on the words “They come through you but not from you.” Vic came from me? An umbilical cord that was never severed, bound us together from the first second she were conceived. Even though death took my child from me the umbilical cord of love that bounds us cannot be severed. My love for Vic supersedes the bonds of death.

So no, I don’t agree with Gibran although I understand what he is saying. In this case I prefer literally translating his words…

                                      And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.                                                                    You may give them your love but not your thoughts,                                                                 For they have their own thoughts..

 How poignantly true these words are. As a parent it was horrible watching Vic make mistakes…knowing that her actions and decisions would lead to heartache and tears. How I wished that she would see things my way! My way would have been the safe way. Vic would have been spared rivers of tears and mountains of heartache. My way would have deprived her of great joy and happiness. As a mother I picked up pieces, held her and loved her. I could not protect her. Vic had her own thoughts!

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You may house their bodies but not their souls,     For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

 I housed Vic’s little body. The moment of greatest sadness in my life was when Vic’s soul left her body. I was grateful that her suffering was over but devastated that our journey as mother and daughter was over. I knew that she instantly became an elevated being removed from the hardship and indignity that she suffered on earth. I knew that she would never be prod, cut, hurt or be humiliated again. As her mother, I bathed her and dressed her one last time, as I did when she was born. No other prying, clinical hands would touch her again. I was beyond grief knowing that I would never be able to talk to her again. I would never hold her again. I would never hear her say “Love you Mommy” again. My soul mate, my life was gone. My child’s soul now dwells in the house of tomorrow that I cannot visit or even comprehend.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.  For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.  For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

 I never wanted Vic to be like me. Vic was strong, brave, loved, cherished, admired, gentle, loving, forgiving and vulnerable. I am tough, logical and emotionally distant. I allow very few people close to me and, if they betray my love and trust, I cut them out of my life. As a little girl, Vic said to me “I don’t want to be like you Mommy. I just want to be a normal mummy.” Vic was the one who taught me patience, unconditional love, forgiveness and to take a chance on life and love. Vic lived every second of her life. She did not fear emotion. She did not fear love and trust. I pray that her sons will remember these qualities their mother possessed. I pray that they will be more like her than me. I did however love Vic first and everyone else second… Jon-Daniel(1)

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.  The archer sees the make upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.  Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness.  For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He also loves the bow that is stable.”

 I was the bow that send my precious girl-child forth. 

The boys do archery as an extracariculum activity. To be a good archer you need consistent anchor points: An anchor point is the place on your face where you pull the string back to consistently. This anchor point should be exactly the same all the time for a consistent grouping of shots. My parents taught me, by example, the importance consistency in values, discipline and love.

An archers grip on the bow handle should be lax and comfortable. My first instinct as a parent was “to grip the bow hard to stabilize it”. My parents taught me to be a comfortable parent. I did my best. I could not do more. No amount of tightening the grip on Vic, her discipline or my love and caring for her would have made me a better parent. My grip was lax and comfortable. My child was an amazing example to the world.

 Whether you’re doing target archery, 3D archery, or bow hunting, it is vital to concentrate and focus on one precise spot that you want to hit. As a parent is was difficult to stay focused all the time. Lots of things “get in the way” of parenting. A new love, work, own dreams and ambitions…Yet I gave birth to my incredible baby girl and I knew I had to remain focused. Vic had to come first. She did not chose to be born. I chose to give birth to her.

 Archers are told that to be relaxed whilst aiming, is one of the great secrets to success… As a parent it was almost impossible to relax. I spent my child’s life trying to keep her alive. If I relaxed I know it could have led to her death. When your child is sickly, you are overprotective… Today I wish I had relaxed more. I wish I had spent more time discussing things that, mattered to Vic than the number and colour of her bowel movements and vomiting sessions. I wish I had relaxed about her smoking. Smoking did not kill her. Doctors did.

 “At the heart of it, mastery is practice. Mastery is staying on the path.” With parenting we practice as we go. We don’t ever stop or give up. I wish that we had more gladness in our lives and less sorrow and pain.

 What I am certain of is that I was a stable bow. I was unwavering in my love and commitment to Vic and now her boys. The Great Archer held us in His great Hands.

