[Rhapsody]

I just felt the need to share what I just posted in a thread to someone else.... for now I realize that I have NEVER told any one that I felt this way and my daughter has been gone for 11 years come this May 2, 2008 (and) I would like to explore some thoughts and feelings... not for sure where this is going, but I now have a strong urge to share & explore my inner feelings.

Thanks...... <font color="purple"> ((( hugs ))) </font>

* * * * * * *

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
Rhapsody said:

I know this from personal experience as I used to blame myself for my daughters death as she was handicap from birth and I was away on a much needed mental vacation many states away when she was ten years old and became ill and was rushed to the hospital..... I blamed myself for her death for I often felted that she might have survived if I had just been there for I would have noticed that some thing was wrong with her sooner than her care giver did.

.... But now I know that we all have a time to be BORN and a time to DIE and no one can change that.

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[LMo]

Oh Rhapsody... I'm so, so sorry

((( Rhapsody )))

[I_WMD]

Rhapsody >>>>>>>>> <<<<<<<<<<<, Share it ,,,, The LOVe you have as the memory stays with you.

[chalmette70043]

((((((Rhapsody)))))))

[AAAAA]

(((((Rhapsody))))) I'm so sorry for your loss.

[NewDawnFades]

Dear Rhapsody,

I just wanted to also extend my condolences to you. It takes an incredibly strong person to express their feelings about such a painful experience. Through you, she lives on, and I wanted to thank you for sharing her memory with us. You have my dearest respect.

Sincerely,

David (NewDawnFades)

[EJ711]

Rhapsody,

I understand.

EJ

[Perna]

Things could not have happened any other way than they did; you could not know she was going to get sick or you would not have gone away. I do not think your daughter would have wanted you to hurt yourself by thinking you were at fault.

{{{Rhapsody}}}

[agony007]

(((Rhapsody))) so sorry for your loss

[January]

((((((( Rhapsody )))))))

I am so, so very sorry for your loss of your beloved daughter. Your wisdom about life and death absolutely awes me.

Very gentle hugs,

Jan

[wickedwings]

((((rhapsody)))) i'm so sorry for your loss. i do understand how you feel. i've been through a few losses - losses of cats that i loved like they were my kids.

[spiritual_emergency]

<blockquote>
Your story breaks my heart, Rhapsody. I echo the sentiments of others here who have expressed their sorrow.

I like to believe that there is an inseparable bond that exists between ourselves and those we have truly loved (and sometimes, truly lost) and that bond allows that a little love still gets through -- not only from you to her, but from her to you.

My deepest condolences on your loss. I cannot imagine any pain deeper than the loss of a child. May the memory of everything she was live always in your heart.

[Rhapsody]

Thank you all for caring to post a reply I was a little shocked when I returned tonight and saw 10 replies for ME -

While I now know that it was not my fault and that NO ONE and I mean NO ONE can prevent DEATH...... back then it was hard not to blame myself for the first year or two after her death, for I often wonder why I had to go thru my mental break down around that time and needed to get away from even my family as to regain what little sanity I still had left in me.

My past abuse issues: my biological fathers rejection and abandonment, my step fathers alcoholic days, my moms lack of support, my DID finally showing its self and a few other issues mixed with the ten years of giving care to a 100% disable child just seemed to get the best of me and uprooted all that I hid from - I had to run in order to survive (and) I hated myself for not being strong enough to make it six more months, for then I was not aware that was the amount of time left in my sweet little precious girls life.

I still remember returning home and getting to the hospital a day before she actually passed away..... she no longer looked like the daughter I had left behind just a few short weeks before.... her body was all swollen from her organs shutting down one by one and she was no longer able to open her sweet little brown eyes for me to see.

I felt like the rat the cat had drug thru the cutters and no longer wanted for it now stank of failure and loss of compassion - for how could a person barely hanging on and on the verge of a mental break down her self care for another...... I hated that I was so numb at that moment of sorrow in my life and I felt so confused for it was a bitter sweet sorrow to me.

I wasn't able to cry for the loss of my daughter for months to come......
I was so doped up on several depression medicines that I could not even remember the actual funeral (still can't).... I can see me sitting in the pews at the beginning of the funeral and then me sitting in the chairs at the gave site, but nothing in between.

* * * * * * * * *

That's all for now........ I have to leave this area of pain before I ?????????? - I just need to leave.

[Rhapsody]

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
Rhapsody said:
Eric Clapton - Tears in Heaven
....... We played this Song at My Daughters Funeral - 10 years ago.

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[spiritual_emergency]

<blockquote>
Ahhh. I listened all the way through and I cried through every moment.

It is so hard to know what to do with that kind of pain, isn't it. So very hard to bring it up to the surface and simply let it be. Maybe it's enough to know that others will cry with you and in that, you will not be alone.

I would wish for you in this moment, a mother's lap that you can just climb into and be held and rocked for a while, much as you -- no doubt -- held your own daughter many times.

time can bring you down
time can bend your knees
time can break your heart
have you begging please
begging, please...

I have known that kind of anguish and I'm so sorry that you have known it too.

There has to be something good about this love that we hold in our hearts, Rhapsody. We get what we get and the limitations of that getting can be what makes the love we do get all the more precious. Love can break us and yet, somewhere, we agreed that we'd be willing to bear that cost for all the joy it brought. I don't need to have known her to know that she was beautiful for you have already shown her beauty to us through the vision of your heart.

Tonight, you will cry and others will cry with you. And in just a few hours, the sun will rise and you will feel just a little bit better even if you forever carry that place within you that has been scraped and hollowed by the hand of pain. May the sun creep into that space and soothe you with its warmth by day, and may angels watch over you and bring you peace by night.

