HEALING THE GRIEVING HEART
Supporting Bereaved Families Making the Necessary Decisions of Loss
Hosts:? Dr. Gloria Horsley and Dr. Heidi Horsley
With guest:? Karen Knee
November 9, 2006
G:?Hello.? I?m Dr. Gloria Horsley with my co-host
H:?Dr. Heidi Horsley.
G:?Each week we welcome you to Healing the Grieving Heart, a show of hope and renewal for those who?ve suffered the loss of a child or a sibling or a grandchild or maybe just a friend and always the message is others have been there and made it before you and you?ll make it, too.? And you need not walk alone.? If you?re listening to our Thursday live Internet show, please join Heidi and me on the show by calling our toll free number 1-866-472-5792 with questions or comments regarding the losses in your life.? These shows are archived on our website, www.healingthegrievingheart.org and www.thecompassionatefriends.org website.? They can also be downloaded through Itunes and we are also on selected radio stations.? You can go to our website to hear about those stations.? Well, Heidi, good morning.
H:?Morning, mom.
G:?I?m going to start out with an email today and the email is about our guest last week.? Do you want to just fill our audience in about him?
H:?Sure.? Our guest last week was Bill Hancock and he wrote a book called Riding with the Blue Moth and what it was about was after his son Will died in a 2001 airplane crash, he rode across country 2,700 miles.? He pedaled 85 miles each day, and he did it in memory of his son and he did it as a way to heal along the way.
G:?Yeah and Bill wanted to tell you all, he forgot to mention it last week, that all the proceeds from his book go to a scholarship fund for his son Will.
H:?And I would totally recommend the book because it reads like a novel and it?s an amazing book and I couldn?t put it down when I started reading it.
G:?Yeah, it?s fun to read.? Well, apparently, Ray could not either.? We got an email from Ray from Tacoma, Washington, and we want to tell you folks that we really enjoy your emails, don?t we, Heidi?
H:?Yes, absolutely.? Keep them coming.
G:?Yeah, and Ray says:
After hearing your show with Bill Hancock, I ran right out and got his book.? One of the things that most impressed me was his relationship with his wife and how she supported him on his ride.? Being a bereaved dad, I like to hear that death of a child doesn?t destroy a marriage.? Thank you all for what you and Heidi do.
Well, thanks, Ray for that email.
H:?Absolutely, and you know it?s such a myth that just because a child dies that you?re going to get a divorce.? We?ve heard from many people and some people say in the long run their marriages have become stronger because they?ve been through so much together.
G:?Yeah, and for some reason it comes up on the media a lot so I don?t know why people keep perpetuating that but there has been a study done by Compassionate Friends that shows that that isn?t the case.
H:?And I think you go through trying times and tough times during your grief process but marriage is about that anyway so you?re going to have trying and tough times in every marriage.
G:?Absolutely, and you?ve lost so much that really losing a marriage is not something that you have the energy to do.? Today, Heidi, we?re going to have kind of an unusual topic but it?s really important and one that I think needs to be discussed and that is making arrangements and plans after the death of a loved one.? These that we?re talking about are not just funeral arrangements, but they?re also arrangements about what to do with the body or whether you don?t have a body and what about viewings and whether you do cremation and those kinds of things.? Some families are really forced to deal with some very traumatic things like we know the families from 9/11, difficult things along the way after their loved ones died and I just wanted to tell a little about our son, Heidi?s brother?s death.? He died 23 years ago in an automobile accident, and his and his cousin?s bodies were burned.? I worked at the University of Rochester.? I taught in the School of Nursing and I had a friend whose brother died in World War II and she said, ?You really ought to see the body no matter what.?? So she convinced me along that direction and we did see the body.? The funeral director took care of it, wrapped him in gauze and that kind of thing because he was burned so I found it ? how did you find it, Heidi?
H:?I am so glad that we were given the opportunity of viewing the body because as a child?I was 20 at the time?but you look to your parents for direction on what?s going to happen and you all said, look, we have an opportunity to view Scott and this is what he?s going to look like.? Do you want to?? And we all said yes and I am so glad I saw him because if there was a part of me that believed that he really didn?t die, that he and Matthew weren?t really in the car, that somebody had kidnapped them, I couldn?t believe that this could happen to two healthy 17 year olds, so seeing his foot in the coffin and recognizing it and knowing that was him was very comforting for me.? I needed proof in a sense.
