Cindy I am so sorry. I can't imagine your grief. You did arrange, I must say, the most beautiful procession for your daughter.

If there is one thing I can assure you, it's that your sweet child is closer than you think. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. (((Hang in there.)))

Cindy, thanks for having the courage,faith, and strength to share your heartbreaking story of the passing of your dear 10 year old baby girl, Ivy. It is often said that the hardest loss to bear is that of a child. The processional with horses, and baloon release, and lovely favorite songs, sounded truly beautiful and comforting. God gives, but sometimes takes away, and it is extremely hard on those remaining on earth. Please know God's promise is REAL-, that she is not suffering, but is in a beautiful place. SweetMotherOfMars, I,and many others here, also have a wonderful tbd friend, kle618, who also lost her beloved 18 yr. old daughter several years ago. She has written about her ongoing struggles with missing her, on several tbd groups/discussions, but is currently away, but she will be back on tbd soon.

Also, there are some very helpful Discussions and Groups on tbd, in which others are sharing about the pain of a death of a loved one, titled:

A Reading of Inspiration in Death

Lost Loved Ones

Speaking of Death (under the Group- Spirituality and Consciousness)

Dealing with It Day by Day

and:

What About an Afterlife?

I'm sending you my heartfelt wishes, Cindy, that you'll find comfort and strength, from the LOVE of GOD, family, friends, and your many good memories of happier times with Ivy.

Cindy: How are you doing lately? I've been including you in my healing, caring prayers, thoughts, and meditations. If you wish, let us know how your days are going lately. Thanks, Cindy, stay strong, and try to focus on the fact that Ivy would want you to hold on, and remember the happy times.

Thank you for asking. I'm about as lost as one can be. I had all the holidays to go thru and then a daughter turned 6yr on Jan 4 and one turns 9yrs on Jan 29. My husband and 2 daughters seem to have moved on just fine. And I'm just wanting to die everyday I miss her so much. I beg God or Jesus for any sign she's ok, or to send an angel to let me know, or turn back time, or to give me inner peace, or send her to me one last time (he does these things for people all the time). Counceling does no good because my main problem is why God is letting me grieve so bad and won't send me just the smallest sign. Only God can help me and he chooses not to. I pray by her bed several times a day and beg. On Oct 15 her 8 yr old sister found her in the back yard strangled where she had been playing with a scarf, my husband did cpr and started her heart again and breathing. But the doctors waited 2 days to let us know she was already brain dead. So we unhooked her from life support. I can now see why Terry Shivoes parents left her hooked up so long, I would give anything to have a warm body to hug, kiss, talk to, hold her hand and still have hope for a miracle that God would set her back down in her body, which will never happen now that we buried her. I have so much hope and trust in him, I know he can turn the hands of time back if he so chooses, after all he created everything. I believe God gave me so many chances to change the outcome of this, a couple of weeks before she died I saw the scarf on the glider swing but didn't take it down and yelled at her but didn't send her down to take it down and never gave it another thought after that. See, on Aug 4 at 10pm I went outside to put chlorine in the pool and the pump was making noise so I worked on it, my husband works second shift so he wasn't home, but my 19 yr old dog must have walked out while I was busy and then I went in and shut the basement door and left her out there and she died from the hot Aug heat the next day before 12n and I never went back outside in the back yard after that. I was mad at God for letting my dog suffer like that probably going to the glass door in the night looking in wondering why the other dogs were in and no one would let her in, and then there was no water outside and as she died in the heat the next day she probably wondered why I wouldn't help her. I wondered how God could do that to her and then let me live with the fact that it was my fault for leaving her out which I've never done before. So when I saw the scarf out the back door I wouldn't go outside (it never occured to me that Ivy would strangle on it, then it must have because I yelled at her asking her why it was up there and to never put that around her neck it would kill her) then on the day she did it her sister asked to go get a webkins at 10 till 4pm and I told her to tell the other girls to get their shoes on and get ready, our 8yr found her at 4:25pm when my husband was kissing the girls goodbye before work and they went to look for her, I guess I was waiting for my husband to leave for work at 4:15 before I left, then she had just came from private school and this was her 1st year at public and her teacher said where her math was different she wanted me to sign her up for after school tutoring for math writing problems, I kept meaning to but didn't so if I had she would have been there on Mondays. So God kept trying to let me know so I could prevent it but I just didn't get any of them. But I still don't know why he didn't set her back in her body at the hospital those 2 days, it wasn't her time. The what if's and guilt are doing me in, if it weren't for all the holidays and B-days I think I would have already been gone. Then I wonder if I would burn in Hell or if God would have mercy on me and let me be with Ivy. I'm sure you weren't expecting such a long detailed answer, sorry, but she never leaves my mind. Again thanks for asking and praying. Maybe he'll answer one of my prayers before I'm to far gone. A moment in time is all it takes to devestate ones life. I never went to church so I'm struggling, but Ivy loved God and said Jesus was the only way to get to Heaven (my one gift to her was sending her to christian school where she has a strong believe in the lord). In public school her teacher asked the class who created tap water and Ivy said God, her teacher said that was just an opinion, Ivy again said no that God did, her teacher said that was just her opinion and Ivy said "no that's a fact", smile. Goodnight Baby Girl, I love You!

