Fear of death with my children

  • Thread starter Thread starter jules11
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
J

jules11

Guest
It has been a hard year so far, it seems one thing goes wrong, then another.
I am feeling overwhelmed with sadness at the moment. The death of this young man has really hit me hard. Now I fear that it will happen to me, as in one of my children dying. Irrational, I know, but still a real fear to me. I just think it would be a cross too heavy to bear and it’s my absolute worst nightmare. (although I had a miscarriage, not to downplay *that *life that has gone, but I mean those of my grown children.)
After the miscarriage in June, I have struggled to cope with things and was not doing too well. My health has not been the best, I’ve had so many major family issues to deal with. I felt that I was just getting on top of things in the last few days and then this.
I will be going to his funeral next week and I just don’t know if I’m up to it. He was 19. He was my daughters first boyfriend. He came to our house. And now he’s dead.
He was not religious and I feel so worried about his soul. I can’t even feel peace knowing he was in a state of grace and he is with God.
His brother stayed with us last night and that brought it closer to home. I am so sad about it. The death of a child is one of my greatest fears. I cannot shake this horrible fear that I may be in this position myself soon…
I just don’t think it’s normal to react this way…I just don’t know how to detatch myself from other people’s grief. I feel it almost like it’s happened to me.

I go through in my mind, all the things these poor parents have to deal with, identifying the body, arranging a funeral, being in his room and him not being there, knowing that my life would never be the same ever again, having to pack up his things.
Is this just me being morbid? I just feel so much for parents that lose a child.

Please pray for me, this family, this boy’s soul. I don’t really know why I take these kind of things so hard, it just seems to be the way I am. Even when I don’t know the people it affects me. Do other’s experience things like this? It’s so exhausting to deal with other’s pain and heartache’s as well as my own.
 
Well, sounds like you have your own truckload of pain and suffering. You don’t need to borrow other people’s. You are compassionate. But you can’t let it immobilize you. Pray for the young man’s soul. Make a dinner for his family in a few weeks when everyone else has gone back to their life. Be available to the young man’s brother to talk about him, because after a while no one wants to talk about the deceased anymore. You probably have lots of memories of him to share.

But as for worrying about your own children… I’ll give you some advice given to me by a holy priest. It is my terror also… anything happening to my kids. And my worry was their safety when they are in their father’s custody. And you cannot imagine the terrifying scenarios my mind can come up with with very little help at all. And not all of them are unhinged from reality. Trust me.

But he said this to me. “Don’t think about it. That way lies madness. There is nothing you can do about it unless something happens. So when thoughts like that come, put them out of your mind like you would an impure thought. Say a prayer and get on with your day.”
 
I will pray for you, your daughter, this young man, and his family.

Aside from the sadness of death in and of itself, I think the death of a child (whether little or grown) hits us hard because it seems so ‘out of order’. It reminds us of just how fragile and precious life really is. We are not as isolated as we think from days when living to adulthood was a major accomplishment.

You feel not only your own sadness for this precious lost life but also grieve for your daughter who is no longer innocent of the experience of death.

What I do know from my own experience is that those of us who have lost unborn children are in the special position of having to trust God with the souls of our children when they had no formal connection to the Church. I think that we have a unique calling to pray for those who are not baptized and/or have lived a life with no apparent relationship with God.
 
I understand where you are coming from. I always thought that if one of my children were to die that some one would have to come along and tell me to get up and breath. I couldn’t imagine the pain. My neighbor’s son was murdered in such a cruel manner. I watched her and I thought there is no way I could handle the pain. In the year following I buried two children. I have never felt so close to God as when I was delivering my 31 week old dead child. I know without a shadow of a doubt that he was with me. I told my Lord to take all the pain and use it as a sacrifice to shower graces down on us all. I felt him. I felt his peace and a joy to know a child of mine was in heaven. That child was not baptized, yet I am confident in a just God. Let God have it all. Trust him. Soon after delivering my baby Theresa, I delivered another child. Joseph Marie was 14 weeks and he also died before his birth. God once again guided me through his birth. I delivered him by myself. I washed him and said goodbye to him before going to the hospital. I know God was with me. I couldn’t have taken one more breath without him. God is my father and all that happens in my life is so that I have every chance to make it to heaven. I now understand that suffering is going to be apart of the package, but the end result is heaven. Just as you take your children to the doctor for treatment. The treatment may be painful, but in the end the child gets better. Trust!
 
