May 10, 2007 Getting Through Mother’s Day - Debra Reagan

HEALING THE GRIEVING HEART
Getting Through Mother’s Day
Hosts:  Dr. Gloria Horsley and Dr. Heidi Horsley
With guest:  Debra Reagan
May 10, 2007
G: Hello.  I’m Dr. Gloria Horsley and
H: Dr. Heidi Horsley.
G: Each week Heidi and I welcome you to Healing the Grieving Heart, a show of hope and conversation with those who have suffered the loss of a loved one and for health care professionals who work in this difficult field.  As always the message is others have been there before you and made it, you do not walk alone.  If you’re listening to our Thursday live Internet show, please join Heidi and me on the show by calling our toll free number 1-866-472-5792 with questions or comments regarding the losses in your life.  These shows are archived on our blog, www.thegriefblog.com, as well as www.thecompassionatefriends.org website.  All the shows can be downloaded on Itunes and transcripts can be accessed on www.thegriefblog.com.  Well, good morning, Heidi.
H: Good morning, mom.
G: We’ve got some new music going on there, huh?
H: Yeah, I heard that.
G: Wow, and a new announcer.
H: Yes, and a new announcer.  We had gotten some comments earlier about how the music was really really sad and you know music does bring you into such an emotional place so some of our listeners were saying can you make it a little more upbeat.
G: And so we’re playing the same music, the Pachelbel’s, but we’ve gone a little further into the song so we hope that you’ll like our new music.  Well, today, we’ve got a special show and a special guest because we’re coming up on Mother’s Day and this can be a really difficult time for people, right, Heidi?
H: Absolutely.  Mother’s Day is about celebrating being a mother and when you’ve had the death of a child, it just reminds you what you’ve lost and just that day can be really stressful and really emotional.
G: You know, Heidi, when I was looking at this about Mother’s Day, I was thinking, well, let’s see, you can ignore the day and go to a movie and do different things and not plan on having the day but then I was remembering how you talk about Christmas with siblings.  Can you talk about that a little bit?
H: You can ignore the day as long as you don’t have other surviving children; however, if you have other surviving children, they want to celebrate you being their mother, and they want to give you things and they want it to be a celebration and a day of joy and you can still pay tribute to your child that’s died and have a little ritual around that, but you also have to remember that the kids that are here need that to be a day that’s celebrated for them.
G: Absolutely, and I know.  I was looking at my little granddaughter who is seven.  I was over at her house and Heidi’s sister, Rebecca, it’s her little girl, Paige, and she had made something at school.  I think she’s eight, right?  Is she eight, Heidi, nine?
H: Yeah, I think nine.
G: She had made something at school and she was proud of it and it was a few days ago and it was all wrapped up and she took it to her mother with such anticipation and gave it to her and she was so excited that it was going to be perfect and you could see her looking into her mother’s eyes and waiting and I just thought, oh my goodness, how hard it is if you’ve lost a child and have that other child coming to you to get that kind of special recognition.  It’s a touchy thing, isn’t it, Heidi?
H: It is, and also I think as parents you have to be careful.  I know it’s hard, but to not get so overly emotional because you don’t want to give the message to your surviving children that they’re not, you know, that they’re still here and they still want a mother that loves being here with them and they need to know that that’s the case. 
G: Exactly, and I just wanted to give you a quick little brief history on Mother’s Day in the United States because I think that being intellectual sometimes can help us with the emotional stuff.  In 1872, Julia Ward Howe, who wrote the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” talked about this should be a day of peace and so she organized it.  She thought people should hold Mother’s Day meetings in Boston, Mass.  She suggested it every year so this is in 1872, and then later on, Woodrow Wilson was the one in 1911 who made it a national Mother’s Day.  So I thought that was kind of interesting and said it should be held on the second Sunday of May.
H: Very interesting.  I just wanted to make one more comment.  Even though Scott has died and your children, for our listeners out there have died, you’re still mothers to these kids.  You’ll always be Scott’s mother no matter what. 
G: Absolutely.
H: So even though they’re not here physically, they’re always going to be with us in spirit and in memory.
G: Absolutely.  Well, one of the things that I want to say to you folks out there before we introduce our guest is, I want to give you a couple of thoughts.  One, you need to communicate your feelings about Mother’s Day if you possibly can.  If there’s a neutral party you can talk to about it, maybe a sister or a brother that you have, or a priest or whatever, or if you’re a sibling, to talk to somebody about how you’re worried about your mother or whatever on this day, so try to communicate your feelings, right, Heidi?
