Blog | Katja Faber

Social Media’s Grief Posts

June 26, 2018 By Katja Faber

It’s an inevitable part of social media that we’ll occasionally come across a post that jars and leaves us wondering whether a response is merited. When this happens, I tend to choose the path of least resistance and simply scroll on. However, it does depend on what’s been written and on my mood. Online grief forums, grief Instagram accounts or Facebook bereavement groups are no exception where unsettling statements are concerned. And let’s be clear — I’m not talking about individuals’ own personal accounts where they express whatever they choose or when people write privately held opinions in the comments section below posts. No. What irks me is the platitudes and advice offered up under the canopy of grief expertise that is at best a not-thought-through, mish-mash of psychobabble aimed at the grieving, and at worse, reckless advice.

Believe me, it’s a jungle out there.

When you’re hurting, anything that speaks to you and lifts you up is to be encouraged. For the most part, that’s what grief blog posts, articles and pictorial texts are all about — helping the bereaved deal with their loss by offering them an insight into the grief process and giving them a sense that they’re not alone. Yet, there are times, that what is written makes me wince. In those moments an emoji with rolling eyes doesn’t come close to what’s going through my mind.

Yesterday’s little gem popped up on my Facebook feed and, unusually, I chose not to scroll by. After leaving a polite message in the comments section, I realised that over the last six months there has been an increasing number of quotes in my feed that I didn’t agree with. Worse, I suspect that some of those quotes or advice could, in fact, increase a loss parent’s suffering. I wondered whether the posts had always been there, yet I hadn’t seen them because I was not attuned to what was being said. But whether they were there before or not, I see them now.

There’s nothing quite like noticing a behaviour you don’t like in others to make you re-assess your own. I myself am a part of this social media stage, with my own blog, Facebook and articles published on a regular basis. I would be mortified to think that anything I wrote has the potential to injure another grieving parent. But that’s not to say it can’t happen.

Misunderstandings can occur, and undoubtedly, everyone’s experience of child loss is so unique that no two people will walk the same path. But I do my utmost to write with care, cross-reference, re-read, and read again before pressing publish. On the occasions that I’ve been unsure as to how an idea will come across because it’s delicate — such as religion — I turn to my trusted child loss tribe and ask for feedback. When it’s a legal matter, I run it by a lawyer because it would be negligent of me not to do so. It’s many years since I worked as a barrister, and however much I may read and research, laws have changed and things have moved on. These exchanges enable me to measure which elements need further clarification. In the absence of an editor, you owe it to your readers to be as concise as you can be. And if ever I write anything that causes distress, let me now.

Those who present themselves as paradigms of knowledge where grief is concerned should be precise when using terms and concepts to illustrate their views. Words are a tool and using them properly is a craft. A throwaway badly expressed idea may cast those of us who are bereaved back into the deepest of despair. Wishy-washy, bland platitudes aimed at ‘likes’ and ‘shares’, or the promotion of DVDs and courses, do little to truly assist those in deep grief. Supporting a bereaved parent with the reality of life post-loss is an honour and a serious undertaking. No individual should enter into it lightly.

In my view, the only thing we the writers and speakers can do is share our own experience of grief in the hope that it helps another. In so doing, we also spread awareness of child loss and foster greater understanding in a society still very much ill at ease with death. Anything more extensive or wide-ranging should be done in consultation with others who are also intimate with grief in order to reduce the possibility of ill-advised counsel. That is the norm, thank goodness, and anything else is the exception. But nonetheless, we’re not yet in a place where a crass statement about grief on social media is so rare as for it to be irrelevant.

Photo courtesy of Boris Smokrov

With You When You Awaken; Still There When The Darkness Descends

June 25, 2018 By Katja Faber

Fighting against the reality of child loss won’t lead us to the place through which we must travel: the honest, intimate, soul-crushing acceptance that we’re grieving because our child is dead. That’s what we’re being asked to do in facing this indecent truth. We’re being asked to take the hand of this most unwanted, terrifying teacher called Death and to trust our new and cruel companion. The pain is with you when you awaken and still there when the darkness descends. There is no respite or release from the grinding, relentless anguish of child-loss sorrow. We’re given no option but to walk in grief as we journey through the barren, colourless landscape that is our post-loss existence — life without our child.

