Kimmy Kirkwood & Will Stacey's Love Story

The social media giant, Facebook, marked its tenth anniversary yesterday.

 

Big deal, you say?  It's just a place for people to go online and post the silly and sometimes significant happenings of their life? 

 

Yes.  That's exactly it.  Facebook is the world's largest social network, connecting 1.23 billion people to each other and Kimmy Kirkwood is especially grateful that on Facebook she can find a priceless record of pictures and status updates she had with the love of her life, a Marine named Will Stacey.

 

Kimmy Kirkwood and Will Stacey
Photo Courtesy of Kimmy Kirkwood

 

 

Will Stacey posting to Kimmy Kirkwood: "Regardless, I continue to love you like a fat kid loves cake." 

 

Come on.  Who could resist such a romantic thought, right? 

 

Kirkwood and Stacey planned to marry but in the last year of Stacey's deployment to Afghanistan in January 2012, he was tragically killed by an explosive device while on patrol.

 

Facebook has changed forever the way that people around the world stay in touch with each other but more significantly it has also changed the way that people grieve and remember the precious time they spent with their loved ones.

 

"Sometimes when I am lonely, I go back and read everything he sent me," Kimmy writes.  "I didn't think about it much then, but having it all in one place took on a complete new meaning when I lost Will forever."

 

Here is the sweet story of Kimmy Kirkwood and Will Stacey that was featured on BuzzFeed:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/after-her-marine-boyfriends-death-woman-finds-their-story-to?bftw

50 Years Ago In Dallas

On November 22, 1963, I was 9 years old and off from school that day because I felt sick.

 

I was under the covers of my parents bed and watching the black and white television they had in their bedroom.  For some reason my Dad was home that day and he come upstairs to see how I was when the television programming stopped and the unbelievable and shocking news was announced that President John F. Kennedy has been shot in Dallas and died.

 

I had never seen my father cry before and I didn't know what to do.  He went over to the window and raised his left arm up against the wall and pressed his head into the crook of his elbow and starting crying.  I silently watched his shoulders shake for a few minutes.  I pulled the sheets up to my face and started to cry too because I knew, even though I was only nine years old, that what was happening was bad, really, really bad.  Bad in a way that I knew was different from anything else I had ever known.  Eventually, my father turned around, wiped his face with his hands and stared at the television as the awful news continued to be announced over the airwaves.

President John F. Kennedy & First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy ride
in the Dallas motorcade moments before shots were fired.
Photo Courtesy of Reuters/STR

 

I don't think anyone turned the television off for days.  Our whole lives revolved around what was being broadcast and no one moved from where there was a television from the moment the news broke of the assassination to the burial at Arlington National Cemetery and even for days after.

The loss was, and still is, profound.  People were in shock and deeply grieving for the young and charismatic president and felt the immediate need to reach out to offer support to First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy and her two children, Caroline and John.  This was a president who spent a lot of time on television and Americans felt that they were a part of the Kennedy family's life.  At least our family did.

There were no computers in those days so people sat down and expressed their feelings of grief and sympathy the old fashioned way:  they wrote heartfelt handwritten letters. 

The White House said in the weeks following President John F. Kennedy's death that it received more than 800,000 condolence letters, 45,000  of which were received on the Monday following the assassination.

People seemed to instinctively know that one of the most important things you can do for a bereaved person is to acknowledge their loss.  Don't ever be afraid to acknowledge another person's loss.  When in doubt of what to do, it's best to push aside your own anxieties and please keep it simple.

In this tragic instance, it was a loss for the whole nation, as our President was killed right before our eyes.  And while Kennedy was our President, he was also a husband and father and uncle and brother and it is those other human roles that Kennedy filled that also were acknowledged in the days following his death.

And so we take a moment today to remember.

In the words of Monica Lehner-Kahn, "Condolence is the art of giving courage."

 

10 Years

Dearest Tommy:

How can it be 10 years?  I miss you!!

