Stories of the Grieving Process After a Child Dies - “Anniversary Day Tremors of Change”
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“HeartSpun Talk from the Crucible of Experience”©
From the life of Ken Matthies - Author, Poet, Real Life Storyteller
One thing that seems certain about healing from grief as time passes is that it’s a process of change for those of us living in it. How the earthquakes of pain we feel in the early anniversary days of our grief evolve over time is a perfect example of that process of change.
For instance, last week was the fifth anniversary of my daughter’s death followed immediately by her birthday. I fully expected to be rocked down to the ground again emotionally on those back to back anniversary days just like in previous years, but that wasn’t the way it happened this time around.
Instead what I discovered was that the pains of anticipation of the anniversary days in the two weeks prior to them were far outweighed by the quietness of heart I actually felt on the days themselves!
I was both blessed and amazed to discover this time around that I was able to use those two days as occasions of quiet and heartfelt reflection, with long walks and loving talks to my daughter during which the flow of rich and wonderful memories about her and our life together brought peace to both heart and mind.
To be able to remember and talk openly to her about her death on the first of those anniversary days, and then wish her a happy thirty-second birthday on the next one following was a definite first for me – one which has brought a new and healing perspective to the anniversary days yet to come.
It seems that this year I’ve experienced the first tremors of profound change to the anniversary days of past years – and I welcome these tremors of change with open arms and heart let me tell you!
As will you, when the earthquakes of grief surrounding your early anniversary years begin to evolve and change – much like mine are doing – into the softness of quietude, reflection, remembrance and long and loving talks with the one you lost.
Anniversary day tremors of change are something to look forward to in your journey of healing from loss, grief and bereavement.
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About the Author
For almost forty years of his life Ken Matthies has been a writer and chronicler of life expressed in poetic form, following the family tradition laid down by his grandfather before him.
Faced with the dramatically life altering experience of his helicopter pilot daughter’s sudden death in 2002 he has grown to also become a literary author of true events based on his own life. Though grief opened his literary doors it is the Light of Love and Memories supplying the fuel of inspiration to write through them.
As a second-chance dad given the opportunity to verbally share his life stories with his newly rediscovered daughter it was she who told him that she believed him to be a ‘worthy man’ after having heard them, and who encouraged him that they should be shared in written form beyond her own life – not yet knowing as she said it that she was soon to leave him behind. As a bereaved father and writer learning how to live life again in the Light of his own Love and Memories of his daughter, he writes those stories now as a testament to her belief and faith in their value.
His full length book entitled "How to Survive the Death of a Child - A Father's Story of Healing Light" was the first of these stories which he wrote in the Light of those Love and Memories.
He lives in the solitude and grandeur of a tiny southern Yukon village with his Tlingit native wife Skoehoeteen and the successor to their venerable old Tahltan bear dog Clancy Underfoot, who now happily awaits them at the Rainbow Bridge in Doggy Heaven. She’s a new female puppy named Hlinukts Seew which means ‘Sweet Rain’ in the Tlingit language, a wonderful phonetic variation in memory of Clancy’s name who was also called C.U. for short. It’s a good place to tell those stories from.
You can read more of Ken's writings and find his Amazon Kindle book at www.kenmatthies.com.
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