G:?Yeah, I found it comforting to say good-bye, too.? But what we found working with the 9/11 families is that it seems to matter a lot early on isn?t that right, Heidi, but later on, not so much.
H:?Yeah, and I think everybody is different and everyone has their own opinions and their own beliefs about how it has been for them but yes, early on, people wanted some proof that their husbands and their fathers really were in the Trade Center, that that really was true and their siblings, but later on yes, as time went on, the reality set in that they weren?t coming back and it was hard for everyone regardless of whether or not you saw a body or not.? And I also wanted to say, like you said mom, saying good-bye was important for me, too, and I held him in the coffin.? I kind of kissed him good-bye and held him and I was glad I could do that.
G:?So it?s unique with every individual.? Some of you out there decided not to see the bodies.? Some of you have.? Let?s talk about the 9/11 families for a minute, the World Trade Center towers.? It?s been five years and now someone just called me from Canada because they just found some more remains after five years.? It was a reporter who called and he wanted to know how the families would react to this.? It?s very unique how people react to this kind of thing.? In the first place, some people wanted to see body parts.? Some people did not.
H:?Some people wanted to be phoned that there were remains found and some people don?t.? Some people say it?s been five years and we don?t want that information at this point.
G:?Yeah, please don?t call us.? And then some people, they would call them and after maybe the third call, then maybe this time they wanted to see them.
H:?Absolutely.? And like you said sometimes we don?t have options of whether or not we?re going to view bodies because sometimes we have no bodies and people have done really creative things also with urns and memorials and burying caskets with just people?s things in them, things that they liked but didn?t have bodies.? So there are many different ways you can mourn a loss and celebrate a life even if you don?t have a body.
G:?And I think that?s what our guest today will be talking about, too.? But also I want to say, if some of you are angry out there that family members suggested that you not see the body but yet they did.? I?ve heard a lot about that, have you Heid?
H:?Absolutely.? I think sometimes people try to protect people and they say oh, we don?t want you to see the body.? It would be too difficult, and that?s really a decision that each individual has to make.? I know that I?ve talked to women particularly that have been protected by well-meaning husbands or spouses or whoever
G:?Or kids.? I?ve talked to people whose kids don?t want them to see the body.
H:?That?s a big one.? And they?ve been protected and in the long run they kind of wish they had been able to view the bodies.
G:?But, if you didn?t see the body, you?ve got to say that you did the best you could at the time and so did your family and you need to figure out some way to get through that.
H:?And oftentimes these funeral homes, and I?m sure Karen can speak to this better than me, they can take bodies and they can make them look a lot better for viewing.
G:?Yeah.? However, most of the audience that we?re talking to today are beyond that so you may pick up some things that you can do now but also I really think that you need to work on your anger if you?re feeling tremendous anger and resentment that other people saw the body and you did not, which is generally the direction it goes.? So you need to write about it.? Drop us an email about it and continue a dialogue about these kinds of issues.?
H:?Well and it kind of reminds me of my grandmother because when she had a baby that was born dead and he had a withered arm, and so her husband wouldn?t allow her to see the baby and she didn?t even know he had this arm and she really wanted to hold him and touch him and kiss his fingers and toes and say good-bye to him, and he wouldn?t allow it.? He thought he was protecting her.? She lived with that for years with that regret.
G:?Right, exactly.? So if you can get it out there, write about it, and try to deal with it, there are other people out there that are having the same issues you are.? Well, Heidi, would you like to introduce our guest today?
H:?Sure, I?d love to.? Our topic today is Supporting Bereaved Families Making the Necessary Decisions of Loss and our guest is Karen Knee.? Karen is a bereaved parent whose son, James, 19, died in a car accident on July 8, 2003.? She and her extended family, including surviving son, Robert, have worked to create a non-profit organization, Memory JAR, to help other families facing death ? from funeral planning, to memorializing their loved ones and grief resources.? Karen?s primary goal is to honor her son by helping others during this very difficult time.? Additionally, Memory JAR is working on creating a program to help families in need to bury their children in Orange County, California.? Although her grief journey is still in the early stages, there is a certain ?peace? that she and her family obtained knowing that her son is being honored with each family they help.? Welcome to the show, Karen.
