April.26.07

A Loss Never To Tell

Posted in Uncategorized at 10:34 am by sirky

Speechless and tears in the eyes. Two days after reading Noemi’s Grief Blog I still feel the chills running down my spine. Imagine losing your only son because of a drowing incident. While on vacation you are enjoying the presence of your family members and the next minute your six year old son is found motionless in the pool. As a mother you will endure an indescribable grief. A suffering that lasts not for a year, not for several years but until your last breath. Try to imagine an everlasting personal suffering.

Noemi had already experienced three deaths in her immediate family at the time of her son’s death. Noemi lost her mother while studying in college. Later she lost her brothers Ruben and Oscar. In addition, her father had suffered a series of debilitating strokes which kept him permanently bedridden.

Here we have:
-a mother that has lost the love of her life, her mother and two brothers.
-a father that has lost his wife, two sons and a grandchild.
What can Noemi do? Her father has had more than his share of sad events and now she needs to tell him that his six year old grandson has died…
"Noemi couldn’t bear to tell you the tragic news because you were already so sick. We were afraid you’d join him in death if you‘d ever find out, knowing how you doted on all your grandchildren. We couldn’t risk telling you because we were not ready to see you go yet." – Jose Lardizabal’s Legacy
And so became the death of her son a Loss Never To Tell.
A sad and heartbreaking story but Noemi has used her experience in a positve way. She shares her feelings and experiences with others through her blog, her writings and the Philippine chapter of the Compassionate Friends.

Having experienced the stillbirth of our son Kristian, I can relate to Noemi’s feelings.
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Losing one your siblings creates powerful emotions. It requires enormous amounts of personal strength to put these emotions in the right perspective. The energy required for this process takes a big toll on the human body. As a result of this energy-drain many people feel lost, unhappy and useless. Professional guidance, unconditional love and group support can help you overcome this stage. The solution to personal suffering has been documented:
"When you consider what really makes you unhappy, you find that it's not so much what you have or don't have, it's what you expect to have. To eliminate your suffering, you have to recognize that your expectations do not determine what actually happens. Reality somehow always turns out to be different from what we expect.
The funny thing is that if you try to directly control your thoughts, you won't succeed – It's one thing to understand that we cause our own suffering and quite another to know what to do about it. That is, you can't just tell yourself to stop expecting something, and you can't just tell yourself to stop worrying..." – Read More

If you have suffered a terrible loss do remember that you do not need to walk alone.

Get to know more about Noemi read her interview in the Manila Bulletin

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