The shock of my son’s death left me utterly incapacitated. I could barely function and saw no point to life. Sleep eluded me, panic attacks were the norm. This debilitating, traumatic situation lasted well over three years and, combined with the ongoing judicial process, left me a wreck. At one point I was asked to write a victim impact statement, yet it was all I could do to sit at my computer and remember my password. “Brain fog” is a nice term for what felt like brain meltdown. My body’s exhaustion was like living inside a husk that no longer worked and could barely breathe.

Yet over time, I realized that if I wanted to be whole again I was going to have to accept the reality that was my hell. I’d have to learn to absorb the grief instead of struggling against it. Instead of rejecting this poison, I needed to let it seep into me, to let it flow through my veins. To do otherwise meant I’d never get stronger. It was the denial of my new reality that was causing me to be so seriously ill, not the grief itself.

If I was to survive, grief had to become a part of my essence.

So I ceased to wage war with the devastating truth that my son was dead and I was not, and that my grief would last forever. In that realization, I felt a release: Grief was love and had been right from the start. Only then did I understand why grief had never left my side and never would — It was the love for my child and that was everlasting. The minute I willingly let reality enter my mind, heart, and soul, I began to accept that my life as I knew it was over. It was grief’s poison which contained the essence I needed to heal. It was this that would help me forge a new life.

We cannot do grief work without acceptance, and we cannot learn acceptance without opening ourselves to all that grief offers us, however much we abhor the path we have been forced to travel. This is what Death teaches us: a wisdom that is so profound and long-lasting that it must be learned piece by painful piece. To learn this wisdom, to incorporate it into our broken heart is an agony like no other. I felt I was birthing a new emotional self, and it damn well hurt — unbearably so. One agonizing tiny droplet after another, I had to allow each one to weep into my soul very, very slowly until I was drenched. Only then could I begin to function again as a whole person.

The old me is gone and in its place stands a different me.

I had to be reborn as a different person. I’m a mother who has folded into her grief and continues to mother her still-living children. I’m growing a new life around my loss — not in spite of the grief, but because of it. Grief is my teacher and I shall continue to grow because there is wisdom in the grieving process. Grief needs to reside inside of me so that I have the strength to do the necessary work in rebuilding my life around the loss of my son. And that’s because what gives grief its power is my profound, unconditional, and undying love for Alex.

For us, the child loss mothers that are still standing, grief is the love we carry inside. In the end, it is grief that will ultimately heal us even though our hearts can never let it go.

Feature photo courtesy of Andrej Barnes

Published in Still Standing Magazine June 6th, 2018

As Shock Subsides You May Dare Ask, What Now?

May 25, 2018 By Katja Faber

Shock is the body’s response to child loss. It shields you temporarily from the enormity of what has happened. It may last only a matter of hours or perhaps several months. Yet at some point, the shock will subside and like a raging tide sucked back out to the sea it’ll reveal the corroded horror of your loss. In its wake will be left something alien and even more frightening — the realization that this loss is here to stay and will be with you for the rest of your life. And when that moment comes, you may well ask, what now?

Every single parent who’s ever lost a child, whether it be through illness, accident, homicide, or suicide will at some point wonder how they are meant to carry on. It’s a terrifying question they must all dare ask.

I was no different. Nothing could have prepared me for shock’s withdrawal. The carnage left behind defied comprehension. Without shock’s protection, the reality of the loss struck terror into my heart — Death’s ugly tentacles stretched gruesomely towards a horizon so void of colour or beauty it would have crushed even the bravest of hearts.

How was I meant to survive such savagery? Endure this agony? A life without my son?

