Dear Matthew, Megan and Hannah,
I am writing to you on the ten month anniversary of Daddy's death. This post is for you to look back on someday and realize just how far you have come and how proud of you that I am for being so brave. While Mommy was very happy to be in a new year and felt like things were finally starting to look up, the three of you are just now beginning to understand the magnitude of what has happened. You realize now that Daddy is not just on another business trip. Each day it sinks in more and more that this is forever and these past few months have been really hard for you. One of the differences about your grief and mine is that, given your age, you don't always know how to express what you are feeling and so it comes out in different ways. You are easily agitated and very sensitive to things that do not normally bother you. There has also been a lot more sleepless nights from bad dreams, more bed wetting, more lying and aggressive behavior and now your school work is starting to be affected as well.
Matthew, just a few weeks ago, I found you crying in bed holding your picture of Mommy and Daddy. I asked why are you crying and you told me you did not know how you were going to do your Civil War/Westward Expansion project without Daddy here to help you. Together we decided to call Grandpa and Nana Weier for help. Grandpa Weier loves the Civil War and the three of you worked really hard to build a model of the First Transcontinental Railroad. You did so well you got a 100/100 pts. Way to go!
The other night after Mommy finished teaching Religious Ed, we had a date at Panera. After a lot of small talk, you said to me, "Mommy, I think one of us needs to get a job and since I go to school during the day, it should be you." When I asked why you were worried about this, you told me you were worried about running out of money. You overheard me tell Papa that my grief therapy in front of the fireplace (see previous post) was over because we had a $500 gas bill! While I was joking about it with Papa that we would have to switch to candles, I had no idea you took it seriously and became so worried. I am sorry that you have to think about these things now without Daddy here. I explained to you that Daddy wanted Mommy to be able to stay at home while you and your sisters were young and so that is my job right now. He did a great job of taking care of us to allow me to do so. You also told me again how worried you are that I am going to die before you grow up. I still don't know what to say in response to this one. I try as much as possible to explain to you that what happened to Daddy was incredibly rare and that God willing, Mommy will be here for a very long time to watch you grow up.
Megan, you are still having a lot of bad dreams and continue to want to sleep with me. You are so good during the day but then everything seems to fall apart with you after you go to bed. You and I are both exhausted from this routine and I hope that someday soon you will find some way to comfort yourself back to sleep. You are also very protective of Daddy's things. You do not want anything of Daddy's to be touched or moved. Just last Sunday after church, the St. Vincent de Paul ministry was passing out plastic bags for their clothing drive. As we walked to the car, you asked me what the bag was for. I told you it was to donate our clothes to the poor. You got very upset and yelled at me that I am not to get rid of Daddy's clothes!
Hannah. I feel so bad for you. While, Matthew and Megan are old enough to be able to go to group therapy, there is not much out there for you. You have recently wanted to be held a lot more by Mommy and Papa -"I wanna huggie and sit on your yap" you say. And just last night when you and Papa had date night at Dairy Queen, you started crying that you missed Daddy. You have been asking me several times a day when is Daddy coming home. You keep saying, "I wheel-y want Daddy to come home white now!" As much as I try to explain to you what forever means, you just can't grasp it yet.
And so I find myself working really hard to rehabilitate our family. I do not want death to define us anymore. As my bereavement counselor explained, I have to help you redefine your roles in our family without Daddy here. We have lost someone really special to us, and since we aren't going to get him back, we have to make up for it with each other. That does not mean we forget Daddy! We will never forget the important person that he was. Instead, we need to rebuild our family unit with just the four of us so that we can feel happy, healthy and whole again. I want people to know the amazing qualities you had even before Daddy died and not to look at you as the poor Weier kids who lost their dad. That is what I am focusing on right now - helping you to discover who you really are, what your likes and dislikes are, and continue to develop the core values that Daddy and I want you to possess. I am in constant touch with your teachers and social workers to keep tabs on how you are doing when at school. I check in with each of you several times a day to see how you are feeling. I try to create new traditions in our family to help us have fun and adventure while building "team Weier". We also started a new support group since Rainbows ended. We go to Herbie's Friends every Monday through the hospice program at St. Joes. It is a lot like Rainbows except that it is only for families who have lost a loved one from death. And Mommy gets to stay too. We have dinner together as a group and then break up into our age groups. Matthew and Megan each have their group and Mommy gets to go spend time with the other young widows/widowers and parents who have lost a child from death. I am so proud of each of you and how far we have come. I could not have gotten through these past ten months without you. People are so kind to keep telling Mommy how amazingly strong they think I am, but the truth is, I think the three of you are the amazing ones. You are my purpose in life and what keeps me going. I love you very much.
