Death of a Loved One

This is a subject none of us really want to discuss. It is tough, bleak and hurtful. Painful. Heart wrenching.

August 31, 2021 changed my life forever. My youngest daughter died. My baby. The one that still called me mommy at 31. She was beautiful, Intelligent. Funny. Caring. She had flaws we all do. And then she was just - Gone. 

When I first received the phone callI was in a state of unbelief. My ex son-in-law called me and asked me if I had talked to my current son-in-law. "No. Why? What's up," was all I said. Hanging up, I called my daughter's second husband. He had just come home two days ago after having been in the hospital from a terrible collision not quite a week before. A woman hit him after running a red light. They were in separate vehicles and he was following my daughter as she turned left at the red light. The lady was coming fast, swerved to miss my daughter and hit him almost head on. He was cut out of the vehicle, had emergency surgery on his broken hip and in ICU. They had just let him come home in a wheelchair, with a broken arm still needing surgery and pretty incapable of doing anything for himself. I thought something had happened to him @ home. I called him. Everything was ok and he did not know why I had called. Hanging up, I dialed my grandchildren's dad back. I told him I wasn't sure why he had me call my son-in law. His next words hit me - hard.

"I think Taylor is dead."

He told me he was at the hospital and they had brought one of my granddaughters by Life Flight and one by ambulance. Her oldest and middle daughters. Nothing else.

My mind couldn't think. I went numb. Then the ringing started in my ears and I started shaking. I hung up, went to the office of the man I was living with. We sped to the hospital. My heart was in my throat. My mind was swirling and I don't remember a whole lot of the trip there - just that there had to be some sort of mistake. What about the babies? What was wrong with them? Who had been Life Flighted - and why?

That was the beginning of so many things...and the end.

My granddaughters received a miracle that day. Each survived but with injuries. Both bruised, badly beaten up, one with a broken ankle and head lacerations but God had spared them. Both had a life altering moment and both lost their mommy that day. 

My story goes on. The one of this tragedy. Their story. Life...

The color left my world that day. I didn't know "how" to do Life. Or even if I wanted to. There were so many things that needed to be done so I kicked into gear. I have other children, grandchildren, a son-in-law that needed me, things that had to be taken care of...and I could not breathe.

While my story is unique to me, the loss is something each of us may face at some time in our lives. What I learned is that each person Will face the loss of a loved one. We Will have to walk through a dark time in our lives. There is no "right" or "wrong" way to do it. There is not a time frame in which to do it in. You may want to talk to someone or you might be like me and need to wait.

It took me 7 months before I could read a book on grief. Another month before I could go try to find a group for Grief. I went to a couple of meeting at different locations and did not feel like they helped...at all. They were classes. Classes were not what I needed. I went to counseling. That helped a little but it still wasn't what my soul needed. I wanted, I needed desperately for my soul to be soothed. I wanted to go somewhere, anywhere where there was a beach and soothing water and no people or questions or eyes that pitied me. Where no one needed me for anything. I had nothing to give. I was empty.

Yesterday was year 4. Four years of not having my time with my precious brown eyed girl. Our fights, our laughter, her borrowing my jewelry that I never saw again and all the other things that made Taylor who she was. Time has helped in some ways. For me one the thing that has helped is to share my grief with other moms that understand. Ones that know what it feels like to loose a child. To not hear their voice, their laughter, to smell them or touch them. To share our shattered "momma hearts".

The thing that brings me Peace? Jesus. I understand now the footprints in the sand. I think that I am a little bit like God and understand a tiny bit of what He must have felt when his son died. Tragic deaths. Taylor knew Him, too. And I am so thankful that because I know Him, I Will see my daughter again. 

Processing, living with loss is personal. How you move through it is Your journey, Your story. No one can write it but you.

If I can help in any small way, if you need someone that truly understands feel free to reach out. My number is public, email is available. One thing I ask... figure out how to let it out. Even if it is a little bit at a time. You cannot keep that kind of pain inside. One day, the color will start coming back into your world and you will breathe again. 

In love,

Lisa