Question after question came leaving me breathless with fear. No one could help me. No one could reach me. I felt alone in this catastrophic landscape that was to be the rest of my life. The feeling of eternal loss coupled with the suffocating non-life I was now living made me go insane — crazy with grief, incomprehension, anger. The questions tormented me, drenching me in anguished sweat. But one above all drove me ever deeper into despair — ‘what now?’

Believe me when I say I had no answers. Neither did the therapist, counsellor or priest. Friends and family sat with me, held me, gave advice, cried. But none of it helped, not with finding an answer, a way forward, a means to survive. I couldn’t conceive of a tomorrow, let alone a forever. Not without my child. Not like this.

But as the first year grated wretchedly by, and my weary body entered the second year of traumatic grief, the still unanswered question of ‘what?’ changed to ‘how?’. There was a shift in perspective as life’s incessant clamouring denied me the chance to hide and forced me to adjust my focus. What’s more, as a co-victim of homicide the reality of the killer’s arrest and pending prosecution forced me to sit up and take part in life. I had no choice but to turn ‘existence’ and ‘survival’ into what others perceived as ‘a life’.

And to my surprise, this so-called ‘life’ turned tentatively into a new life, painfully, slowly, but nonetheless, it began to happen. In forcing myself to take part in life outside of my deep grief, I stopped merely existing and began to absorb the light and laughter around me. Small, thimble-sized moments of joy began to breathe air into my suffocating sorrow.

I realized that I could feel both grateful and sad simultaneously. I could mourn my son yet love him with all my heart; I could cry at the loss of my boy and yet laugh when remembering his antics; I could feel all the emotions within my heart and still be OK. Grief taught me that I didn’t have to make any choices where my feelings were concerned because I could have them all.

The key to living life again was to connect to my feelings, each and every one of them. Even though shock had initially protected me, it was without it that I’d rebuild a life.

In a way, it was self-care that softened the edges to the horror and mellowed my response to the loss. I learned to be kind to myself. I gave myself the very thing I wished others gift me: being present in the space of my grief without expectation or fear. It was agonizingly painful to sit with grief and stare at the vastness of a loss that lasts forever, but in so doing, I realized that my grief was so wide and deep that it allowed for all my emotions to inhabit it all at once. Grief was not Death, it was very much alive and inside of me. I could evolve with it and change with it.

In responding with compassion to my loss, I allowed myself to take small steps away from the trauma of Alex’s murder to a state of equilibrium. I made a commitment to myself to learn about my own grief, to actively make time for reflection so as to rebuild a new life.

There is no single answer to ‘what now?’ But there is a painful path of self-discovery which will show us how to live again where sorrow, gratefulness, and acceptance can reside in equal measure.

Published in Still Standing, 19th May 2018

feature photo courtesy of Dean Moriarty Pixabay

The Reflection In The Mirror

May 15, 2018 By Katja Faber

I recently read an article by a child-loss mother who wrote of how she no longer recognized herself in the mirror. Her achingly beautiful words stopped me in my tracks, and I was transported back to the days of early grief when the agony of losing my son was so great that it felt as if I was dying from the inside out. I too had looked in the mirror and been shocked at my own reflection. It appeared so different — I was a ghoul, my eyes devoid of emotion, pits of nothingness as if my body had been emptied of the soul. My skin was ashen, my face deformed, twisted by the devastation of losing my child.

It’s hard to imagine such a transformation taking place within a few hours. I knew what I felt on the inside, but it took my reflection in the mirror to confront me with the externalization of my suffering. It shocked me, seeing this woman I didn’t recognize staring back at me from the bathroom cabinet. She frightened me, she looked crazed, she wasn’t me.

And yet she was me. This was whom I’d become: withered, decrepit, someone I didn’t know. I’d lost my identity, the essence of who I was. As horror and fear had gripped my heart, the woman I had been had disappeared. In her place stood a mother suffocated by death who didn’t care if she lived.

It’s the stuff of nightmares, to wake up one day and discover you’ve turned into someone else, a monster, a zombie. That no matter how much you look, how intensely you stare into those haunted eyes you can’t perceive your soul’s light. What I saw was someone who was dead but still breathing. And to be honest, that’s how I felt. It was as if I’d had all my limbs amputated without anaesthesia and my innards ripped out and been told I’d survive. Excruciating, relentless pain in a body tormented because it could not lie down and die.

