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Jacey
I feel a bit immature on this web site partly because I got it from my fourteen year old daughter. I was looking aroung for older advice givers and you imarticular caught my eye. You have written to my daughter, Jacey. It is most likely because of you what happened on Saturday. For the first time since my son's death I visited Jacey's softball tourniment. I felt she needed me to be there for her. She didn't need me. Jacey is strong. You probably know that from writing to her. I needed her. I needed to be her mother again. Never have I seen her with so much intesity and heart. We stayed out on those fields until midnight. If it sounds crazy, it is. My daughter is a catcher and she plays with girls who are about a year to two years older than her. It looks like it too. She is deffinetly the smallest one. The firt three games she started catching in the heat, and under all that gear she has to wear I bet she gets hot. The fourth game she wasn't feeling well, but the coach played her anyway after the starting catcher ran out of energy. JAcey told him she couldn't play because she was exhasted, but he didn't listen ansd stuck her in. She started looking really bad. By the seventh inning between every pitch she had to take off her helmet and throw up. Finally I went to speak to the coach. "Take her out." I demanded. "She's the best on the team we can't do that." Then I lost it. I called her over and pulled her out myself. We went to a twenty four hour doctor at about two am and he said she was about thirty minutes away from a heat stroke. While we were waiting she actually fell asleep in my lap. It's not much, but it's a lot to me. I know she has been through a lot. I know she is handling her brother's death surprisingly well. The thing that bothers me is that she seems like she wants to forget him. I just want her to open up to me the way she opened up to you. You're a total stranger and I am her mother. I know it's easier for her to talk to someone she doesn't know. It's easier for me too. One thing Jacey doesn't understand is how much she is like me. But another thing is how she is not. Like myself Jacey knows who she is, but unlike myself she is a total rebel. She listens, I know she does. She can, she just doesn't. Jacey is going to be somebody someday. She's going to change the world. I want her to know this. She is so smart. Everybody loves her. ONe day she'll realize what she was meant to do, but not now. For now I just want her stay the beautiful fourteen year old she is and live life like it's her last day. And she does, she just doesn't know it yet.
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Dear Jacey's Mom,
I am so glad that you wrote. I have been thinking about Jacey a lot. I was glad to connect with her, and it did seem that I helped. ANd like you said, at least she opened up to someone. You had me going there for a minute, I thought something awful had happened to jacey, and it almost did, Thank God that you were there, and thank God for 24 hours emergency doctors. That coach needs to be informed of how ill suited he is to being a coach. Jacey's throwing up should have been the first clue, and it should have ended there.
When Jacey wrote me she told me that she had finally cried, she cried and felt good about it. But she was afraid to cry again. I told her that maybe now is a good time for her to talk with you. Maybe she could sort out her emotions a little better. She told me that she can't talk to you because you will cry and she did not want make you cry. This is not unusual. Many of us are afraid to approach someone who has lost a loved one so tragically for fear that something we might say will remind them of their loss, and then we will have been responsible for reminding them and making them feel bad. But I have spoken with people who have lost someone and while they say nothing can make them feel better....being ostracized by family and friends, makes them feel worse. I guess it is human nature. I, personally, have learned to overcome this. I seek out friends and aquaintences who have lost loved ones, and I get them to talk about the loved one, and before you know it, they are reliving fond memories and we are laughing, a little. I think of it as a gentle nudge on the path of mourning.
Everything you said about Jacey is true. She is going to be someone someday. She does have a lot of heart, and she realizes how special she is. ANd what you said gave me a clue as to why it seems to you, that she wants to forget him.
You have raised Jacey to be the awsome 14 year old that she is. You have told her that she is special, you have told her that she is going to accomplish something. She has seen the proof in her performance, in her school work, and in the way that adults praise her and you all see something special in Jacey. So in her mind, before the tragic death of your son, she knew she was on her way to having this great, awsome, wonderful life and that she has the potential to make a name for herself in whatever avenue she chooses. And her age, being 14, makes that all the more important that
1. she not miss a step.
2. she sees kids around her who are just interested in going to the mall and meeting boys and talking trash, so that makes her goals all the more imporant.
3. And she is a little self-centered.
But every person who is successful in life, from atheletes like Tiger Woods to billionaires like Bill Gates were a little self centered. It is not a deterant. It is a plus. But her young age and immaturity keeps her from realizing that she is going to reach her goals.
With the untimely death of her brother, she is afraid that she will not get to do all of the things she wants to do.
At your age, you can put life on auto pilot and mourn, and once you are ready, you can pick up where you left off, and then your sorrow will be held inside you, the visible signs will be gone.
Jacey doesn't know how to put things on autopilot. She may have the capability, but the reasoning that goes with it, that will put it in a comfort zone for her, has not developed yet. ANd it may be that kind of reasoning comes with age. BOttom line is, Jacey is afraid that she is not going to get to have the life, that was promised to her if she did all that was asked of her, and put her heart into everything.
And damn, that would suck. It happended to her brother, why not her? Why should she get to cheat fate, when he didn't.
What she needs from you, but not until you are ready, is to know that she is still capable of reaching all her goals, and well, can you assure her, or guarantee her that life won't cheat her also? Of course not, but you can tell her the you will do everything in your power to see that she gets to realize her dreams. And you did just that the night of the game. I am so glad that she fell asleep in your lap.
I think you are both on the correct path. I feel much less anxious for jacey now. I know that it is hard for you, and you are not really ready to just turn off that awful pain, but you have another child, and you know that you don't want to loose her. I am glad that you realized it. This has the potential to make the to of your even closer, and when those days come that you want to think about and have conversations about your son, Jacey will be the person you can talk to about him and both share some wonderful memories, you will both understand where the other is coming from.
It is ok to tell jacey that your mad, that this whole things sucks, and that your whole being is consumed with sorrow. She will listen, and some day when she had her own children, she will understand, and then she will need some assurances from you, that all will be alright. Not guarantees, just assurance.
Good luck to both of you. And please write again if you like. ANd Jacey.......you go girl! (mom too!)
Michele
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