Thank you and Congratulations! This is the first Grief Board that I have come across that truly embodies my feelings. To all who have posted before me, I do understand your pain. I also understand your frustration at some of the insensitive words that we hear/read.
In my case, my 23 year old son was in a car accident with 2 other young men. All 3 were killed. The local newspaper ran the story on the front page the next afternoon. That same evening they called me to ask if I had a recent picture of Vince and if I did, would I please bring it to the funeral home so they could pick it up and run it with the obituary. They did the same with the other 2 families. What they said was true. All 3 pictures were indeed placed with the obituraries; but can you imagine our horror and shock when we first saw the morning paper and all 3 of their pictures were Front Page with the headline "3 Men Killed In Accident, Alcohol Suspected"!
To add insult to injury, when I called Vince's father (he had not seen him for 19 years but lived only 3 1/2 hours away) to let him know that his son had died, he had the nerve to ask me if I thought it was necessary for him to come to the funeral home or would sending flowers be enough!
You think that was bad! Hold on to your hats! He then told me he had a son (as if Vince was not his son) about to turn 16 and get his driver's license, and if it wouldn't be too much trouble, would I please send him a newspaper so he could use it as a training tool!
(Needless to say, I had some very choice words to say to the (man?) that fathered my son, never paid one cent of child support, and then spoke the unspeakable to me!
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After the funeral and all of my friends had left me (you all know about that), I was left alone at home. I knew that 2 of the young men had died instantly because the paper said so, but I was unsure of how quickly Vince's death had come. I was crazed
so I called the Coroner and asked him. Now, in retrospect, simple kindness would have had the gentleman just tell me what I needed to hear; but NO, instead he said, "Well, it took me about 25 minutes to get to the scene, and he was dead when I got there, he then described in vivid detail how he had found my son's body, there would be no way for me to give you an accurate time."
As to your views on religion, I so respect what you have done here. It is exactly what I have tried to implement in the local funeral homes but they all shy away from it. They all want to stay with the traditional Christian God as their method of After-Care for the families. The Funeral Directors have all shunned me when I have tried to explain that there are people that actually lose their faith during this time and they are the ones that need the most comfort. They are the ones that feel they have nothing.
For me it has been 14 years (and just yesterday) since the loss of Vince. Thank you so much for the work you are doing here. Blessed Be ~Donna