Anger, 1 of the 5 steps of grief.

As I am mentally preparing for the next run of surgeries (upcoming Friday, July 10^th) on Remmy’s burn scars, I’m becoming emotional. Emotional because I cannot control or help him with his anxiety, his pain and his behavior regards his weekly visits to the doctors to inflate his expanders on his scalp. Every week I have to drive to the pediatrician, comfort him, pin him against my body so they can inject 20cc of saline into the expanders. It hurts me to see him in pain and while I look at the scars that cover 35% of his head they puncture a needle into his head and being his father I feel I should comfort him but instead I am the one pinning him against my chest so “they” can hurt him even more. Tears well up in his eyes, he screams the top of his little lungs, I feel his heart pounding against my chest and with all his force he tries to untangle my grip by kicking and pushing, his face turning red feeling helpless and I am the one letting it happen.

Luckily Remmy is quickly to forgive when the nurse gives him a lollipop (Pop) and a sticker (ticker), after we walk out of the clinic Remmy walks up to a small statue in the clinics yard and taps it with respect stating ‘Dada, that’s Cheesus and brobbers’ with a gentle and calm voice. My eyes start welling up every time he does that, not totally understanding how he knows I needed that event to happen at the time to help me with my own anxiety, feelings of anger and guilt.

The emotion of anger still continues to try to control many days the moment I wake up. After our tragedy I personally deal with two major factors that try to control my daily life first anger and then depression kicks in….. I never used to be an angry individual, I was mostly seen as a happy and laid back person by people around me. Lately I’ve been focusing a lot on my anger, even Noelle asks me often ‘Feike, did you take your meds today?’ and Able addresses it a little more different by saying ‘Daddy I’m sorry you have a rough day’.

My anger is deeply rooted into our tragedy that occurred, In the very early stages of my personal grief after the house fire I was angry at God, angry at myself, angry at the people that tried to help us when we tried to rescue our kids, angry at the first responders, angry at life flight and so on. My anger towards God letting this happen sometimes still keeps me busy and frustrated. It makes me remember a discussion I had shortly after our tragedy with someone on Facebook who first seemed to show empathy and compassion but shortly after that stated that my anger towards God was like I am rejecting God. I was called by him a traitor in God’s eye, someone who was putting himself above God, someone who lived a double life. I was negatively surprised by his remarks, trying to explain to him that the anger is a response due to my grief, due to my loss. I asked him if he ever experienced a tragedy or something hard in his life he couldn’t have control over and he said yes but he never “blamed” God for these things that happened to him. This individual just kept on going, attacking me with sharp and insensitive remarks that I felt the need to unfriend him on FB. Still nowadays I ask myself that if God is the creator of all things, why did this happen, why do I suffer, why does Remmy suffer, why does my whole family suffer? I never had the thought God made this fire happen, my thought instead has been that He did let this happen (He was for sure capable to not let it happen), but I’m still unclear why? Have I ever blamed God? No I have not, but instead I am wondering why it had to happen……. People have a hard time not saying ‘everything happens for a reason’ mostly because they do not know what else to say. I actually don’t believe in that phrase ‘everything happens for a reason’, instead I believe that finding a meaningful purpose that co-relates with your tragedy is a very relieving and healing response.

For Noelle it seems making art, visiting with her specialist and hanging out with some of her friends is a good outlet to deal with her anger. Noelle was part of an art show in Lander’s art center and especially one of her paintings reflected our tragedy, not only the theme but the shapes and even her way of carving with nails and tools into the canvas. (see picture). Becoming a part of the fire department, volunteer for organizations helping families in need and children’s hospitals, offering counseling and emergency response debriefing (ERD), chaplaincy for hospice are such outlets for me to cope with my loss and grief. They are in my eyes honoring and meaningful purposes where I am able to use my negative experience of the tragedy by turning it into a positive deed. Everyone has a different purpose and I would love to challenge anyone reading my blogs to look at their personal struggles and tragedies to find a purpose turning these experiences in a positive healing road to recovery.