Based on you title, remember that God did not give us a spirit of fear, but one of love and of a sound mind. What it sounds like is a storm. The storm is not outside of you. It is inside. Remember Jesus alseep in the boat and the apostle said, help!, we are going to die. Jesus said to the storm, “Quiet, be still”. The storm is in your mind and the fear you have is of something that is not real. It is a hypothetical and all a hypothetical can do is drive you insane. All we can do is deal with right now. I too have the same sort of struggles, so you are not alone. You have the holy spirit and you can say to this storm, “Quiet, be still”.

God Bless
 
Wow Jules, you sound just like me, I always borrow others problems and troubles, I’ve been this way for as far as I can remember. As a child I developed ulcers from the worrying I did and as an adult I have been on anti anxiety meds for 14 yrs, I have times of being immobilized with fear something will happen to my kids, my hubby, my siblings, my parents, etc. and even though I tell myself I’m not be rational, it just doesn’t matter at that moment.

First of all, cut yourself a break, you’ve been through a lot lately.

Second, take some time to be calm and Pray and then stay busy, when I have an anxiety attack the only thing that stops it is a lot of activity, puzzles, going for a walk, biking, house cleaning, etc. anything to get my serotonin levels up and that actually does work as serotonin is a natural feel good chemical in our brain.

You have to tell yourself, OK, yes this boy died but the chances of something happening to my child are so small that in the time I waste worrying I could be telling or showing that child how much I love them and I’m missing out on precious moments in my kids lives, so even though I’m scared, with you Lord I can get through this and then I just repeat it over and over in my head until it is the only thought allowed in my head and it can be whatever prayer works for you, when I’m really upset all I can say is “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus” and I focus on him and it really does work.

If it continues and gets worse, please don’t hesitate to seek help, I’ve seen a therapist for a long time and just having someone to talk to takes so much of that burden off of me.

Your in my prayers.🙂
 
I have been praying for him throughout the day today. The hard time you are having with this may be an intercession to lessen the pain of his parents.
 
dkoinzan said:
I understand where you are coming from. I always thought that if one of my children were to die that some one would have to come along and tell me to get up and breath. I couldn’t imagine the pain. My neighbor’s son was murdered in such a cruel manner. I watched her and I thought there is no way I could handle the pain. In the year following I buried two children. I** have never felt so close to God as when I was delivering my 31 week old dead child. I know without a shadow of a doubt that he was with me. ** I told my Lord to take all the pain and use it as a sacrifice to shower graces down on us all. I felt him. I felt his peace and a joy to know a child of mine was in heaven. That child was not baptized, yet I am confident in a just God. Let God have it all. Trust him. Soon after delivering my baby Theresa, I delivered another child. Joseph Marie was 14 weeks and he also died before his birth. God once again guided me through his birth. I delivered him by myself. I washed him and said goodbye to him before going to the hospital. I know God was with me. I couldn’t have taken one more breath without him. God is my father and all that happens in my life is so that I have every chance to make it to heaven. I now understand that suffering is going to be apart of the package, but the end result is heaven. Just as you take your children to the doctor for treatment. The treatment may be painful, but in the end the child gets better. Trust!
Click to expand...
Similar but different situation.

When I was younger my friends and I were playing the "What is the worst thing that could ever happen to you? game.

Mine was to lose my mother. I was always very close. I thought that if anything happened to her it would destroy me.

Forward to December 28,1989
She was diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer. I then remembered that game.

Forward to May 9, 1996 10:42 PM CST.
The worst thing happened. She died.

I was not destroyed.

In fact I am stronger and better because of it.

Growth that would not have come otherwise.

She was afraid she would die struggling. I prayed that when the time came that she would have a peaceful, sleeping death. And that is what the Lord did. One breath, exhale, pause for the length of two breaths, another breath, exhale…Heaven!

He came to get her. He was in our little room in our house.

He will always be there and you will always make it through **because **he is there.

