The Pain of Loss Part 2

Hi, this is Bernie Dake. And I'm Sarah Nelson.

Welcome to the Salvation Army's Wonderful Words of Life. All right, Sarah, Nolan's back. Middle school, day one, over. Yep, he's done it.

I'm so proud of him. And it's interesting, this time of year, I definitely feel like the gears switching from summertime to the routine of the fall and getting back to activities and church and that sort of thing. So we're kind of working through that process right now. And in the southern territory, this week starts our Bible conference at Lake Junaluska.

So that's sure to be a wonderful time as they're going to be studying the book of Ezekiel this week. I feel bad, Sarah, for you as a parent, because I know that as Nolan really gets into middle school, this is when he starts forgetting about his parents. Is that true? Come on, mom. Too many questions. He doesn't have time anymore.

He has to be Mr. Cool. Is that what's going to happen?

I don't know. But it's interesting you say that, because I remember my mom telling me a long time ago that she felt like she had spent all of her parenting as just giving her child away a little bit at a time all the time. Like you send them off to kindergarten and then you send them off to middle school. And then, you know, I understand, because two years ago I sent my daughter off to college and I feel like I'm just constantly letting go of her and releasing her. And it's hard.

It really is. But I suspect that, you know, no matter what, I mean, they're always going to feel like my babies. They are. They are. You are giving them an opportunity to succeed. I hope so.

So here in Atlanta, schools are starting back this week and next week. And in our series, we'll discuss the importance of education and the parents' role in helping your child succeed. This week, the Israel's continue the topic of loss, but we now focus on recovery with an emphasis on finding a new normal. It's been, you know, pretty incredible to hear them reflect on this particular time in their life. And I'm sure that unless we actually walked this journey with them, we, you know, can't truly understand what the totality of this experience has meant in their life. And how exactly does one go about finding a new normal when this huge piece of your life is sort of not present with you anymore? I don't know how to explain it for anybody else, but in our own situation, when Laura's brother passed, which was the first relative that was immediate family had passed away in our relationship, we desperately didn't want to forget. And there's no need to forget about that relative.

We want to celebrate them and all that the time that we did have with them. Now, does it make the pain go away or the sting when the birthdays come or the holidays come and you remember that time or you see the family picture? No, but, you know, there is a purpose for this, these things that happen. And we, if we're willing, God can use that for his good and we can come alongside other people who may be going through that and help them understand. Yes, it's going to hurt and it stinks, but life is not over.

I love that idea. And I recall the Israel saying that one of the things that sort of helped them the most cope with losing their son in this tragic accident was the realization that he wasn't truly lost. He was in heaven with his savior. They knew that he was saved and that he was present with Jesus. And what an encouragement.

I mean, that is for me and certainly for them, I'm sure. No more pain. Well, again, if this episode really describes where you are as you've suffered a loss as well, let us know how we can pray for you. Send us an email at radio at uss.salvationarmy.org or call 1-800-229-9965.

If you need help finding a counselor or just someone to talk to your local Salvation Army would love to help. We welcome you again to our series on parenting. I'm Terry Israel with my wife, Donna. We have gone through some interesting and candid discussions. And if you were with us in our most recent episode, we discussed the pain of loss. We shared in that our own personal experience of losing our oldest child, Matthew, in an automobile accident. And we went through some of the things that we struggled with individually and uniquely. And so today we come to the point where we want to talk about how to cope with that, how to find that new normality of life, and how to really reconcile your relationship in terms of husband and wife, parents to children, and ultimately your relationship with God. I don't think there was ever a time in my life when I wanted to be normal more than those days after the accident.

Wanting things to just go back to routine, to be able to just have life be boring, if you would. Yeah, we spoke previously about how we experienced the same situation very differently and how we wanted to deal with that. One of the things was I really did not want to speak about Matthew in anecdotal terms and storytelling. His memory was a bit too intimate to me for it to be what I thought was flippant conversation. And yet Donna very much wanted that, to share stories, to keep his presence within the family. Just didn't want to lose what he had given to us as a brother. And the boys still looked up to him even though he had been promoted to glory, which is what the Salvation Army terms when someone has passed away. So it's this wonderful thing of having a great sense of a positive influence that permeated throughout our family.

