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The Compassionate Friends
Brisbane Newsletter

April May 2007

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You Broke My Heart
© Fran Martin, ”Compassion”, Autumn Edition, 2004, Bristol,

You broke my heart
The day you died.
For weeks and months I sat and cried.
The days go on,
The work gets done,
But not a moment
My precious son passes without thought of you.
With each breath I take,
In everything I do.
I hear a motorbike engine roar,
I rush with hope to open the door.
A fleeting glance and he is gone,
For he is someone else’s son.
With tear-filled eyes I go back inside,
From this cruel world
I want to hide.
I want the peace of mind I knew
When my world was full of you.

This will never come again,
No one can ever ease the pain.
They say that time may heal all,
My mind, my heart, my very soul.
My darling son I hope that’s true
And that the memories I have of you
Will give me strength to carry on
To live the days now you are gone.
I remember you with love and pride,
But a part of me deep inside
Will always be torn apart
And that’s the piece of my broken heart
That’s gone with you
To heaven above,
And I give it with my endless love.
My child, my boy, my only son,
My love for you goes on and on.
The day may come when I haven’t cried,
But my heart was broken when you died.
A fleeting glance and he will be gone.
This time. This time it will be my son.

Index



Mother's Day
Judy Sittner, Alabama Newsletter, May/June 1991 Re-printed from TCF Qld Newsletter, April/May, 1992

Another Mother’s Day! But a different one this year.
For you see I am a mother, but my child isn’t here.
I am a mother who is hurting for this child who was so dear,
As I face this and every other occasion, Each and every year.

I am a mother who feels emptiness, Over and over again,
Because I miss THIS child and all that could have been.
I am a mother who cared as I watched my child grow,
And truly loved her more than anyone will ever know.

I am a mother who has memories and many tears to cry
Over regrets I’ll have to live with, Until the day I die.
I am a mother who is thankful for the miracle of birth,
And all my child has taught me about life and my own self-worth.

I just can’t stop being a mother
Just because my child isn’t here, Because the love we had for each other
Will continue for years and years.
And so….. On this special “Mother’s Day”,
I will feel within my heart,
All the pride, love and joy which are the parts
That make me: who I am, And what I’ll always be -
A MOTHER Just remember that….. Please?

Index



Flash Back
© 2006 Glenda Barrett, Hiawassee, GA, “Living With Loss” Mag. Fall 2006, www.livingwithloss.com

It was the way
The hairs glistened
On the man’s forearm
As he reached into his van
To pull out some work tools.

It could have been the way
The soft autumn breeze gently
Moved his shoulder-length hair
That gave me the urge to run
My fingers through it.

Perhaps, It was nothing more
Than the faded jeans he wore
Or the half-open flannel shirt.
It might have been the way
He glanced up at the sky -

A sky the colour of a mountain blue bird.
Whatever it was,
It had the power
To plunge me back to a depth of grief
As deep as the day they lowered
Your body into the ground.

Index



Andrew Joseph Caltabiano
5/12/71 to 31/5/02
Lovingly written by his mother,
Vera Caltabiano, TCF Qld for his fifth anniversary

Five years today you went away
We prayed so hard for you to stay.
It was your time to leave us here,
To grieve and mourn and shed a tear.

A piece of my heart is yours alone.
A piece of my life no other can own.
Deep in my soul you are part of me,
I pray someday I can set you free.

Time marches on for all who live,
I feel it’s now my time to give,
To others who may need some love,
So, Andrew please from Heaven above
Give me the strength to help others heal
To help make their life more meaningful and real.

The ache in my heart will always be there
Something with my TCF friends I can always share.
Where there is love there is quiet peace,
A tranquil place where turmoils cease.

