The Butterfly On My Shoulder is an inspiring book composed of poems and commentary about the grief process. Its purpose is to share the love, pain and growth that so many have lived through and to inspire healing by all who grieve. This book lets mourners know that they are not alone and they are not going crazy, they are grieving and they can heal. It was written over a 22 year period by a mother after the death of her 24 year old son by suicide in 1986. Many of the poems have been previously published in newsletters, brochures and on the internet. They have proven to be very encouraging to those who grieve by helping them to deal with and understand their grieving journey. The book offers a clear explanation of the grief journey and grief process as experienced from the perspective of all family members, friends and fellow grievers in fourteen chapters. The chapters are divided by the stages and the friend or family member's perspective. The poems and commentary offer suggestions and information about helpful methods and modalities that a grieving person can use to better negotiate the different stages of grief. The author uses her experiences and education as the Executive Director/CEO of the Florida Initiative for Suicide Prevention, Inc. and a member of the Florida State Suicide Prevention Coordinating Council to explain and share the experiences of thousands of grieving individuals which she has come in contact with over the last 22 years. The commentary and poems express the perspective of both the author and survivors with which she has worked and describes their pain and ultimate healing. This book is a useful tool for anyone who is grieving the loss of a loved one including those dealing with a death by suicide.

THE BUTTERFLY ON MY SHOULDER

A Grief Journey of Love and Growth to Inspire HealingBy Helene Levin

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2009 Helene Levin
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4490-2845-9

Contents

Chapter 1-The Genesis of This Book...............................................................................1This Too Shall Pass..............................................................................................13Chapter 2-The Newly Bereaved.....................................................................................15How the Poems Came to Be.........................................................................................19In the Beginning.................................................................................................20He Is Still with Me..............................................................................................21Why..............................................................................................................22Out of the Ashes.................................................................................................23Wait till Tomorrow...............................................................................................25Visits...........................................................................................................26You Can't Take It Away...........................................................................................27Depression.......................................................................................................28The Memory Box...................................................................................................30Chapter 3-The Grieving Process Insights Into The Journey Toward Healing..........................................33Insights into The Journey........................................................................................37Looking Back.....................................................................................................38Grief's Roller Coaster...........................................................................................40Anger............................................................................................................41Freedom to Be....................................................................................................43Patterns.........................................................................................................44Finding My Time and My Space.....................................................................................46Numb.............................................................................................................47Throwing Our Anger Away..........................................................................................49Who's in There?..................................................................................................50The Big Step.....................................................................................................51Chapter 4-For Mothers or Fathers From A Mother's Heart...........................................................55A Mother's Prayer................................................................................................58I Put His Things Away Today......................................................................................59No Butterflies Today.............................................................................................61The Couldas, Wouldas, Shouldas...................................................................................62The Nighttime Plea...............................................................................................64The Experiment-My Attempt to Understand..........................................................................66What Am I Now?...................................................................................................69Before and After-The Benchmark...................................................................................70Chapter 5-For Fathers or Mothers Fathers Can Be the Root of the Family...........................................73An Ode to My Son, Mitchell.......................................................................................77Giving...........................................................................................................78Questions........................................................................................................80An Ode to Our Surviving Daughter -Our Dearest Daughter Brenda, on Her Twenty-Fourth Birthday.....................81God, Where Were You?.............................................................................................83Time.............................................................................................................85Rage.............................................................................................................86Fathers Grieve Too...............................................................................................88Thank You to My Therapist........................................................................................89Chapter 6-For Grandparents Grandparents Grieve Twice.............................................................93It's a Family Affair.............................................................................................95Grandparents, Double Pain........................................................................................96A Grandparent's Prayer...........................................................................................98The Love of a Grandchild.........................................................................................99Chapter 7- The Death or Suicide Of a Child A Parent's Worst Nightmare............................................103Love of a Child..................................................................................................107What Is the Difference?..........................................................................................108Night............................................................................................................109I Saw You Today..................................................................................................110What's It All About?.............................................................................................111Suicide..........................................................................................................112Chapter 8-For Siblings and Parents Siblings Need Each Other......................................................117Brothers.........................................................................................................120The Lesson.......................................................................................................121A Child's Plea...................................................................................................123Who Are the Siblings?............................................................................................125Do I Have To?....................................................................................................127Chapter 9-For Children Who Have Lost a Parent Losing a Parent Rocks Their World..................................129A Child's Grief..................................................................................................133How Could You Leave Me?..........................................................................................134I'm Only a Little Kid............................................................................................135An Adult Child's Lament..........................................................................................136To a Mother Who Is So Missed.....................................................................................137Chapter 10-For Husbands and Wives Husbands and Wives Together For Life...........................................141Love Never Dies..................................................................................................144The Empty Chair..................................................................................................145If I Could Turn Back the Hands of Time...........................................................................147It Just Is!......................................................................................................148Chapter 11-Your Birthday or the Holiday Is Here Again Birthdays and Holidays Can Be Tough........................151Comparisons-Your Twenty-Sixth Year...............................................................................154Our Son-Your Twenty-Seventh Year.................................................................................156Delicious Moments-Your Twenty-Eighth Year........................................................................157A Letter Of Love- Your Twenty-Ninth Year.........................................................................159Opening the Door.................................................................................................160In My Dreams-Your Thirtieth Year ................................................................................161Six and Three Quarter Years-Your Thirty-first Year...............................................................162The Holidays.....................................................................................................163You Cannot Imagine...............................................................................................164Chapter 12-Other Family and Friends Disenfranchised Grief-What Does That Mean?...................................167Teens Aren't Supposed to Die.....................................................................................170No One Asks Me...................................................................................................172Who Has The Right?...............................................................................................173Stop the Sound of That Bell......................................................................................174I Loved You for So Many Years....................................................................................175Chapter 13-Healing Your Heart and Soul...........................................................................179Hope.............................................................................................................183I Hear You, My Heart.............................................................................................184Waiting..........................................................................................................185Healing..........................................................................................................186As I Look Back...................................................................................................188Who Knew?........................................................................................................189Sparkle..........................................................................................................191Tears Today, Smiles Tomorrow.....................................................................................192Now is the Time..................................................................................................194Keeping Their Legacy Alive.......................................................................................195A Garden for My butterflies......................................................................................196Moving On!.......................................................................................................198Chapter 14-What Is To Be The Conclusion?.........................................................................201The Final Conclusion.............................................................................................204