H: Absolutely, and I think the anticipation of the day is often worse than the day itself. 
G: Absolutely.  So you need to take care of yourself physically in the time leading up.  Eat nutritious meals.  Try to take care of yourself.  Keep yourself hydrated on the days leading up to Mother’s Day.  Drink a lot of water.  Get some rest.  Grief work is hard work.  This is coming up, physically draining and emotionally draining.  It can be tough facing Mother’s Day without your child, right, Heid?
H: Um hm.  Absolutely.  Like you said, talk to people that understand and reach out for all their support.
G: And if you’re in a group like The Compassionate Friends, call those people or go to your group meeting or whatever you do that you would find comfort in.
H: And you know on Mother’s Day, I think it’s okay to bring up the person, your child that died.  I mean, I know as a sibling, that was fine.  I mean having Mother’s Day and saying, you know, wow, we wish Scott had been here, too, you know, he would have really enjoyed today.  I liked hearing that.  That was okay.  As long as the whole day wasn’t very really all about being sad.  It was I liked hearing.
G: Well, it’s a good day to compartmentalize, isn’t it?  To light a candle, have a rose there for them, do whatever you can, do a little ritual, even if you do it on your own so that you can compartmentalize it and then you could come back later to it, but one of our guests, Eric Hipple, said he learned to light a candle.  Remember, Heidi?
H: Absolutely.
G: After work so maybe you can do a special time where you can do that.  And also let other people take care of you.  If they want to take you out to dinner.  If somebody wants to invite you out. 
H: I still love one of the things that we’ve done that I think was my favorite ritual that we’ve ever done.  On special occasions like Mother’s Day, we don’t necessarily say things but we’ll take pictures, some of the bigger pictures of Scott around the house, and we’ll put like a bigger picture down where like in the living room or something.  We’ll move it into a different part of the house for those days and you’ll go down and you’ll see his picture there. 
G: Absolutely.
H: You know, it’s just a reminder that
G: And maybe a family picture since it’s Mother’s Day.
H: I like that.  That’s good.
G: Yeah.  All right, Heidi.  Would you like to introduce our guest for today?
H: Sure, I’d love to.  Our guest today is Debra Regan, and our topic is Getting Through Mother’s Day.  For Debra Reagan, a Research Specialist at the University of Tennessee, being a “good mother” was always foremost in her life.  Why then had her youngest son, Clint, had so many problems?  Her question was answered when Clint received the dual diagnosis of bipolar disorder and a drug addiction.  With this diagnosis, Debra felt a hope for cure but then her life was changed forever when on August 6, 2005, Clint died at the age of 20 from an accidental overdose and bronchial pneumonia.  Getting through that first Mother’s Day was pure agony.  Debra has written about that day in her essay, “Mother’s Day Trail Message” found on www.thegriefblog.com.  Welcome to the show, Debra.
D: Thank you Dr. Heidi.  Hello, Dr. Gloria.
G: Hi, welcome to the show.
D: Thank you.
G: Well, Debra, the way I connected up with you, I think you sent me this wonderful little essay you wrote a whole year ago, didn’t you?  And I was so impressed with it, I said, oh, she’s got to be on before Mother’s Day.
D: Thank you so much.  Yes, I think you had mentioned on the show that people could send things in and you would post them on your new blog at that time, and so, yes, it was about nine months ago, something like that, so I had thought maybe it was something you might be interested in posting on the blog.
G: Yes, so we’ve got it posted on there right now, and Heidi, do you want to give just a short run down on it because you were so impressed with it.
H: It’s very powerful, and I know that Debra could say it better than I could, but Debra and her husband went hiking and while they were hiking and I think, was it Mother’s Day, Debra, that you went hiking?
D: Yes.
H: Okay, it was on Mother’s Day, and you were hiking, and you looked down, and you were really thinking about your son and how much you missed him and you looked down and there was something written in the dirt, right?
D: Yes.
H: And it was Happy Mom’s Day, Love from your sons.
D: That’s correct.
H: And you were wondering if maybe that was a message from your son.
D: Yes, as I say in the essay, we had not met any other hikers that day.  Members of our other family that knew we were going hiking but they didn’t know what trail we were on or anything, and so it was just amazing and shocking that we came across this message written in the trail.
G: Yeah, and then you had another sign later on and we’ll save that for our listeners to read so they can find that, but that was so.  You know, and that’s one of the things maybe we need to look for on this Mother’s Day a little bit, don’t you think?  Some little signs or messages.  They’re around.