 I found this beautiful poem on http://warrenlgdemills.com/2013/05/11/umbilical-cords-a-mothers-day-poem/. Warren is an amazing poet and I have found much solace in his words.

Umbilical Cords – A Mother’s Day Poem
Posted: May 11, 2013 in Affections
Tags: love, mother’s day, poems, Poetry 1

Umbilical cords
Are but metaphors
To represent the eternal
Connection between mother
And child.

Though that cord may be severed
That love supersedes the bonds of death.
For they are the cords of life!

When a child is born
so is a mother.
It is the graduation of a girl
To a woman.
The transition from
Woman to mother.
The ascension of adult
To goddess, creator of life.

Oh great goddess,
Would you understand
The power within you?
Would you fathom
the role you play
On the stage of life?

By your love
Is a great man groomed.
By your neglect
is his future family doomed.
By your touch
Is intimacy first understood.
By your hand
Does he separate bad from good.

Oh great goddess,
For every good child
Reared from your breast
There is a star in the cosmos
To be named after you.

Though that cord was cut
You replaced it with one unseen
Your care, patience for years,
To provide the world with one more
Decent young man to make this world
A better place.

-WLGDM

All Rights Reserved. Property of Warren L.G De Mills. Copyright @ 2013.

Jared♡ĶįƦƧƳ.Ș♡(1)

The final finish line


Things don’t always work out the way we want them to.

For 9 months we carry a precious little human being in our wombs. We give birth to the love of our lives… Then we spend our lives loving and cherishing this little bundle. Nurturing it from cradle to grave…

I was in our new Hospice building today and I was overwhelmed by sadness and anger. I was unbelievable sad when I stood in the door of a Dignity Room and I realised that I was stroking a door! Gentle feelings whelmed up in me – “This is Vic’s legacy” I thought! Then bitterness and tears simultaneously pushed through to my eyes and throat.

How can my child be reduced to a frigging room??? I want to hold my child, love her, and cherish her. I want her to sit next to MY death bed and tell me it is okay to go….. I want to spend birthdays with her – not burn flippen candles. I want to buy her flowers and see the pleasure in her eyes instead of planting flippen flowers in a memory garden. I want to hug her not run my hand over a wooden casket containing her crushed ashes. I WANT MY CHILD BACK!!!!!

What brought this about? I don’t know. Maybe it is a YouTube video that I watched about another champion.

Like Vic, this young man started off in the starting block as a favourite to medal in the 400 meter Olympic race (1992). Derek Redmond tore a hamstring halfway through the race.

 Olympians could fill a pool with their tears, on a quadrennial basis. The nature of the competition ensures that however many dream of glory, most will only experience disappointment. At that moment, the bitter taste not just of a single defeat but of four years of wasted effort can simply be too much for some to handle. More than that, quite a few athletes can’t even win without tears. But no Olympic emotional outburst is ever likely to dislodge Derek Redmond’s in the minds not just of Britons but of anyone old enough to remember the 1992 Games. What made this moment special was that it brought into focus not just the near-heroic desperation of a single professional athlete but a much more universal theme: the nature of parenthood.

“I still get people coming up to me in the street because of what happened,” said Redmond in February 1993, six months after the 1992 Olympics. “But as nice as it is to know that they care, I would like to put it all behind me and not be remembered just for that.”

Redmond travelled to two Olympics and both ended with injury-induced heartache, once in the most public circumstances. For all his ability as an athlete – and he was considered likely to win a medal in Barcelona – he will forever be remembered for tearfully completing his 400m semi-final using his father as a crutch. His body never gave him the opportunity to redefine the way the world perceived him: two years after the Barcelona Games, following an 11th operation on his achilles tendon, his athletics career was over. This was his last race of any significance.

Redmond had missed the 1986 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh with a hamstring injury, and withdrew from the 1988 Seoul Olympics minutes before his first heat having failed to recover from tendinitis, having had two painkilling injections that morning in an effort to make it on to the track. The following summer, still plagued by injuries, he came close to giving up sport altogether. What the world witnessed in 1992 was a man who had been continually brought low by injury simply refusing to submit yet again.