He never promised a tragedy free life, He promised to always be with us.
Code: 
33"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. **In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."**
God has said,
“Never will I leave you;
never will I forsake you.”[a]
 
Thankyou everyone for your replies, I am alone in my house today so I am able to sit here and cry my eyes out.
I know that the pain these parents are enduring must be incredible. They must wonder if they will ever feel happiness again. My daughters have been very upset. We bought the paper today and sat in a shopping mall and she sobbed openly to see his name in the death notices.
I keep worrying about his soul. It’s not as if he was 3 and baptised and we could be assured he was in Heaven with God. But I talk to God about it all the time and I pray that whatever he did or didn’t do in his life that God would have mercy on him.
I tell myself and my daughter that God knows better than we do. God loves him more than anyone could and knows what’s best for him. God knew his appointed time, He knew the state of his soul and if any of us feel compassion for people God feels it infinately more. It’s all in HIS hands and we have to trust that what was best for Matt, has happened. God wills that souls go to Heaven more than we do so He would do what was right. A friend of mine told me that Catherine of Siena believed that at the time of death, God gives us a choice to choose Him or not. I just hope that he got given that chance.
I just feel so much empathy for the parents and his poor brother. They really loved him dearly and were a very close family.
I just can’t switch off the sadness as I keep thinking about what they’re going through.
Thank you everyone. Thanks for taking the time to reply.
God Bless
 
Liberanosamalo said:
Well, sounds like you have your own truckload of pain and suffering. You don’t need to borrow other people’s. You are compassionate. But you can’t let it immobilize you. Pray for the young man’s soul. Make a dinner for his family in a few weeks when everyone else has gone back to their life. Be available to the young man’s brother to talk about him, because after a while no one wants to talk about the deceased anymore. You probably have lots of memories of him to share.

But as for worrying about your own children… I’ll give you some advice given to me by a holy priest. It is my terror also… anything happening to my kids. And my worry was their safety when they are in their father’s custody. And you cannot imagine the terrifying scenarios my mind can come up with with very little help at all. And not all of them are unhinged from reality. Trust me.

But he said this to me. ** “Don’t think about it. That way lies madness.** There is nothing you can do about it unless something happens. So when thoughts like that come, put them out of your mind like you would an impure thought. Say a prayer and get on with your day.”
Click to expand...
Thank you, this is so true…I will remember that
 
dkoinzan said:
I understand where you are coming from. I always thought that if one of my children were to die that some one would have to come along and tell me to get up and breath. I couldn’t imagine the pain. My neighbor’s son was murdered in such a cruel manner. I watched her and I thought there is no way I could handle the pain. In the year following I buried two children. I have never felt so close to God as when I was delivering my 31 week old dead child. I know without a shadow of a doubt that he was with me. I told my Lord to take all the pain and use it as a sacrifice to shower graces down on us all. I felt him. I felt his peace and a joy to know a child of mine was in heaven. That child was not baptized, yet I am confident in a just God. Let God have it all. Trust him. Soon after delivering my baby Theresa, I delivered another child. Joseph Marie was 14 weeks and he also died before his birth. God once again guided me through his birth. I delivered him by myself. I washed him and said goodbye to him before going to the hospital. I know God was with me. I couldn’t have taken one more breath without him. God is my father and all that happens in my life is so that I have every chance to make it to heaven. I now understand that suffering is going to be apart of the package, but the end result is heaven. Just as you take your children to the doctor for treatment. The treatment may be painful, but in the end the child gets better. Trust!
Click to expand...
I have read your story and I am amazed at your stong faith and trust in God. How sad to deliver your own precious child! But he is in Heaven along with your daughter and there is comfort in that. You know for certain they are there, but what about those we are not sure of? Those that died with no sacraments, living in sin, not in a state of grace? This is what troubles me so much. But I know that I just have to trust that God knew what he was doing when he took him. The other sad thing is, his brother used to have very deep and theological discussions with my 2nd daughter. He really was searching for God and does believe. He told her the other day that he was praying for Matt and then this…
Please pray for Kyall that this will not destroy his faith but strengthen it.
 
Altesse said:
Similar but different situation.

When I was younger my friends and I were playing the "What is the worst thing that could ever happen to you? game.

Mine was to lose my mother. I was always very close. I thought that if anything happened to her it would destroy me.

Forward to December 28,1989
She was diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer. I then remembered that game.