H: Absolutely if we’re open to them.  Yes.
G: So that might be something people want to think about.  Well, Debra, Heidi and I were saying that it’s not often that we have somebody as newly bereaved as you are on the show—only, what, two years?
D: Yes, well, not quite two.  This August will be two years.
G: Ah, and so that’ll be your anniversary this August.
H: Wow, so it’s only been a year – it’s not even been two years.  That is newly bereaved.
G: Yeah, I wondered, you were talking a little bit about your response to the show and how did you hear about the show originally?
D: At The Compassionate Friends meetings.
G: Uh, huh, and then you started listening.
D: Yes, oh, I just couldn’t wait for the next week to hear the next show and you had commented about changing your music.  I didn’t even pay any attention to the music because I was just looking forward so much to just hearing what you and Heidi had to say each week that I didn’t even notice the music before.
H: And what about the shows did you find helpful, Debra?  Was it just the messages that people brought in that they’ve been there?
D: Yes.
H: Okay.
D: and that you have such a wide variety of people in different stages and different circumstances so it was easy to make a connection in different ways to the different guests you have on the show.
H: Yes, it’s interesting listening to the guests because I think that most guests something they say I can identify with no matter how different their circumstances are.
G: Yeah, and they bring a lot of richness into it.  Well, we’re going to go on break in just a minute and when we come back, I do want to talk a little bit about Clint and how he died and Heidi, of course, is always interested in the siblings and how they’ve dealt with it and we want to weave this all into Mother’s Day for you folks out there and we want to wish you the most from our hearts for this Mother’s Day that you’ll be able to get through it and be able to deal with it in ways that are as comfortable for you as possible so please stay tuned for more while we talk with Debra Reagan about getting through Mother’s Day.  You can also email us through www.thegriefblog.com.  You can send us information about your child or about how you’ve gotten through Mother’s Day, or any kind of things you want to write.  We’ve got recipes, poetry, whatever you’d like to do, so please stay tuned to hear more.
We were talking during break about how amazing things are.  Debra’s in Tennessee, right?
D: Yes.
G: Heidi’s in New York, and I’m in California, and it’s just so amazing that we can all come together.  And Debra was talking about how she gets support on the Internet, right?
D: Yes, through emails, through your show, and through emails.
G: Yeah, and how you can email someone, and it’s kind of an amazing thing, and I was saying; however, I think, that we do still need to reach out physically to people and maybe do some groups and around people particularly maybe around Mother’s Day.  We might want to find some human contact, do you think so, Heidi?
H: I think we definitely both.  Yes.  Because you can get very isolated and only have your computer, which is great because you have a virtual community 24 hours a day, but like you said, nothing replaces a hug or just a touch on the shoulder or a look or just being in another person’s presence especially if they’ve been through the death of a family member because you know that they get it even if they don’t say it.  All they have to do is look at you and you think, you know what, you’ve been where I am.  You know what I’m going through.
G: Absolutely, but Heidi and I do send big hugs to all you out there, don’t we, Heidi?
H: Absolutely.  Definitely.
G: Well, Debra, I wanted to talk a little bit about Clint.  I’m sure our audience would like to know a little bit about him.  He was a lively guy and a fun guy?
D: Oh, yes.  Yes.  He was very lively.  He livened up a room just by walking into it and if he gave you a hug, you knew you had been hugged by him, but I think the trail message gave me –was the beginning of giving me permission to forgive myself. 
G: Ah.
H: And the forgiving yourself was around what?  What did you need to forgive yourself about?
D: That I wasn’t able to fix everything for him because we had been through a lot of turbulent times with the bipolar disorder and the drug addiction, and we’ve had some good times but we’ve had some tough times, too, and I think you know as a mom, you just, you put this burden on yourself that you’re going to fix everything for your family and particularly your children so I went through a lot of the should haves and the regrets and the guilt early on and like I said, I believe the trail message was really the beginning.  Of course, as you know and you talk on your show, it comes and goes like waves and it’s up and down so it’s not just been one straight upward line but I feel like that was one of the beginnings.
G: Now you have another son, right?
D: Yes, I do.  I have a 25-year-old son.  He just graduated from law school and passed the Bar so we’re very proud of him.
H: And what I’m amazed at about the story, as you were saying on break, is that, what is your son’s name? the one that’s surviving.
D: Blake.
H: that he was in law school when Clint died and I’m just fascinated by that because I know how challenging law school would be and to have to concentrate after your little brother’s died, it must have been very very hard.