And yet that made it all the more tragic when suddenly he's no longer physically with us, but his presence, his spirit is very much there. So how do you cope with that? How do you find this new family dynamic that becomes something of your new normality? And it's a very fine line to walk because you want to remember the brother or the child that's lost, but you don't want to put them on a pedestal that the other children can never attain. So there are all types of things that took place and simple things. We had a lot going on in our family subsequent to the accident with caregiving and long-term recovery and all that. So it was all the more difficult for us to find our stride and get back to a sense of normal. It's really ironic that Donna would say that.

There was no greater desire than just like a nice boring day. And yet for several months that didn't take place. I remember one time coming down the hall and we found our son Timothy was sneaking out of what had been Matthew's bedroom and kind of sheepish look and a guilty look trying to cut into his bedroom. Hey, what's going on?

And first he didn't want to fess up. What he had done is he had gone in and picked out a favorite shirt of Matthew's that he wanted to start wearing. And so it's simple things like that that say, yeah, that's okay.

That's all right. How you deal with it may be entirely different than what I deal with it, but we're still very much going to take into our lives the sense of presence of the one that we've lost and inclusion that, yes, even though they're not physically present with us, they're still included in our family. And it's much more than just a memory. There are times we struggled in the relationship situations and that now Timothy was the oldest and he started taking responsibilities and stepping into things that he had not worried about before. And he did that very naturally without having to say you're now the oldest, you need to step up. And that's a pressure to put on a child, and he seemed to do it naturally without us having to say anything. Yeah, it's rather interesting that we had seen his personality and his role.

He's always kind of the middle child and had that dynamic, and suddenly he's the oldest brother, and he's cast into that light and into that relationship in the family dynamic. And so it was a different experience for him than what it was for us. There was a time where he and his brother would attend a summer camp, and as that time drew nearer, he said he didn't think he wanted to go to camp. And we realized he probably was concerned about how to attend camp without Matthew. And so we said, well, you know, you don't have to go. You can make that decision. But in all reality, you and brother would have gone to different camps this year because of the age difference.

And so he thought about it, and a week or so later he said he really thought he wanted to go to camp. It's not forcing our will on the children, but letting them make those decisions. And so we each come into different roles in how we address these things, how we experience grief, how we experience loss. So as you cope with it, you're supporting each other, but also understanding each person's unique, and you're going to go about it a little bit differently. As we moved through things and learned to cope in different ways in different aspects of things, we both had to be involved in things we'd not necessarily done in the past. Terry took on a greater responsibility in the care for Nathan. He actually stayed with him at the hospital most days because I couldn't be there. And then when he came home, it was very difficult for us to figure out how we would work things out because Terry had been the sole caregiver of Nathan for over a month, and now he was in my role.

And there was a little bit of friction there, and we had to work that out to see how things would go. We really saw a role reversal in our new normal. Donna was previously the organizer of the family, the one who put everything together, and I was the one that kind of sat back and allowed things to flow, and suddenly those roles were reversed.

I had to take on responsibilities of organization and planning. Donna was injured in the accident and had a long-term recovery. We discovered that that was God's care for us in dealing with our grief. Left to our own natural roles, I would have probably gone into a deep, dark depression, but God forced me to the forefront of the activity and organization of the family.

Donna, left to her own natural role, would have probably organized everything and never really dealt with the issues that she needed to handle. In God's plan, she was put on the sideline and really had to go through her spiritual journey so that she could experience healing. That's how we really began our reconciliation with God, mine through a newfound dependency upon Him and hers through a deepened relationship with Him. We thank you for being with us. We do ask you to join with us.

In our next episode, we will begin to discuss education and future plans in working with your children as they begin to launch into adult life. May God bless you. The Salvation Army's mission, Doing the Most Good, means helping people with material and spiritual needs. You become a part of this mission every time you give to the Salvation Army. Visit salvationarmyusa.org to offer your support, and we would love to hear from you. Email us at radio at uss.salvationarmy.org. Call 1-800-229-9965 or write us at P.O.

Box 29972, Atlanta, Georgia, 30359. When you contact us, we'll send you our gift for this series. It's totally free for listeners like you, one per household while supplies last. You can also subscribe to our show on iTunes or your favorite podcast store, and be sure to give us a rating. Just search for Wonderful Words of Life. Follow us on social media for the latest episodes, extended interviews, and more. And if you don't have a church home, we invite you to visit your local Salvation Army worship center. They'll be glad to see you. This is Bernie Dake, inviting you to join us next time for the Salvation Army's Wonderful Words of Life.