JULY 2010 
My dear Friends,
How do you explain premature death to young children? How do you explain without frightening them? How do you explain what you yourself can’t understand? Comparisons with nature – an old tree dying, leaves falling, flowers turning to seed – and images of a safe, happy Heaven don’t always stop the questions and the fears. Children are sensitive to nuances and your sadness does not go by unnoticed and worried about.
Accidental deaths, illness, violent loss, drownings, possibly create the most anxiety. If my sibling, friend, cousin, aunt
or uncle died like this, could it happen to me too? It’s an enormous concern and challenge to bereaved families to
cope with this situation. I don’t have easy, or indeed any, answers. Each of you with your own beliefs and values,
your knowledge of your children and grandchildren, and your acute sensitivity to their needs, will find some way to
approach the problem. It’s daunting and honestly there will be some stumbling as you search for what is best.
However intimidating that realization is, it’s far better to communicate as openly as possible as you try to answer all those troubling questions. TCF has books, some written specifically for children, others to guide adults, that could assist you.
There’s one aspect of this quagmire that’s even harder perhaps to tackle – suicide. How do you talk about
depression, differentiate to young, inexperienced minds between feeling sad and despair, remove stigma without
those side-effects too awful to contemplate. It’s an horrendous task and I am awed by those who meet it. Speaking
to someone who has faced the dilemma and done so magnificently, I learnt the importance of spelling out that
mental illness is a sickness, often incurable and one that overwhelms the victims. You who have an inkling of the
desperation of these sad boys and girls know the hurt of ignorance and prejudice. You reject those judgmental
views and it becomes your duty to teach youngsters about the nature of depression which is like a cancer of the
mind and the soul, to remove the superstitions and stigmas, and to explore the ways of extending tenderness and
compassion to the sufferers. Of course it’s very important to inform children of the many resources available that
help to prevent further tragedies.
If this is one of your many burdens, may you be able to manage it with the same courage and strength you are
bringing to every aspect of your mourning.
Much love,
ROSEMARY DIRMEIK
We Need Not Walk Alone
We are The Compassionate Friends. We
reach out to each others with love, with
understanding and with hope. Our
children have died at all ages and from
many different causes, but our love for
our children unites us.
Your pain becomes my pain just as your
hope becomes my hope. We come together from all walks of life, from many different circumstances.
We are a unique family because we represent many races and creeds. We are young, and we are
old. Some of us are far along in our grief, but others still feel a grief so fresh and intensely painful that
we feel helpless and see no hope. Some of us have found our faith to be a source of strength; some of
us are struggling to find answers. Some of us are angry, filled with guilt or in deep depression; others
radiate an inner peace. But whatever pain we bring to this
gathering of The Compassionate Friends, it is pain we will share
just as we share with each other our love for our children.
We are all seeking and struggling to build a future for ourselves,
but we are committed to building that future together and
reach out to each other in love and share the pain as well as
the joy, share the anger as well as the peace, share the faith
as well as the doubts and help each other to grieve as well as
to grow.
We need not walk alone.
We are The Compassionate Friends.
Relationship with Grief
South Africa is on a high, at the opening game of the 2010 World Cup Soccer our Bafana Bafana, ranked 83rd , drew 1 all against a team that is ranked 17th. This is a relationship, it is how our National Team is ranked in relation to the Mexican National Team What is your relationship to grief? Do you feel totally undermined by this world ranking emotion or do you see yourself as equal to it?
Grief is just an emotion, this may sound completely crass and uncaring, sadly or rather with relief, I say again that grief is just an emotion. Just like joy, hurt, anger, happiness, sadness, disappointment and all the rest that lay in the spectrum of our emotional range lying in wait to be released at the appropriate time. Saying it like that makes me feel like Pavlov’s dog, give me the right bell and I’ll react with the appropriate emotion. Are we in control of our emotions? Nope, we aren’t. They pop up like annoying little turret syndrome speech bubbles. Can we control how we relate to them, indeed, and that is where our mastery lies. Pavlov’s dog could not control how he related to food, thank heaven’s I
don’t know of any Fido’s, Fifi’s or Benji’s amongst our members. Relating to How to relate to grief as an equal, is quite a tough lesson to learn. What would it mean to you to not avoid feeling grief, not by default because you can’t help it, but by actually consciously giving yourself permission to feel that specific brand of pain? Imagine that you took ownership of the grief emotion? Imagine that it was no longer pushed to the outside of who you are, but allowed in to be integrated into who you are? Would this not give you some modicum of control, or at the very least the perception of control? I have a feeling that this might be a step towards empowerment, and once empowered you could possibly then channel your grief into something constructive, maybe even a legacy for your departed child . . . it’s a thought, and for some of you too alien to even consider.
So think of yourself as Bafana Bafana, with the entire nation of TCF supporting you, blowing our vuvuzela’s
looking at Mexico, your grief, and saying I know that I’m 83rd on the log and you are 17th, but it doesn’t |
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Inspirational Quotes from Maya Angelou As a poet, author, actress, filmmaker, educator, and civil rights activist, Dr. Maya Angelou is one of the most renowned and influential voices of our time. 1. "Ask for what you want and be prepared to get it." 2. "Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away." 3. "If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. Don't complain." 4. "I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget
what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." 5. "Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences,
penetrates walls to arrive at it destination full of hope." 6. "A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a
song." 7. "Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it." |
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www.compassionatefriends.org.za 2010 | Updated: 1 July 2010