His body had given him some hope: in the first round Redmond had run his quickest 400m for four years. “I was feeling absolutely 100% before the race,” he told me in 2006. “I’d had two really good rounds without even trying and the night before the semi-final I’d talked with my father and my coach and we’d decided I was going to push a bit harder and try to get a good lane for the final.

“On the day everything went smooth. I got a really good start, which was unusual for me. I think I was the first to react to the pistol. My normal tactics were to get round the first bend and then put the burners on for 30m, accelerate hard. But by the time I’d got upright I was almost round the bend, much further than usual, and I decided not to bother, to save my energy in case I had to fight for the line. About three strides later I felt a pop.”

It was his hamstring. Redmond collapsed to the floor, clutching his leg. Most athletes would have been quietly carried off the track and towards medical attention, but as the Red Cross workers approached Redmond instead pushed himself back to his feet. “I got up quicker than I got out of my blocks,” he said. “I said to myself: ‘There’s no way I’m going to be stretchered out of these Olympics.’ I didn’t know where I was. I really, really believed I could still qualify.”

Bizarrely, the reason Redmond first started limping around the track was a belief that if he limped fast enough he might still overtake four people and qualify for the final. “Believe me, at the time I thought I was running,” he said later. “It’s only when I see the playback I realise I wasn’t actually running very quick at all.”

Meanwhile, Redmond’s father Jim was fighting his way on to the track. “When I saw Derek hit the deck, I thought it was my mind playing tricks on me,” he told the Guardian. “I’m very involved in his training so I knew just how fit he was. All I can remember after that is telling the coach, Tony Hadley [not the lead singer in Spandau Ballet], to look after my camera. The next thing I knew, I was on the track.”

Jim told his son to stop, in case the injury might heal in time for him to compete in the relay. Derek refused. “Well then,” Jim said, “we’re going to finish this together.” And finish it they did, slowly, and with the younger man’s anguish becoming visibly greater with every pace.

Back in Northampton Redmond’s mother, Jennie, was watching events unfold on television, weeping. She later told the press that the last time she had seen her son so unhappy was when he didn’t get the bike he wanted for his sixth birthday. Redmond’s 28-year-old sister Karen was nine months pregnant; as she watched her brother’s world collapse she started to feel contractions.

Back in Barcelona, father and son batted away a succession of officials who tried and failed to convince them to clear the track. Jim, it turned out, was as much bouncer as buttress. “I’d never heard my dad using four-letter words,” Derek said the following day. “I learned a few new ones.”

“Even now, it’s hard to say how or why I did it,” said Jim. “It was a spontaneous reaction, as if I had seen him hit by a car. I certainly didn’t run down to help him finish – if anything it was to stop him. I could accept the fact that my son was injured, but not that he was going to carry on in pain, causing himself even greater damage.”

“After I crossed the line I was taken to the doctors and I was crying like a baby the whole time,” Redmond told me. “I had no idea how the crowd had reacted until I saw the video – they were the last thing on my mind. It could have gone one of two ways: they’d either think ‘what a complete prat’ or ‘good on him’. Luckily they chose the second one.”

Not everyone. Though the Redmonds were pictured on the front page of the following day’s newspaper, the Guardian’s athletics correspondent at the time, John Rodda, who was covering his ninth and last Olympic Games for the paper, decided that the incident merited only a mention in the 18th and penultimate paragraph of his main report, calling it “a display of histrionics which the crowd saw as courage but must have bewildered many”.

Most observers, though, were genuinely moved by what they witnessed. On his way from the stadium Redmond met Linford Christie, Britain’s team captain. The pair were far from friendly, and their enmity had become public after Christie criticised the 4x400m relay team that won gold at the 1991 World Championships in Tokyo. “These guys are not my sort of guys,” he said. “I don’t like their attitude.” Christie added that the four – of whom Redmond was one – should have toned down their celebrations because they had “mucked up” their individual events. Redmond replied: “There’s a saying going around among the athletes that Linford is the most balanced runner in Britain because he’s got a chip on both shoulders. For once in his life he was upstaged in Tokyo and he didn’t like it.”