D: It was, but he was very strong.  He took care of his dad and I and then he also was able to keep in law school and continue with his studies.  He’s just been amazing.
H: That is unbelievable and maybe in a sense law school helped him by letting him focus on law school and not always thinking about Clint.
D: I think so, too.
G: So he had some structure.  What about the first Mother’s Day with Blake?  What was he doing?
D: Well, we spent some time together.  Went to the zoo.
G: Oh, now, I like that.  So you did a little activity seeing animals.  Wonderful.
D: It was actually something we had done many times as a family when they were younger and so I guess that was in a way a connection to our family activities when they were younger boys and then my husband and I later then went on the trail on the hike by ourselves.
G: Don’t you love the zoo idea, Heidi?
H: Yes, because at the zoo, the animals are funny, and you’re laughing, and there’s a lot of positive emotions going on during an emotional day.
G: And you’re also with other people.  Do you remember yearning and searching and looking for Clint at the zoo?  That’s kind of interesting because it was so early for you.
D: Not particularly maybe that day at the zoo but certainly other places we had been I have found myself searching for him and even out of the corner of your eye, you think you see someone about the same build or the same dress.  So, yes, definitely in other occasions I have.
G: Yeah, so for those folks out there, you’re not going crazy.
D: No.
G: We were all doing it.
H: I still, believe it or not, 20 years, over 20 years later, I saw Scott two days ago, I thought.  I still see people that look, occasionally, that really look like him and I have to do a double take and I think this is ridiculous, I know he’s dead, you know.  But, yeah, it still happens.  Your mind plays tricks on you.
G: Now tell us about this Mother’s Day.  What are you going to do this Mother’s Day, Debra?
D: I think as a family we’re going to go and have dinner and then go to an aquarium.
H: That’s great.
G: That’s a great idea.  Now who comes up with these ideas of the zoo and the aquarium?
D: Blake.
G: Oh, he does.  He knows how to get his family going.
H: I like that.  That’s great.  So he says, Mom, why don’t we do this this year?  We’ll go to the aquarium.
G: But you know what I like best, Heidi, is that they do it.
H: I agree.
G: That you do it.  That you don’t say, you know, I don’t think so.  I feel too sad today.
H: Right.  Exactly.
G: I’m sure it wasn’t easy to kick yourself up to go to the zoo last year.
D: No, it wasn’t.  Of course, you know, each day is a hard day, but I found that, Heidi mentioned earlier and I have heard it at our meetings and in other situations, heard it said before and I believe it to be very true, the anticipation of a day coming up I think is greater than once the day actually gets there.
G: So today could be a really hard day for our folks because it’s Thursday and Mother’s Day is Sunday.
D: Right.  I found that to be true that the anticipation was far worse than the actual day.  Most of the day was easy but it was the anticipation that was worse.
G: So do you have any other thoughts about this coming up Mother’s Day for them?  Any special things that you did or do?
D: Well, I think that first of all, speaking from my own situation, that it’s more a frame of mind.  That once I began to be able to forgive myself for the self-imposed regrets of not doing everything perfectly all the time and then
G: and being the perfect mother on Mother’s Day, right?
D: Right.  And I start early on.  Someone proposed the idea that one day we might get to the point where we would see that we had received a gift from Clint’s death and of course at first I just couldn’t see that happening at all but then gradually I can see that.  I can see that one of the gifts I have received is that I have a much deeper and wider scope of relationships now with people, much deeper and like I said the span of relationships is so much wider and particularly with other mothers, we just have a real network now.
G: Now is that through The Compassionate Friends?
D: It began there and again it has just widened, you know.  I received a lot of support from work, support from The Compassionate Friends, and then just so many other people.
G: Even your work relationships have become stronger.
D: Yes, I feel like in general all of my relationships have gotten on a much deeper level and wider.
H: That’s great.  So you felt like people were able to reach out to you and say, I’m so sorry about what happened.  I’m so sorry that Clint died.  People were able to do that it sounds like even at work.  They didn’t avoid you.
D: No, and of course different people do it in different ways.  Some people, it’s just a smile.  Some people, it may just be a good morning every morning, and I learned to just – that was, I guess, one thing, too.  I learned that if I tried to focus on the negative things, maybe if somebody hadn’t done something for me or they hadn’t mentioned Clint’s name or I felt like they should do this or that, which I went there for awhile.  But it took so – it created such a negative energy and drained what little energy I had left that I found and it may have even been one of your shows that got me started on this path that I had to just accept whatever people had to offer me.
