Thank you to Saundra Blanknship for sharing this story with us quite some time ago, that was published in her local Ft. Worth, TX paper several years ago.. Saundra saved it to give to her cousin who had just lost her little boy and shared it with us when she found our blog...hoping it might help ease the pain and give some hope to another grieving mom...
~ Written By Local Reporter Kyle Peveto 5.15.2008
For months
after her 9-year-old son died in a bizarre car accident, Myra Dean remained in
shock. She took a job in Saipan, a
commonwealth of the United States in the Pacific Ocean, and had no idea what to
do with her grief until she read about the Compassionate Friends group in a
Guam newspaper. The newsletters she received from the organization of bereaved
parents helped her understand that she was not alone and that she would be
forever changed.
When the
StoryCorps Airstream trailer came to Abilene this spring, Dean's boyfriend
insisted they reserve a spot to record her story. Her emotional telling of the
death of her son Rich struck StoryCorps producers enough that they edited the
40-minute session into a shorter feature that is tentatively scheduled to run
on National Public Radio's Morning Edition at 5:30 and 7:30 a.m. Friday.
"It's
very raw. She talks about how painful it is. She talks about her feelings,
about God and about how she overcame this over time. A bereaved parent is
always a bereaved parent. The pain never leaves you," said Gary Jamison,
Dean's boyfriend, who conducted the interview in March.
"It
comes across on the (recording). It speaks to you; it pulls at your
heartstrings."
While living
in Kansas City, Kan., 31 years ago, Dean separated from her husband and moved
into a home on a quiet street with her son. He was riding his bicycle one
Friday evening in May when Dean was preparing to spend a night out with
friends. When she went to pick up the baby sitter two blocks away, she left
Rich riding his bicycle with his friend, telling him to watch for cars.
Returning,
she saw a crowd near Rich's friend's house and an ambulance. Immediately, she
knew it was her son. "Some people don't believe that you can know
that," she said in her StoryCorps interview. "I don't know if it's
the tie between a mother and children, or me and Rich in particular, but I
knew."
Rich had been
playing in the yard, watching the sunset, when an out-of-control car flipped
over the hedge and landed on Rich and his friend. The friend was unscathed.
Rich was crushed.
Her father
died later that summer, and Dean felt amazed that no one understood her pain.
"Expectations
are that in a year, you'll be better. But after the first year, the shock is
just wearing off," she told the Reporter-News. "After that is the
real roller-coaster ride."
Years later,
after founding the first Compassionate Friends chapter in Abilene, she began
speaking each semester to an Abilene Christian University class on death and
dying. She tried to help the students empathize with a parent who has lost a
child.
"When
you lose your child, that was your future. ... Even genetically, I was a part
of my parents, but they were not a part of me," she said in the interview.
"Richard was genetically, physically part of me. And when I talk I always
try to find ways to explain to people about the pain, and I say it's as if
you've had an invisible amputation."
"At some point you get over the pity and say, 'This is life.'"
Jamison heard
her speak last fall and encouraged her to write a book or tell the story to
other bereaved parents. Then he scheduled the time with StoryCorps. Dean said her life is "like a soap
opera." She also has survived kidney cancer and bears an S-shaped scar
from the surgery.
Tuesday was
the 31st anniversary of Rich's death. For years, she remembered him painfully,
but now she acknowledges the day. Now,
Dean is the development director for KACU, Abilene's NPR station at ACU. Next
to her desk is a framed drawing by Rich of an ocean scene with blue whales and
men swimming with tridents.
Rich's death
changed her life. She said she knows she
will never "get over" his death, but she has learned to live with his
memory.
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