Love, Mommy
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Welcome to the family
Carmel, IN added one more to it's population. I just wanted to share the good news that my sister Jaime had her baby yesterday! Here is the info:
Jacob Logan Feller
9lbs. 4 oz.
20 inches
March 20, 2010 @ 2:25pm
Proud parents Jaime and Jeremy and big brother Luke are all very excited to have Jacob here one week early. The Dundee Weiers are looking forward to meeting him soon. Congratulations to the Fellers!
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Something to share
Things are going well at the Weier house. After recovering from a week of the kids having the flu, we are all happy to see the sun shining and the outside temp finally hitting the 40s.
Last weekend was the Christ Renews His Parish (CRHP) retreat at St. Mary's for the men in our parish. My dad was on the presenting team and followed in Chris' footsteps as the lay director. It turned out to be a much harder weekend to get through than I anticipated. Not because my dad was not here to help me with the kids, but because Chris should have been there to help his fellow CRHP brothers with the retreat. Its funny how things I don't think are going to bother me really do and stuff that I would expect to break me down don't hurt at all.
Chris loved being involved with CRHP and liked finding anyway to help run the weekends, especially if it involved cooking for the men. He knew one way to draw them in was through their stomachs and he made sure that at least one dinner over the weekend involved him grilling a "cro-magnon meal" as he put it. Chris was so transformed by his CRHP experience in April of 2008 that he followed up a year later in April of 2009 by attending a Cursillo retreat at our Diocese. When he returned from Cursillo, I asked him how it compared to his CRHP experience. He told me that CRHP was like being slapped upside the head with a 2x4 and is what renewed his relationship with Christ after many years of being a fair weathered Catholic. But that Cursillo is what gave him the tools and the inspiration to try to help other men like him. He was not into preaching per se, but really just wanted to share his story and hope somehow it could help others that might be struggling with some of the same stuff he was. But then he died one month later and never had the chance to follow through with his new "calling" if you will. And that is why I had to give the eulogy at his funeral. To share his story and tell others that they might want to consider living life differently as he had recently learned.
And so with that, I thought I would finally get around to sharing his eulogy here on my blog. For Chris, for Christ and for anyone else out there who might be looking for a different way to get through some of the daily struggles we all live with. Like I mentioned in a previous post, "take what you like and leave the rest..." God bless, Betsy
Loving husband, devoted father, beloved son, influential brother, fun uncle, trusted colleague, good friend. The list could go on and on of all the amazing roles my husband, Chris, filled for us. And I promise you, Chris, that I will spend the rest of my life sharing memories of you in all of these roles with Matthew, Megan and Hannah so that they NEVER forget Daddy. But just for today, I would like to share with you, a role that Chris was just beginning to excel in. That is the role of disciple of Christ. It was just over 13 months ago on Chris’ 36th birthday that he came into this church to spend some time with other men from the parish at a Christ Renews His Parish weekend. That weekend changed Chris’ life forever. To quote Chris from an email he sent to his lay director shortly thereafter:
Dear Betsy,
I just wanted to send a quick note, mostly to thank you for encouraging me to join you on this faith journey, as it has been an amazing experience to do together. It has been wonderful to be able to share with each other, really in a way that we never were able to do before, and part of it had been my inability to really express my feelings, not so much just with you, but really not at all. It has been hard for me to do that in the past, and I want to thank you for being patient with me through all that time until it finally clicked for me on my Christ Renews His Parish weekend. It has definitely been a very positive thing for us and our family, and I can only say that I love you now more than ever before. Thank you and thank God!
I love you very much, Chris.
On behalf of the entire Weier-Zeller family, I would like to say that we are beyond overwhelmed by the love and support received from around the country at the news of Chris’ passing. Several times this week I have been asked “what do you need?” “What can we do to help you?” “How can we honor Chris’ life?” I stand here today and can honestly say without a doubt in my mind, that the greatest gift you can give back to Chris is to live your life in Christ just like he was doing. If you can do that for me, Chris and I both promise you that everything is going to be okay.
Last weekend was the Christ Renews His Parish (CRHP) retreat at St. Mary's for the men in our parish. My dad was on the presenting team and followed in Chris' footsteps as the lay director. It turned out to be a much harder weekend to get through than I anticipated. Not because my dad was not here to help me with the kids, but because Chris should have been there to help his fellow CRHP brothers with the retreat. Its funny how things I don't think are going to bother me really do and stuff that I would expect to break me down don't hurt at all.
