Need to Vent.... Again...

[Musical_Shoyru]

*WARNING THIS MAY MAKE YOU CRY, IF YOU DON'T WANT TO CRY I SUGGEST NOT READING*

 

 

 

    Back in September I posted a topic about a little girl that was lost to a family quite close to mine, I didn't go much in to detail as the post was directed toward trying to help the family raise the money they needed for the funeral. Since all that, I've had some time to mourn and frankly I still 4 months later go through mixed feelings. 

    The little girl in question name was Hannah. She was only 10 and she was so beautiful. She had the cutest little dimples, the biggest smile, the most mischievous little grin that let you know she was up to no good, but most of all she had the purest and kindest heart I've ever known. Why she had to be taken from us, I don't know. I go back and forth between wondering why God didn't stop it, but alas, I am not Him and I am human. My human mind cannot comprehend the grand plan He has in store, but still I wish I had somewhat of a reason as to why this happened.

     On Sept 19th, 3 days before my birthday, Hannah was on a trip with her family up at Lake Michigan. The family was getting all packed up and ready to go when the kids asked if they could go swimming one last time. The mother and the father stayed in the cabin to do some last finishing touches to the space they rented while the elder sister who drove up there and the elder brother were in charge of them. To make a much sad and heartbreaking story short. Hannah and her elder sister went out into the water on paddle boards without life jackets as they were planning not to go out far...., unfortunately a current caught them and pulled them out. While they were trying to wait out the current. A wave caught them both and brought them under. Hannah's older sister had a hold of her hand as she struggled to make it above the wave. The weight was too much, so she let go for one moment to grab a hold of her board and when she turned to grab her sister once more... she was gone. 

     Hannah fell into the water around 3:45p and was pulled out after her sister searched for her relentlessly at 4:20p. At this point Hannah's father had made it to the beach and tried for an hour to revive her, when the paramedics arrived they again tried for another full hour to revive her without success.

     I haven't had one in awhile, but I remember when I first heard about this I'd have dreams of her struggling to fight the waves, but with being so little and the water so strong, she couldn't win. Haha there I go again with the tears.

    I've really made it through a lot since this event and have come out of the deep mourning that you feel when you lose someone close, but I'm still just in so much disbelief. I mean this little girl that use to jump on my lap and ask to take silly pictures, or try to cut her own hair and scare her mother to death, or sit in the circle of my small group at youth group as I mentored her is gone. Never to partake in the funny holiday get together's or those hilarious New Years Eve dancing parties we use to have. I still love the holiday's and I don't think I could ever "shun" them because of a loss, as I know she wouldn't want that, but it still just feels so wrong that she's not here.

    Our families pretty much grew up together. Her oldest sister, who is now married to my brother and was married to him at the time of this event use to be one of my best friends. She literally went from being like family to ACTUALLY being family. 

    I know she wasn't my blood-related-sister, but this to me felt like losing one. I'll miss her so much.

 

 

    I don't want anyone to worry about me or any such thing, I just needed a place to vent once more. It's been a little bit since I've felt sad about this event and just wanted to speak about it. I'm doing alright, I'm moving on slowly, I'm not depressed... I just needed to vent..

[tk421beth]

I am so sorry to hear this. Hannah sounds like she was a fun loving, sweet little sister.

 

I am very sorry for your loss.

[midnight_spell360]

I am sorry for your loss. I imagine it hurts a lot to realize that such a sweet little girl is no longer in your life and in her family's life, the pain of losing someone so innocent can be one of the hardest trials that any human has to bear. I personally don't know this pain and I was too young to understand when my older sister had a similar but not the same kind of situation happen to her. When she would be sad around our Eid time, I never understood why but when I got a little older, my mom explained what had happened.

    About 10 years ago, that puts me in pre-KG, my sister volunteered at our Islamic Women's Shelter where she helped with all the women's children as an activities director. There was a very nice Hispanic lady who showed up to the shelter with her 2 daughters and young son. My sister won this lady's trust and she revealed to my sister that she left her husband bc of his abuse, which was almost every woman's story at the shelter, but she was afraid to tell the Director that her ex-husband forced her to do things and just tormented her by pointing his loaded gun at his children while they were sleeping. My mother went with this brave lady to court to support her and they were so happy when the court awarded her sole custody of her children, which my sister became very close to these kids. The judge however, made what turned out to be a very bad decision, and allowed the children to spend their last weekend unsupervised with their dad, which was our Eid after Ramadan. Sr. Norma, the mother, was beside herself, to let them go and my mom & sister tried to tell her that he probably wouldn't harm the children (he never abused them and they were always sleeping & never saw the gun he held at them to torture their mother). It was a holiday and while he abused his wife, my mom felt that he wouldn't risk without her being their to "watch". The judge, my mom, & sister, everyone who tried to calm Sr. Norma's fears couldn't have been more wrong, unfortunately. My sister bought each of those kids a nice Eid present, wrapped them, and excitedly went over that Sunday afternoon to greet these children she became very close to and waited with Sr. Norma and my mom. Instead, the police came to deliver the horrible news, the father shot and killed all 3 children rather than "let his wife take his kids". That Monday, my mom and sister helped Sr. Norma bury her 3 children and it was a long time for my 17 year old sister to get over this. Even 10 years later, I know it still hurts her-so I know time passing doesn't ever make it ever go away. I think it might even have influenced her to not marry yet but there are probably more factors involved.

