January 30, 2017 - Traumatic Grief

Notice: This post may not be for everyone. Immediate family members or younger readers: it may be too soon for you to read this one. It’s about traumatic grief and contain some basic details of Andy’s death intended to help others who may face something similar. Though you already know the details, you may not want to read them right now while you are healing. It's even ok to make the decision to skip this post. Alternately, it may help you heal as it did one family member. It helped me when writing it. Maybe ask a friend you know and trust to read it first. (Or for young readers, ask your parent or an adult you trust to read it first. Just trust me that I want the best for you.) 

The last time I saw my brother, he was lying in a grey casket. He finally has his glasses on. I hadn’t seen Andy without his glasses in over 20 years (minus an occasional dip in the pool and even then I thought that looked strange. It’s interesting how something as simple as a pair of glasses can tie everything all together). The time before that, I saw Andy in the same casket without his glasses. It wasn’t Andy. It’s as if not having his glasses on completely removed everything I knew of Andy. I now know in retrospect I was in shock. He did need his glasses, he truly didn’t look like himself without them, but at the moment, while in shock, I couldn’t piece together why my brother was lying in a casket and why was he there without his glasses on. It was a shock-induced obsession for me where everything else about the scene didn't matter. The time before that, we were standing in my mom’s kitchen eating cheese dip and taco salads. We kept dipping the chip in and out of the crock pot watching the cheese strand from the top layer of the pot to the bottom layer of the chip as we raised the chip higher and higher into the air. We were laughing about the remarkable properties of processed cheese. Later that same night, we opened Christmas gifts, where ironically I had bought him a gift from his favorite gourmet cheese shop while they had bought my sister a wooden cheese tray. We didn’t notice the irony then.  The time before that I didn’t actually see him but we were on the phone talking about wire transfers and bitcoins (I had no idea what they were). We weren’t laughing that time, but we were bonding in a new way for he and I. The time before that, we were sitting at an Italian restaurant discussing an upcoming beach trip that he won’t be coming on now, and making plans for opening night of Star Wars: Rogue One. They had scored tickets and had invited my husband and I along the following week. Turns out Andy wouldn’t be able to go to that either. The time before that, we were in Tennessee at my grandmother’s funeral. I remember he and I standing under a tree holding the rope of a tire swing. It was a swing of our childhood. We snapped a picture of us standing there thinking it might be the last time we saw the swing (we would be right), and I remember as the picture was being taken the thought went through my head of how fast our childhood went by (we were right about that too). I also remember he and I talking about items in my grandmother’s storage shed. We were frustrated how we always wait to gather as a family at times of death. (Oh what we really didn’t know). The time before that, we were in the Caribbean. I remember laughing at dinner as Andy continued to order items on the menu. And laughing again as he dove down to chase the sea turtle. And again as we all sang at the top of our lungs on the back of the rental boat. And again as we “took in” the sites of the people’s attire we saw on the ship. And again when we sat at the Mexican restaurant laughing and again eating cheese dip, but this time not processed. I normally wouldn’t be recalling these memories so acutely (I have a terrible memory) , but I am finding when you are in grief, and maybe particularly in traumatic grief, they come into full view and they stay, and they eat at you, and eat at you, and eat at you. Gloriously, they eat at you.

Traumatic grief is not something I had really considered before Andy’s death. I’ve lost friends and family members before. Just 6 months prior, I lost my grandmother.  One year prior, sweet Pat. Two years prior, a father in law. Five (?) years earlier, dear Ann. And in between each of those other people as well.  I see death of children on a routine basis. I’ve helped friends prepare for the loss of family members when faced with malignancy or other diagnoses when the end seemed inevitable. Preparing for death is something I have learned to do both out of necessity and also out of God’s gifting. Life comes to an end. Sometimes it comes early, sometimes it comes in what we would call “mid-life” and sometimes it comes after a life long lived. Despite the timing, because we are creatures created for relationship, we never find ourselves ready and we are left longing for what was left behind. We want one more day, one more hour, one more second to do something more. It’s an innate longing, proof that we are created to relate. What I was not prepared for was the other emotions/experiences, that I’m not sure I know how to fully describe, that follow a traumatic death as occurred in the case of Andy. Andy died from an accidental bullet wound to the head. He carried a concealed weapon. The weapon discharged in his bag while he was getting out of the car on his way into the office. He was the first to arrive at his office building. Someone else arrived after him and found him. That someone, who I have met with and will forever be indebted to as a civilian choosing to do the right thing in what had to have been a traumatic situation, tried to revive Andy. Andy didn’t survive. His coffee cup and his computer survived, but Andy didn’t. I wasn’t at the scene. But I have the scene memorized. Because my mind stored the events. Just like the memories of the last few times I spent with Andy.