Forward to May 9, 1996 10:42 PM CST.
The worst thing happened. She died.

I was not destroyed.

In fact I am stronger and better because of it.

Growth that would not have come otherwise.

She was afraid she would die struggling. I prayed that when the time came that she would have a peaceful, sleeping death. And that is what the Lord did. One breath, exhale, pause for the length of two breaths, another breath, exhale…Heaven!

He came to get her. He was in our little room in our house.

He will always be there and you will always make it through **because **he is there.

He never promised a tragedy free life, He promised to always be with us.
Code: 
33"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. **In this world you will** have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."
God has said,
“Never will I leave you;
never will I forsake you.”[a]
Click to expand...
Just beautiful. Thank you
 
CatholicSam said:
I have been praying for him throughout the day today. The hard time you are having with this may be an intercession to lessen the pain of his parents.
Click to expand...
I wondered that myself… If I could only take their pain away…
Thank you for remembering him in your prayers.
 
Jules,
It was my greatest fear of all. No doubt about it. I saw my parents devastated by the sudden traumatic death (car accident) of my older sister when she was 18 and I was 16. Ever since the birth of my first child, I have contemplated what Mary went through and how when she said “Yes” to God, she knew ALL it would entail. I wondered, “How, Mary, could you endure it. I don’t know if I ever could.”

You probably remember that last March my fourth child drowned in our pool. I attempted CPR on MY OWN BABY. That boggles my mind to this day! That simply isn’t supposed to happen!
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=103882&highlight=gabriel+anzalone
Sadly, with the introduction of sin to our world came suffering and death. God didn’t make us to die, but to live.

Jules, take comfort in the knowledge that He knows every hair on your head and those of your children. That’s probably more than we can say! The date and type of death is already known to Him. It already simply “is”. You just haven’t lived it yet. We are in His hands. Trust Him. The death of your child is simply the eternal Birth of your child. Don’t worry about that which you have no knowledge. God knows so we don’t have to.

Will our children all die some day? Maybe even today? Yes.

Is it all part of God’s eternal plan for our salvation (and theirs).
YES!

gabrielanzalone.tributeforyou.com
 
dranzal said:
Jules,
It was my greatest fear of all. No doubt about it. I saw my parents devastated by the sudden traumatic death (car accident) of my older sister when she was 18 and I was 16. Ever since the birth of my first child, I have contemplated what Mary went through and how when she said “Yes” to God, she knew ALL it would entail. I wondered, “How, Mary, could you endure it. I don’t know if I ever could.”

You probably remember that last March my fourth child drowned in our pool. I attempted CPR on MY OWN BABY. That boggles my mind to this day! That simply isn’t supposed to happen!
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=103882&highlight=gabriel+anzalone
Sadly, with the introduction of sin to our world came suffering and death. God didn’t make us to die, but to live.

Jules, take comfort in the knowledge that He knows every hair on your head and those of your children. That’s probably more than we can say! The date and type of death is already known to Him. It already simply “is”. You just haven’t lived it yet. We are in His hands. Trust Him. The death of your child is simply the eternal Birth of your child. Don’t worry about that which you have no knowledge. God knows so we don’t have to.

Will our children all die some day? Maybe even today? Yes.

Is it all part of God’s eternal plan for our salvation (and theirs).
YES!

gabrielanzalone.tributeforyou.com
Click to expand...
Jennifer, I do remember when your precious Gabriel died. I read every word and cried my eyes out. I looked at his beautiful angelic face and my heart ached for you. I showed my mother and my sister and we all sat there with tears streaming down our faces. I went back to it day after day and cried every time.

I wonder if it affects me this much when I don’t know the person how would I ever cope if it were my own?
But I got to know you better through here and your incredible faith and trust in God just amazed me. The thing is, you know he is in Heaven. There is no doubt.
But what about Matt, who was 19, not religious as such, living life to the full in the worldly sense, what becomes of them?
My husband said to me last night, ‘you are on a mission to get Matt to Heaven, aren’t you?’ and I guess I am.
This has affected me profoundly, the death of this lively, happy, lovely young man that was part of our lives for a while. I am determined to do what I can to ensure he gets to be with God.
I am over the initial fear of the topic of this thread at the moment, but I still cannot help but think that the impact is so great when it is someone I don’t know, and also, when it is someone that I do know, I just don’t think I’d get through if it were one of my own.
I pray that God never gives me that cross to bear.
 