Cindy: thanks for this open and honest writing. You don't ever have to apologize for any of your deep feelings regarding your beloved little girl, Ivy's, sad passing last Oct. Most parents never get over such a difficult, profound, and painful loss. You are being totally normal to feel anger, wish it never happened,and to even feel some guilt. However, it is NOT ever your's, or anyone's fault, and you must try to accept that, and let go of guilt! Any one of us could say that maybe we had some part in our loved one's deaths, or it was somehow,"our fault", something we either said, or did, or didn't do, etc.

God always has a plan, often impossible to understand, and ONLY He decides, no one else, when it is our time to pass.

PLEASE read ALL of the kind, thoughtful writings on tbd, where others have also expressed their pain and feelings, regarding deaths of beloved family members, under:

Dealing With a Death

An Inspiration of Writing in Death

Lost Loved Ones

Dealing with It Day by Day

What About an Afterlife?(Under Spirtuality and Consciousness).

Also: I know that my tbd friend, kle 618, has some of your same feelings, because she also lost her 18 year old daughter suddenly, in an accident, a few years ago. Have you considered communicating and sharing your feelings with her? She is very kind and understanding. I am reading this again, and do see that kle618 HAS also written a beautiful, helpful letter to you, below.

Additionally, I just copied some very helpful quotes yesterday, that she gave on the tbd post," An Inspiration of Writing in Death".

To this day, I miss and mourn the sudden passings of my dad and mom, and am sometimes sad, remembering the long, hurtful ordeal of my youngest brother, who passed due to cancer. When I'm hurting, I go to a little tribute area that I made, in their honor,(it's a wall in my closet), light a candle, look at photos of happy times, and speak to them. If you don't beg to God for visits from Ivy, and just relax, and remain open, you probably will eventually receive a loving visit from her in your dreams. My dearest dad did not appear to me in a dream, until six years after he had passed away.

Please HOLD ON, Cindy, that's what Ivy would want you to do, in her honor, and her amazing love, and try to remember that you were truly blessed by the gift that she was to you, and for the wonderful times that God gave you with her.

Dearest Cindy, I've been gone on vacation and southerbl emailed me about your loss. I am so sorry that you are experiencing this horrible thing. As she mentioned, my daughter Tracy died in a car accident five years ago so I have felt some of what you are feeling. Dealing with death and loss is different for everyone so I won't say that I know how you feel but I do have experience with losing a beautiful daughter and I know how I have felt through it all--I am sure you are feeling many of the same emotions. There is nothing more difficult or more devastating in life that to have a child die. There is nothing that makes you question your religious beliefs more. Nothing that makes you doubt yourself and to question what you might have done different. Nothing that makes you look back and wish you had said this or that or just had one more time to say "I love you" and give her a hug. Nothing that makes you want just one more day so badle while at the same time you know that one more day would never be enough.