Chapter One

The Genesis of This Book

It was a time of despair and desperation. It was a time of confusion and disbelief. It was a time that I thought I would never survive. It was a terrifying time that made me so afraid. I was filled with a raging fear that my whole family could not and would not survive this time of total disaster. So I did what I always do. I put on a tough steel facade and became the caretaker that I have always been. I continued to forgo my own needs to take care of the rest of what remained of my family. But that was just what I always did. That was my job in life, as it is for so many women. As the only daughter and the oldest child, I always was the one who was called upon to jump into every emergency and take care of what needed to be done. So that is just what I did when my child died.

Then suddenly, I stopped, just for a second, and looked around at all those loved ones surrounding me. I was feeding them and comforting them and telling them that I was going to be okay. Suddenly I realized that this time was different. That was the instant that the most horrible thought came into my head. It hit me with the power of a tornado swirling in my brain, and it was at that very moment that I realized that this time, no matter how hard I tried, no matter how hard I worked at taking care of everyone I loved, this time, no matter how desperately I threw myself into this effort, I was not going to be able to fix or change reality. Our lives were now changed forever in a way I could have never imagined would happen.

Time seemed to stand still. I found myself in a totally unfeeling numb body functioning in slow motion. I moved around the rooms in my home in a fog. The fog enveloped me so that I was just going through the motions of doing, not living. I was in a state of shock! This is the state that your brain puts you into in order to protect you when it is not possible for you to deal with life's reality. I was looking around me to make sure I was really where I thought I was and not in the middle of a terrifying nightmare. On that day, in that moment in my living room, what I saw surrounding me was three generations of my broken family and friends, crying and dazed by the sudden suicide of our only son, Mitchell Allen Rosen, at the age of twenty-four.

According to SPAN, the Suicide Prevention Action Network, it has been estimated that each death by suicide leaves behind six to eight people who will be profoundly affected. But in our life, the number was so much larger. There was me; my husband, Harry; our daughter, Brenda; my parents; Harry's parents; five uncles and aunts and their parents; eight cousins; two great-aunts and their five children; and on and on. Not to mention the scores of our son's friends, including the people that he worshipped with, went to school with, and worked with. Add to that our daughter's friends and our friends and their children, who all grew up together with Mitch, many of whom had known Mitch almost since birth. Wow, that number was surely mounting up.

We were also very involved in our community in many ways. My husband, Harry, is an attorney, and as a former mayor of our city who had been in office for fourteen years, he had a huge number of people who worked with him. So many of them had formed very close relationships with our family. We were both heavily involved in participating in our house of worship, Temple Israel of Miramar. Harry was a past president of the Temple, and I was a past president of the Temple Sisterhood. Through these involvements, we had a lot of additional very close friends and people who knew Mitch and cared deeply for him. Now the number was about 158.