While being a chaplain for hospice has been a very challenging job for me, dealing with death has been for me a more and more sacred and divine chapter in someone’s life. I’m mainly coping with elderly and chronically ill individuals that are very open sharing their life story with me. Having worked in nursing homes I already experienced death up close, the opportunity I have working for hospice now has given me the opportunity to be intimate with people in a more emotional and spiritual supporting role. Working for hospice gave me another perspective on my anger looking at the client’s or patients view of their “last breaths” in this world, their accomplishments throughout their lives, but also looking at the views of their loved ones they are leaving behind. Hospice gave me new home work to munch on and pretty often the word anger came to the surface, causing me to also do a small survey on Facebook asking my friends how they cope with anger see link under the text. 59 FB friends (different ages, cultures and religions) completed the survey having just one question, the surveys questions entails: When ANGER grows in your heart and mind, what do you do to prevent it’s growth and how do you manage it?

22% take a walk

15% go on the internet

14% meditates

12% Reads and 12% writes

56% had their own response

see link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/results/SM-5CCPYG5R/

Under here I attached some notes I’ve been writing up as homework for myself regards grief and loss, hopefully it makes some sense:

5 stages of grief

1: Denial

2: Anger (often

3: Bargaining

4: Depression

5: Acceptance

Examples of emotional expressions while grieving

1: numbness

2: yearning

3: despair

4: recovery

Examples of loss adaptation

Acceptance, working, adjusting, moving forward

Grief often feel like a rollercoaster ride with it’s ups and downs, highs and lows, your life feels out of control and is very unpredictable. Often grieving can cause even physical and mental changes in an individual’s regular pattern of life. It can cause insomnia, fatigue or even over sleeping. Change in appetite by eating less or over eating. Exacerbation of an illness can occur as well as in hypertension, allergies, migraines, diabetes, digestive disorders. Emotions are often out of control and you’re going through circles in a rollercoaster ride meeting emotions like sadness, guilt, anger, worry, anxiety, fear, paranoia, hopelessness and helplessness. Behavioral manifestations of anxiety, tension irritability, aggression, withdrawal, introversion, extraversion or self-destructive behavior take control.

Self-destructive behaviors like alcohol or drug abuse, promiscuity and reckless behavior.

Or even hyper active behavior like hypervigilance, cleaning or shopping.

To flee or to fight!

It's been a while that I wrote a blog, next to procrastinating I've been quite busy with so many things, from figuring out how we as a family will visit our friends and family on the East Coast this summer to how we're going to manage to be at my brother's wedding in the Netherlands in October.
From running our new store to training to become a fire fighter.
I've had many moments of giving up, to disappear, to run, to hide, to move to a different State or even a different Country.

Facing my daily "demons" isn't an easy thing, but also to flee away from it isn't going to help anything either. It's hard not to be angry, hard not to be bitter and upset and I personally think it's fine......I'm at least communicating about it in physical, vocal and expressive matter.
I faced a wide variety of trials that led back to back flashes of what happened the night of July 15, it's been over 10 months ago and it still feels like it was just one month ago.

Conquering the force that caused the damage.
About 4 weeks ago I was in Cody to train at the fire school and it was tough, it was tough to be surrounded by fire fighters and not to think about my boys, I got reminded by so many sensory factors, I was most of the time in my bunkers, smelled smoke, heard sirens, saw fire fighters in action....I could only think .....If I could only, If I only knew what I know now.....I could have.....saved them. With tears in my eyes I called out their names many times during the training; Zephy, Noah ....I miss you, daddy is so sorry he couldn't save you.

I applied to become a fire fighter for many reasons, and one of them is that I don't want anyone in my community to experience what I do, I want to fight, I want to save, I want to help.....there where I couldn't before, I will hopefully now.
I really want to redeem myself, not only because I continue to feel guilty or feel like I failed.

It's easy for me to build a wall so my emotions cannot escape, I rather put all that energy in something good, something useful. I could easily choose an addiction or something that will fill that empty spot in my heart with something that temporarily heals. But eventually it will tear me a part.
This is one of the many daily choices I make because I want to live, I don't want to live a depressed and angry life.

One example of me choosing to overcome my daily struggle: I choose to face the killer of my children from a different angle, I choose to become one of the hero's that will be able to cuss to yell and to destroy this killer with physical, spiritual and mental labor, I choose to become a fire fighter.

The unpredictable force that destroyed my life almost (I said almost), I am hoping that I will become one of those heroes that will prevent the fire that could ruin the life's of my community, I'm not wanting to fight it for an adrenaline kick, I just don't want anyone else to experience what I have to experience.