CatholicSam said:
I’ve been praying all weekend.
Click to expand...
Thank you Sam, thank you so much! I just want to know that he had the chance to go to heaven.
My father died after a long illness but had the last rites several times, so I am sure he will be in Heaven one day, but with Matt, I will never know… I find that hard.
 
jules11 said:
It has been a hard year so far, it seems one thing goes wrong, then another.
I am feeling overwhelmed with sadness at the moment. The death of this young man has really hit me hard. Now I fear that it will happen to me, as in one of my children dying. Irrational, I know, but still a real fear to me. I just think it would be a cross too heavy to bear and it’s my absolute worst nightmare. (although I had a miscarriage, not to downplay *that *life that has gone, but I mean those of my grown children.)
After the miscarriage in June, I have struggled to cope with things and was not doing too well. My health has not been the best, I’ve had so many major family issues to deal with. I felt that I was just getting on top of things in the last few days and then this.
I will be going to his funeral next week and I just don’t know if I’m up to it. He was 19. He was my daughters first boyfriend. He came to our house. And now he’s dead.
**He was not religious and I feel so worried about his soul. I can’t even feel peace knowing he was in a state of grace and he is with God.**His brother stayed with us last night and that brought it closer to home. I am so sad about it. The death of a child is one of my greatest fears. I cannot shake this horrible fear that I may be in this position myself soon…
I just don’t think it’s normal to react this way…I just don’t know how to detatch myself from other people’s grief. I feel it almost like it’s happened to me.

I go through in my mind, all the things these poor parents have to deal with, identifying the body, arranging a funeral, being in his room and him not being there, knowing that my life would never be the same ever again, having to pack up his things.
Is this just me being morbid? I just feel so much for parents that lose a child.

Please pray for me, this family, this boy’s soul. I don’t really know why I take these kind of things so hard, it just seems to be the way I am. Even when I don’t know the people it affects me. Do other’s experience things like this? It’s so exhausting to deal with other’s pain and heartache’s as well as my own.
Click to expand...
The state of his soul is not your problem.

This young man was responsible for his own soul.

Sure, parents are responsible to educate the child in the faith, but when the children become adults, they must choose to believe for themselves.

An old pentecostal saying “You can’t get to heaven on your mother’s prayers” Each person must choose to believe in Jesus Christ.

**Yes, our prayers do much **for protecting and leading someone to the Lord, and the Lord himself calls us to faith, but we must each make a stand and say “I believe” for ourselves. No one can make that decision for us.

Wherever he is now is between him and the Lord.

He made his own choices of his own free will.

We don’t know that in his last moments he may have cried out to the Lord in his soul.

The Lord would have certainly heard him and responded to his cry of faith; even at the last moment.

The Lord is merciful.

The Lord is just.

His Justice is perfect and true.

Wherever this young man is, he was judged perfectly.

When someone asked me “Do you think so and so is in heaven?” The person in question had known the Lord, but their “human weakness interfered with the call of God” in some areas of their life. I told them; I am not God and you are not God, we don’t know the whole truth of this person’s life and relationship with the Lord. Furthermore, it is cruel and mean spirited to bring up such questions, especially when family may hear of it. We should always assume the best.

I will pray for peace for you and the family.
 
Altesse said:
Furthermore, it is cruel and mean spirited to bring up such questions, especially when family may hear of it. We should always assume the best.

I will pray for peace for you and the family.
Click to expand...
I had no intention of being mean spirited or cruel. It is a question that any concerned God fearing person would ponder…We have to deal with reality. And the reality is that I wouldn’t want my worst enemy to go to hell. That is why it worries me… I do believe that prayers after the fact can also be efficacious for a soul. God is outside of time.

And we are ALL everyone’s problem… sorry but I think this is mean spirirted. As the priest at Sunday’s mass said, ‘Everyone is our responsibility’
and if the saints thought this way, then they would have never worried about saving souls…
Padre Pio had a great love for souls and suffered immensely for the conversion of souls.
Everyone else IS our problem…
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top