Writings shared by Miri Trappler member of
The Mending Word
Parent, Child, Sibling Loss Series

You were mine
———————————————
That fateful night
When everything changed.
The night my world
Got rearranged.
Dad’s intuition,
To wake up mom.
He said he felt like
something’s wrong.
“Please check on him”.
His voice was strong.
“Go downstairs,
I’ll follow along”.

It was early morning,
The house asleep.
The grandfather clock,
Read half past three.
Your door was locked,
Your music loud.
We knocked, we banged.
But not a sound.
With all the noise,
The house awoke.
We screamed your name,
But no one spoke.

No time for keys,
No time for picks.
Broke down the door,
To get in quick.
And then we saw you,
And I felt sick.
I had to leave,
I couldn’t look.
One glance at you
Is all it took.
With every compression,
My whole world shook.

My legs went numb,
I bent to kneel.
This can’t be happening.
This can’t be real.
I bargained with God,
To press rewind.
Swore I’d be better.
Swore I’d be kind.
My nervous system,
Under attack.
I cried and pleaded,
“Please bring him back!”
Then just like that,
You were whisked away.
For them this was
Just another day.
But for me, my life,
Forever changed.

I wanted to surrender,
To wave my flag.
But you were leaving,
In a body bag.
The coroner said
“What a tragic loss,
When you play with fire,
You pay the cost”.
I looked at him,
Wanting to cuss.
We played with it,
But it played with us.
He said “It happens often,
Like all the time”.
But this was different,
Because you were mine.

Writings shared by Nina Pfrenger member of
The Mending Word
Suicide Loss Series

I never saw you after your death

I had the choice

But my imagination of what you’d look like is just that

Imagination

Not reality

So I chose not to look

Not to make real my biggest nightmare

But just because I chose not to see the aftermath

Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen

It doesn’t take away the sound of my mother’s wailing

My father through broken cries

Telling me you didn’t make it

My flight home felt like a death march

Ironic how 80s music we used to blare in the kitchen

Sang through the airport

Karma Chameleon

How fitting it felt

“You come and go”

A song I don’t think I’ll ever be able to listen to again

Oddly enough

Images are not what haunts my dreams

I never gave myself the chance to have them

I don’t see the monster under my bed

But I hear it creep around

Scratching the floorboards

That is my haunting

Sound

Words strung together that forever altered me

A parent screaming for their child to live

To at least be by your side when you pass

But not given that gift

I’m not sure I’ll ever forget that sound

Piercing my ears

I was afraid to answer her call

Knowing I couldn’t bear her pain and my own

Knowing she couldn’t even carry hers alone

So I chose not to see you

One sense was already destroyed for me

I wouldn’t let another be too

To replace your smiling face with something else

If it wasn’t for the digital age

Video proof

I would’ve lost your laugh

What made you, you

The way you died

I couldn’t

I wouldn’t see you like that

An though I wonder

I’m glad I didn’t

I have enough pain

Enough things to haunt my dreams

Haunt my waking hours

Haunt my life

I didn’t need that too

Writings shared by anonymous member of
The Mending Word
10 Part Series

They never tell you how haunting it will be. My trauma was amplified by the surprise of it all. If I had always known from the start that cancer is really truly always a death sentence. If I had always known that cancer steals your person from you well before you die. If I had known my mother would be something/someone of another world or a horror movie… Then maybe this all wouldn’t be so goddamned haunting. When I went to see her every day, the lapse in her health was not as noticeable, she got quieter. Her eyes a bit more sunken. Her collar bones more profound and her body more frail. But when I took days off for my mental health. When I didn’t see her for 4 days. That’s when the changes were so apparent. The shock I felt - it’s engrained in me. I don’t think I can be this shocked again. Now I am always expecting the worst. The line in the sand is a clear division between me and the girl I used to be before these images plagued me. I see her. Barely able to lift her hand to brush her teeth. The whispered, hoarse words - until she could no longer speak anymore. I hold her. Helping her stay standing while she showers. I wash her hair for her because it’s too painful to watch her attempt it on her own. I ask her questions. She answers weakly - all the answers still part of her fantasy that this disease is temporary and she won’t be buried in two weeks. I go home that night and I can barely shower. Every lather of my hair, brushing of teeth, lotion - the details. They remind me of death. A week and some days later I go to take her home from the hospital. There is no hope left. She is still fighting but almost lifeless. Eyes rolling back - legs swollen and weeping. Yes they weeped and made a mess everywhere. it’s almost like her body knew what was coming. Crying for the loss of their once vibrant abilities to walk, to run, to dance. The twinkle in her eye. Her crooked tooth and her soft smile. Her voice “chanale”. But that’s the same chair she’s sitting in now but her eyes are rolling back. She’s in a nightgown and she can’t talk anymore. She’s in pain but she can’t tell me what to do to help her. How unfair. She can’t swallow so I can’t give her morphine. She keeps trying to get up. To walk. To run. To dance. But we put her back in the bed - she doesn’t fight it. She touches her lips. Again and again. She wants to drink, to eat, to Speak. But nothing happens. And she lays there. And I cry over her. Making promises. And crying more. And hugging her and missing her. And then there's everything else. When life should stop - it doesn’t. I am installing an air conditioner. I am checking her email phone - texting her friends to come over and say goodbye. I shock myself with my ability not to crumble. Not to cave into myself and curl up and cry. The shock of the last months jolting through me. Keeping me moving and going and going. And then it’s Shabbat. We sing hymns around her bed. We hold her hands and kiss her cheeks. We whisper loving words and tell her she will be ok. And then everything is quiet. I stay up late and try not to let sleep take me. I hold my siblings and we cry and sing and even get angry at our fate - but I remind them: not in front of mommy. And then it’s 6am. And it’s even quieter. Something changes and I’m jolted awake from my light sleep. She’s gone. In the brief moment that we all fell asleep, she took her final breath. In the moments after things blur. I close her blue eyes - now glazed over in death and lost forever. No more sparkle. Her face in that moment etched into every crevice of my brain. And then nothing happens. It’s Shabbat. We cover her and leave her there until Shabbat ends. We cry all day. We sit in shock. We lay around the house comforting each other. Then night falls and they come to take her. The loud sobs as we are sent outside to watch them take her. The entire world must have heard us. I can no longer hear cancer and see the smiles of the hospital cancer program posters. It’s no longer sunken eyes and less hair. It’s death. The other day the lady next to me on the flight told me she’s in cancer treatment. And I could only see death. The face of death haunts me and consumes me. The grip of death holds me. The fear of death overcomes me. And now I put it on paper for you. I give you my ghosts and my demons so you can exorcise them for me. So you can liberate me.