H: I like that idea.  Like you said, even if it was just a smile, it didn’t have to be words.
D: Right, and that they were giving to me what they wanted to.  I had to just accept it for what they had to offer and the more positive I started trying to look at things, the more energy then I began to grow inside – that I could feel growing inside me, and so I tried to just take more of what was offered in the way it was offered and
H: I like that idea because sometimes all someone might have is a smile especially if they’re not really sure what to say or how to react.  That might be all that they can give you at that time.
G: Um hm.  Or a touch on the shoulder or
H: Um hm, exactly.
G: something like that, yeah.  Very good thoughts.  Well, for those people who have just tuned in, I want you to know that Debra’s son, Clint, died, what, just a year and it’ll be two years August?
D: Yes, that’s correct.
G: So you’ve really had some experiences coming along.  How have you found this second year?  Have you found it difficult?
D: Yes, and no, I mean, I can tell that I’m going forward but then in a heartbeat I can be right back into the very depth of that heavy grief over anything and at first, that was very discouraging because I thought, I just don’t think I have the energy to pull myself back from this again, you know, and then I began to learn that even though I could go to that same depth, I didn’t have to stay there quite as long as I had been initially.
H: That is such a good point, Debra.
G: Absolutely.
H: That you’re going to go there, but you’re not going to stay there as long.
G: Yeah, that really is, and it’s particularly good to think about at Mother’s Day because we know that you may be going to some very difficult places in the next few days.  So we’re coming up on break. 
Well, again, we’re talking about Mother’s Day and getting through Mother’s Day and Heidi and I have talked, if you’re just joining our show, about the fact that Debra is a very newly bereaved mom.  It’s only been a year and it’ll be next August that it’ll be two years so it’s great having her on because she’s really giving us some thoughts about how difficult this day is for you all and about the journey and how she’s come along and was talking about how things have gone at work and we’ve got a guest and when we come back from our guest, I wanted to talk about the people at work and thoughts about that.  But we’ve got Katie on the line, right, Katie?  Are you there?
K: I am.
H: Hi, Katie.
K: Hi, how are you going?
G: Good.  Where are you from?
K: I’m from Knoxville.  I actually work with Debra.
G: Oh, great, good.
K: I just want to tell you that she is probably the most wonderful person you’ll ever meet.  Even through all of this that she’s been going through, she’s always been there for everybody that ever needs anything.
G: Oh, that’s great.
K: And I just thought you guys should know what kind of a great person she is.
H: I love that you called to say that.  That’s so wonderful.
G: I do, too.  It’s great.  And it sounds like you people are great at work also.
D: They are.
K: I think we try to be.  She’s probably one of my dearest friends.  I’ve got a seven year old and she’s just adopted her and always is sending her cards and gifts and through all of this she’s always helped everybody else.
G: Well, Katie, could I ask you a question because this show we have a lot of listeners who are fairly newly bereaved and I’d like to know just from you as an observer, what’s your take on this and what’s your thought about the newly bereaved people?  Do you have any thought about how it is for them and what you think people should say or do?
K: Oh, you mean, me?  I don’t know.  I’ve never really experienced having a good friend that’s had such a grief.  I just know that all’s I could do at times was just give her a hug when you could tell that she was just not having a great day.  And there were times that she would say, “I’m just not having a good day,” and I’d try to go down and talk to her, and I think a lot of people here at work knew that.  We just always kind of knew, I think, when we needed to step in and maybe give her some extra lovings and kisses and let her know that we’re thinking about her.
H: And it’s amazing you did that, Katie, because we have so many guests on that say people avoid us.  They don’t know what to say so they say nothing.  They’re not there for us because they don’t know what to do.  And so the fact that you were there giving her love and hugs and listening to her is fabulous.
K: This group that she works with, a lot of the contracts we have deal with children and that type of thing, so I just think we have a lot of compassionate people that work here and we’re just like a big family.  So I think when one person hurts, then we all hurt.
G: So you’re at the University of Tennessee, and you do social work, grants?
K: Well, I actually do the accounting part of it.  I don’t do all that hard stuff asking for money.
G: Which is great.  Thank you so much for calling in and it sounds like for our audience out there, I have to say, and Katie, tell me if I’m wrong, but it sounds to me like Debra knows how to let people know that she needs help, too.
K: She does.  Yeah.  She’s a wonderful person.
G: So there are people out there who will help you but you need to let them know that you’re having a bad day.
K: Yeah, and she does.  She may not tell everybody but I think certain people know.