I hope I could become that pillar people want to rest on, I want to be able to be someone who is of a source of wisdom physically, psychologically and spiritually...someone who can be of help to someone who is dealing with loss or grief, someone who had to deal with fire being the source of their loss.

I hope that I could be there for the many fire fighters who are fathers and mothers and who have to deal with PTSD because they had to fight against fire that has killed and has destroyed.

Many other reasons are relative why I want to become a fire fighter, I love my community and wish nobody not even my worst enemies that they will go through the same thing as I do.

How I try to cope

Talking about my loss and grief or using ways to express seem to be working.

A friend of mine who hadn't seen me since the tragedy said that my eyes were speaking more then ever, they spoke that I was hurt, sad and broken inside, my eyes were sharing a story.

Luckily I do have some positive outlets where I can put my time and energy in to deal with my loss and grief like spending quality time with my kids, music, fishing, cooking, being at our new store to just call a few.

Loss of a loved one continues to be agonizing but I can also find strength in it, it totally depends on how I choose to deal with it.

I've considered many times to sit in a corner and due to my depression grow anger and bitterness, but I choose to be the father, the husband, the friend and the neighbor that is involved, hoping that I can be full of life and hopefully a roll model. My former co-workers commented to me that I was so much more different than before the tragedy, that I looked and sounded angry, I found that kind of a normal thing, and such a weird thing for others to be pointing out, it's quite normal that the jolly and foolish old me is extremely hurt and looks at life from a different perspective now. They insisted that I should find professional help to deal with my PTSD, I had a hard time finding someone locally since I knew all professionals and worked with them over the past 6 years, I didn't think anyone was able to work with a case like mine, it took a while for me to really understand it was myself and not the specialist who has to make the ability to work on my PTSD.

To flee or to fight

I felt that I had to make a choice to face my "demons", my fear, my depression, my anger, my loss, my grief and my emotions.

I have the control over how I wanted to be seen by the publics eyes.

I want to be seen as the father that continues to spend quality time with what I still have left on this earth, I want to be happy again, I want to enjoy my life again, although there are large pieces torn out of my heart, I want to smile again, enjoy my family again, enjoy the community, enjoy life again. 

My confrontation with death, being in a blazing fire, my 3rd degree burns, the realization that I could die of my burns the night of July 15th, the loss of most of my belongings, my house, the loss of my dear sons, the severe burns on my 9 month old twin boy, it makes everything look so precious, so sacred, so beautiful that I feel more strongly than ever the impulse to love it, to embrace it, and to let myself be overwhelmed by it. Somehow death and its ever present possibility makes love, passionate love, more possible. I continue to long for the day I will leave this earth, I occasionally wish for that day that I will be without the mental & physical pain.........but I know that time isn't here yet, I have still so much to live for. I'm just blessed that I have that sacred understanding that one day I will be reunited with Zephy & Noah again, that that day will come that I will not feel the pain anymore, that the day will come I will no longer have that fear again and my memory will be washed away because of all the beautiful things that will surround me.

It's a daily struggle for me to choose life above depression since it is haunting me.

Global Arts 
I learned that whatever struggle you have to go through in your life you can use it as a tool to help others, you can choose to use that experience to become the foundation of your calling, instead of it condemning you, you can use it to resurrect you.

I also know and feel that something larger and bigger then anything else is watching over me, giving me strength to continue and to go on, I don't feel alone in this, I feel like I'm carried in prayer.

Noelle and I are blessed that because of many people's prayers, financial, physical and material help we can continue and start over again, I finally have a job again (since October is a very long time)...being self employed owning Global arts (since May 1st) we can hopefully do something back for our community.

Since we opened GlobalArts I have been able to share to many visitors and customers at the gallery a story about a painting painted by Melissa Strickler, it's called shadowlands and it's a collage made out of photography, magazine/newspaper articles, wasp nest, church window glass, watercolor, oil paint and a lot more.

It is a very spiritual piece that the painter wants to share that there is always someone watching over you in the darkest moments of your life.

I noticed that this painting has spoken not only to me but also many other people coming in the gallery, feel free to look at it and share/comments how this painting speaks to you and what you see.