G:?Hi, Karen.? It?s great to have you on the show and have you talk about your organization.
K:?Thank you so much.
G:?You?re in California.
K:?Uh huh.
G:?It?s time for us to go for break.? After we come back from break, can you tell us about your organization, how it started, and also we want to hear about your son, James.? We?re coming on break now.? I?m your host Dr. Gloria Horsley.? Please stay tuned to hear more from Karen Knee about helping families after the loss of a child.? These shows are archived on our website, www.healingthegrievingheart.org.? Stay tuned for more.
Well, Karen, when we went to break, we just introduced you.? Could you tell us about your organization and about James, and I must say, two years bereaved is pretty new.
K:?Actually three years.? But I know it?s still very new and I?m still experiencing all the different stages.? But anyway, when James died, it was actually the first funeral I?d ever attended so you can imagine that I didn?t have any clue what was to actually occur and you?re in the greatest state of shock and numbness that a person can ever experience so you can?t really think that clearly and I?m very very fortunate that I have just a phenomenal family and a wonderful circle of friends and we were able to put together ? we had three days to do it ? put together the funeral and the burial and a gathering afterwards.? And then what was really important to me is I just didn?t want anybody to forget my son and I still feel that way vehemently today so I would search the Internet and read books and look for ideas and I realized that everything was so scattered around and in that frame of mind when you?re in shock and numb and you don?t have much time, how could a person ever put together a tribute that was really indicative of that person’s life?? And I realized there?s got to be other people in the same position as me that don?t know where to turn so I began to pull all these resources together.
G:?Now when did you decide this?
K:?It was actually fairly close after James died.? I would say maybe three or four months.? I was listening to you talk about Bill?s book with the blue moth and how his way of grieving was riding his bike.? Mine was creating items, candles, bookmarks, decorating his grave, all these different and more creative expressions.
G:?Now had you been into that before, doing candles and things?
K:?To some level, yes.? I?ve always been creative.? I?m not going to say I?m an artist but just always creating and I just wanted a little bit of James in people?s lives all the time.? It started evolving from there and just pulling together ideas and then I saw the same situation when I planned the funeral.? I?d never even thought about what would be appropriate music or scripture readings or poetry.? And I was ? now I hate to use the term but ? I was at the mercy of whatever was available to me at the funeral home.? There are volumes of beautiful things out there that I could have tailored a little more personalized for my son.?
H:?Well there are so many major decisions you have to make about a funeral when you?re at the lowest point in your life.? It?s very overwhelming.
K:?Oh, yes.? Even if it wasn?t particularly the bereaved parent that did all these details.? Even if others in the family knew about it, they could go to a website and help find things that were more appropriate for the person that died.
G:?And so you?ve got your website that people can go to and do you want to give us that?
K:?It?s www.memoryjar.org and it?s kind of a cute story that goes with the naming of the company.? My son James was an entrepreneur from day one.? He was always figuring out ways to make money and things like that so I thought wouldn?t it be cute if I could call this place James?s Place or James?s Store and all those names were taken on the Internet so I put out an email to my family and friends that we?ve got to come up with a cute name and they knew I was always collecting memories and things like that.? So my sister, Lynn, and her son, Michael, played around with words and came up with Memory JAR and the word ?JAR? are my son?s initials, James Anthony Rodriguez.? And it went along the lines ? we produced a jar where you can put memories collected at the funeral where people just write little notes, or your grieving cards can fit in there, or if it was putting your loved one?s favorite cookies or candy.? But it?s just a pleasant way to have them right in front of you and to reinforce the importance of keeping those memories because that?s all you have now.? That?s all you have.
G:?So on your site you have your Memory JAR and then you have different ? tell us what?s on your site besides that ? planning a funeral, music.
K:?Yeah, we give a lot of details on planning the funeral from scripture selections.? We actually even have something called a funeral checklist.? I know it sounds kind of silly but when I was planning James?s funerals, there are so many integral parts that I wasn?t ever informed about, for example, submitting an obituary.? How do you even begin to write something like that?? Writing a eulogy and just different ways to start collecting the memories at the funeral because that?s when you have actually the best group?people coming from all over to give their final respects and they might have a little story that you would never have known about.
G:?So with our audience out there whose children have already died and maybe they?ve planned the funeral, you?re saying that they could have a Memory JAR now when people come to visit where they can put in some memories, too?