But that day, in the bowels of Barcelona’s Estadi Olympic, Christie approached his team-mate and the pair wordlessly embraced. “Tears started and we both broke down,” said Redmond. “I know it sounds soppy but it was Mills and Boon sort of stuff. I’ve changed my views of him completely. It shows that this sport isn’t just about coming here and making money.”

Perhaps not, but as it happens Redmond’s courage that day allowed him to enjoy a second career as a motivational speaker. That wasn’t the only lasting effect of those injury-plagued years, however: in Barcelona the swimmer Sharron Davies, another British athlete who had endured a disappointing Games, sought out Redmond to express her sympathy. The pair married two years later (but divorced in 2000). More long-lasting, it transpired, are the chronic stomach ulcers induced by Redmond’s use of painkilling medication. “I would never encourage anyone to do what I did,” he said, “but I didn’t need encouragement. I went out and did it myself.”

At the 1992 Olympics the athletes had access to a rudimentary computerised messaging system. This allowed them to log on to one of the Olympic computers, which were distributed around the athletes’ village, and send someone else a message that they would be able to pick up when they next logged on – a kind of electronic mail, if you will. It’s never really caught on. Anyway, in the days after the race Redmond received scores of messages from his fellow competitors, including this from a Canadian competitor he had never met:

“Long after the names of the medallists have faded from our minds, you will be remembered for having finished, for having tried so hard, for having a father to demonstrate the strength of his love for his son. I thank you, and I will always remember your race and I will always remember you – the purest, most courageous example of grit and determination I have seen.”

It is as true today as it was 19 years ago.


So, I suppose I related this to Vic – her life ended but her death bed wish will live on to change the community. She may be remembered for being the inspiration behind Stepping Stone Hospice & Care Services.

I remember her for being a perfect little new-born with my nose and her father’s toes. I remember the doctor saying “She is so perfect. She is destined to be a Miss World”….

Vic’s finish line was death….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCAwXb9n7EY

US legal system fails it’s citizens


Raymond's brave mom - Shirley
Raymond’s brave mom – Shirley

A dear blogger friend of mine, Shirley, has had to come to terms with the death of her beloved son Raymond.  Independant toxicology reports clearly show high levels of barium and selenium – both lethal chemicals, in his system.  Yet the legal system has failed Raymond and family.

His widow was jailed for a couple of days for falsifying his will.  His murderers walk free…

I am an avid follower of Law and Order, Special Investigation Unit, CSI, NCIS etc…. Having followed Shirley’s blog it is clear that the amazing forensic work in these TV shows are as futuristic and far fetched as a Star Wars movie.

I am reblogging one of Shirley’s latest posts.  Please pop into her blog and support this brave mother!

Shirley, you are an example and inspiration to many!  I wish I could do something to help you!

Remember “The dead cannot cry out for help – it is the responsibility of the living to do so for them.”

 Raymond Marc Zachry
March 5, 1960 – September 25, 2007

We will never forget, we will never give up
until we have solved the mystery of the
source for the two lethal chemicals that
were listed in Ray’s toxicology during
autopsy.

Barium and selenium are both lethal
according to CDC reports

Death investigation industry gone wild…  http://justiceforraymond.wordpress.com/2013/09/04/death-investigation-industry-gone-wild/

 

At the web site http://denied-justice.com is posted the laboratory toxicology report from the autopsy that was furnished to my physician and another that was furnished to an attorney on my  behalf.  The  two reports are strikingly different.  However both confirm the presence of a lethal chemical in the blood sample furnished by the coroner of Montgomery CountyPennsylvania.  Both of the reports are altered, but by whom?  No one will answer these questions…one report redacted the quantity that was probably more accurate than the one that was later furnished to Coroner at her faxed request…(also posted on this web site).  What to do?

This story posted at http://pathologyblawg.com/pathology-news/lab-chemist-accused-faking-test-results-tainted-40000-drug-cases/, further documents the ailing death investigation industry where coroners have been found to steal body parts that they sell for huge profits.  Where does the money go?

Enough!