                            xoxo

Time Stands Still on Sept. 11

Time will stand still for me this morning around 8:45 a.m. when the clock will remind me that twelve years ago today, the first plane, a hijacked American Airlines jet flying out of Boston, crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center, setting into motion national events and policies that permanently changed the way we as a nation live.

All I need to do is look at a picture of the Twin Towers and it all comes back to me.  Not only the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in New York City, but also the terrorist attack on the Pentagon in the nation's capital and the downing of the fourth plane in Shanksville, PA.  Here in Washington, DC I remember a surreal and scary day that was filled with school lockdowns and the constant sound of low flying fighter jets.

Today my heart is with those who tragically lost friends, families and their futures.


People gather in Union Square to light candles and leave notes
 for those affected by September 11, 2001 attack.  (Magnum Photos)

September 11 also reminds me that it's healthy to allow your emotions to come to the surface in order to work through them because in blocking a grieving process you block the efforts used to try and rebuild your life and find new meaning in a life that you now must live without your loved one.

Let today be an opportunity for us to reflect and remember this sacred day and how far we have come in our own ways. 

For a guy in my office, it is a day for him to remember that he was scheduled to attend an early morning meeting in the financial district of New York City on September 11, 2001.

The meeting never happened.

He and two of his clients were in a building near the World Financial Center and heard the explosions of each of the planes separately hitting the towers of the World Trade Center.  Immediately they went outside to find the eerie site of a clear, crisp deep blue sky filled with ever increasing, billowing clouds of white and black smoke.

He says that at that point he didn't know that the explosions were caused by planes crashing into the building because you couldn't see the planes inside the buildings.  People stood on the streets frozen, staring at the burning buildings unable to process what had just happened.  Sirens filled the air.  People ran.  People cried.  Cellphones jammed.  Unbelievable amounts of paper floated from the buildings.

My colleague and his clients started slowly walking uptown through the chaos and away from the Twin Towers but didn't get very far.  Eventually, they found their way into a hotel where they went inside to get more information.  Their timing was incredible because they were lucky enough to be inside when both towers shockingly and incredibly collapsed.

As the cloud of debris from the collapse of the Twin Towers filled the air and roiled down the narrow streets of lower Manhattan, it reached their hotel.  He said some of the glass windows and doors blew out as the debris cloud passed by his block and afterwards everything stopped.  Grey and white dust covered everything and it looked as if it were night time.

No one went outside because you couldn't breath.  The dust in the air was that thick.  Hours later, the three went outside, covered their noses and mouths with cloth napkins, and walked their way to Chinatown, spending the night in a hotel room my colleague had checked into earlier on September 10.

His September 11th ritual includes a telephone call to the two people he spent the day with.  For the past twelve years, my colleague and his two clients reach out to each other on September 11, no matter what part of the world they are in, and take the time to stop and remember what happened that awful day and how fate put them together.

They catch up on each other's lives, talking about each other's families and share stories about the unique events that have happened in their lives since they last spoke.

They know that life is fragile and they remember how lucky and blessed each one was to wake up alive in New York City on September 12 and travel back home.

May we all connect with the special people in our lives today and continue to heal.
 

Moon Landing

Today marks the 44th anniversary of man walking on the moon.

 

It is a historic date and a landmark event that people today still use as a standard or a call for national action on an issue as in "if we put a man on the moon then why we can't we......."

 

I think most people remember where they were when the moon walk happened.

 

With all the lights off in the living room of my parents beach cottage, my siblings, our parents and I watched the incredible, once-in-a-lifetime event live on television with the rest of the world.  We knew it was something very important because we were allowed to stay up and watch it and no one was allowed to talk. 

 

The televised black and white picture of astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin slowly descending the ladder from their NASA module to the surface of the moon was so grainy you couldn't always tell what was happening but you didn't dare move your eyes away from the screen because you didn't know what was going to happen next.

 

Many decades later, the moon event has additional significance for me because my late husband, Thomas O'Toole, was a reporter for The Washington Post at that time and he wrote one of the insightful front page stories describing the exciting yet tense moon event.

