As a rule, I like anniversaries. The big exception, of course, is the anniversary of Warren's death. He injured himself on June 16, died on June 21 and was buried on the 26th. It use to be a 10 day pity party for me. Even my husband and daughters stayed away from me during that 10 day period for a number of years. I don't think that it was intentional but I was rather unpleasant to be around, self-medicating with alcohol didn't help matters either.
Life goes on. New anniversaries were added into our circle of life. The first and certainly the most joyous is the wedding anniversary of Sarah and Jeff, my daughter and husband. Five years ago, as a newly engaged couple, they tried to pick a wedding date that would work for everyone in their circle of family and friends. The best date was June 16, so they asked Mark and I what we thought. We decided as a family, a wedding would over-power the sadness of Warren's death and it has. We honored Warren at the wedding and the party that followed and have done so at every wedding in our family since. The truth is, we needed a way to move on and find reasons to celebrate life. Sarah and Jeff gave our family that push.
I do not think that you dishonor the memory of someone you love when you give up some bit of the sadness. I find that I can more easily remember and celebrate Warren's life when I am in a celebratory mood.
Last week, a wonderful friend of Elissa and Warren gave birth to a new daughter. I am thrilled to add one more reason to celebrate to this week of anniversaries.
Yes, I still have my moments during these days when I revert to sadness. I expect it now and do the things I need to do to take care of myself. My family does as well. We no longer avoid each other during this 10 days of anniversaries, but now we are much more likely to be celebrating a wedding anniversary, or a get together of old college friends.
If you have a comment or suggestion on how you handle these anniversaries, please comment on the blog or contact me directly at kricester@gmail.com. For more information on the grieving process, log into www.johgriefsupport.com.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Warren is my Son
Eleven years ago this week, Warren Phillip Rice died. To this day, I have no clear answers for the question why. I pretty much have peace knowing that there are questions for which the answer cannot be determined. It may be known to someone, but the whole truth may never be revealed to me.
So who is this Warren Rice you ask. Well, he is my son, the son of Kathleen and Mark and younger brother to Elissa and Sarah. He was thirteen years old, a freshly minted eighth grader at Schimelpfenig Middle School, a saxophone player who loved to act. He rode his bike whenever he could, water-skied and wake-boarded with abandon and lived life with gusto. And then he died. Why he died is an impenetrable mystery.
When Warren died, our family was inconsolable. We looked to our friends and family for solace. Our church and school families rallied around us. However, grief is long and fairly solitary process as we each experience it from our own perspective. We all heal in our own time and treasure our own individual memories. I can tell you upfront that we remain a family and are as close as a family can be, but the journey is a hard one.
For several years, I protected the memory of Warren carefully. If someone didn't know that I had a son named Warren, I did not share that information because I did not want to face any difficult questions about his death. Finally, I realized that as difficult as the questions might be to face, a couple of things remained constant, Warren was the light of our lives for the few years that he walked the earth and that nothing about his death changed how we feel about him.
So, my perspective has changed. It is important to me to be open about having a son who died. It has changed me, his sisters, his father, and to an extent, his brothers-in-law, who didn't even know him.
It has, in fact, changed the lives of everyone who knew him although the changes may be subtle to the point to being unrecognizable.
I have decided to share in this blog, my journey through grief, my journey of hope that life would get better.
There are any number of scholarly works on the grief process and heaven knows how many books written by people who have experienced grief first hand. Amazingly enough, none of these works can capture all the emotions you will feel when you experience grief. In fact, I can say from experience, that how you grieve may be different depending on which one of your loved ones died. You cannot really predict with any certainly that your emotions will run in an orderly course; that you can check off a stage of grief and say, "Well, I am sure glad that phase is over." How you feel could depend on whether or not you see a rainbow on a sunny day. (More about that another time.)
Mostly, this blog is about the journey that I have taken over the past eleven years, that I am still taking, and the people who have helped me along the way. I warn you, it is not always a pretty story. I wish that it was, but then I don't think I would be a human mother. The ending hasn't been written yet, but I am much more content and at peace than I was eleven years ago this week.
I dearly hope that this blog can become your journey too, so if anything I write sparks a memory you want to share, an insight, or a disagreement, please share with me. I can be reached at this blog address or at my personal e-mail address, kricester@gmail.com. I promise to share whatever you want shared, and maybe as a community, we can help others along our journeys.
So who is this Warren Rice you ask. Well, he is my son, the son of Kathleen and Mark and younger brother to Elissa and Sarah. He was thirteen years old, a freshly minted eighth grader at Schimelpfenig Middle School, a saxophone player who loved to act. He rode his bike whenever he could, water-skied and wake-boarded with abandon and lived life with gusto. And then he died. Why he died is an impenetrable mystery.
When Warren died, our family was inconsolable. We looked to our friends and family for solace. Our church and school families rallied around us. However, grief is long and fairly solitary process as we each experience it from our own perspective. We all heal in our own time and treasure our own individual memories. I can tell you upfront that we remain a family and are as close as a family can be, but the journey is a hard one.
For several years, I protected the memory of Warren carefully. If someone didn't know that I had a son named Warren, I did not share that information because I did not want to face any difficult questions about his death. Finally, I realized that as difficult as the questions might be to face, a couple of things remained constant, Warren was the light of our lives for the few years that he walked the earth and that nothing about his death changed how we feel about him.
So, my perspective has changed. It is important to me to be open about having a son who died. It has changed me, his sisters, his father, and to an extent, his brothers-in-law, who didn't even know him.
It has, in fact, changed the lives of everyone who knew him although the changes may be subtle to the point to being unrecognizable.
I have decided to share in this blog, my journey through grief, my journey of hope that life would get better.
There are any number of scholarly works on the grief process and heaven knows how many books written by people who have experienced grief first hand. Amazingly enough, none of these works can capture all the emotions you will feel when you experience grief. In fact, I can say from experience, that how you grieve may be different depending on which one of your loved ones died. You cannot really predict with any certainly that your emotions will run in an orderly course; that you can check off a stage of grief and say, "Well, I am sure glad that phase is over." How you feel could depend on whether or not you see a rainbow on a sunny day. (More about that another time.)
Mostly, this blog is about the journey that I have taken over the past eleven years, that I am still taking, and the people who have helped me along the way. I warn you, it is not always a pretty story. I wish that it was, but then I don't think I would be a human mother. The ending hasn't been written yet, but I am much more content and at peace than I was eleven years ago this week.
I dearly hope that this blog can become your journey too, so if anything I write sparks a memory you want to share, an insight, or a disagreement, please share with me. I can be reached at this blog address or at my personal e-mail address, kricester@gmail.com. I promise to share whatever you want shared, and maybe as a community, we can help others along our journeys.
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