NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — This day, this week, this time of year in Nashville now comes with new feelings.
Emotions of sadness, anger, hope, and renewal for all of us. As a parent, while we deal with these emotions ourselves, it may be a time our kids need us more than ever.
So, I turned to my friend Sissy Goff, executive director of Daystar Counseling. She provided some help handling and processing the wave of emotions that are ever-present at this time for us and our children.
She gave me five ways we can support kids in the remembrance of the Covenant school tragedy:
- If age-appropriate, talk about the day, even if your kids are hesitant to. It's better to process those feelings than hide them.
- Help your kids find a way to remember and give to someone impacted. If your family has lost someone you loved, honor that person together.
- Pray for each family by name, and for our beloved Covenant School community.
- Remember that kids grieve in doses and it shifts along with development.
- Give your kids and yourself permission to feel all the things.
"On this day, it's so important to remember that all feelings are normal," Goff said. "There's not a feeling that any of us can have that we shouldn't be having or is foreign. And I think our community is still grieving together, and we're going through this process."
"I have been doing some extra research on grief lately," Goff said. "Elisabeth Kubler Ross was the psychiatrist who in 1969 came up with the five stages of grief. And there is a psychologist named David Kessler, who has recently added a sixth stage, which I think is really fascinating, and it is meaning."
"And so in all of the things that we're feeling in giving our kids giving ourselves space to feel at all, I think I want us to keep thinking about how can we move towards meaning how can we think about how do we continue to give to this precious school to these families."
Speaking of grief this week, Goff posted this quote from the late Dr. Katherine Koonce, who lost her life protecting Covenant as the Head of School. It's so powerful, I felt compelled to share in hopes it helps you as it did me.
"When you have walked through a period of honest grief, you experience God in a way you wouldn't wish on anyone else — but in a way you never could have without the loss. You don't know that when you're going through it. God doesn't immediately say 'This is going to be good.' like people often do. He just sits there with you in it and the ministry of His presence is healing. He's not necessarily giving you great pearls of wisdom, but the ministry of His long-term presence is healing."
Dr. Katherine Koonce, from the book "When Your Family's Lost a Loved One."
Thank you, Katherine. And thank you, Sissy, for also helping us heal.
Our colleague, Hannah McDonald — who I respect and admire so much — sent our staff a note this week reminding us that there is no such thing as "closure." Grief is ever-present. And experts say, people grieve differently, and that's OK.