The devastation wrought on my heart was there for all to see. And if I dared to look, I too was privy to my own annihilation. But unlike the mother who had written the article that had made me weep, I didn’t avoid the bathroom mirror, I didn’t flee in terror, I didn’t turn away from my reflection there or anywhere else. I willed myself to scrutinize, to stare back at this woman I didn’t know but who I’d become. I didn’t shy away from my destroyed self and dared myself to stand before this frightening image and absorb what I surveyed. Like the shocked victim at the scene of an accident, I gazed, horrified and incredulous. I had to find out what had happened and see the ugly truth, whatever the price.

In the end, it was the sight of my disfigured face in the mirror which helped me most to accept the truth. And that truth was that my son was dead.

The Dos And Don’ts Of Talking To Homicide-Loss Parents

May 14, 2018 By Katja Faber

Most people don’t know how to speak to a homicide-loss parent. They’re lost for words. I get that — homicide is very frightening. So, here’s a list of dos and don’ts to remember:

1. Call the murder victim by their name. Homicide loss survivors are no different from other child loss parents or siblings — they need to hear their loved one’s name. This is even more important once the police investigation and judicial process get underway because the victim will end up being dehumanized by the authorities. No one wants to hear their loved one being referred to as “the body” or “the deceased,” so don’t add to the family’s pain and instead, make sure you use their child’s name.

2. Don’t call the murder or homicide by any other name other than murder or homicide. This may sound odd, but people often try to avoid the bloody reality of homicide by referring to it as an “accident” or “incident” If someone is shot, it’s a shooting, and however tragic the loss, avoid “tragedy” and use “murder.” If someone’s child is raped and strangled, it’s not OK to refer to it as “an unfortunate event,” it’s a rape and murder. So instead, say something like “I’m so very sorry Sarah was killed.” In so doing, you will be acknowledging their grief as well as the suffering their child endured.

3. Never tell the co-victim that they are “wallowing” or “should put it behind them.” Homicide loss lasts a lifetime, there is no getting over it. Putting pressure on the survivors to hurry up their grief work will only add to their anguish and sense of betrayal. Most co-victims report never attaining a sense of closure however many years have passed.

4. Don’t say “If it was me…” because you’ll do more harm than good. Instead, be a good listener, respect their experience and allow the co-victim to be exactly where they are in their grief.

5. Don’t regurgitate what’s in the newspapers or tell them rumours you’ve heard because it’ll only increase their distress. Unless you have hard evidence, which is important for the case and should be passed on to the police, don’t discuss gossip or media coverage unless the family asks you to do so.

6. Don’t compare your experience of grief to theirs. The unexpected and violent nature of the killing, the extent of the injuries, the media intrusion, the criminal justice system… these and other factors make the challenges of homicide loss unique.

7. Don’t tell them you know how they’re feeling. Instead, say something like “What you are going through is beyond anything I can imagine.”

8. Don’t say “I don’t know how you survive, I know I couldn’t.” They have no choice in the matter. Their child was murdered through no fault of their own and they’re having to cope as best they can. Instead, acknowledge the extent of their devastation by saying something like “I’m at a loss as to what to say.”

9. Never tell them “things happen for a reason” or “he/she is in a better place now.” Even if a belief worked for you, don’t evangelize. A co-victim’s world has been smashed. They may be having a crisis of faith, struggling with feelings of guilt, or simply do not share your views. But for sure, they won’t think that their loved one is better off dead than alive and happy.

10. Never tell a co-victim to be strong. They’re already being strong beyond anything you could imagine. Suppressing their emotions will cause further psychological damage, so say “I’m here for you” and “it must take everything you’ve got just to keep going.” Giving them the allowance to cry and to not be strong is a gift. Encourage them to express their feelings by saying things like “what you’re feeling is understandable” or “I’m glad you are talking to me.”