“Lab chemist accused of faking test results may have tainted 40,000 drug cases”  According to the president of the Massachusetts Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys, the:  lab analyst in question had unsupervised access to the drug safe and evidence room, and tampered with evidence bags, altered the actual weight of the drugs, did not calibrate machines correctly, and altered samples so that they would test as drugs when they were not.

Ms. Dookhan, who apparently also falsely claimed to have a Master’s degree in chemistry, had a reputation for being the most productive tech in the lab; she would routinely process more than 500 cases per month, when an average tech could only process 50-150 cases per month.

She was also a darling to prosecutors working on drug cases.  This may be because she would reportedly work on cases out of order for some prosecutors when asked, deliberately report negative tests as positive and report results for cases she never even analyzed.

While the impact this one chemist has had is incredible, the state’s public defender is worried there may be more than just one tech who have “cut corners or falsify results.”

Related articles

When a child dies…


“When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for which has been your delight”. ~ Kahlil Gibran.

At times the pain and feelings of desolate loss is overwhelming.  I know it is because I loved Vic so much.  I am grieving because I miss my child, the mother of my grandchildren, my friend.  I miss drinking endless cups of tea…. sometimes laughing and sometimes weeping.

I have grown used to not constantly checking my text messages when I sit in meetings.  I have actually forgotten my phone at home on two occasions.  I miss the countless phonecalls, finding little notes everywhere…. a soft kiss on the forehead.

When a parent dies, you lose your past; when a child dies, you lose your future. – Anonymous

 

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Extra tablets for your birthday…


A year ago I posted this…

Tomorrow, on the 31st of August, we will once again celebrate Vic’s life!  Every year, for the past 10 years, we expected it to be Vic’s last birthday.  Today I know that Vic will live forever.  She will continue to fight for another day, week, month, year…. Tomorrow we celebrate life!!

Tonight I sat doing Vic’s medication for the next 24 hours, and I popped an extra Jurnista into tomorrow morning’s tablets.    Janis Ian sings “and in the winter extra blankets for the cold…” and I sing ” and on your birthday extra tablets for the pain…..  My gift to Vic an extra tablet so she can a better day.

So, on the eve of my child’s birthday I am sitting thinking of what my prayer for Vic would be if I still knew how to pray.

I would pray for adequate pain relief.  I would pray for some quality of life time for Vic with her boys.  I would pray for Vic to have financial independence.   I would pray for Vic to have peace of mind.  I would pray that Vic would have enough faith in her dad and I to know it is okay to let go…the boys will be safe with us.

I do thank God that Vic is still alive.  I thank God for Dr Jabber Hussain and Jurnista.  I thank God for Vic’s incredible boys.  I thank God for the brave decision that Vic made not to have further surgery.  Above all, I thank God that Vic is home.

Tomorrow Vic will have a busy day.  She has a 08:00 breakfast appointment with Lee, a 10:00 manicure booked by Esther, afternoon tea (at home) with Robbie Cramp and then dinner at a restaurant of her choice with the boys and us.   I know it will take a superhuman effort but I have “rests” scheduled for the birthday girl in between events.

What is a relatively quiet day for us is a marathon for anyone as ill as Vic.  I know that she will try so hard to survive the  birthday and the party day.  Somehow I don’t think she will manage it all.  I just hope that she has a good day so she can spend some constructive time with her boys.  They will need to remember this as a good birthday in years to come…..

On Saturday we will celebrate all the August/September birthdays.  Vic on the 31st of August, Henk on the 2nd of September and Tom on the 4th of September….  I hope Vic will be able to handle two busy days in a row.  Maybe the birthday high will carry her through it!

We have a family tradition of doing “birthday eulogies”.  Everyone present gets to say something nice about the birthday person.  Over the years I have told Vic how brave she is, what a fighter she is, how beautiful she is.  This year I will I will merely thank her for being here!

Everything else has been said.

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38 forever…


I was reading a comment from Lucinda @ http://sophieandemile.wordpress.com/ Elliot  – “Still cheering you on, Tersia, though I often don’t know what to say; others must know much better. In that photo, Vic, though desperately ill at the time, still looks lovely. She will always be lovely and young in your memory, though you would have loved to see her turn grey in late middle age. You are right to hold on to the ashes if it feels right to have them as part of the house.” when I started giggling.

