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barbtries

(28,702 posts)
Fri Jul 1, 2022, 12:40 PM Jul 2022

It's already starting.

It's July. On 06Jul1980, my beautiful daughter was born. On 19Jul2001, she was killed. This is the year when I will have been without her as long as I had her, and it's turning me into a blubbering pile of goo.

I had counseling today and cried and cried. My counselor told me about a memorial garden in Raleigh and I arranged for a brick to be placed in her name. Cried and cried to the advocate I spoke to. She was great.

July has never been a good month for me mentally and psychologically since Bekah died. It consumes too much of my thoughts and overtakes my feelings. I guess I would say it's just the murder month and it always will be. No matter how strongly I believe that Bekah is with me and that I will see her when I die. No matter how much time has passed since the crime.

We go back to the beginning of the grief, and I must do now what I worked so, so hard to do then: lean into it. Here's a poem I wrote then, it's maybe my favorite of all the many poems I wrote then.

today’s paean to why

There's like a why ocean,
from which waves of why
either tease or soak
my grief-addled mind.
During why's high tide,
nearly drowned in why,
The world abounds with why
All I hear is the sound of why
If it tells me it will have to kill me

When why recedes it is still a mystery
Still cannot know it
while I must respect its immense power over me
Riptides of why swamp me regularly
when I'm rolled crazily around in why,
Powerless to dive away from why
Useless to try dominating why.

On the island why I stop to see
How perseverance can still abide in me
On the mainland why I walk the beach
Hope defying why, the why of life
Is easy to see
By my side or inside of me,
Your spirit your love accompanies
With the energy of a wave
that embodies a natural eternity.



https://www.lapdonline.org/newsroom/hit-and-run-suspect-captured/

23 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
It's already starting. (Original Post) barbtries Jul 2022 OP
This happens to me in September spinbaby Jul 2022 #1
Is it always a rough month? barbtries Jul 2022 #2
It's been a rough month for six years spinbaby Jul 2022 #17
Six years. barbtries Jul 2022 #18
So sorry for your loss SheltieLover Jul 2022 #3
She's over the mantle, barbtries Jul 2022 #5
Please know you are not alone in this. SheltieLover Jul 2022 #11
thank you SheltieLover barbtries Jul 2022 #13
Ya, I'm the only one, too SheltieLover Jul 2022 #14
I'm very sorry for your loss Alice Kramden Jul 2022 #4
thank you. barbtries Jul 2022 #6
Big virtual hug Alice Kramden Jul 2022 #7
Mere words are a cheap substitute for the hug I intend but cannot deliver. Your poem Atticus Jul 2022 #8
Thank you Atticus. barbtries Jul 2022 #9
So sorry, barbtries. ❤ littlemissmartypants Jul 2022 #10
thank you littlemissmartypants! barbtries Jul 2022 #15
What a wonderful, painful but beautiful poem. MLAA Jul 2022 #12
Thank you MLAA barbtries Jul 2022 #16
I have been thinking all day of what I might possibly say... 3catwoman3 Jul 2022 #19
thank you 3catwoman3. barbtries Jul 2022 #20
That is the worst possible thing, that she has now been gone PoindexterOglethorpe Jul 2022 #21
PoindexterOglethorpe barbtries Jul 2022 #22
In the world of bereavement, distinctions mean nothng. PoindexterOglethorpe Jul 2022 #23

spinbaby

(15,073 posts)
1. This happens to me in September
Fri Jul 1, 2022, 12:43 PM
Jul 2022

My late husband’s birthday and death day are the same week in September. It’s always a rough week.

barbtries

(28,702 posts)
2. Is it always a rough month?
Fri Jul 1, 2022, 12:47 PM
Jul 2022

As July approaches, it's on my mind more and more...this year, even more so, because I cannot get past the fact that I will have been without her as long as I had her. When she died, no I never thought then that I would even be around for that day, but it's looking like I will barring an unforeseen catastrophe.

I'm sorry for your loss

barbtries

(28,702 posts)
5. She's over the mantle,
Fri Jul 1, 2022, 01:03 PM
Jul 2022

Two pictures of her, turtles, her keys (she had a key ring with her name on it), other items. So, yes. In my office I have the picture that we put on her casket times 3 along with the garland for her flowers, which says "We love you Bekah." My counselor can see them when we Zoom. He mentioned today that it was like she was on my shoulder.

I think I've done just everything to deal with her loss. The facts don't change, and the milestones hurt, and I just have to feel it, cry over it, share it, and carry on. I'm generally quite functional and reasonably happy. and then there's July, and this one is huge.

SheltieLover

(57,073 posts)
11. Please know you are not alone in this.
Fri Jul 1, 2022, 01:47 PM
Jul 2022

We are here for you.

I, too, have suffered the loss of an adult child. It hurts. Terribly.

But knowing others care & are willing to talk in difficult times takes the edge off a bit.

I'm glad you are able to talk about what you are feeling & I love your shrine!

barbtries

(28,702 posts)
13. thank you SheltieLover
Fri Jul 1, 2022, 01:58 PM
Jul 2022


there are so many of us, but for most, we are the only ones among our closest family and friends. I am so thankful for the grief counseling with homicide survivors and for DU too.