Who You'd Be Today and One More Day are two songs I absolutely love because they are Tracy's songs and now they are Ivy's songs as well.

Some of the thoughts you mentioned are so similar to many of my own--we could be thinking with the same brain! I have always loved thunder and lightening storms. The first time I heard thunder after Tracy died, I thought--"Tracy had a busy day today and heaven just has to let off a little steam!" So many times it crossed my mind that maybe God thought he needed Tracy but by the time he realized what a mistake he had made in taking her, it was too late to let her come back.

I definitely do not have all the answers of how to live with the death of a child, how to move on and live again but I have found some things that have helped me a lot and I'd love to share them with you. Over the past five years, I have learned so much from other parents who have gone through this and if I can help someone else, then it puts a meaning to Tracy's death.

Music helps--such as the songs you mentioned. I bought a purple (her favorite color)leather covered blank book and in it I write down the lyrics to songs that remind me of Tracy. I have another journal book I write down quotes that I find helpful. On days that I am just dying inside with missing her so much, I write letters to her in my journal.

Tracy's cousins planted a tree in our yard the day of her funeral and we relandscaped that part of the yard to create a flower bed for her. I have over 50 kinds of flowers planted there every year--some come back, some I replant each year. On her birthday, we tie however many balloons she would be old out there. People drive by all day and see them and know we are celebrating something. At 9:15 in the evening, which is the time she was born, we take the scissors and cut the balloons loose to watch them drift away. The second year, 8 of her friends came over and we went to the cemetery and lit fireworks for 45 minutes (until we heard sirens)then we went back to my house and had cake and ice cream. These kids, now finishing college, never forget her birthday or the anniversary of her death and I can always count on them coming over or at least calling those days.

All of the "firsts" are the hardest. The holidays, Ivy's birthday, the anniversary of her accident. The first Christmas after Tracy died, I bought a beautiful white stocking to hang for her. I started collecting angel ornaments and this year that was all I had on the tree. As our other kids have left home, they have taken the ornaments they collected through their lives. I can't bear to hang Tracy's collection from her life so now I decorate with angels.

We established a scholarship in Tracy's memory at her high school and have given between three and five each year to graduating seniors.

I also contemplated suicide more than once. Thank goodness for doctors and antidepressants. I would recommend that you go to your family doctor for a physical, talk to him or her about what you are feeling and see if he feels you would benefit from antidepressant therapy for awhile as you struggle with this horrible loss. They don't take away the pain but they help your moods to even out some and your thinking to be more rational. One of the hardest things for me was to realize that, while I had lost one beautiful daughter, I still had four other children who needed their mother and that I needed to keep living for. You can do this--you will survive and in time you will laugh and smile when you remember Ivy instead of feeling like all you can do is cry. The pain will heal to where it is not as raw or fresh and you will learn to live again.

And I am here anytime you need someone. I promise you can do this!

Kris

Thank you so much. It was nice to read somethng from someone who understands. Most people just look at me like I'm crazy, or I should already be getting over this. I'm glad Tracy's friends still remember her and help you. Ivy had just started a knew school and they'll all be going to middle school next year so she had made some friends but not enough time to develope friendships that they will remember her. My pain comes from feeling sorry for myself for all the things I'll never get to do with her and that everyone will eventually forget she ever existed since she was only 10. How very sad for God to have let her end that way and that young. Thanks you again, I love the way you celebrate her birthday. Ivy's will be April 20th. For her sisters B-days we set and will set a place for her and taped her picture to the chair so she oculd be in the pictures too. Goodnight Baby Girl, I love you.