Chris loved being involved with CRHP and liked finding anyway to help run the weekends, especially if it involved cooking for the men. He knew one way to draw them in was through their stomachs and he made sure that at least one dinner over the weekend involved him grilling a "cro-magnon meal" as he put it. Chris was so transformed by his CRHP experience in April of 2008 that he followed up a year later in April of 2009 by attending a Cursillo retreat at our Diocese. When he returned from Cursillo, I asked him how it compared to his CRHP experience. He told me that CRHP was like being slapped upside the head with a 2x4 and is what renewed his relationship with Christ after many years of being a fair weathered Catholic. But that Cursillo is what gave him the tools and the inspiration to try to help other men like him. He was not into preaching per se, but really just wanted to share his story and hope somehow it could help others that might be struggling with some of the same stuff he was. But then he died one month later and never had the chance to follow through with his new "calling" if you will. And that is why I had to give the eulogy at his funeral. To share his story and tell others that they might want to consider living life differently as he had recently learned.
And so with that, I thought I would finally get around to sharing his eulogy here on my blog. For Chris, for Christ and for anyone else out there who might be looking for a different way to get through some of the daily struggles we all live with. Like I mentioned in a previous post, "take what you like and leave the rest..." God bless, Betsy
Christopher Matthew Weier
1972-2009
Loving husband, devoted father, beloved son, influential brother, fun uncle, trusted colleague, good friend. The list could go on and on of all the amazing roles my husband, Chris, filled for us. And I promise you, Chris, that I will spend the rest of my life sharing memories of you in all of these roles with Matthew, Megan and Hannah so that they NEVER forget Daddy. But just for today, I would like to share with you, a role that Chris was just beginning to excel in. That is the role of disciple of Christ. It was just over 13 months ago on Chris’ 36th birthday that he came into this church to spend some time with other men from the parish at a Christ Renews His Parish weekend. That weekend changed Chris’ life forever. To quote Chris from an email he sent to his lay director shortly thereafter:
“It is hard to put into words my thoughts and feelings of this past weekend, but it was truly a wonderful and emotional experience for me. It helped me see that there are others who share the same struggles and issues that I have to work through, and that we don’t need to face them alone. I think that the one thing this past weekend helped me with was to fill a void I had in my life – a lack of a connection with God that truly held personal meaning to me. Another thing I struggled with for a long time was that I did not think all of our past transgressions could really be forgiven, which I carried for a long time and which probably prevented me from being able to truly connect with our Lord. Most importantly, I came to realize that God has been with me my whole life, guiding me on my journey, and calling out to me. It just took the CRHP weekend to make me realize the power of God’s grace and to finally answer His call.”
After his weekend, and in true Chris fashion, he jumped right in and joined several other ministries in the church – he became lay director for the next CRHP weekend, joined Knights of Columbus, joined Deacon Lou’s bible study, attended a Cursillo retreat, and worked on the St. Mary job ministry. I seriously used to wonder if he was going to leave me to become a priest! We enjoyed attending mass together as a family and celebrating in the other sacraments as much as possible. We prayed together at home with our children, read the Bible together, went to Eucharistic Adoration, enjoyed listening to our favorite Christian rock music and had many conversations about the importance of Christ in our life. All of this was written in a letter that Chris recently gave me that I want to share with you:
Dear Betsy,
I just wanted to send a quick note, mostly to thank you for encouraging me to join you on this faith journey, as it has been an amazing experience to do together. It has been wonderful to be able to share with each other, really in a way that we never were able to do before, and part of it had been my inability to really express my feelings, not so much just with you, but really not at all. It has been hard for me to do that in the past, and I want to thank you for being patient with me through all that time until it finally clicked for me on my Christ Renews His Parish weekend. It has definitely been a very positive thing for us and our family, and I can only say that I love you now more than ever before. Thank you and thank God!
I love you very much, Chris.
On behalf of the entire Weier-Zeller family, I would like to say that we are beyond overwhelmed by the love and support received from around the country at the news of Chris’ passing. Several times this week I have been asked “what do you need?” “What can we do to help you?” “How can we honor Chris’ life?” I stand here today and can honestly say without a doubt in my mind, that the greatest gift you can give back to Chris is to live your life in Christ just like he was doing. If you can do that for me, Chris and I both promise you that everything is going to be okay.
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