11. Don’t tell a co-victim that anger is bad or inappropriate. Anger is a natural response to homicide loss. Rage can come and go and, in many cases, can last years. They’ll not only struggle with their loss and the manner of their child’s last moments, but they may also have to navigate the justice system. Validate their feelings with statements such as “no wonder you are angry” or “I can’t imagine how you must be feeling right now.” Don’t tell them that their rage is exaggerated or unseemly because expressing it is an important component of acceptance.

12. Don’t tell them that “it’ll be fine” or “justice will be done” because you can’t know, and often the opposite is true. In many cases, the killer is never arrested or the criminal justice system fails homicide-loss families. Pretending “it’s all going to work out” in a bid to cheer them up is unhelpful because what you are doing is negating their well-founded fears. Co-victims often come to the realization that the criminal justice system, which they thought was on their side, is anything but that. It’s therefore important to validate and acknowledge their worries, so say “I hear you” or “this doesn’t seem right, no wonder you are concerned and angry.”

13. Don’t ever suggest that the victim was in any way to blame for their own murder.

14. Don’t ever express any sympathy for the murderer or tell the co-victim that they should forgive the killer. The co-victim’s response to the killer is their business and no one else’s. Telling them that they should feel kindly towards the killer is like a slap to the face.

15. Don’t say “I think about you all the time.” This comes across as selfish. Instead, act upon the thinking and show you care by calling, writing, or visiting.

16. Should you become concerned about a co-victim’s mental or physical health, encourage them to seek medical treatment. The ongoing impact of homicide loss cannot be overemphasized.

Perhaps, most importantly, if you’re still unsure as to what to say, say nothing and instead stay with the co-victim, allowing them space to openly grieve. Your silent presence will be ‘heard’ as if it were words of support and love.

Published in Still Standing Magazine, 2nd May 2018

Day Of Action — 7 children shot dead every day in the US is 7 too many

April 18, 2018 By Katja Faber

We may all have different opinions regarding gun control, and that’s our right and how it should be. But whatever our views, that does not mean we shouldn’t support the amazing students marching peacefully this Friday. The April 20 Day of Action marks the anniversary of the Columbine High School shooting in Colorado in 1999 when 12 students and one teacher were killed. The terrible reality is, that in the time between my uploading this article and the teenagers walking out on Friday, approximately another 14 children will have been shot dead in the US.

Young people deserve a better, safer world than the one they’ve inherited. And whatever peaceful activism it takes for that change to happen, I’m right behind it.

The statistics speak for themselves: the USA has the highest homicide rate by guns of any developed country, and that figure is way off the charts. If sensible gun control results in fewer innocent lives lost, then who would want to go against anything that counters that? Fewer children murdered? How can that be a bad thing? No one here is talking about zero guns or doing away with the 2nd Amendment. What is being mooted is stricter controls and better checks. The arguments have become so polarized that no one is talking anymore and the middle ground has been lost in the heated arguments.

The world these students live in is dangerous — their childhood has been plagued by lock-down drills at school so they’re only too well aware of the chances of being caught up in gun violence. They’re right to protest and demand that their communities are safer. It’s a good thing they are getting out and making a noise, and that they’re willing to stand up for a better tomorrow because it certainly isn’t going to be a better tomorrow if someone doesn’t do something about it.

Switzerland is safe yet people own guns

If you doubt that it’s possible to make changes that are well-thought through and reasonable, look to the UK or Australia, two countries that changed gun laws following massacres in 1996 (Dunblane and Port Arthur respectively) simply because normal people were willing to say ‘not one child more’. There hasn’t been a massacre in either country since. Similarly, in Switzerland, many households own a gun as the country’s army is, in fact, a militia, yet gun controls mean that shootings of others are rare. There hasn’t been a mass shooting in Switzerland since 2001 when a man stormed a local government building and killed 14 politicians and then himself. Compare that with the US — data from the Gun Violence Archive shows that on average there’s a mass shooting (defined as four or more people shot in one incident) nine out of every 10 days. In 2017 alone, 346 mass shootings took place in the US with a total of 65 shootings being reported on school grounds.

