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    This is How I Grieve ... and I'm OK
    This is How I Grieve ... and I'm OK
    This is How I Grieve ... and I'm OK
    Ebook81 pages49 minutes

    This is How I Grieve ... and I'm OK

    By Shelia D. Abrams

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    About this ebook

    There are many reasons why people grieve. In my case, I had the sudden loss of my two children who were killed in a car accident, and I was badly injured, when we were hit by a drunk driver.

    There are certain basic similarities to what happens to us when we suffer a devastating loss. There are patterns or stages that many of us have heard about.

    But I fully believe that every experience of grief is unique to the individual who goes through it. So no one can tell you how to grieve. Your journey will be your own.

    I wrote this book to express to you my journey through overwhelming sadness as a way of supporting your personal, private grieving and healing process. I want to share with you not just how I came back to life, love, and faith after the incomprehensible and devastating loss of my two beautiful and amazing children. I also want to tell you about the input that didn't work, the traditional offerings that weren't right for me, and the deep strength that I drew from my learning various ways to process grief in my own and personal way.

    I hope that it is supportive and healing to you, however grief and tragedy have touched you.

    My book is here to tell you that it is time to say, "This is how I grieve... andI'm OK."
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBookBaby
    Release dateJan 11, 2014
    ISBN9781483527499
    This is How I Grieve ... and I'm OK

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      Book preview

      This is How I Grieve ... and I'm OK - Shelia D. Abrams

      My Story

      What the heart has once owned and had, it shall never lose.

      —Henry Ward Beecher

      My story is not so different from yours, or from your friend’s, or from that of anyone else who has a life-altering experience that plunges them into grief.

      On August 26, 2004, I began my day by waking up my children and saying, Let’s go! You have 10 minutes, so hurry up.

      I had told the kids the night before that we had to go to the grocery store. The start of school was a week away, so I wanted to get the grocery shopping out the way, so that the weekend could be open solely for school shopping.

      Come on, you guys, I urged them. I want to get back early.

      My teenage son and younger daughter both came running down the stairs to the car. Once buckled-up, off we all went

      My son Chad was a little upset that morning, because he had wanted to hang out with his friend.

      But I had said, I’m not bringing those groceries home myself. You can hang out with your friends when we get back.

      Our first stop was the dentist; I had an appointment there that took about 30 minutes. Then off we headed down Route 376 in upstate New York to the Super Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club and Hannaford. On the way home I wanted to run by Big Lots and the Dollar Tree as well, while we were there, but once we had our groceries, Chad and Davita were getting hungry.

      Mom, they both said, come on. We’re ready to go home.

      So we took route 44, a 2-lane road, towards our house.

      That was the last time that I would go to the grocery store, or do anything else, with my kids. As we travelled home, a young man driving a box truck under the influence of numerous substances, along with his two other passengers, crossed the yellow line and swerved his vehicle into the oncoming lane—my lane.

      Mom, look out! I remember hearing my 15-year-old son Chad shout just before the truck struck my car head-on.

      When I came back to consciousness, the windshield had collapsed down on my head. There was blood everywhere. To my right, I saw my 11-year-old daughter Davita bleeding from her nose. In the back seat, my son was pinned down by the back of the sunroof.

      I kept screaming, God no, God no. Help me God. Oh my God, help me.

      A surge of adrenaline rushed through my body. I believe 100% that, when something like this happens, you are flooded with strength that you’ve never had before, a power that I certainly shouldn’t have had, in my condition. I was my children’s warrior mother, ready to do anything to help them.

      While the first-responders assessed the situation, and tried to determine whom they could save, I went into prayer mode.

      "God, please please please save my children was all that I wanted in the world. Save my Children!" I screamed to anyone who would listen as I faded in and out of consciousness, resisting any efforts to remove me from the vehicle even as the medics assured me that they the kids would be right behind me. I wouldn’t be separated from them.

      I’m not getting out of the car without my kids, I told the paramedics and bystanders, who swarmed around the car and tried to free me from the crushed vehicle.

      I knew that the situation was really bad because of all of the blood, but I would not give up; I just kept begging God for help, and looking at the paramedics to see their facial reactions. I could not understand why they didn’t pull the kids from the car right away.

      Then they appeared with a huge piece of equipment called the jaws of life, in order to cut us out of the car. I remember yelling to someone to call my husband, and then started to pray again. I continued to pray until I passed out again.

      I came to at the hospital, and asked about the kids. I was told that they were coming. At

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