Proactive Grieving™… a paradigm shift in processing loss.
Welcome to my website, I am glad that you have found your way here, although I am sorry for the reason that may have brought you. I am your host Mitch Carmody, a bereaved father, bereaved son, bereaved sibling and grief facilitator.
We are now closing in on the end of the first decade of the new millennium. Most of us baby boomers remember reading about Haley’s comet when we were kids and we hoped to see it zoom across the night sky as an adult. We hoped to see men land on the moon and witness space travel to an international space station; we used a real outhouse; we had only a couple stations that we could watch B&W television on; telephones had party lines that you shared with neighbors; one computer filled an enormous room; water was not sold in bottles and there was no AC.
That was only 50 years ago, my has the world changed. No Berlin wall; no nuclear exchange with Russia happened; we saw Haley’s comet come and go; we watched a space shuttle carry passengers to an international space station; we passed beyond the angst of Orwell’s “1984”; we live the technology present in “2001 a Space Odyssey”; a computer can now fit into the palm of your hand; we can telephone anywhere in the world at the touch of a button; a black American has become our nation’s president. Many changes have come to pass that were foreseen and unforeseen, but where have we come in terms of processing our grief for the loss of a loved one?
As a beggar shares his bread with another beggar I share my heart on a difficult subject with the loss of a child; when there is no miracle.
No parent should have to go through the loss of their child; there is no greater pain on this Earth than to experience the death of your child, no grief harder to bear. There is no easy way out, no medication, placebo, no therapy, no shortcut or prayer that can take away the pain, it has to be experienced, you love hard you grieve hard. It is totally unfair and life does not seem worth living...but we need to live.
Some people blame God for taking away their child, some glorify God; that God picks his favorites to be with Him in Heaven and that they are in a better place, and that the good die young. Some people blame the devil for sending evil our way and that we were not faithful enough. Regardless of the cause of death; by disease, accident, suicide or murder, as parents we blame ourselves. We are the responsible parents who failed to protect our children from their death, no matter how you cut it, we blame ourselves. We are responsible for their welfare, and in some way we failed and our child died. No matter what facts can be brought before us that we did nothing wrong, we still rationalize our guilt. I believe for most of us we as parents are guilty of one thing: loving too much.