G: Well, thank you so much for calling.
H: Thanks, Katie.  We appreciate your call.
G: Oh, that’s great, right, Heid?
H: Yeah, it sounds like you work in a wonderful place.
D: I do, I do, and I can tell you who the best huggers are around here, too.  They kind of made up for all of Clint’s hugs I missed.
G: That’s one of the hard things about work, though, right now in our society because there are some people who would like to touch you that are afraid to because of discrimination.  My husband sometimes says he’d like to put his arm around a woman at work and give her a hug who’s had a problem but it’s difficult to do now.
H: Well and also I think people are afraid if they hug someone, they’re going to completely fall apart and not be able to get it together again and go back to work.
G: Yeah, I think that’s true, too.  So we’ve got another caller, Heidi.  We’ve got a Deborah.  Are you there, Deborah?
D (caller):  Yes, I am.
G: Oh, welcome to the show.
H: Hi, Deborah.
D (caller):  Thank you.
G: Could you tell us something about what you’re calling in about and do you know our guest?
D (caller):  Debra and I happened to be – kind of met because of our sons.  I lost my son seven years ago.
G: And what was his name?
D (caller):  Dustin.  It was a car accident and I’ll never forget the Sunday that I was in Sunday school and they announced that Debra and Alan had lost their son and it was like I couldn’t get out there fast enough and even when I got there, they weren’t there but Blake was there but I knew that you needed to have someone there.  It was like I really couldn’t get there fast enough and we’ve bonded and the good thing is when you’ve got a friend who is not – when you’re further along than your friend, it gives you a chance to reflect back on what has worked for you and what hadn’t worked for you and so if you reach out, you end up reaching in.
G: Oh, I like that.  When you reach out, you reach in.  Isn’t that great, Heidi?
H: Yes.  And I’m wondering Deborah, what worked for you, for our audience?
D (caller):  Well, part of it was being very very honest.  Finding a couple of people that I could just say when I have a bizarre thought what it was.  For instance in Sunday school they go around asking prayer requests for high cholesterol and a part of me wants to go, come on now, you know, and someone that you could say that, too, that didn’t judge you, and then as time went on, I was the one saying.  We have another couple in our class that lost their son and about two months later, I said to him, are the prayer requests getting on your nerves yet?  And they go, yes, and they were surprised.  They didn’t think anyone else felt that way.  So I think a lot of it for me was really analyzing it and like with Mother’s Day, I always do something a little different each year, but the first couple of years, I would always try to reflect back to what part of it didn’t feel good and what part did feel good so that I could build for the next year.  I try to build.
G: Oh, I like that, you’re trying to build.  And also if you didn’t like something that went on at Mother’s Day, you were saying if you could find somebody to talk to about it.
D (caller):  Exactly, and what I also found, too, is it is my Mother’s Day so if I was in the middle of something and I just thought we needed to do something else, it’s okay.  You know what I mean?  And my family will do that.
H: That’s a good point.  I like that.  So if you’re doing something that it’s not working out, you can just say, you know what, this isn’t working for me.  Let’s do something else.  That’s good advice.
D (caller):  And some of the traditional stuff would really get on my nerves
G: Like what, tell us?
D (caller):  Hold hands while you’re around the table and say prayer.  That just broke my heart so I just tell people when they come to my house that you can pray on your own.  We’re not going to do that.  Now I’m to the point where it doesn’t bother me if I go to someone else’s home, but just knowing that there was some part of it I could control, I could say this doesn’t feel right, or this does feel right, and also realizing people really do want to know something that will help and so when you say I don’t want to do that any more, they’re almost relieved that you’re talking, that you’re saying the aspects of what, what doesn’t feel good.
G: Yeah, that’s a good idea because sometimes people don’t know and they have no idea what’s irritating or what’s not.
H: So you need to speak up for yourself as a mother and let people know.
D (caller):  Exactly, because it is your Mother’s Day, you know what I mean.  I think you need to remember that it’s getting you through it, but also, and I think it does help to have other children because you do have to keep a certain part of it the same but yet if you can control one little part of it, you feel better and it doesn’t even have to be something that’s really big.  But one of the things that bothered me the first year in particular was that I was afraid that I was going to lose the memory.  I absolute drove myself nuts trying to remember exactly what we’ve done the year before and what I’ve realized as time goes on, the more relaxed and the more I just get out there in the world, the more memories that just come through me.  More like I’m a conduit and it feels really good and that was a real big fear that I had was that I would forget something.