[spiritual_emergency]

<blockquote>
A little story for this space...

In the woods, near where I live, is a tree that many moons ago must have been struck by lightening or undergone some similar form of trauma. I suspected as much because the the tree itself was twisted and bent, with a thick scar that ran down its trunk until where it met the ground. For years, I walked past this tree by myself or with others and often, we would stop... if only for a moment... to soak up that moment in its presence.

Many years later I would lose something I dearly loved and heavy with grief, I found myself walking that familiar path under a midnight sky, into the woods. And when I found the tree, I wrapped my arms around it, and pressed myself against it, and sobbed like I was a child because I felt as if somehow, this tree, with its horrible scar that rang from stem to stern, might be the only thing that could possibly understand.

[spiritual_emergency]

<blockquote>
<center><hr width=70% size=2>

[b]It is good to remember that in tensile strength and ability to absorb pressure, a scar is stronger than skin.

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Tears are a river that take you somewhere.

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Tears make us conscious. There is no chance to go back to sleep when one is weeping.
Whatever sleep comes then is only rest for the physical body.

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Source: <a href=http://www.elexion.com/lakota/textos/texto31b.htm#12">Women Who Run With the Wolves - Chapter 13: Membership in the Scar Clan</a>

[(JD)]

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[spiritual_emergency]

<blockquote>
Hey Rhapsody...

I hope that you're maybe feeling a bit better today. Probably a bit raw, a bit fragile, a bit open. Those were the times I went into Silence. It was good for me.

Anyway, be gentle with yourself.

[bebop]

rhap I know how you feel hon. I felt so guilty when my grandddaughter died I didn't think I could go on living. I wanted to go with her and did for a long time. even now at times. it will be 11 yrs for us in March. anytime you need to talk feel free to pm me. our little one was 3 months old.

[Rhapsody]

Thanks everyone for listening to an old woman ramble on....... now to add to my story and still hope for the same unconditional love & support you have been giving.

* * * * * * * * *

Why her Death haunts Me so.......

Like I said I had been out of state at the time my daughter become ill again for the ump-tenth time in her short ten years of life and for this I am a little glad for I fear that I might have been accused of doing some thing to bring it on for I had been fighting falling apart for some time now and it had gotten so bad that my husband and I feared for our daughters life for my DID had taken over the year before and I was afraid that one of my alters was trying to rid my life of the stress called "My Daughter..........

Therefore we had placed our precious little girl in foster care just six months prior to her death and I hated myself back then for not being strong enough mentally to have hung on for just six more months..... for not being there the entire ten years of my only daughters life.

I hated that the hospital staff watch me like I was criminal when I came to see my dying daughter...... little did they know that we gave her up to save her life while I was dealing with a mental break down, clinical depression, DID and three suicide attempts.

I hated myself and still do at time that I slapped my precious handicap daughter once in the face when she would not stop crying one day - a very bad for me.

I miss her so much and wish I could just hold her again and have her tell me that she forgives Mommy - a word in which I never hear from her lips (mommy) - for she could not talk, nor walk.

I hate that I was not STRONG ENOUGH!

I hate that my two boys (ages: 23 & 18) do not know about this part of life for they were to young to remember - I fear the day they ask me questions about that time in their sisters life.... I hate that my boys do not know that their mother deals with DID.

* * * * * * * * *

Why is it is easier to remember all the bad we have done, and then it over rides any good?

[spiritual_emergency]

<blockquote>
I have said elsewhere that the one thing we often have the most difficulty forgiving is our own humanness.

Life can throw curveballs at us that exceeds our capacity for coping and in the aftermath, we're left to struggle with our sense of inadequacy and failure. Even if we were strong -- you pegged it Rhapsody -- we still feel that we were not strong enough.

I don't know if there's anything anyone else could say that would lift that burden from us; we can't accept forgiveness from another unless we have first forgiven ourselves. And even if we do get to that place where we can accept that we did the best we were capable of doing at the time, the original wound can still ache and throb. We circle back, again and again to those places of woundedness, seeking healing, a full resolution of which may never come.

Meanwhile, life goes on. We are the sum of our experiences -- the good and the bad; the wretched and the ecstatic; the sacred and profane. This is the cost of being human, and human is what we are.

[Susan27]

hi rhapsody and i'm so sorry for your loss. we never get over it, do we? just learn to live with it. i had a mental breakdown after 2 important losses and it was agony. didn't think i'd make it through. i'm glad you are here and talking about it. i'm not sure what other thread you discussed this on. can you tell us more about her?

i just realized i responded after only reading 2 pages and you had just posted another important one today. wow, what agony you went through. sounds like you did the best thing you could for both you AND her. what a mark of courage to put her in a situation that would be better for you both. You were dealing with so much. The fact that they all looked at you like that without having an open enough mind to give you the benefit of the doubt must have been like torture on top of torture. it all sounds so difficult. are you blaming yourself less now? i sure hope so! you really did the very best you could. you were holding on to your own sanity by a thread...how could you have done more?? and yet i understand why you blamed yourself because of not being together and strong enough to deal. it's what we do to ourselves, unfortunately. it's so sad though. i'm so sorry you had to live through something like this.

[LMo]

Oh Rhapsody... please forgive yourself. You were acting in her best interests. You did the very best you could. I hurt for you because your grief is palpable, but the most important thing is to be gentle with yourself. If your daughter was an adult and grieving the same situation with HER daughter, you would want to reassure her, right? So do that with yourself, and forgive yourself lovingly.

[bebop]

I agree with LMO. your daughter is an angel now. YOU have to forgive yourself but honey there is nothing to forgive. you did what you had to do hon. no one is ever going to put any blame on you. I wish more parents had that kind of love. I wish you peace now and forever.