So while we have the grief of losing Andy as anyone does when they lose someone close, we also have the traumatic grief of the situation. Andy’s last moments where not a peaceful death of dying in your sleep like we all want to go, nor were they moments of time spent with loved ones in your last hours of life. I recall friends and family members dying of malignancy and gathering at their bedside for wonderful peaceful last moments and I cherish each of those. We didn’t have those with Andy (though we cherish our last memories with him as I listed above. What a blessing to chase sea turtles, my favorite animal, for my very first time with Andy! And I relish in the dancing and singing on the back of that boat!). The circumstances of his death being accidental, sudden, and too early in life leave us unsettled with more things to process.



I’m calling that a "traumatic grief". I imagine psychiatrists have some technical term to label it perfectly, but this is the term I have chosen. It can be applied in any number of scenarios where the situation carries its own scale of trauma for the people left behind. It doesn't even have to be a death. Any event can carry trauma with it and in the cases of grief, there may be traumatic grief. I am not here trying to assign which is better or worse to experience.  I simply say that there are numerous levels and scales to grief and grief is not just grief. My last post spoke more to the depth of grief as I discussed the adjectives and how I couldn’t find the right words to describe the feelings (you can find that post HERE - Adjectives). That is one vantage point of what we experience. This aspect I am speaking of now related to traumatic grief is another vantage point. I had little knowledge of it before now because I was inexperienced. Another example of thinking that because we have seen something on TV, we think we are experience. Boy, are we so terribly wrong.


Ron and I really enjoy what I would call dramatic television. “Blue Bloods.” “Homeland”  “Madame Secretary.” “ The Black List” "Call the Midwife".  I mean it’s our thing. I’m not a romantic comedy kind of gal. I like  drama or feel good drama. I need action to keep my mind guessing. I detest the predictable sappy love where "Beautiful boy doesn't like girl. Beautiful girl doesn't like boy. Boy likes girl. Girl likes boy. Married." It's just not my thing. Give me FBI profilers solving a crime. Give me bleeding heart politicians actually trying to do the right thing. That will win my heart! But when I was watching “Homeland” this week and the victim is seen slumped over the steering wheel from a gunshot wound, I rather suddenly and unexpectedly melted into an inconsolable puddle on the living room floor.  And yesterday, while driving in the car listening to our David Baldacci Book on tape and the FBI agent described a too close to home murder scene, I again melted into a puddle into the seat of my car. I broke down again on the way to a funeral for a family member. It was too soon to attend another celebration of life. I wasn't ready to walk through those doors again. I'm finding Wednesdays, the day Andy died, are particularly tough for me. Every Wednesday I wake up with a skiddish heart. Very simply put. I’m traumatized. As a result, I’m having to alter my choices to protect my heart. I now realize I will have to resort to being a romantic comedy girl (woe is me!), which I previously detested. I have to make better selections until I heal. I have to be more aware of my surroundings and be proactive in preparation. Going to a funeral, take a few extra minutes outside to prep myself. Choose carefully, when picking out a book. Turn on more lights in the house to mimic day light. Simply, be proactive so I can be less reactive.

I say all of this for a few reasons. First, who knows what lies ahead of you. You may find yourself in some level of traumatic grief. Life is going to feel different for you. Wednesdays may always be hard for me. You may have to alter your choices for a bit to protect your heart. There is a lot to process in routine grief. There is even more to process in traumatic grief. I think it is crucial to not process that alone. You may need to find someone to help you process. Be proactive so you can be less reactive. Also, if someone around you is navigating this, realize they are fragile. They need some space. They also need less space. Get in their zone and smother them in prayer. You both need to realize that the timeline of grief may be extended in this situation. It’s just an awkward thing to navigate. I don’t have the flowery eloquent words here to say in this entire post as I sometimes do when I write. “Awkward” is the best word I have. People don’t know what to say. You don’t know what to say. And it’s just simply an awkward situation to navigate. But what you need to know is YOU are not awkward. You are just traumatized and grieving. And those two things together change things. So be patient with yourself. Allow things to feel “off”. Work may give you 3 days of “bereavement”, but know that simply means you have 3 days to attend events. You are going to need many moons to navigate. Don’t set a timeline. Just go. And go slow. And above all else, be open about how it is going. Find someone else who has been there. Find someone who has done traumatic grief. That is your best resource. And then pray yourself through it and surround yourself with people who are praying you through it. Then, simply go.

Wise words from Tony Evans of God meeting us where we are. He's meeting me here:


God didn’t keep Daniel from the lion’s den; He met him in it. He didn’t keep Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from the fiery furnace; He joined them in it. He didn’t keep Joseph from being a slave to Potiphar; He gave him favor in it. And He met him in the prison as well. The proof in knowing you are where God wants you to be in your detour is that God doesn’t deliver you from it but rather joins you in it.

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