K:?Yes.? I know with mine, I have the cards that I continually receive from my friends and family.? I just stick them in the jar and I get a lot of peace and comfort just seeing all those warm wishes and knowing that people are remembering my son.?
G:?Wonderful.? Well we have someone who has called in.? Actually, I asked her to call in.? Susan Fraser.? Hi Susan.
S:?Hi, how are you?
G:?And Susan has a business that she has formed, too.? And your son died?
S:?My son died on Mother?s Day in ?95.
G:?He was drowned?
S:?No, no.? He passed away in a swimming pool but he had hypertrophic cardiacmyopathy, which meant that over a period of about seven years which was undetected, his heart had grown closed and he was just swimming across the pool and died.
G:?Could you tell us about your organization and how did you get started with that?
S:?Well, I had started selling keepsakes.? Keepsakes such as pendants ? mainly pendants to hold either a bit of cremains or a lock of hair, things like that, and our company formed into www.inthelighturns.com.? And In the Light Urns is now a company that offers about 450 urns and keepsakes and we?re always striving to offer personalization because there really wasn?t a lot out there before we came along.? We really did pioneer quite a few unusual keepsakes that could help one feel closer to the person they lost with something that was a close remembrance of what they enjoyed.?
G:?Right.? This fits in with our continuing bonds right, Heidi?? Both the Memory JAR and the urns.
H:?Absolutely and I had a question about ? for both Karen and Susan, do funeral homes have access to your websites so when someone walks in and they?re grieving and they don?t even have the wherewithal to go on the Internet, they can say, okay, these are two sites you need to log on to at this point in order to help this process ? in order to help you along the way and give you information.? Or do people have to be proactive and go on the Internet and find you?
S:?Well, as far as In the Light Urns, that is a retail site and we do have a site, www.unitedurns.com, and that?s for funeral homes and we do trade shows and they do come to our website and they do purchase products from us.? But the way funeral homes usually find us is that they just get on the Internet and find our retail site or people find our retail site, but quite often funeral directors just don?t have the variety that people want and they tell their clients to go on line and look.? And we get that a lot.
G:?And how about you, Karen?
K:?I?m so much newer to this than Susan is.? I?ve really only been live for about four months and I?ve been testing the waters with the funeral homes but I haven?t had much success there.? I?ve had better luck with hospice organizations and social workers in the hospitals where they give this immediately to the families.?
G:?We?re going to come up for break now and when we get back from break, Susan, would you stay on with us?? I?d like to talk with Susan and Karen about what things that they see with the families that they interface with and get some advice from both of them.? First of all, I?d like to talk about how Susan Fraser got into the light urns business.? We know from Karen Knee that she got into it after her son James died to help other families.? Susan, how did you start your business and when?
S:?It was about five years after my son died before I did start and the keepsakes were really important.? I had all kinds of things to remember my son.? Each year we did something special at Christmas.
G:?What did you do?? People are going to want to know.
S:?We made a Christmas ornament every year and this year we did eleven years of the ornaments and then this year, our twelfth year, we did a teddy bear.? On our website, we do offer teddy bears made from the deceased?s clothing and I finally had my teddy bears made on his birthday in May this year.
G:?So people can send in some of their deceased?s clothing and you make a teddy bear for them.
S:?Right.? I had his Boy Scout uniform because he was a senior patrol leader when he passed away and I had his baptism outfit and his little Oshkosh b?gosh jeans that I?d saved and all kinds of little things that he had worn and his older shorts that the kids wore.? It was ?95 when he passed so they were just getting into big t-shirts and baggy pants and backwards caps and so we incorporated all of that and we enjoyed that.?
G:?Now if you did have a cremation, can you put cremains in the teddy bear?
S:?Yeah.? Everything that we offer holds either cremains, a lock of hair, crushed flowers, earth from a grave.? My son wasn?t cremated, he was buried, and at that time, we had had, as everyone does in their family deaths, well, most people do have deaths throughout their family, and burial was the way we always went.? If I?d had a choice today, I would have had my son cremated, but I didn?t at that time even know much about cremation and personally I think it?s the way to go.? It?s a cleaner way and you have so many ways to remember a person.? You can scatter their ashes on a mountaintop, in the ocean.? You can keep them at home with you and so there?s a lot of different ways.