G: Now what will you be doing this Mother’s Day?
D (caller):  This Mother’s Day we were going to go to, like Debra, to the zoo, but my daughter broke her ankle so we’re going to be staying at home.  We have a little garden that we have done in memory of Dustin and it’s a really good place to cook out and, in fact, our daughter got married in it and so we realized that we have a convertible so I like to get outside where there’s some sunshine.
H: Very nice.
G: Well, thank you so much for calling in and enjoy your Mother’s Day in your garden.
D (caller):  Thank you so much.
G: Well, what great ideas and what nice friends you have.  Heidi, do you want to talk a little bit about work?  We were talking about that earlier?
H: About work?  I had a question about how Clint had died.  I was wondering, Debra, and this is kind of work related because I’m wondering if people in general, if you felt there was a stigma attached to the fact that Clint died of an accidental overdose or not?
D: I don’t so much at work did because of where I work in the social work department so the folks around here are more familiar with those type of problems, but I think outside of here, I did.  I’ve come to learn now that a lot of that, I think, was just my thinking that I’ve grown to learn that most people just feel compassion for us and that they do just want to give us a hug or if not a physical hug, just an emotional hug, and that I’m sure there might be a few people who might wonder or think about the way he died, but what also helped me a lot, I learned about the Library of Life through your show.
G: Oh, yes, I’ve gone to your site.  It’s great.  I wanted to mention that.  Yeah.
D: It helped me a lot to be able to write out my feelings there and perhaps tell me who wouldn’t ask me in person maybe what we had gone through or about Clint, it helped me just to be able to write it out and I think maybe it helped other people to be able to read that.  But, yes, Heidi, to answer your question, I definitely felt a lot of stigma at first with everything involved with Clint’s death and the thing I’ve slowly begun to forgive myself.
H: And like you said, some of it might have just been your perception.
D: Oh, right, definitely.
H: And what exactly did he overdose on? just for our listeners out there, because I feel like Clint’s message will save other people, other kids from overdosing.  Was it a certain mixture?  We had somebody on here that actually died of a mixture of anti-depressants and methadone so I didn’t know what he had taken that had killed him.
D: He had actually gotten morphine patches from someone.  We don’t know where he had gotten them and we don’t know that he had ever used those before.  He had used other things before, but we didn’t know of him ever using that, but the coroner’s office is actually the one who found them up under his shirt.
H: Oh, okay, so it was morphine patches and the fact that he had pneumonia.
D: Yes.  They had found other pills under his bed but the bottle was full and they counted those and they were all there but then later they were doing an autopsy and they found the patches.
G: Now was he at your home when he died?
D: Yes, he was.
G: And you came in and found him?
D: My husband did.
G: Well, it’s time for us to go on break now.  We want to say again, this is our last break and we want to say that we wish you all the best on this Mother’s Day, remember coming up on Sunday.  Remember to take care of yourself.  Remember to hydrate in between now and then, to get sleep, to go for a walk, to have a friend to talk to, just you really need to take care of yourself, because as we said, our guest, Debra, and Heidi and I have all said that the anticipation can be more difficult than the day, so please take care of yourself.  We know what you’re going through and we have a caller so we want to make sure we take them now.  Our last caller, if you’ve been on the show with us, it turns out that it was Rochelle earlier, and now we’ve got Katie.  Hi, Katie.
K: Hi, there.
G: Welcome to the show.
K: Thank you.  Thanks for having me.
G: Well, thanks for calling in.  And you’ve got a question or a thought or do you work with Debra?
K: I did.  I worked at UT with Debra and we hit it off right away.  We worked together for a couple of years and we’d go walking every day.  She’s really fit and I’m trying to get fit so we would go walking on our breaks and everything.  We just hit it off.  We both had two boys and both of us had a son who was battling a drug addiction.  And then we talked about our boys.  We talked about how to help them and we just we prayed for each other, we talked to each other, we were really there for each other, and then she lost Clint in August of 2005, and then I lost my Gabriel in August of 2006.
G: Oh, so sorry to hear this.
K: Oh, thank you.  I just feel like it’s really blessed to have a friend like Debra and I’m sorry what happened to both of us, but I
G: Now how long has it been for you?  It hasn’t even been a year yet, right?
K: Right, August 14.
G: Oh, my goodness.  Well, take care of yourself.
K: Oh, thank you.  I’m doing pretty good.  I’ve got a lot of good friends and the reason I wanted to call is because I know it’s about Mother’s Day and I believe my Gabriel and I believe Clint are, they’re still alive, they’re just in another world.  I really strongly believe in the after life.  I believe in God and the after life and I take a lot of peace and comfort in that.