 

Photo Courtesy of NASA

While it has been nine years since his death, the anniversary of this moon event brings him back to me ever so clearly.  I think this is because he was a very talented workaholic who devoted almost every waking moment to learning and knowing everything he could about NASA and its space program.  He was fascinated by science and all that was associated with space and the race to put a man on the moon.

 

I asked him many times to describe for me what that day was like and what it was like to write the story as it was happening.  I loved to listen to him tell and retell the details of the newsroom atmosphere and what was going on in terms of getting the newspaper printed.  It was a tremendous amount of pressure and truly an example of deadline writing and reporting.

 

I write about him today because I -- and I'm sure others -- invest a variety emotions into special days whether those days are birthdays or anniversaries of weddings, deaths, or other special events.  Acknowledging my feelings about these special days is just one step of many that I have been taking to rebuild my life, our son's life and to discover new resources strengthening my resilience.

 

Writing about my feelings helps me sort through and process whatever it is that is going on in my brain and in my heart.  I also write about my feelings as a way of reaching out to others and letting them know they are not alone in the complicated and unexpected things they feel on their grief journeys.

 

There are many ways to express your feelings and in time you will find the right one for you.  Some people need to talk their feelings out while others prefer quiet projects like painting or photography.

 

I appreciate and adore all of my wonderful readers and today thank you very much for allowing me to share the feelings about my husband that caught me off guard and took my breath away on this special anniversary.

 

I tried to find my husband's story from July of 1969 but when I Googled for it, this is all I could find:

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/2000/popup0721.htm

 

Widow Chick

I don't know the woman who writes the amazing blog called "Widow Chick" but I feel as if I do.

 

She (aka Catherine) is to-the-core honest and humorous in writing about her daily travels as a widow and a woman who is trying to be Mom and Dad to three young children.  I regularly read her blog and it always gives me a boost!

Widow Chick's Husband

 

Yesterday she wrote a particularly touching post about an important anniversary in her life and I would like to share it with you because she is right on point in expressing her thoughts and feelings about what happened.

 

Please read this link which will take you to Widow Chick's blog post:

http://widowchick.blogspot.com/2013/07/my-6th-anniversary-to-yall-its-just.html

God bless you Widow Chick!

Five Hundred Twenty Five Thousand Six Hundred Minutes

Happy Birthday Cry, Laugh Heal!  Yup.  It has actually been one whole year since Cry, Laugh Heal was launched as a blog and I really can't believe it.

How would I measure my first year of blogging?

In friendship,

in kindness,

and in support.

That's what blogging has meant to me.  It has opened up a new world and that is exhilarating.  Along with my son's help, I pushed myself to learn something new and I am so glad that I did.   I made plenty of mistakes along the way and I'm sure I will make more next year.  But the important thing is to keep moving forward!!

Since the day I wrote my first post, I have been pleasantly surprised by the numbers of readers from all parts of the world who log on to read Cry, Laugh, Heal.  From Saudi Arabia to Lithuania and from Ireland to Nigeria, the power and reach of the internet is truly incredible and never ceases to surprise me.

I wasn't quite sure what blogging was all about but I did my research and googled around and found I liked the creativity and the immediacy.  Most of the blogs I visited were about cooking, lifestyles, decorating, health or politics but not many blogs were set up to discuss what I wanted to write about: grief, resilience and rebuilding your life.  These things I know from first hand experience.  When my husband died eight years ago, our son was thirteen years old.  I felt very alone in facing the future.  By writing a blog, I hoped I could give back and help others by writing that it's okay to acknowledge your feelings whatever they may be.  Ignoring or repressing your feelings only assures that they will last longer.

My life today is not the same life that I had when my husband was alive but I think I have carved out a solid life for myself and my son that is full of different kinds of love and adventure.  It takes time but it is possible to make another life for yourself.  It may not seem that way some days when you feel as though you have fallen off a cliff but then something can happen the next day and it can make you feel as though you have reached a place of healing.