Everyone in our town knew us, and now we were faced with finding a way to handle this tragedy. We chose to be totally open about how Mitch died to help educate others and to help remove the stigma of this pervasive public health problem. In 1986 this was very unusual. So many people called my husband and myself and told us that they too had experienced a suicide in their family and had never talked about it, but because we were so open and talked about it even in the newspapers, they felt that they could share with us. We had five hundred people at the funeral. Now that certainly is a lot more than eight, isn't it?

To put the estimates of those who will be profoundly affected by each suicide into perspective, consider the documented statistics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showing more than 33,300 deaths by suicide each year. If only six to eight people are affected in each instance, the figures for 33,300 add up to 199,800 for six and 266,400 for eight individuals who will experience the trauma of surviving this loss. If the much larger numbers reflected by our family's experience are closer to the norm, then the statistics of those who are profoundly affected will grow exponentially.

During the next few years, each of us in the family took a turn at falling apart. Those first two years were filled with unbelievable grief and the inability to function. As one of us fell apart, the others kept strong and supported that one. Harry and I took five years to really be able to understand, cope, and live fully productive and meaningful lives again. After three years, finally we very slowly began to find some joy in our lives that we could share.

We joined a group called The Compassionate Friends (TCF) three weeks after Mitch died. It is a worldwide self-help organization for people who have lost children by any means. We attended their meetings for most of the first year after Mitch's death. That is where we met Gerri and Michael Toth. The Toths lost their grown son David, who was in medical school, to leukemia. Gerri and Mike became our very special friends, who shared with us and helped us all through our grieving process. We have stayed friends with them to this day. My friend Gerri is the one who told me to take one day at a time, and when I told her I couldn't even conceive of making it through a whole day, we decided to scale it down to an hour, a minute, or sometimes a second at a time, and that is how I survived.

There were two chapters of TCF in our area, forty miles apart, so it wasn't very long before the four of us decided to start another chapter for those in need and living in the middle of those two chapters. By the beginning of our second year of mourning, we were running the North Dade Chapter of TCF with our new friends Gerri and Mike, who were already a bit longer into their grief process than we were and became our staunchest supporters. We spent the first-year anniversary of Mitchell's death with them and many more as well.

During those early years of grieving, I found that I could not sleep. I would lie in bed, and thoughts would race and go around and around in my head. I would be afraid I would not remember what I was thinking about, so I would finally get up and write those thoughts down, and to my surprise, they came out in verse. For many months I could not sleep at all until I had written down three poems per night. This continued for many years off and on. Every once in a while, I still get inspired to write another. While putting this book together, I was again inspired, and I wrote several more. To date, I have ninety poems completed, all of which are included in this book.

Harry and I really became entrenched in our new job of helping others, and as a result, it helped us to grow and survive. On different holidays, I would share my experiences and deliver a presentation on how to survive the holidays. Harry would share and give a talk about the differences in how men and woman grieve. He was very helpful to so many of the men who came to the group. It was so much harder for men to come to meetings and admit in public that they needed help. He gave a lot of them the courage to do so, and because of his efforts, many were able to grieve out loud. On the third anniversary of Mitchell's death, we went along with Gerri and Mike and hundreds of other survivors to attend the TCF national convention. By then we had our chapter newsletter up and running and were sharing it with many other chapters. It was the custom to send your newsletters to other chapters to share their inspirational contents, and those chapters would in turn send them on to other chapters. The result was that the contents would get spread literally all around the world.

At the beginning of the convention, the opening speaker would ask each person to turn to the person to their left, right, in front, and in back of them and introduce themselves and give that person a hug. I did as he asked, and I turned to my right, to the back and to the front; my husband was on the left. The last person I addressed was the one in front of me, and when I said my name, she replied in an accent, "Jackie Rosen, oh my goodness, I read and loved your poem `The Empty Chair.' I said, "You did? Where did you get it?" "Why," she said, "in our newsletter. It was printed in our newsletter in Australia." She hugged me and said, "Thank you so much for putting into words exactly what was in my heart." We just stood there for a moment looking at each other, and then we grabbed for and held each other's hand. We both felt this wave of emotion and instantly knew that we shared the understanding of two mothers who were in pain. There was an instant connection. We shared feelings of warmth and solace in our ability to understand each other. We were together seeking help in dealing with our loss, and that encounter was the start in some small way of our mutual healing. This experience made me realize why I had to eventually share my poems with so many more people with broken hearts who were grieving and seeking relief.

So this was the start of my quest to help myself and others resolve our grief. I have spent the past twenty-two years learning about the grieving process and the healing process, including how both are affected by different types of death and different kinds of relationships. I have integrated this knowledge into my work each and every day and into my creative process while writing this book.

