| My Visit With the Grief Counselor |
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| Since I started adding new pages to the site, it brought to mind a story I’d like to tell you; something that happened to me in that first year of grieving. Odd how sometimes when I’m writing, things come back to me so clearly. If you are a grieving mom and no one will let you talk about what’s hurting you, show them this story, and maybe they will get it.
You know, back then, I remember walking around with this continual knot in my chest, and a lump in my throat, and being so desperate to just talk… (I think this was around six months after Josh had died) and it seemed that everyone kept their distance, and certainly wouldn’t let me talk to them about anything… Anyway, I got so desperate that I actually looked in the phone book, trying to find some sort of grief counselor, even if they were a total stranger. Well, Watertown isn’t exactly a big city, and there really weren’t any listed except one…at Hospice. I called the local Hospice, and they put me on the line with a very nice woman who told me she was their grief counselor. I quickly explained to her that I understood that she usually only counseled families who had actually been working with Hospice; and who’s loved ones had been Hospice patients. I nervously explained that I wasn’t one of those people, and that my son had died 6 months earlier…but there was literally no one else. I don’t know if it was the desperation in my voice or what, but she gave me an appointment for the very next day. I went the following day to meet her, and was greeted by an extremely nice woman. She was tall and slender, perhaps fifty years old, and I remember her voice as being soft, and somehow comforting when she spoke. Everything about her was ’casual’, and despite my inner turmoil, I felt surprisingly comfortable in her little office. I remember, she asked me to take a seat on the couch. I guess I’d been expecting her to sit at her desk, (you know, put that distance between us, as if I were contagious…like everyone else had been doing), but instead she sat on the couch with me; each at an end where we could face each other. I didn’t know what to expect. My stomach was in knots. And then she did something so simple... it was the smallest of statements really, and yet it almost sent me into hysterics. She looked directly into my eyes, smiled this soft, friendly smile, and said, “Kelly, tell me about Josh, what was he like?” (Oh my God, it’s been three years and that just sent me into sobs again..) You see, this was the first time anyone had asked me anything since Josh died. I remember this huge lump came up in my throat… I had to keep swallowing while I was talking to get the words to come out, and my breathing kept getting faster, and I know my voice was winding up to something like a quiet howl. Six months of practice at holding it in in front of people…I kept trying to be calm, …to tell her, you know, what a sweetheart he was, and what he looked like, and that he was a guitar player…but at the same time, in my head these awful images were flashing of the blood running from his mouth and nose, and my voice just kept getting weirder and every time I’d draw a breath, it would get louder like there was no air left in the room………… It was as if she had tossed one little snowball, and started a great avalanche. She mercifully didn’t leave me to babble long, for she followed with a very gentle, “Would you like to tell me what happened? I can see that this is very hard for you. You seem to be holding a lot in.“ The lump in my throat turned into a boulder, and teardrops the size of marbles started rolling down my cheeks. I could barely breathe, but I started telling her (in between these great sucking sobs) what had happened to my son. Six months of silence, holding all this horror inside me, and here was this total stranger, being kinder and more open than anyone had been or talked with me since it happened. I remember that she never looked away, no matter what I was saying, no matter how much I couldn’t catch my breath, no matter how much my nose was running, or how awful or gruesome the details may have seemed…she never looked away from me, the way that other people had…(you know, that silent signal that says ok, you are freaking me out, you should shut up now.) And it was because she didn’t look away that I was able to tell her everything I’d been bottling up. The tubes and the wires and the fears and the blood and not being able to wake my baby up…….she let me blurt it all out, and even grabbed the Kleenex and cried right along with me. Bless her kind little soul, she surely did. I remember every third or fourth sentence I’d say seemed to be “I haven’t told anybody any of this…” She seemed to know that without me telling her. I cannot tell you that I walked out of there all better, but what I can say is that I walked out of there feeling a thousand pounds lighter. Bottled up sorrow is a great weight to bear. I didn’t realize how great that weight was until she allowed me to put some of it down in her office. More than anything, what she did for me was to put my feet on the path. I saw that in talking about the things I'd been holding in, I started to feel a little bit better. I only saw her the one time. I could have gone back…probably should have gone back, but for some reason I didn’t. I started a website instead, and the rest you know. This is how I ended up talking to you. But in the end, the help and support I've received from the other mothers here was worth more than a thousand councelors. Kelly Cummings ~ 9/12/06 Back to FGM Sitemap/ Sign Our Guestbook/ Read Stories of Other Moms (book 1)/ Read Stories of Other Moms(book2)/ Read Lates Guestbook Entries (Book3)/ Poems/ Poems2/ About Me/ What a Grieving Mom is Going Through/ Words That Hurt or Heal/ Do's and Don'ts/ Photos/ Josh's Story/ |