G: Good.
K: And I just believe that they’ll be with us on Mother’s Day just like I believe that little note to Debra on the trail was from Clint.
G: So you’ve read that beautiful little essay she wrote.
K: Yeah, yeah.  She told me right about it the next day after Mother’s Day because we talk all the time and we email every day.
H: Your boys are in a place of peace right now.
K: Yeah.  They’re no longer tormented with the addiction.
H: Absolutely.
K: About Mother’s Day.  I was blessed with a really strong mother.  She worked really hard.  She was a single mom to raise my sister and I, and I had two really strong grandmothers and I’ve got a couple of aunts that are just spectacular and have been really there for me and on Mother’s Day, I don’t even really think about my own motherhood.  I’m pretty much thinking about appreciating the motherhood of people that have been mother figures to me and my mother and all the women out there that are ministering to each other.  People like Debra.  Debra’s always there for people.  If somebody loses a child, she’ll write a card to the funeral home and say please forward this to somebody even if she doesn’t know the people.
H: That’s wonderful.
K: And on the memory of website, there’s forums and they’re always encouraging each other, the mothers are, and on your child’s birthday they email you a little something and it’s really beautiful.
G: Right.  So go to the Library of Life.  Have you put one on for your son yet?
K: Yes.
G: Great.
H: And like you’re saying, you can reach out to other mothers on Mother’s Day.  I love that.
K: Yeah.
G: and think of other mothers.  You know there are some folks who don’t have any children at all and there’s an association called Alive Alone that you can go on the blog, on the website, and take a look at Alive Alone if you don’t have any other children and I love the idea, Katie, that you’re saying that you can think about your parents or your grandparents or other women in your life that have been important to you and you can also celebrate their lives.
K: Yeah.
G: Well, listen, very good luck to you on your journey and I’m very happy that you’ve got a wonderful friend like Debra, and take care of yourself this Mother’s Day.
K: Okay, thank you.
H: Thanks, Katie.
G: Ah, what a great caller, huh, Heid?
H: It was wonderful.
G: Good to hear.  We’ve just got a couple of more minutes and I wanted to know, Debra, if there’s something more you want to say and also you, Heidi, before we close our show.
H: I guess I want to briefly say that Clint was – we were talking on break – he was a wonderful kid and that somebody is not their addiction.  That the addiction is a disease and that they are more than that.  And I guess I wanted to say that for everybody out there and that you can be the best parent in the world and if someone has a disease, they can have an accidental overdose regardless of how well you’ve parented them and how much you love them.  And I know Debra was a wonderful parent.
D: Oh, thank you.  We tried, like all parents do.
H: Absolutely.
G: And Debra did you have anything you felt like you wanted to say to our audience out there before we close the show?
D: Well, Heidi said it very well and I had made that comment on Clint’s site in that Clint was so much more than just the way he died, and along with the talk earlier about the stigma and the site, the Library of Life site gave me a chance to write down my thoughts and to share our family history and the Clint we knew with folks who maybe didn’t know him as well and it helped me to put my thoughts together and so other people could see that he was more than his addiction and the bipolar and that these kids are so much more than that.  Clint has a generous heart and he was very compassionate to himself and very creative but this was just a battle that was greater than he was.
G: Right, and if you want to go to his site, you can go to, and we’ll put it in on the blog, www.clint-regan.memory-of.com and you can also get in there through the Library of Life.  I assume it’s an open site that anybody can go to.
D: Yes it is.
G: So anybody can go in and you can leave him a candle and also you can go to our site on the grief blog and leave Scott a candle for Library of Life, too.  Well, Debra, thank you so much for being on the show and good luck to you on Mother’s Day and to all of our wonderful mothers out there.  And, Heidi, it’s time to close our show now.  I’m your host Dr. Gloria Horsley with my co-host
H: Dr. Heidi Horsley.
G: And next week we’re going to have Polly Moore on.  Polly’s daughter died in an automobile accident and we will be talking to her.  She’s on the board of The Compassionate Friends with me, and her daughter, Lauren, died, so stay tuned for this next week and also you can reach us through www.thegriefblog.com as well as www.thecompassionatefriends.org website.  Thanks for listening.  I’m Dr. Gloria Horsley and
H: Dr. Heidi Horsley.  Debra, although Clint is gone, he is never forgotten.  He lives on in your heart and your memory.  Thank you so much for being on our show today.