Photo By Katie Quinn Davies

I was nervous about putting my thoughts and feelings out there in Cry, Laugh, Heal for the whole world wide web to read...or not.  But I took a deep breath and decided it was time to put myself out there.  I was a reporter many, many years ago and then later worked in communications.  Currently, I edit a newsletter about grief and thought that blogging could take this subject to the next level.

It means so much to me that you take time out of your day to read Cry, Laugh Heal.  Your support  -- and the constant support of my wonderful son, Ryan, --  is energizing and has helped me write over 100 posts, more than I ever expected.  I look forward to 2012 and cross my fingers that the number of my wonderful, fantastic, beautiful readers will continue to grow.  All I can say is:

THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

Anniversary Rituals?

This month would have marked the 25^th anniversary of our wedding if my husband was still alive.  I wonder if he knows?  If things had turned out differently, I’m sure we would have thrown a big party for our family and friends to help us celebrate 25 years flying by since we first said “I do” to each other.

I looked at the calendar this year and thought about all those other anniversaries.  Of course, I haven’t celebrated a wedding anniversary for the past eight years and, truth be told, some anniversaries were more fun than others.  I think that’s true for every couple because it’s just part of the emotional roller coaster of being married.  But the important thing was we always tried to make time to do something special, remember that eventful day and reminisce about the wedding itself.  We had such a good time at our wedding that after the reception ended we joined a group of our friends who were going to a local bar to continue celebrating.

For our first wedding anniversary, I made the dinner reservation and I put a lot of thought into trying to find a place neither of us had been before.  I wanted to find a restaurant where the food was delicious, the atmosphere was comfortable and romantic but it wasn’t too expensive.  I thought I had done well but instead I had flunked reservation making big time.  We walked into the restaurant and my husband didn’t like it AT ALL.  Since I didn’t really want to go through that again, we agreed that in the future, he could make the anniversary reservations.

Fast forward to the wedding anniversary that arrived just after my husband died, and I was emotionally drained.  I didn’t really feel anything except numb – just as though I was walking through cotton candy.  Life’s daily routines were definitely surreal.

The next year was much harder for me because as silly as it sounds, it took me about a year to really absorb the fact that he was gone.  In that first year, I still was sort of looking for him.  Once, I was driving the car to the grocery store and I saw a man walking on the opposite side of the street with the same physical build as my husband,  dressed in the same uniform my husband wore: khaki pants and a denim shirt.  In that split second I thought it was him.  I remember there being something about the way the man walked that made me do a double take.  I had to pull into a parking lot and collect myself.

25 years. . . how could it be?  We were married for 17 years before he died and we had known each other for three to four years prior to getting married.  He was my best friend.  I recently browsed through the album of wedding pictures and shut it after a few pages.   The flood of emotions was unsettling.  In some ways, it felt as though it happened yesterday but it also it felt like a dream.  Did that really happen to me?  Is that really me in that wedding gown?  My God, we took so much for granted. 

Now the date is a day without rituals but I still have my memories.

 

Holidays 101

This is to all of you who white-knuckled it through the holidays... After eight years, I know this for sure: you can make the holidays anything you want them to be. Only you know how much you can take of the 24-hour holiday music that follows you wherever you go, the marathon holiday parties and the general holly jolly holiday atmosphere.

This may sound simplistic but it's not.

 You need to give yourself permission to do what you think you can handle and nothing more.

You don't have to celebrate the holidays the way you did before your loved one died.

 There are no rules.

When my husband died in November of 2003, I was hit with a rapid succession of what are supposed to be celebrations: Thanksgiving, Christmas, my birthday and our wedding anniversary. They say that timing is everything and his death came at a particularly hard time of the year.

If I could have I would have gone away and traveled to some tropical place that wouldn't have reminded me of anything to do with those special days. But my son desperately wanted everything to remain the same so I whiteknuckled it and followed through on all the usual holiday rituals.

Eight years later, we have changed a few things and kept others. We come at the holidays from different places and now are more open to change. We have also come to the realization that the holidays are yours to define any way you want. And that's a truly merry thought.