Index



In the Hope of Helping Others
The Compassionate Friends By Genesse Gentry “We Need Not Walk Alone”, Winter 2005-06, Oak Brook, IL, USA

In 1991, our 21-year-old daughter, Lori died in a car accident. I was completely devastated by the death of my child. Everything I believed about life was tossed out the window, and I was filled with despair. It felt as if grief would destroy me.
Much of that time is now a blur, too painful to remember. But I do recall clearly my feeling of disconnection from most of the world of the living. My life had been ruined, and I had no idea what to do. The friends with whom I’d surrounded myself before Lori’s death had no way of knowing how to befriend me in this, and I had no idea how to ask for the help I needed. So hurt and loneliness were added to my over-whelming grief because friends who didn’t know what to do or say often opted to do and say nothing.
Then my husband and I found The Compassionate Friends. I won’t say it was immediately a perfect fit for me, because it wasn’t, or that I felt comfortable at the meetings, because I didn’t. I was a very private person: I had had no experience crying on anyone’s shoulder. My tears had always been in solitude. I’d never learned to express my feelings in words. So when someone asked me how I was feeling, I’d almost panic. How DID I feel? And after listening to the others in the circle, by the time my turn came, I was often overwhelmed with feelings. Like many others, I can’t cry and talk at the same time, which caused people to have to wait as I tried to get the words out … I hated all the eyes on me while I tried to gain control.
So why did I keep going? At the beginning it was because my husband wanted to, and it was there that I learned more about how he was feeling. I was also learning ways of coping with my loss from the more seasoned grievers. And all too soon I learned that TCF was actually a sanctuary, the only place where I could try to explain my feelings or talk about Lori and her death without people trying to change the subject because they were being made uncomfortable by my words. And it was such a relief to find out that not only was it okay to voice my darkest thoughts and feelings, but they often felt the same way themselves. They understood! Some months I had to overcome my lethargy to get in the car and drive the half hour to get to the meetings, but every time I went I was thankful that I had. Looking back now, I realize that the meetings, and the friends I made at the meetings, probably saved my life.
By the spring before the second anniversary of Lori’s death, we were no longer attending every meeting. I regularly spoke with TCF friends, but didn’t feel I needed to go every month. I had come to the point, as so many do, where I felt I’d received the most help I would get from TCF. I might soon have stopped going to the meetings altogether. Now I can’t even imagine who I would have become if that had happened. Instead I was given a gift, a reason to keep attending the meetings. Our facilitator was moving out of the area, and I was asked to facilitate the local meetings. I said yes and found there was a whole new world of healing when I stopped going only for myself and began to attend meetings to help others. I can’t overemphasise the importance of this turning point in my life.
From then on, every month I had to look outside myself into the hearts and minds of others and try to give them hope. I found the intensity of my own raw pain began to take a backseat to that of others more newly bereaved then I. Because I needed to find words for THEM, to try to help ease THEIR pain, a floodgate was gradually open in me, and words, amazing words, began to fill my life. Feelings, with the words to describe them, began to well up from my innermost being, feelings from the past, from those first months after Lori’s death, and feelings in the present, words in the form of poetry, poems to help me understand myself and poems to help others. And, truly, I believe this would not have happened if I hadn’t opened by heart to my newly bereaved compassionate friends.
I believe there is the potential for something like this to happen to all who become actively involved in the “helping” aspect of The Compassionate Friends. I don’t mean that everyone begins writing poetry. But I do believe that the greatest healing derived from TCF is this outward movement, this growth away from the self-centeredness, self-absorption of grief, toward the openhearted hope of helping others. And that this is a secret that people who leave after the first couple of years never learn.
It comes to me that parenthood itself does something like this. From our self-centered, self-directed lives before our children are born, we learn to bear the awesome responsibility for another person’s life when we first gaze upon them. Our lives change focus and their survival and growth become our highest purpose; our hearts become larger because our children are in them. When our children die, we not only hurt because the most important, most loved people of our lives are gone, but that intense focus is gone and our sense of great purpose. We wander in a wasteland, searching for what has been lost.
When Lori died, we still had our 15-year-old daughter, Megan, at home, but I felt so crippled as a mother. How thankful I am that Megan was somehow able to get through those early years with a mother so distracted by grief—and emotionally distanced by fear, I was half a mother in more ways than one.
Now almost two years had passed since Lori’s death and because of TCF, I began to find a new focus for my maternal instincts and a new way to grow back into the loving mother I’d been before Lori died. And as I tried to grow to the task of helping those more newly bereaved than I, just as I’d had to grow to the task of being Lori and Megan’s mother, I was benefiting threefold. First, my “mother” energy, which is a huge part of me, was again flowing outward. Second, as I was learning ways to help others heal, I was learning them for myself. And third, once again, I began to feel that I was doing something important with my life, that my life mattered, that my life had purpose.
When I look at other bereaved parents who seem to have survived this great loss the most successfully, I find that they too have again found purpose. And often that purpose has something to do with the child who has died. Sometimes they work toward eradicating the reason their child died: drunk driving and cancer are two examples. Some start foundations in their child’s name. Some take up and even finish the work that their child started.
Many bereaved parents, like me, have regained a sense of purpose through The Compassionate Friends. My work in TCF has given me a great sense of purpose, satisfaction in helping the newly bereaved at our monthly meetings, being part of the steering committee, a vital part of my chapter, and chapter leader. As regional coordinator I also try to give support to my region’s chapters, and the ripples go out from there.
And just as important to me, beside this sense of purpose, TCF has allowed me to keep Lori more visibly in my life. Wherever I go, whatever I do for TCF. Lori’s name is mentioned; Lori is not forgotten. Because what I do for TCF matters, and because all I do for TCF, I do in her name, Lori’s life continues to matter, over fourteen years after she left this earth. Through TCF Lori remains in the forefront of all I do, the guiding star in the direction of my life. I could not have found a more loving or fitting way to honour her than I have through The Compassionate Friends. My grief and TCF have forced me to grow in ways of which I had never dreamed. And Lori has been with me every step of the way. The following poem was a promise given and a promise kept.