In the USA the figures speak for themselves. Every year, 17,102 American children and teens are shot. Of those, 2,737 don’t make it and end up dead from gun violence. That’s seven children and teens killed every day. If you look at the statistics for adults, you’d be forgiven for questioning the numbers because they are so shocking: 116,255 people in America are shot of which 35,141 die in any given year.

It seems to me that parents deserve to feel calm when their kids go to school, and children should not fear for their lives when they’re learning. So here’s hoping that these Walk Outs and Marches achieve their goal and politicians start to listen. Isn’t that something to aim for?

Photos courtesy of Pexels

Walk Out, Get Angry: A Homicide-Loss Mother’s Perspective on the Florida School Shooting

April 7, 2018 By Katja Faber

As news reports of the High School shooting in Florida hit my computer screen I felt my heartbeat quicken and my mouth go dry. The students’ screams of terror were like a punch to my stomach leaving me winded and crying. This is a common response if you’re a homicide-loss mother.

Photo credit: geralt / Pixabay

Parents of murdered children often can’t help but transpose the terror of victims to what they imagine their own child endured. All I could think was ‘No! Not again!’ At that moment, each and every child within the Florida building could have been my own.

For those of you who don’t know my story, my son Alex was the victim of a brutal and sadistic homicide in 2014. I know only too well what these murders mean for the families directly affected by the killings and the thought drags me back into despair.

In an act of self-care, I avoided all news for 48 hours. By the time I tuned back in again, I noticed that a major shift in media coverage had taken place. Instead of news bulletins detailing the killing spree, what I saw were young people and parents standing strong and voicing their feelings. The survivors had not only seen their friends executed but they had also feared for their lives. They spoke eloquently and journalists were listening. In fact, the whole world seemed to be listening.

Photo credit: elizabethaferry / Pixabay

I was impressed by the teenagers’ display of feelings — sorrow, incomprehension, and above all, anger. In fact, I felt huge relief in seeing so many of the students pick up a mic, take to the streets, and shout out their pain and sense of injustice.

I know from personal experience, from my still-living children’s, and from talking to other homicide-loss survivors, that when it’s your own child or family member who has been murdered, anger is a major part of what you feel. It’s an involuntary, natural reaction and expressing it is vitally important.

But let’s be clear. When I talk of anger in the context of homicide loss I don’t mean anger as it’s usually defined — a reaction to frustration. What I’m referring to is something different — it’s an emotion that comes from the gut, a biological, visceral reaction to the killing of your child or loved one. Homicide-loss anger is instinctive. It’s as primal an emotion as it gets.

The powerful energy generated by this type of anger must be released because otherwise, it will eat you up. Unfortunately, that’s easier said than done. How are we, homicide co-victims, meant to freely express this primeval emotion if those around us feel uncomfortable in witnessing what they perceive to be anti-social displays of raw feelings?

Anger is something our society doesn’t do well, if at all. The majority of people are afraid of anger because they’re afraid of losing control and, in turn, they recoil at the expression of rage by others. We’re told to ‘deal’ with anger, that we need to identify the source of our discomfort and then get through it and put it behind us. We believe that anger is invariably ugly and often violent. From an early age, we’re taught that to express anger is to risk social isolation and that it comes with negative consequences. So we learn to hide it and in so doing, we adjust to society’s norms.

We all understand that a civilized society needs adults who can control their instinctive, primary impulses because the alternative is anarchy and chaos. So when anger rears its head, we bow our own and control the impulse to lash out. We learn to box in our anger and label it as misplaced frustration allowing us to believe that it is tamed as we try to identify the source of our distress.

