Advice and Perspectives about Loss

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Post your advice here about how to deal with a parent loss. Just add a message below.

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Author Message   Samantha Baskind Unregistered guest Posted on Sunday, August 21, 2011 - 7:59 am:    To William Adelman's son: I have a painting your father made of my grandfather. Contact me if you want: samanthabaskind@yahoo.com   willa a. young Unregistered guest Posted on Wednesday, June 01, 2011 - 9:30 pm:    My father William Ira Adelman was killed in the Phillipines, Leyete Straits. 12/10/1944. He was in the Navy on a PT boat when it was hit by a kiamazee pilot. The family is from Pittsburgh. PA. All these years have passed and the feeling of loss is somehow always there.I was born April, 1945 four months after his death. Does anyone also have a father that was in the Phillipines at that time? I have a scrapbook of letters that he wrote my mother. She always talked about him so I have a feeling of him.   Jan Griffin Unregistered guest Posted on Tuesday, December 21, 2010 - 3:10 pm:    Becoming whole is a long and painful process. Those in the outside world don't undertand what it is like to never have known your father. My father was killed by Grandmenil, Belgium, Christmas Day, 1944. I was born on what would have been their first wedding anniversary the next July. I have all the letters he wrote his family and my mother. He knew he was going to be a daddy and he was so proud. I regret that I didn't give more support to my mother and she is now in heaven with him. I have his purple heart, his dog tags, his army cap and pictures. This summer I will be going to Belgium to see where he died. Then I will be complete. I still cry for his memory and the dad I never knew.   Harry Strahlendorf Posted on Monday, February 18, 2002 - 10:48 am:    Letters - a healing message from the past... I was 32 years of age when my mom finally gave me the letters she had received from my dad while he was flying combat missions over occupied France. I can tell you that these pieces of paper, written so many years before, were a source of healing and release for me. I devoured each one and the tears flowed and flowed. I realized later that I was grieving for the dad I never had the honor or privilege to know. I was born two months after his death in Normandy. If anyone reading this is given the opportunity to read letters from their lost dad, it will do you a world of good. It is also a way to get to know them, as I developed a loving relationship with my dad. I am so proud of his service and sacrifice to our country. The Norman people will never forget either.   Rik Peirson Posted on Monday, February 11, 2002 - 4:31 pm:    Here are three things you can do: Talk openly about your Mother or Father, as they'll always be a significant part of your life, with no apologies there. You might even expect that significance to increase as you get older. Channel at least some of your energies into helping do that part of your missing Mother's or Father's job that would have involved raising you. You'll know instinctively how your Mom or Dad might have felt about at least some of what you're thinking or planning or doing. Honor them by doing, in at least some situations, what you know they might have guided you to do. Try to "mature" your sorrow by seeing it more as another expression of your love.   Susan Nichols Linville Posted on Friday, January 25, 2002 - 7:19 am:    Part 1-a: For the families with children of those killed or missing in action in WWII there were no "support groups" available for them to share their pain of loss, sorrow, anger or healing. They were, for the most part, women who had a child or children who they were suddenly solely responsible for. This was so far removed from the youthful plans these wives had made with their husbands that many withdrew into the pain.   Susan Nichols Linville Posted on Friday, January 25, 2002 - 7:16 am:    Part 1-b: They managed that pain in silence. I believe they worked hard to raise us to be more independent in the hope that we would not be hurt as they were. The problem was, we were already hurt. Most WWII orphans were perceptive enought to quickly learn that questions about their dad were painful to their mother. We didn't ask questions. We didn't know other orphans as we never spoke of our loss.   Susan Nichols Linville Posted on Friday, January 25, 2002 - 7:11 am:    Part 2-a: The first orphan I ever "met" was over the phone some 52 years after my dad was killed. Until that moment my dad was buried in some deep recess of my soul. However, at that moment of recognition, of understanding, the recess opened and emotions surged to the top and overflowed. It was painful, but the sharing of pain led to the freeing of an emotional release that had been growing all that time.   Susan Linville Posted on Friday, January 25, 2002 - 7:07 am:    Part 2-b: It was at that time I learned of AWON - a group devoted to sharing with, caring for and loving other WWII orphans. Healing comes through sharing. The need to know more about our dads is part of that healing. The most important part of this sharing for me has been that the more we speak of our fathers and the more we research and follow the path of our fathers lives and deaths, the closer we come to being whole.   Susan Nichols Linville Posted on Friday, January 25, 2002 - 7:02 am:    Part 3: For those families and children who lost a loved one in the terrorist acts of 9-11, please, keep the memory of that lost parent or family member alive through photos, through sharing their lives with those left behing. Knowledge is so vital to the children who lost a parent and it nutures the bond of love between the child and the parent that time can never break.   Ann Mix Posted on Sunday, December 23, 2001 - 4:57 pm:    Part One: Something that happened to me made me realize a very important thing about how to help a child "keep" a memory after the death of a father or mother. Part of losing my dad had been that over time I "lost" the sound of his voice, and the ability to truly recall his touch or even his face. His face lost it color and became a black and white photo in my mind on one demension. When my mother died in 1987 I was 47 years old. That day, we all left the hospital and went to my brother's house. For some reason he chose that day to reveal that an Aunt had sent him the "cardboard box" that contained our father's personal effects. He found the box in a closet and gave it to me. I opened it and there was my fathers lighter, his ring, an Assembly of God pin, his shaving brush and his pipe, which was missing its stem. Instinctively I brought the pipe up to my nose and smelled it. It still smelled of his tobacco after all those years!   Ann Mix Posted on Sunday, December 23, 2001 - 4:58 pm:    Part Two: I burst into tears and cried for the father I had lost. His smell had come flooding back to me and it was if I could "feel" him right there with me. The tears were healing tears. I had not yet cried for my mother either. She had slipped away after a five day comma, just hours before. I thought I was totally numb, but now, I sat on the couch and let the flood come. The gift of that pipe from my brother (who was born after our Dad was shipped out) was a wonderful thing. And God Bless the Aunt who saved it all that time and saw that it got to us kids, even though we had lost touch with her.   Ann Mix Posted on Sunday, December 23, 2001 - 5:00 pm:    Part Three: I later talked with a soldier who fought with my Dad. He said, "I remember him, he always had that damned pipe in his mouth. I came across his body and it was lying on the ground next to him. I picked it up and stuck it in his pocket." And so, 44 years later it ended up in a box in my lap, a gift beyond price. I will always be grateful to that soldier for his kind gesture in the middle of battle. I hope those who have lost some one in the September 11th tragedies, or after, will keep something for the children, sealed in a bag, that was personal to the one who died which might retain their "smell." Many years later it could help bring back a wonderful, affectionate memory connecting them in a deep personal way to the one who has long ago left them.   Pete Posted on Sunday, December 23, 2001 - 9:10 am:    Part of the healing process is acceptance of the sympathy and contribution of support from others, in face of wishing to appear to remain stoic and independent. In my mom's case, stoic and independent won out, and as years went on even she and I became isolated from one another as she became increasingly bitter and withdrawn-untrusting of anyone-believing we did not care; not realizing that by being stoic she had deflected our approaches and unfortunately distanced us. Many orphans of my time express a similar experience. We regret that our moms did not have the support they needed, and we regret deeply, our role in this too. In fact, the founder of AWON co-authored a book about the experience of orphans, "Lost in the Victory", an important book worthy of your reading. I hope we can find the words and the means to help the orphans of today become whole within their own souls.