grief
Losing a family member is one of the most traumatic life events; Families must support one another to endure the five stages of grief and get through it together.
With Love
03/10/2020 With Love My wonderful mother, grandmother and artist, Constance Genevieve Brown Koefoed, died on December 29, 2019 as I was feeding her a spoon full of soap in the hospital. She was ninety-six and full of vitality right up to the last six months of her life. Having lost “the other gal in my life”, my daughter Christina Gabriella Milagro Koefoed, almost ten years earlier on February 15, 2009 at the tender age of twenty-two; I find the grief to sometimes be intolerable. Having your only child taken away from you too soon and now your mother, the next most important person in your life for so many wonderful years, challenges your will to keep on going. They were so simpatico and drew together for hours with love, their hands never leaving the sketching pad. When I was angry, my young daughter use to say “Dad, take a chill pill!”. Like her grandmother she already knew life was to be lived with love and not anger. And “Grandmama Connie” was there for all her grandchildren with love. She taught me the world was a better place if you lived your life with no regrets, realizing always that “less is more”. It was her mantra and I believe the best explanation for the reason why she lived such a long and fruitful life. By never saying anything bad about someone was her way of acknowledging everyone and accepting everyone with love. In a deeper sense being a natural artist with the pen, pencil or even the brush made Mom understand human nature better than most of us. Her art evolved in many directions but always came back to simply admiring humanity. This positive affirmation of life with love had to rub off on someone close to her and it did. On me. She always reminded me that everything comes from something. Like the deep love you have for someone comes from having grown up with love. There is spirituality within all of us. We are all like buds in a garden called life, waiting to be nurtured and caressed with love as our buds become flowers among a garden full of variety. I suspect my mother was the flower in that garden that was always a little bit different. No wonder my mother always surrounded herself with plants and flowers. She was that five year girl who drew wedding dresses on toilet paper because art was so personal to her. She was that thirteen year old tom boy who blooded a fellow male student for bullying her sister. And she was that twenty one year old art student during World War II, who was told by the dean that she would be “uncomfortable” dancing with soldiers from around the world, because of the color of her skin. I can only imagine she was the biggest flirt at that USO canteen, saying later “the tall Texans and Aussies were my favorites.” And yes she was on a roll by marrying a Dane in 1950 in America with love, where states like Virginia still made interracial love unlawful. This was a young woman who was deeply loved by both her parents. They taught her with love to follow her passions and dreams no matter where they would lead. When she became the mother of two boys they were hers with love forever. When someone roughed up my baby brother for innocently wiping snow off of his car, Mom tracked the man down and got an apology. When the public school system was failing, Mom found a better education for her “boys” with love. She sent the both of us to a private school. And paid for it as a single mother by holding down three jobs at once. We did not disappoint. Both of us attended Ivy League schools thanks to Mom with love. And when it was the early seventies and America was in turmoil after the challenging sixties, I attended my first antiwar demonstration with my girlfriend in Washington, DC in 1972. And of course with my Mom. She never lost sight of mankind’s suffering and gave to charities with love. The watercolor she created from experiencing that demonstration she named “DC PROTEST, 1972”. It was abstract and drawn with muted tones and shadows, suggesting conflict. But you cannot live to be ninety-six years of age and be full of hate and anger. Her last words to me were “Where do you think you are going?” Nowhere Mom, where you are not going. Only with love can you conquer all. And yes Mom you taught me that.
By Christopher Koefoed6 years ago in Families
My Mother
This picture means so much to me, you see this is my beautiful mother. She got took from this earth way to soon. I was only nine when she got killed. Mom was my best friend, she taught me so much even though I was young.My mother was the most kind hearted woman I have ever known. She would give someone the last penny she had, if she knew it would help someone in need. She always loved helping others.
By Sara Bevins6 years ago in Families
Twenty-Three Years
Dear mom, It's been twenty - three years to the day since you died. I have accomplished a lot in that time. From being able to go to the bathroom by myself, to graduating high school, having a baby, and now graduating again and soon getting married.
By Michelle Schultz6 years ago in Families
Butterfly: Stillbirth and Adoption
I AM NOT A NATURAL hugger. It just isn’t in my nature. I respect and adore personal space, and I loathe those awkward moments when I don’t know what is the most socially acceptable course of action. Is now a good time to shake someone’s hand; or is a pat on the shoulder better; or is a hug what is called for? It is actually a standing joke among my closest friends. I remember when, after an extremely long run with our local run-club members, one guy decided to give each and every one of our sweaty crew a hug. Apparently, my expression gave my inner disdain away, and my two friends who witnessed the event couldn’t stop laughing.
By Heather Down6 years ago in Families
The nightmare I had become my reality.