G:?Yeah, a lot of personal choices to be made at this time which gets me to Karen.? What about these personal choices that people are trying to make?? Do you help them?
K:?I try at this point not to get too involved in people?s personal issues.? I prefer to remain just a resource.? If you need to make the decision, why don?t you look at this or read this.
G:?Now how do you interface with people?? Mostly through the Internet?
K:?Yes.? I get a lot of emails.? Yes.
G:?And so you?re not connected up.? Do people come to you early Susan?
S:?It depends.? I had a woman phone yesterday ? and we work with people and pets ? and she called yesterday and she had a really hard time getting out the dates of her dog, ?The Wonder Dog? she called him, that she wanted engraved on the plate and she was giving me the year he passed and she said November 2005 and I said, ?Is that 6?? And she said, ?No.?? And she?s in tears telling me a year ago he passed away.? So with cremation, people don?t have to make an immediate decision.? Some people do and some people don?t.? Sometimes they just get the cremains in the temporary plastic box and they keep it at home and they try to decide what to do.? You know, everybody couldn?t be there for his service.? Should we wait a year and scatter the ashes or they want to do it right away.? They want it interred.? The want them buried.? If they want an urn, they need keepsakes overnighted so everybody?s different.
G:?Uh huh.? So everybody has a unique difference.? Well, tell me, both of you, what do you see as being some of the biggest challenges for parents?
K:?I would say it still comes back to our culture.? It isn?t comfortable talking about death and I surround myself with a lot of other bereaved parents and that gives me the peace and helps me get through the day many many many times, but boy you go outside of that little cocoon of understanding and I start talking about James or the things that I?m doing to memorialize him or talking about him and there?s a huge level of discomfort amongst others.
G:?Right.? And how about you, do you see that same thing, Susan?
S:?I would say the most difficult thing for parents is that it never goes away.? The grieving never goes away and people think that oh, it?s been ten years, it must be better.? It?s always there.
G:?Have you gone out to a group at all and
K:?I have my daily therapy.
G:?I was wondering if Karen, is it Compassionate Friends that you?re connected with?
K:?I do Compassionate Friends and I also have another independent grief group and I have done a lot of therapy in the last three years, a lot, and I will continue it the rest of my life, I assume.
G:?How about you, Susan?? Have you done anything like Compassionate Friends or any group things I wondered?
S:?No, I just talk to people every day who lose people.? I have people call and they?ve lost a son who?s a similar age or a baby.? And so I?m talking to people all the time.? They tell me their stories.? I don?t open up until somebody does want to talk and then I tell them I understand.? I?ve lost a son as well and that sort of thing so it?s not a daily thing that I tell people about my own son, obviously.? But I am dealing with people who are grieving every day.
H:?And it?s good to interface with people that have been through what we?ve been through because then we know that we?re not alone and that it?s normal that the pain lasts such a long time and it changes over time but you always miss that person.
K:?Yes.
G:?And I love hearing how you both are doing things, you?re kind of moving along, and you?ve taken different roads.? You?re not doing a grief group and Karen is.? I think it?s so important for our audience to hear this because it?s my experience that sometimes you?ll have a husband and a wife and the husband will say you?ve got to go to group and the wife doesn?t want to go or vice versa and we grieve in different ways.? But it?s time for a break now and I?m your host, Dr. Gloria Horsley, and we?re talking to Karen Knee of www.MemoryJar.org and we?re also talking to Susan Fraser of www.IntheLightUrns.com.? Please stay tuned for more of our discussion about the loss of a child and coping.
Well, we?ve got Susan Fraser whose been very kind enough to call into the show and her website is www.IntheLightUrns.com and Susan?s son, Ryan, died in 1995 and she has gone on to start this business and we?re very inspired by people who are able to go on and do these kinds of things, Susan, and thank you so much.? I know it means a lot to our listeners to hear about your life.
S:?Thank you.
H:?Thanks, Susan.
K:?Thank you.
G:?Well, Heidi, we were talking when we went on break.? It?s been great to have Susan on, wasn?t it?? She?s really inspiring, but talk about how you and Karen met and I think we ought to talk about that because it has something to do with siblings.
H:?Okay.? Let?s see, Karen, we met in July at the Compassionate Friends conference, right?? Isn?t that where we met?