Noelle started picking up making art again and I'm amongst the community trying to make the customers and visitors happy, for both of us this has a very therapeutic effect.

The show must go on!

While sitting in a sofa, sipping on a hot toddy (seems the best remedy, since everyone in the family has had a stomach bug this week, except for me) listening to the lullabies from the babies room, I finally have the time to write this blog.
Noelle is in SLC picking up a College room mate and spending some time in SLC before or after heading to Wyoming when the next snow storm has hit Lander's soil.
I've felt empty the last couple days, drained of quite a lot of energy.....maybe it's because there is a change of PTSD and sleeping medication and I haven't slept much, but I also haven't had much time not thinking about Zephy and Noah....It hurts so much just trying to imagine their faces, their smiles and laughter. We've been busy moving into our new house, which we have been able to purchase, thankfully due to the many blessings of the many readers of this blog.
I was also finally ready (had kept it quiet for a while) to share with the "Facebook" world that I've been terminated from my job which I've wanted for about 10 yrs, I lost that job since October 5th.
I am not ready to share how and why I got terminated but I can tell you it was ugly and painful.
Also the professionals that have been seeing us haven't seen a penny from our insurance (which is through my former employer) the professionals could easily decline our visits to them, if the insurance keeps on postponing payments to the psychiatrists, is this going to help any of our mention/psychological and emotional healing has been the rhetorical question on my mind.
I've been applying for jobs and have been declined, even one email mentioned without any reason that I was ineligible. All of this makes it harder, since I strongly belief that I was meant to be the provider for my family. I've slid and have fallen but never given up, we will get out of this mess, or has it been a blessing in disguise, we've had it rough emotionally, mentally, spiritually and physically since the night of July 15th but have still a long road ahead of us.
Sometimes it feels like all struggle falls at once; or wait, is there still more to come, even my former co-workers from my last job that I once saw as friends and at one time were a big help through this tragedy and before the tragedy seem afraid that they are loosing their jobs if they continue being friends with me, so somehow they all quit contacting me since October 5th.....
I'm also quite clueless about the future, what direction should I go, what career steps should I take etc?
The first steps we have been taken over the last week or so, where quite a lot of important decisions ahead of us, including the beautiful but almost 100 year old house we purchased and Remmy's surgery dates in July and August, also in August I am already preparing the climb to the Mountain of the Holy Cross, which will be a spiritual journey I'll take at 14009 Feet that is 4270 m for the non Americans reading this.

First of, I should not have started the subject with "the show must go on" although sometimes it feels like that I live like Jim Carey in the Truman show......it's like everything I've gone through since July has been a TV set.....but maybe it's more like "Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind" also a Jim Carey Movie but one of his more serious roles. If you haven't seen that movie, it's worth it, it's a good thinker.
The title or subject line should actually say "and Life just goes on!"

2 Corinthians 4-16:18
Explains it's easy to loose heart and quit, many of us have faced problems in our relationships, work and other places in our lives that have caused us to think to give up.
Rather then quitting when persecution wore him down , Paul himself concentrated on the inner strength that came from the Holy spirit.


Don't let fatigue, pain or criticism force you of the job, instead renew your commitment to serving Christ. Don't forsake your eternal reward because of the intensity of today's pain, your very weakness allows the resurrection power of Christ to strengthen you moment by moment.
Our troubles should not diminish our faith or disillusion us. We should realize there is a greater purpose in our sufferings (which to be honest I still struggle with and do not understand all the time), they keep us beyond this brief life on earth, they give us the opportunity to prove our faith to others.
They give God open doorways to His plan, to be of help to others dealing with the same sort of pain and /or issues.

The ultimate hope when we experience pain is the realization that this life is not all there is, there is life after Death! Knowing that, we will live forever with the Creator our God without any more pain and suffering, this knowledge can help us to live above the pain that we face in this earthly life.

There are in life some tragedies too big for a heart to hold, and they defy any description that makes any sense. Loosing my house, belongings and most painful my two sons Zephy and Noah don't make any sense to me. I'm extremely grateful that this heart is shared with so many people in our community, my family and even people that I've never met before and heard about our story.
I'm above all grateful for God, giving me the strength to go on........and to keep looking further into our future.

www.loveforthevandijks.info

                                                            The Real Nacho Libre!!