Index



The Promise
By Genesse Gentry “We Need Not Walk Alone”, Winter 2005-06, Oak Brook, IL, USA
“Stars in the Deepest Night: After the Death of a Child http://members.aol.com/gbgentry

Your birth brought me star-shine,
The moon and the sun;
My wishes, dreams gathered
‘round my little one.

My life became sacred,
Full of promise and light,
All wrapped in the girl-child
Who brought love at first sight.

The years of your living
Filled with laughter and tears,
Excitement, adventure,
Some boredom, some fears.

But ended too quickly,
Ahead of its time.
The loss so horrendous,
Such heartbeak was mine.

But from the beginning,
One thought rose so clear:
Never would your death erase
The years that you were here.

I would not be defeated
or diminished by your death;
I would hang on, learn to conquer,
If it took my every breath.

For if your death destroyed my life,
Made both our lives a waste,
t'would deny your life’s meaning
And all the love that you gave.

I vowed that years of sadness
Would change, with work and grace,
To years of happiness, even joy,
In which you’d have a place.

Memories of you, like shining stars
In the patterns of my soul,
Are beacons flashing light and love,
And with them I am whole.

In your honor, I live my life,
Now living it for two.
Through all my life you too will live,
You lived, you live, you do.

Index



LESSONS
© Sandy Goodman, 2006, livingwithloss.com, Summer 2006
In times of confusion
I look for you
Seeking your knowledge
Wanting the solace of your words
Somehow our roles have switched
It is now I
who reach to you for wisdom
Like a child approaching a parent
Rather than you the son
depending on your mom
But perhaps your lessons
Were always there
and I was unaware
Of what you had taught me
until my need for your teachings
became greater than my desire to teach.

Index



Remembering

Remembering the day you left,
My last and fear-filled glimpse of your face,
Walking past you and wishing you would go
Somewhere,
Anywhere, away from me.

