A word of encouragement to Men who are grieving

I wrote this message to the LOOK list and thought I would add it here to my blog just in case there might be a man who is grieving the loss of a child.

I received an e-mail last night from an old friend who I used to work with in Atlanta Georgia.
She told me that she knew of what I was going through and because she did not know WHAT to say that she decided the best thing for her to do was to say nothing. I told my friend that there is nothing anyone can really say to make things better. What can be said to change the reality of our loss? What can be said to change the intensity of the pain or the void in our hearts that we feel after our child is gone? Our lives are changed in the blinking of an eye and we are left with the task of picking up the pieces and rebuilding our lives. I told my friend that the best thing that she could have done for me as a friend was to just be there. Allow me to babble in her ear for a few minutes on whatever subject that I needed to babble about. Dont expect me to make sense. Expect me to ramble. Expect me to cry. Expect me to get angry. Expect me to be frustrated.
Expect me to be suicidal at times. Expect me to be despondant. Just allow me to be me and realize that the pain is making me be a little bit weirder than normal. For those of you that dont know me I am a little on the weird side anyway so , yes, this makes me a little more weird.

It has come to my knowledge that there are a lot of men just like me who have lost a child and need ways to express the emotions I listed above. The world that we live in is not conducive to men sitting around blubbering like cry babies over the loss of a child. The world we live in demands that we suck it up and be tough. What would John Wayne say if he knew that we were crying about something like the loss of a child. John Wayne would say that people die, get used to it and move on. So what it is your child. Dont you have more children that will take their place anyway? The problem with that thinking is that Hollywood has warped our worldview and our parents raised us men thinking that crying and showing emotion is a sign of weakness. I remember listening to my earthly father telling me to shut up and not cry even after some of his good old fashioned whuppins. I was thinking at the time that it was silly for him to tell me not to cry when my butt hurt and my feelings were trashed.

So, with all of that said let me say this primarily to the men that might be lurking here. You are certainly not superman. It is ok for you to have feelings of emptiness. It is ok for you to be angry about the loss of your child. It is ok for you to admit that you love your child and miss them. It is ok for you to feel angry that God allowed them to go home with HIM earlier than you would have wanted. It is ok for you to question God and ask him WHY. It is ok to be depressed and despondant for days on end. It is ok for you to want to sit back and let the world pass you by in hopes that this will all just turn out to be a big horrible dream. One of the things that I am learning is that everyone handles grief differently. I can see that between myself and my wife.

I am gathering a list of names and e-mail addresses of MEN who are interested in walking down this road together with me. We are all part of a horrible fellowship of parents who are grieving. None of us want to be here but here we are. What we do with this is up to us. I believe that each of us have the ability and the life experiences to help one another out from time to time and I just want to do my part to help those of you that need an opportunity to open up and speak.

I am setting up an e-mail distribution list in Outlook with the names of men that I am aware of so that I can start to dialog with them. I would recommend that each of you do that as well. If you want the list that I have and want to be added to it then email me at jcmoffitt@jcmoffitt.com Be sure to put ADD ME TO THE LIST or SEND ME THE MENS GRIEF LIST in the subject line. I will set up a filter in my SpamKiller application not to delete your email. We can discuss things in e-mail, here on LOOK and we can also set up a virtual community where we have our own private message board and I can host chat times where we can chat in real time. I am also willing to talk with any of you men via the regular ole POTS line. POTS stands for Public Operated Telephone System. Write me a private email telling me you need to talk and when and I will give you a phone number to call. I am also available via MSN Instant Messenger at jcmoffitt@hotmail.com, AOL IM as Friend4836. So, if you are on IM and you want to add me to your contact list and chat do so. If I am at work and too busy to chat I will ask you to hang on for a few moments or to send me an email. I will get back to you.

Ok, nuff said about that. Lets start talking men...... The Superbowl is over anyway.... :)

James Moffitt
Jesus Connect Ministries
http://www.jesus-connect.net
jcmoffitt@jesus-connect.net