Photo: MakyFoto / Pixabay

Yet for homicide-loss survivors, the pushing away of their anger comes at a cost. We haven’t tamed anger, we’ve caged it. It’s still there, frightening and wild, and poised to break free at any moment when we least expect. We don’t need to spend time identifying the source of our anger because we know what it is — the killer and anything and everything that helped him or her murder our loved one. In some cases, we may rage at God for allowing it to happen. We have been violated because our loved one has been willfully killed. We feel outraged, threatened and traumatized by our loss and what was done to the person we love. Without realizing it, our own survival instinct has been triggered and it is overwhelmingly powerful.

Our reaction to the taking of our loved ones’ life comes from the pit of our stomach. It is instinct; pure and simple. It’s an energy that will not allow itself to be tamed, destroyed or dismissed. It is the force that ensures the survival of our DNA.

Keeping this natural, instinctive reaction to murder under control takes huge amounts of energy. It also stops us from moving forward in our grief journey to a place of acceptance, and ultimately, healing. It is imperative that co-victims find a safe but effective way to vent their rage otherwise the trauma of homicide loss will fester within them and the path towards healing will be compromised.

That is why I feel relief on seeing the students organize marches and demonstrations. That is why I’m rooting for them as they walk today in March for Our Lives. That is why I’ll support anyone who takes up the fight for justice for their loved one killed through violence. Because it is vitally important that they do.

Homicide-loss anger that’s expressed has the power to be transformative, whereas anger that is caged and repressed will most probably result in long-lasting psychological trauma. Co-victims have suffered quite enough without also having to comply with society’s expectations of how they should behave. It’s a form of societal-imposed self-harm for the benefit of appearances. Why is this? Why should those who have suffered one of the most extreme forms of loss be expected to shield the rest of society from their grief?

The students of Florida deserve our support and admiration not only because they’re demonstrating controlled, focused anger at a time of deep grief but because they’re helping to make our society more compassionate and just.

They’re showing the world that there is space for anger when it comes from a place of love. They are standing up for what they believe in, and I am glad. I’m certain that the more they allow themselves to feel these powerful emotions, the more they’ll ultimately heal. And they deserve no less.

Published in Still Standing Magazine, 23rd March 2018

No Altar At Which To Lay My Aching Soul

March 21, 2018 By Katja Faber

Over the Easter weekend, we as a family celebrate in our own secular, non-churchgoing way — an early morning chocolate egg hunt followed by a big breakfast featuring a bunny-shaped bread and Easter egg tree. Our family has passed this Swiss tradition down from one generation to the next. It’s without a doubt my favourite annual ritual, beating Christmas stockings hands down. Yet adherence to the Christian calendar doesn’t make me a believer. This meant that when my son was killed I was frightened and alone in my despair. At times I envied those with a cast iron faith because I, on the other hand, had no altar at which to lay my aching soul.

The Swiss tradition of painted Easter eggs

It would comfort me if I was certain that my son inhabits the spirit world but I simply don’t know. I wish I did because truth is, I miss Alex desperately and it would help me if I believed that an ethereal angel-like version of him watches over me as I go about my day. But scientific predictions in quantum mechanics and the laws of thermodynamics dissolve my chance of being a worshiper, and so I fail to see my son as a celestial being like those depicted on a crumbling Renaissance church wall.

The child I’ve buried may not have wings, but that doesn’t mean I don’t talk to him because I do. I regularly catch myself asking him something in a natural act of motherly love and then stop short as I again question my own belief system. In those moments I’m left teetering on the edge of emotional angst, unsure as to how to knead together what I feel in my heart and what science tells me. It’s a tough balancing act, with no guidelines, no rules, no one to show me what’s what or why.

Science doesn’t help me to make sense of the unanswerable and religion doesn’t calm my gnawing doubts. Dealing with such thoughts makes my head spin and hurts my broken heart. That I don’t understand how it all fits together — eternal life, dark matter, the creation story, the multiverse — is not surprising because, as far as I can see, neither does anyone else. Is there a cosmic force? A divine plan? Are we part of a universal consciousness? Am I and my son, and everyone and everything connected on some quantum level, entangled throughout space-time whatever our physical state? If no energy gets created in the universe and none is destroyed, is my Alex still here, or there, or everywhere?