Atticus

(15,124 posts)
8. Mere words are a cheap substitute for the hug I intend but cannot deliver. Your poem
Fri Jul 1, 2022, 01:10 PM
Jul 2022

conveys the raw pain that neither tears nor screams can extinguish.

Belatedly, I am sorry for your loss.

Take care of yourself.

barbtries

(28,702 posts)
15. thank you littlemissmartypants!
Fri Jul 1, 2022, 02:01 PM
Jul 2022

love your screen name by the way (i imagine your parents calling you that when you were little)

MLAA

(17,163 posts)
12. What a wonderful, painful but beautiful poem.
Fri Jul 1, 2022, 01:52 PM
Jul 2022

Sending 💗💗💗💗💗💗💗 for you dear barbtries and Bekah.

3catwoman3

(23,812 posts)
19. I have been thinking all day of what I might possibly say...
Fri Jul 1, 2022, 05:33 PM
Jul 2022

Last edited Fri Jul 1, 2022, 06:03 PM - Edit history (1)

…in response to your post.

Your poem is eloquent, and your question about why is unanswerable. I once saw a bumper sticker that simply said, “Shit Happens.” Not at all eloquent, but it is the only answer I can ever find for circumstances such as these.

I can very much relate to what you are saying about reaching that point in time someone has been gone longer than they were here. I was the older of 2 kids. When he was only 23, my brother Tom died in a scuba diving adventure gone wrong. This was 1978. In 2024, he will have been gone twice as long as he was here. I’m 71. He would have been 68 in May. He is forever 23.

One of the strange things about this kind of grief is that the loss can feel as if it happened 10 seconds ago and forever ago, all at the same time. Tom has been gone so long that it sometimes feels as if I imagined him.

Being bereaved is an invisible wound. No one can tell by looking at us that we are wounded - our skin doesn’t turn blue, we are not using crutches or wearing a cast, we don’t have portable nasal oxygen running, but we are injured and struggling nonetheless.

Thank you for sharing Bekah’s name. I will think of it every time I read one of your posts.

barbtries

(28,702 posts)
20. thank you 3catwoman3.
Fri Jul 1, 2022, 06:43 PM
Jul 2022

i know we don't get to know why. my theory is that after we die we still don't know but it no longer torments us. After she had been dead for some period of time, when the question Why Bekah? bubbled up, sometimes I just told myself, Why not her? It was random. Something that would never happen, happened, and we lost her just like that, never to see her again.

I'm so sorry about your brother. You have insight into grief that most people don't. It's complicated. It doesn't actually end. I've come so far but for whatever reason this milestone has triggered me in a big way.

I don't even know if my emotional distress is not influenced by other things that are going on, such as women having had their rights stripped from them a week ago. Almost everyone I know has been made unhappy by that. Also, I am in NC and her bones are in CA and all of a sudden I'm thinking about hopping on a plane just to visit her on the 19th. But I had decided not to go home until after my son's wedding in Oct.

I don't know it all sucks. I'm so thankful for this forum. I really wish nobody understood me. I wish no one ever had to walk this walk. But sometimes, those are the only people who offer true comfort, because they get it.

PoindexterOglethorpe

(25,746 posts)
21. That is the worst possible thing, that she has now been gone
Sat Jul 2, 2022, 09:48 PM
Jul 2022

as long as she was here.

In 2017 my 30 year old son took his life. He'd been dealing with depression, well hidden from his parents and most of his friends, so it came as a huge shock. But I may not live long enough to have him gone as long as he was here.

And I think how you lost your daughter was vastly worse than how I lost my son. I love you.

barbtries

(28,702 posts)
22. PoindexterOglethorpe
Sat Jul 2, 2022, 10:12 PM
Jul 2022

I am so sorry. I don't think it's worse for me than for you. Back in the beginning I would think of all the ways it could be better, could be worse, for instance, it would be better if she got sick and we got to say good-bye. It would be worse if her killer was never caught. and so on. But in the world of bereavement, these distinctions mean nothing. It is not valid to quantify anybody's grief or level of pain. There is simply nothing worse in life than losing a child. That's what I think. It turns nature on its head.

It happens a lot, when it feels as if it should never happen at all.

Love to you.

PoindexterOglethorpe

(25,746 posts)
23. In the world of bereavement, distinctions mean nothng.
Sat Jul 2, 2022, 10:30 PM
Jul 2022

You are so right.

But this is what I say: As sorry as I am that my son took his own life, I actually have a lot to be grateful for. One is that he didn't do anything messy, like with a gun. Nor did he jump off a bridge (a distinct possibility as he lived in Portland, OR) so we'd never know what happened. He took something, that he'd apparently gotten over the internet, and was found the next morning by his roommate. So he also didn't languish in his apartment until neighbors complained of the smell.

I think it would be vastly harder to lose a child to some kind of accident (car, boating, whatever) or to some disease, or worse yet (in my opinion) to being killed by someone. Especially in a school shooting.

He chose to leave this life. I wish he hadn't. The night before he took his life, he called me and we talked for well over an hour, discussing things we'd never talked about before. I realized much later that he'd called me to say goodbye, without actually saying that. Our last words to each other were "I love you" and that means a lot to me.

And here's what I think of as the best part. He left behind a note (although it was dated some four months earlier, which raises the question of, What was that about? In the middle of it, he made me laugh out loud. What a gift from him, right?

And love back to you.

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