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-----Original Message-----
From: Randy Koster (Remote)
Sent: Monday, July 21, 2003 8:17 AM
Subject: Our Saddest Day
TO ALL: here is a message to TCF (The
Compassionate Friends) bereaved parent group. You may find it
interesting and I would recommend if you know of someone who has
lost a child or someone very close, this Group could be most
helpful to that someone. Regards, RANDY
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Special Remembrance Date
July 20 - Brad Koster, son of Elaine and
Randy Koster,
Marietta, GA USA
JAYNE and Group,
The 20th of July will be two years since Our
Saddest Day when our son BRAD died of cancer. We as like other
bereaved parents desperately miss our son and we are trying to
adjust to this "new life". I have written twice before and shared
my thoughts about this journey through Grief. I wanted to write one
more time and talk a little about our son and what The Compassionate
Friends has meant to us. I read approximately 90% of The
Compassionate Friends postings and my wife reads
less because it makes her just to sad. I will try and keep this
short and not re-state the obvious feelings we know we share with
other bereaved parents about the lost of our children.
BRAD was simply a fine son, good person and a
quality guy. He was not perfect, but he was not far from it with a
thoughtful caring manner about him. He was 6'-5" - healthy /
handsome (got his looks from his mom). He was an all Cobb County
basketball player, an all around good athlete and a UGA student
lacking just (3) hours from graduating when he lost the battle with
cancer. During his life he made an impression on many others and
through his fight with cancer he inspired his friends / classmates
by encouraging them to look at life differently. The unique
website created by his friends gives witness to these things, along
with the numerous events that have happened during this past two an
half year period.
www.bradkoster.com
We are grieving veterans now for (2) years and
I say that because I feel like a veteran, but we still have the
vulnerabilities as in the first couple of month of loosing our
son. It's so difficult to try and sort through the whys and hows
of this and the sadness / uncertainty / anguish and
disappointments. Like other bereaved parents, Elaine & I are
constantly trying to shift our sadness to good memories and we
certainly have many of those. In recent months I've thought of how
often I think of our son and it seems to me it's not every hour now,
but every other awakened hour. The pure thought of him comes to
mind, it could be a moment that I wanted to share something with him
or that unconscious thought of will he be coming home from college
this weekend. And of course, all the triggers that pop into your
mind repetitively through out the day. My wife tends to avoids
thinking about it, then it hits her harder when she drops her
guard. Sometimes when I look at my wife's face seeing her anguish,
it creates a double torment for me, knowing her pain and seeing her
suffer is almost to much to bare. We share our thoughts quite often
with one another and everyday we speak of BRAD in some way or
another. The reality of all of this is, you just get use to the
pain, because that's the way it is!
I wanted to speak about The Compassionate
Friends and what it has
meant to us. We have attended only (1) The Compassionate
Friends meeting which was in
Marietta, it was very friendly / well organized and we felt very
welcomed. The base reason we don't attend meetings is because my
wife finds it to sad to attend, I believe it's the same for me. We
simply have chosen to sort through this ourselves, I guess a form of
self help. But we know we could not do it without the help of
The Compassionate Friends
and we appreciate this group. The Compassionate Friends helps us "Sanity Check" our own
thoughts and progress as we have tried to work through all of it.
This brings to mind the recent posting by Jayne about people look at
various things differently, half one way the other half another
way. My wife and I also sometimes look at things differently, but
we have the common love of our son and we desire to help one another
and others. I think Jayne's posting is just a reminder to help us
to keep an "open mind", like the periodic TCF - Credo reminder.
These are an example of what benefits we gain by reading TCF
postings.
While we are trying to learn how to accept the
role of this "new life" without having the most important part of
our life any longer, it's unfortunate to see other parents
continuously joining the ranks of the unwarranted bereaved parent
group. This simply confirms that "death is part of life". As I
stated in my first posting about "A Grief Shared", we as bereaved
parents have (3) basic options and my wife and I chose to seek the
positives (as best that we can) and help ourselves and others to
understand what it is like to be in this state of mind. My second
posting addressed the fact of trying to understand what bereaved
parents think about why people who have not suffered this lost can't
understand - "Phantom Pains".
There is no way a person who has NOT lost
their child can be expected to understand this. I recently had a
father who's son received one of the scholarships from our son's
Memorial Scholarship Fund tell me he had lost a brother and he knew
how we felt. I advised him I too had lost a brother in Vietnam and
BRAD was named after him. I went on to tell him (speaking from
experience) his Grief for his loved one was great, but it would be
greater if it was his son. I did not dwell on the subject because
I know he could not fully relate, but I did appreciate his attempt
to. I think it's important to try and "walk in one another shoes".
The key is - "When Words Become Gifts", - "The real treasure
comes when others introduce our children's names and stories into an
everyday conversation".
Both of these postings / articles are included
in BRAD's website to try and help others understand a bit more about
this form of Grief. People cannot fully understand and know not
what to say to us, just like we wouldn't if we were not part of
this group.
In closing, we very much appreciate the
efforts of The Compassionate Friends!!
Regards, BRAD's dad - (Randy)
rkoster@matson.com
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Dear Randy,
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts.
I am so glad to know that our daily online sharing has helped you on
your journey. I feel there are many just like you who either do not
have access to a support group or choose not to attend but continue
to receive our daily online. Thinking back about 10 years
ago...there was no internet. It was only until late 1996 or 1997
that people began to use the internet on a personal basis. Now I
don't think any of us can comprehend how much it has help those of
us on this grief journey. We have hundreds of online support groups
world wide. We have live chat rooms. We can communicate in a way
never before possible. Just sharing the pictures of the conference
is a perfect example. We have online members from all over the
world. I think we all grow from the diversity of our members...and
we see grief from the loss of a child is "universal" regardless of
the culture. We learn to care about each other from the inside
out. I think that is the beautiful.
I am a co-leader at our Atlanta chapter. I
can speak from experience that "we" leaders get discouraged when new
members come and then don't return. We take it personal as though
it was something we did or did not do. In my years of leadership I
have come to accept that it is not "me" or "our chapter" but the
parents or families. They, like you, want to handle their grief
differently...or more privately. And now that the internet is an
option....many people have chosen to do that. I think that is
wonderful. "The mission of The Compassionate Friends is to assist
families in the positive resolution of grief following the death of
a child and to provide information to help others be supportive" by
whatever means available.
I want to thank all of you "out there" who
lovingly support our members who write in.
Thank you for sharing online. Thank you for
helping others "not walk alone".
Thank you Joyanne and Lynn for administering
the birthday/angel date list and cyberfriends list.
Thank you Randy for sharing this beautiful
article about your personal grief journey and your beautiful son
Brad.
Jayne
---------------NOTE---------------------------------
To Subscribe: The Compassionate Friends Atlanta Online Sharing ...
for online sharing and support
Go to the following link to join:
http://www.tcfatlanta.org/SharingSubscription.html
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