The fact is, I do believe in something even if that something is elusive and weird and physicists try but fail to explain it in formulas that I don’t comprehend. I sense that there’s more to IT all because I have experienced moments of presence, of connection, of instantaneous telepathy with my dying child. I believe it ain’t over when we breathe our last.

So I cling to my own evolving and undefined subatomic particle spirituality because without it I would have to accept that my child is gone forever. My son may be different now, pure energy perhaps, but I believe that something of his essence somewhere in some form still exists. I refuse to accept that my Alex isn’t vibrating on a bizarre alternative multidimensional level because given it’s possible, you can be sure that’s where he’ll be.

So here I am, a loss mother managing her grief within a self-made crucible of scientific knowledge and personal imagination. It’s a make-it-up-as-I-go-along type of spirituality which neither rejects other people’s faiths nor imposes a dogma on anyone else. We are none of us given the choice but to navigate this gruesome loss journey as best we can. Yet in respecting each others’ way of coping we’re able to live out the one universal truth that unites us all, and that is Love, possibly the strongest force in the cosmos and one which needs absolutely no explaining.

Photo: Geralt ¦ Pixabay

Published in Still Standing Magazine, 17th March 2018

Photo credit: Oliver Wiesenberg

Anniversaries I Never Even Knew Existed

March 16, 2018 By Katja Faber

The 26th March 2018 will mark the first anniversary of the start of the trial. On that day a year ago, I drove myself and my family to the Courthouse, parked the car and nervously walked up the steps to the entrance under the watchful gaze of lawyers, officials, and the public.

I’ve tried not to add the date to the already burgeoning homicide-loss calendar that’s imprinted on my heart. But to be honest, I’ve failed. Many of the emotions I felt this time last year are floating back up to the surface, bubbling up unexpectedly and interrupting my thoughts as I go about my day. I find myself focusing on the time I spent in Court as I deal with the swell of emotion that invariably accompanies the loss of a child through murder.

Alex’s 2nd Birthday

It’s inevitable that the 26th March will become a date I remember, another anniversary post-loss. How could it not be? The culmination of over two years of stress and anguish, of meetings with lawyers, of seemingly endless legal costs, of fear and uncertainty?

No one told me about this homicide-grief calendar, this keeper of painful dates that I would remember whether I wanted to or not. Having previously lost my parents, other family members, and friends, I assumed that the date of birth, death and of the funeral were the three days that would accompany my grief. And that would be it.

Well, it turns out, I was wrong. In the case of homicide loss, there are many other additional dates apart from birth, death, and burial. This is because each and every important event post-loss is so traumatic that it wounds our heart irrevocably. My inner grief calendar is now strewn with Xs marking significant days across the entire year. There’s Alex’s last day alive, 29th December. The morning the police arrived at my door. The day I chose the coffin and urn. The day we were allowed take Alex’s body out of the forensic institute morgue. The day his personal effects were delivered in a brown cardboard box …

You get the picture.

And now my heart has added what I call the ‘legal’ days to the already full calendar. Dotted across the year are the dates that pushed me to the edge of endurance as the justice system creaked into action: my interview with the police; the first time I saw the killer; the morning I read the indictment; the start of the trial; the day of the Sentencing…

Yes, this is a grief calendar I never knew existed but regrettably, exist it does.

Walk With My Sister

March 14, 2018 By Katja Faber

I wish to dedicate this song “Walk With My Sister” to all those who have lost a sibling. I know only too well how heartbreaking it is to live on without a brother or sister having seen my own children struggle to come to terms with the death of Alex.

This is a home recording of a song composed and sung by me, with lyrics written by me, one afternoon whilst on the farm. Sergio Sands is on guitar and without his help, it would not have been possible to record the song as I don’t even own a mic. I have found that creating music is cathartic in helping to express the feelings deep inside of me. When we recorded it, we weren’t intending to share it with anyone. But losing Alex has shown me that what you think one day can be totally different the next. So here it is.

I hope you find comfort in the words as you travel the road of grief.

Alex’s brother and sister