In the previous two posts I talked about the importance of saying the names of the dead and giving the gift of listening to survivors. I am closing out this series by discussing the wrongness of saying “you were lucky” to survivors of horrific events. Whether the person involved walked away unscathed or sustained horrific injuries, we seem to want to assign their survival to luck or chance. Is mankind (or womankind) really that shallow, thoughtless or afraid to think about death long…..
Two unimaginable events taught me how important it was to let the survivors of those events tell their story. Just like I did, they too need to tell and re-tell their experience in order to learn how to turn their unimaginable experience into an imaginable one. One boy survived the crash that killed Kalei. A couple of months after her death one of his friends phoned me and said, “Lorene, are you mad at Jared?” “Of course not” I replied,…..
Unlike many moms I have talked to, I have yet to see Kalei in a dream. I don’t know why that is, it just is. Maybe one day…at least I hope so. In the meantime, I do my best to remain alert and open to her presence in my non-sleeping hours. It is not easy to keep your mind aware of a kind of 6th sense communication, especially when the messages often seem very cryptic or, well, sort of multi-dimensional……
My Introduction to Hiking – A Lifetime Ahead Story
The hard physical work of raising cattle and working on a grain farm — well into my adult years — kept me active and physically fit. Even in my youth, outside of participating in every sport available in our rural community, the thought of exercising just for the sake of it never entered my mind because at the end of each day my body was tired…I did not need to do crunches or yoga or hike for miles on top of…..
It is not just regular universe folk who struggle with what to say to the grieving; those of us forced into that world also have challenges…but for different reasons. When I meet someone and they introduce their unimaginable event, the first words out of my mouth are always, “I am so sorry”. Those four words — and sometimes a hug to go with them — are profound in their simplicity. After that, the conversation can go in all sorts of directions, especially…..
While I felt Kalei’s spirit leave this earth, she left in such an abrupt manner, the shock of it did not allow me to properly grasp the details of that occurrence…at least not in a way that gave me enough information to properly describe it. It was much different with my mom’s death. By the time early April 2015 rolled around, mom’s health was clearly failing. As it became more and more apparent that the end was near, I spoke to her about cancelling my upcoming trip to Maui but…..
I must start this blog with an assurance …unless you are forced into an unimaginable event; your brain will never allow you to really understand. But that mental limitation does not mean you cannot still add to your knowledge of this kind of life experience. If you are bold enough to try, this blog will not only help those looking at the unimaginable from the inside out, but the people whose viewpoint is from the far safer outside looking in perspective. As mentioned in the book, we humans are…..
For a period of time after Kalei’s death, grief took control of the part of my brain that normally generates a positive emotional state. Feelings such as joy, humor, happiness, etc. ceased to exist. As a result, my body was not able to produce the sound of laughter. I did not fully appreciate this (or even noticed it was gone for that matter) aspect of my grieving journey for several years. In the beginning I did not care about how my lack of…..
Every now and then someone will say to me, “When you wrote and published Forever Kalei’s Mom, you took something bad — her death — and turned it into something good.” While I might not totally subscribe to the accuracy of that statement (it implies a conscious plan, and the book was anything but that), I appreciate the meaning behind their words. For me, the something of value (sorry, I just can’t use good) comes from the sum of three things: Kalei’s life, her death and the grief…..
In the months following Kalei’s death, I sorted through every photograph and DVD (the digital era was just getting started and new technology was still expensive) I owned. Picture after picture, I separated the ones that included her from the ones that did not. Anything taken prior to January 23, 1985 was deemed unimportant and discarded. I thought I threw out pretty much every image that documented my life prior to her birth, but for reasons I can only guess at now, a few stragglers managed to survive the purge. I am…..
Follow me on Twitter
My TweetsRecent Posts
Recent Comments
- Stephanie on In a little over an hour, Kalei will have been dead longer than she lived.
- Lorene Holizki on In a little over an hour, Kalei will have been dead longer than she lived.
- Lorene Holizki on In a little over an hour, Kalei will have been dead longer than she lived.
- Irene Sagon on In a little over an hour, Kalei will have been dead longer than she lived.
- Lorene Holizki on In a little over an hour, Kalei will have been dead longer than she lived.
Archives
- August 2023
- August 2022
- August 2021
- August 2020
- August 2019
- January 2019
- August 2018
- March 2018
- February 2018
- August 2017
- July 2017
- May 2017
- April 2017
- March 2017
- February 2017
- January 2017
- August 2016
- July 2016
- June 2016
- May 2016
- April 2016
- March 2016
- February 2016
- January 2016
- December 2015
- November 2015
- October 2015
- September 2015
- August 2015