It was around the first of the year Feb or March of 2003, I was only 13. My mother and I lived in town in a mobil trailer. My mothers room was at one end of the trailer and My room was at the other end. She says I scared her, I imagine It would have scared anyone, I woke her up screaming in my sleep. She ran to my room and started shaking me saying "krystal, baby wake up It's just a bad dream". I remeber I was drenched in sweat, crying and shaking. My mother was standing at the side of my bed, trying to get me to come fully awake and realize It was a bad dream, the whole time she was telling me "It was ok I was just having a bad dream." I got awake looked up at her, she said "baby are you ok?" What did you dream?" she said; I just looked at her for a min and then My reply was "I had a dream daddy died momma!" she said; "oh baby Its ok, Its was just a bad dream.
By Krystal Rowden6 years ago in Families
An Unforgotten Man
It was 1984. I asked my girlfriend to the movies, as were the case when people dated (no Instagram, no Facebook, no texts). We sat in the theatre, holding hands, deeply enthralled in the story, waiting for the climax. Does he win the girl? Will she stay with him? The heroine does not but then the song plays at the end. I watch it wanting the song to end because my eyes well up as some unforeseen force hits my chest causing me to rush out with my girlfriend. The words to that song still affect me, but for different reasons. My girlfriend and I grew closer as she thought of me as a more sensitive soul. I felt for the yearning of a movie fairy tale ending. My feelings were not attached to the heroine but to my hero.
By Tomas Alejandro6 years ago in Families
Death
We had just been together last Wednesday, I was thinking of how I wanted to know more about him and his life before he was taken away by death, but I was also looking at him and admiring him as the person I knew him to be. It was not out of sorts for me to look at my family and acknowledge their Divine beauty, but the way I was looking at him, a part of me knew what was going to happen in just a few short days. My last memory with him was perfect.
By Mandy Salcedo6 years ago in Families
The "Lullabye" My Parents & I "Sang" To Each Other. First Place in Behind the Beat Challenge.
I elder-cared my parents for 9 ½ years. Knowing nothing about what this journey would hold, I signed up immediately to be their care-giver when my parents started to show signs of not being able to take care of themselves. It would be my gift back to them for being the amazing, supportive, and loving parents I’d known all my life. They were married for more than 65 years; a testament to how they loved and lived for each other like there was no tomorrow. I wanted to be able to keep them together for their respective last chapters and those tomorrows that were then waning. My task was to courageously, if I could, hold their hands as we three walked this holy path at dusk; Could I calm their disquiet as they lost their footing, couldn’t keep their focus, or scrambled their thoughts while losing their physical abilities as well? To call this journey sacred would be true. And, from my perspective, it would also be like stepping unto a roller coaster I had no idea I would be riding. All my good intentions, with wanting to honor my parents by protecting, assisting, and living with them, certainly did not make up for the lack of sleep, the stress, and frustration I would feel in the process of mainly caring for them all by myself, while working outside the home as well. To watch my parents age and lose their faculties, or for my Dad to go deaf was difficult enough, but when either of them began to question my intentions, my judgement, or my love for them in any given situation – those moments were emotionally heart-wrenching. I still felt emotionally drained even knowing full well that those moments were a bi-product of them losing their ability to think critically. My work was in not taking things personally, and staying open to the present; because that’s when grace would arrive. Sure enough, one of those moments of grace or divine intervention occurred, in the later years of my elder-caring. I had a camera/monitor set up so that I could make sure if my parents got up at night I would be alerted and get up and assist them. One evening, I heard/saw that my Dad was getting up and as I walked from my room to my parent’s bedroom, I saw a beautiful, white, glowing, silhouette of an Angel greeting me at the foot of their bed. I wasn’t afraid or daunted by this heavenly body at all. I did blink, but the beautiful Angel stayed until my attention turned to my parents again. It was a stunning, moving image, one that I didn’t question as being real. Overall, I felt protection and a feeling of affirmation that all was in divine order. “Of course,” my inner voice was saying, there were angels around overseeing this chapter in our lives. My parents, “my angels” were being protected. Along with that protection, I’m convinced that this divine being that entered our space transmitted some energy to me as well, to let me know that I was being watched over too, so I could feel support and continue my care-taking assignment with renewed energy and love. The song that came into play, after that angel sighting occurred, was within a year of my Dad passing. It came on the radio as I was driving to work – it was “Goodnight My Angel,” by Billy Joel. I hadn’t heard that song before then and Billy had debuted this song in 1993, which was 24 years earlier. Obviously, this was my time to hear it, to be soothed and comforted by it.
By Kathleen Thompson6 years ago in Families
Speaking OUT - Part 1. Born in Pain.
Pain. For the longest time I wasn’t sure where it was coming from. I was in pain all the time, even now I’m in pain. I didn’t get by a car or fall off a horse. I didn’t join a wrestling team or play much sports. But still this pain all over, did I sleep walk ?
By She’s just HURT. 6 years ago in Families