K:?Uh huh.? I went to hear your session because I was curious about how siblings grieve because I was worried about my surviving son, Robert.
H:?So I gave a workshop to the parents about their teens and young adults and how they grieve and what they?re going through because a lot of times, they?re not talking about it, as you all know.? They?re not really saying what?s going on for them.? So that is how we met and I guess listening to the show, the thing that keeps coming up for me in my head over and over and I wasn?t really sure how to put it out there because I?m always the gadfly here because I?m the sibling voice, and so what comes up for me is some of the siblings tell me that there?s too many reminders around the house and that it?s overwhelming.? That they need places that they can go to get away from the grief sometimes and they don?t want memorials in every single room and I just wanted to put that out there.? I wondered how that was for your son if you ever felt like it was too much or if you were able to balance it for your surviving son, Robert?
K:?You know, he?s never really said anything to me about it and I told you I?m kind of the creative type so yes, there are a lot of reminders and of course I attached very quickly onto the butterfly theme because it symbolizes everlasting life in a lost child so everybody calls me the butterfly lady now.? And yet, my son Robert, at every holiday or birthday, I get something with a beautiful butterfly on it.?
H:?That?s nice.
K:?So he definitely is reinforcing my grief and that he wants me to remember James also through the butterfly.
H:?I love that.? And you know I have a butterfly tattoo on my ankle.? I don?t know if you saw it when I was lecturing.
K:?I did.
H:?You saw it?
K:?Yes.? I knew we had a bond.
H:?The butterfly bond.? For me, it originally symbolized the death of my brother and my brother and my cousin Matthew leaving this world before their time.? Now it symbolizes those that have left and new life that has come in.? New people that have come in and I?ve met along my journey that have come into my family.? New people that I meet so it?s people leaving and people coming in.? It?s two ways now which is very healing for me.
K:?You know that?s a really key point that I learned after James died.? Someone said early on, you?re going to get a new address book, and I didn?t really understand that.
G:?Oh, I love that.
K:?And I am telling you, in the last three years, I have met some of the most unbelievable human beings.
H:?The people who have come into your life also.
K:?And if you?re going to talk about something good coming out of the horror of losing a child, I can say that I have the most wonderful circle of friends.? You just see human beings at a whole different level of compassion and love so I know exactly what you?re saying, Heidi, exactly.
H:?And it was interesting at Compassionate Friends because this year, were you there for the butterfly release?
K:?I had to leave.? I had to catch a plane back to California.
H:?Okay.? Well, mom, it was amazing right?? They released how many butterflies, mom?
G:?I don?t know.
H:?500 or something.? What was interesting is you saw the butterflies leave but then you?d see some of them come back and land on you.? They were constantly leaving and some coming back as well which, you know, it was interesting to me.
K:?I have a lot of little nieces and nephews and if a butterfly will flitter by, they?ll go, ?Hi James,? and I just love that.
G:?Well, Karen, it?s almost time to close our show and I want to say it?s great that in two years you?ve been able to start Memory Jar and I hope that the organization goes on to be very successful and very hopeful and helpful to those people who have lost children.
K:?Thank you.
G:?And best wishes to your family and particularly to your son and his journey along with his mom.? Heidi and I will be having a new book coming out in the spring called, What Parents Need to Know to Help Their Grieving Teens.
H:?And if there?s one thing, since you?re kind of where a lot of our listeners are as far as you?ve only been three years away from the death of your son.? If there was one bit of advice that you would give the listeners as far as what?s been helpful, what do you think that would be?
K:?So many things but I would say first and foremost to surround yourself with other parents who have lost children.? I don?t think there?s any substitute for being able to be true and real.? All these processes are going on inside of you unless you?re with people that understand.
G:?Thank you, Karen.? That?s a wonderful thought to close with and thanks so much for being on the show.
K:?Thank you.
G:?It?s time to close our show.? Please stay tuned again next week when our topic will be Dealing with Traumatic Loss and our guests will be Lawrence Calhoun and Rich Tedeschi, professors of psychology at UNC Charlotte and specialists in trauma and bereavement.? This show is archived on our website, www.healingthegrievingheart.org as well as www.thecompassionatefriends.org website.? This is Dr. Gloria Horsley and
H:?Dr. Heidi Horsley.?

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