Realising that maybe, just maybe
You could read my mind,
Guilt followed by shame hangs heavily in
The air I breathe
From dusk till dawn.
I could never, ever, have known
How your leaving would break me,
How my breathing would become shallow and
My aching, bloodied heart
Would bring me to my knees.
My tears of failure
Of knowing I was your Mother
And that right at the end
The very end
You needed me.
Living without you is unbearable,
Remembering the day you left is my burden
For life,
Your life
And mine.
© Ann Loy, “Compassion”, Autumn Edition 2004, Bristol, UK

Index



TOMORROW NEVER COMES
By Shan. Re-printed from TCF Qld Newsletter April/May, 1991

If only every parent knew how easy it is to lose their child, how there are so many hidden dangers, most of us never even think about.
Their life is so incredibly fragile, death lurks in every corner, waiting for our children, and before we know it, they’re gone beyond death’s door…. And there’s no way out.
Now that I have lost my son, I think of so many things I should’ve said or done, wishing I’d taken more photos of him, and kept every little drawing or card or anything at all that he ever made for me.
I remember little things he spent such time and love, making for me, things I didn’t keep….. We tend to throw away the piles of paintings from kindy, the posies of “weeds” from the garden, given with such love! But I thought we had forever …. And it wasn’t meant to be.
I wish I’d had a professional photo taken of him on every birthday, and Christmas ….. So much of his short life is now lost forever, in the “overgrown backyard” of my grief-weary, tormented mind.
It’s easy for people to say, “You still have your memories!” But when you need them the most, they seem to elude you ….. All I can recall are the “bad times”, things we said to each other, that were so unkind.
So many phrases have taken over my vocabulary, like ….. “I wish” or, “If only”, and “I should have”. They just go on and on, like a cracked record, taunting me.
While I try desperately to accept the loss of my child, I can’t help having all those thoughts, it’s almost as if he’s still around me somehow, haunting me.
I believe every parent should go to a Compassionate Friends meeting, just once, to hear and see what horrific things can happen, no matter how much care you take. Maybe then, they’d keep that tattered bit of cardboard, posing as a birthday card, or the “painting” which looks like someone had an accident with the paint tin!! Then they’d have their precious “gifts”, instead of a heart that can do nothing else but break.
Please, each day, make sure you hug your children, and tell them how much you love them, never take one moment for granted, cherish each day, each minute, each second, in your blissful role as dads and mums.
Because, no matter how safe you think they are, or how many decades you may think you’ll have them to love, you have to remember, that for so many parents, and their beloved children, TOMORROW NEVER COMES!!

Index



A Prayer from Mother Teresa’s children’s home in Calcutta
This prayer was published in QHVSG News-Link June 2004 issue—it comes from a QHVSG
member who found it inscribed on the wall of Mother Teresa’s children’s home in Calcutta.

People are often unreasonable, illogical and self-centered,
Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish ulterior motives,
Be kind anyway.

If you are successful you will win some false friends and some true enemies,
Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you,
Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight,
Build anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow,
Do good anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous,
Be happy anyway.

Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough,
Give the world the best you have anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God,
It was never between you and them anyway!

Index





Say Their Names

The time of concern is over.
No longer are we asked how we are doing.
Never are the names of our loved ones mentioned to us.
A curtain descends.
The moment has passed.
Lives slip from frequent recall.
For most the drama is over.
The spotlight is off.
Applause is silent.

But for us the play will never end.
The effect on us is timeless.

Say their names to us.

On the stage of our lives they have been both lead
and supporting actors and actresses.
Do not tiptoe around one of the greatest events of our lives.
Love does not die.
Their names are written on our lives.
The sounds of their voices replay within our minds.

You say they were our loved ones,
we say they are.

Say their names to us and say their names again.

It hurts to bury their memory in silence.
What they were in flesh is no longer with us.
What they were in spirit stirs within us always.
They are of our past, but they are part of our now.
They are our hope for the future.
You say not to remind us.
How little you understand we cannot forget.
We would not if we could.

Index or Top of Page

The Privilege
By Rhada j Artz, RN, York, Pennsylvania www.bereavementmag.com Jul/Aug 2000

Birth and death are milestones.
They are the greatest milestones in a person’s life.
Whoever had the opportunity or the invitation
to attend these events has been given a privilege and an honor.
This honor should be neither overlooked nor abused.
The honor should be neither denied or feared,
but embraced with an awe of the mystery of life.
To exist means we were born.
To live means we shall die.

Index

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