The journey and emotions described in these poems include both the chronicle of my grief process and of those suffering souls I met along the way who shared their personal experiences with me. Now I share them with you, with the hope that they will help you, and all your family members and friends who share your grief, find relief in knowing that things will get better. I hope that you will also share them with all those whom you know who are grieving their own family's loss. By sharing, you can all find solace in knowing that none of you are alone in your grief. No one should ever have to grieve alone.

There were five suffering families in The Compassionate Friends chapter that we started who all had lost a child twenty-four years of age to suicide. It was such a coincidence that all these families should end up in the same chapter at the same time. We all bonded and spent a lot of time on the phone and sharing together after meetings. It was a very exclusive club within the chapter, one that none of us wanted to belong to. We clung to each other and shared our excruciating pain. We decided that our grief was in some ways different from the others in the group because of the stigma and lack of openness about suicide. It was also hard for others who had not experienced this type of loss to truly understand it, so it was not discussed in the same way as other losses. We came to the conclusion that we needed an organization that addressed suicide loss specifically. It was during this experience that we gathered together and encouraged one of those mothers to start an independent chapter of a national suicide prevention organization that finally grew into the primarily volunteer nonprofit organization called the Florida Initiative for Suicide Prevention, Inc. (FISP).

Of course, Harry and I got involved in this new organization and left the TCF chapter to Gerri and Mike to run. It was our time to move on to deal with our specific type of loss, and they encouraged us and totally understood. As a matter of fact, they expressed how very proud they were of us for taking this step to help others in our group of survivors of suicide. We could always depend on the Toths to support what was a benefit to us and any of the other survivors in the TCF chapter.

In 2002, I became active in the Florida Suicide Prevention Coalition (FSPC), which became a 501 (c) 3 nonprofit organization in 2003. Our goal was to work with state officials to form the Florida Suicide Prevention Task Force, lead by James McDonough, director, Florida Office of Drug Control in Tallahassee. Together the task force and the advocates in FSPC collaborated with many state officials, including meaningful support from Governor Jeb Bush. The result was the completion of the Florida Suicide Prevention Strategy Paper. Then we went to the Florida Legislature to create and pass the bill that established the Office of Suicide Prevention in the Governor's Office in 2007. The whole process took four years. As part of the bill, the Florida Suicide Prevention Coordinating Council was also created for the purpose of promoting statewide collaborations to help implement the strategy papers' directive to reduce suicide in Florida and direct the Office of Suicide Prevention's priorities. I am proud that FISP was appointed by the statute to serve on this council since 2007.

Well, Harry and I and all our FISP members worked hard to help FISP grow and expand our services. We all tried to reach out to more and more people who needed our help. After years of working as a multi-tasking volunteer and serving in many positions including as a board member, fund-raising vice president, assistant executive director, SUN Program coordinator, webmaster, and in any other capacities needed by FISP I really understood all facets of the organization. I also educated myself by attending hundreds of hours of classes and conferences, which helped to prepare me to take over when our former executive director resigned.

Since 2005, I have been serving as the dollar-a-year executive director/CEO of this organization. I am so proud of the programs FISP has developed that educate, advocate, research, develop, and provide direct service suicide prevention programs. Our survivors of suicide programs include support groups, referrals, phone support, the FISP Annual Survivor's of Suicide Day Conference, and mailings of support materials. Harry is the president and chairman of the board of the FISP organization. We are still working together as we always have in every endeavor we each engage in.

All my experiences throughout the last twenty-two years have enhanced my understanding of the essential healing power of sharing. This is the impetus that finally led me to publishing this book at this time in my career a priority. To help FISP sustain itself, I will be donating a portion of the proceeds from the sale of this book to FISP in memory of our son Mitch. I know he would be so proud of this effort and my donation.

With each poem I have included the month and/or the year in which it was originally published in the TCF newsletters or written. Many were written as early as 1986, right after Mitch died, but not published until 1988 when our TCF chapter was formed and published its first newsletter.

Many were written after I no longer put them in the TCF newsletter as time went on. They are not in chronological order in this book because instead I arranged them by the chapter that they apply to. So don't let the dates confuse you. However, the time line does give you some idea of about when I dealt with each issue. They show how I worked my way through the grieving process from several years of total despair to living a purposeful life helping others in honor of my son's life. They allowed me to see in my own words the changes taking place. Without these poems as my guiding light, I could only see the darkness. But as I looked back along the way at the earlier words I had written and as I worked hard at my grief process, I began to climb out of the deep, dark hole of depression. I slowly started to move into the time when the first glimmers of light began to enter my life. Those glimmers of light, written down in black and white, were the first signs I would see that let me know I could survive. I was slowly learning that not only could I go on living but that our family would also survive and go on to thrive.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from THE BUTTERFLY ON MY SHOULDERby Helene Levin Copyright © 2009 by Helene Levin. Excerpted by permission.
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