I realised, that Vic is sitting in Heaven giggling because she fooled Father Time… Vic is 38 forever!

Forever my beautiful baby girl
Forever my beautiful baby girl

Thank you Lucinda!

 

 

In three day’s time…


In three day’s time we will celebrate Vic’s birthday.

On Monday, at Heathrow airport, I unthinkingly picked up a bottle of “Beautiful” perfume. I looked at the bottle of perfume and put it down as if it was a snake that was ready to strike… Vic is dead. This year she will not wake up to the sound of us singing “Happy Birthday”. There will be no shrieks of “Oh, thank you! This is EXACTLY what I wanted!” There will be no birthday party this year.

Vic opening her birthday gift from her Dad last year. The boys were so excited and everyone wanted to set up the “iPad”…

This year we will light candles for a precious mother, child, friend… We will send prayers to Heaven.

We whisper your name…


Some days I sense Vic’s closeness. I sometimes smell her. But I cannot touch her. I cannot hear her voice.

The boys and I light candles for you my precious baby…

We whisper your name

The boys write your name in the sand…

You send us feathers from Heaven….

How we miss your brave smile…

How I miss reaching out and being able to touch you

Holding you my precious child…

Yesterday, today, forever……

I love you Angel Child!

“Time takes us farther away…”


I have battled to blog. I feel that my words are rehashed from one post to the next. My emotions are the same.

My DiL and the three girls have spent 3 weeks in South Africa. It has been amazing hearing the patter of little feet down the passages, shrieks of laughter and anger… I will always cherish the little arms around my neck, the warm little bodies in my bed. I cherish the time I got to spend with my DiL; the chats into the early hours of the morning and the countless cups of tea. It reminded me of when Vic was still alive. I dread leaving England on Monday to return to my solitude and grief.

I feel guilty about posting my same tearful stories of grief and I feel guilty that I have become embarrassed by exposing my soul to the world – friend and foe alike.

The past four weeks life has been easier. I have laughed and smiled. I have had fun.

In 8 days’ time it is Vic’s birthday. I am filled with trepidation as to how I will cope. The second I think of Vic, tears well up in my eyes and there is this stabbing pain in my heart. I have decided that I will not move Vic’s ashes into the garden. Vic will remain on the sideboard where I can see her and run my hand over her little casket. Vic will not be exiled into the garden. She is part of our lives and she will remain exactly where she is.

I am wondering whether I should bake Vic favourite chocolate cake… The boys want to send up Chinese Lanterns we actually wrote messages on, on New Year’s Eve 2010. Vic was desperately ill in hospital and moved into ICU on the 1st of January 2010. She was devastated. The staff allowed us to spend the evening with her.

Vic being moved to ICU on New Years Day 1

At 12 O Clock we went outside to send up the Chinese lanterns. It rained and we undertook to do it when Vic was home again. Somehow we never did. When we returned to the ward, the staff had assembled in the visitors lounge. Someone had conducted a Mid-Night service. The staff sang beautifully and prayed for the patients. Many of them laid hands on Vic. Vic cried. Jon-Daniel was inconsolable. We all cried.

One of my blogger friend’s sent me this email “Oh, Tersia. You are held tight in the grip of horrific grief. Simply knowing that someday you will wrench free from such a suffocating grasp brings no relief at this moment. You already know you cannot fight it. Flow with the “ocean of tears.” A great deal of the horror is behind you, but you are reliving it. I distinctly remember that the WORST time in my grief came at six months and followed me until the end of the first year. Like an amputation without anaesthesia – you are deeply suffering and so many people feel your pain. Keep writing, crying and feeling. The ocean of tears will take you to a new shore. Time takes us farther away from our loved one. That is the agony and the anaesthesia. Such conflict that creates! Feel my hug because I’m with you.” http://judyunger.wordpress.com/

Another one of my blogger friends, Julie, is taking a sabbatical from blogging. She wrote “Just until my heart catches up with my voice. So much is happening, and so much is not happening – argh!”

I wonder whether my heart will ever catch up with my voice…