  Again, I am just a kid so my advice on getting through pain that no one would ever wish on another human being is very naive but I pray that God gives you the strength to be patient and keep moving forward and that your heart will begin to heal but always keep those memories of your beloved Hannah. If we try to assign a reason why bad things happen to good people, we will go crazy bc we are human and limited to our small scope of what surrounds us while God, Who is the Best of Planners, sees the whole picture that interconnects in such a larger circle than we can imagine. But you should never feel ashamed or bad for the need to work through this, just seek comfort in your family and friends. Maybe later you can start a scholarship in her honor or something else that can be like a butterfly garden as a memorial to her, but it may be too soon for big actions like that now. You are in my prayers and if I could give you a hug, I would. :sad02: Be strong, you touch many lives and we all want you to find peace. <3 

[charelan]

.... I wish I was better at words sometimes... There's so much I wish I could say, except it's all just feelings that I don't properly know how to get out.

I am SO SORRY to hear this story (and your sister's, too, midnight). Sometimes the world seems so confusing and harsh. Moments that are supposed to be happy turn suddenly tragic and we can never understand why. It's awful. And all we can do is 'grow' from it, which seems like such a huge gyp. 

I'm glad you took the time to write it out ... although it obviously can't change anything, sometimes something so simple can kind of help us process, or find some small degree of closure. It sounds like Hannah's loss has been felt by a huge number of people - at the very least it makes me feel better to know you have each other to turn to. 

I'm also glad you didn't let this horrible event make you forego the holidays... it's so easy to become sad in moments of celebration and to get overwhelmed. But like you said yourself, she wouldn't have wanted that, and the best thing we can do is celebrate a life, not mourn a passing. I will be thinking of you!!

 

 

PS Midnight, you are one eloquent and put-together 'kid'! You always speak (write) with such wisdom and patience, honestly - your family must be very proud of you :)

[Musical_Shoyru]

I am sorry for your loss. I imagine it hurts a lot to realize that such a sweet little girl is no longer in your life and in her family's life, the pain of losing someone so innocent can be one of the hardest trials that any human has to bear. I personally don't know this pain and I was too young to understand when my older sister had a similar but not the same kind of situation happen to her. When she would be sad around our Eid time, I never understood why but when I got a little older, my mom explained what had happened.

    About 10 years ago, that puts me in pre-KG, my sister volunteered at our Islamic Women's Shelter where she helped with all the women's children as an activities director. There was a very nice Hispanic lady who showed up to the shelter with her 2 daughters and young son. My sister won this lady's trust and she revealed to my sister that she left her husband bc of his abuse, which was almost every woman's story at the shelter, but she was afraid to tell the Director that her ex-husband forced her to do things and just tormented her by pointing his loaded gun at his children while they were sleeping. My mother went with this brave lady to court to support her and they were so happy when the court awarded her sole custody of her children, which my sister became very close to these kids. The judge however, made what turned out to be a very bad decision, and allowed the children to spend their last weekend unsupervised with their dad, which was our Eid after Ramadan. Sr. Norma, the mother, was beside herself, to let them go and my mom & sister tried to tell her that he probably wouldn't harm the children (he never abused them and they were always sleeping & never saw the gun he held at them to torture their mother). It was a holiday and while he abused his wife, my mom felt that he wouldn't risk without her being their to "watch". The judge, my mom, & sister, everyone who tried to calm Sr. Norma's fears couldn't have been more wrong, unfortunately. My sister bought each of those kids a nice Eid present, wrapped them, and excitedly went over that Sunday afternoon to greet these children she became very close to and waited with Sr. Norma and my mom. Instead, the police came to deliver the horrible news, the father shot and killed all 3 children rather than "let his wife take his kids". That Monday, my mom and sister helped Sr. Norma bury her 3 children and it was a long time for my 17 year old sister to get over this. Even 10 years later, I know it still hurts her-so I know time passing doesn't ever make it ever go away. I think it might even have influenced her to not marry yet but there are probably more factors involved.

  Again, I am just a kid so my advice on getting through pain that no one would ever wish on another human being is very naive but I pray that God gives you the strength to be patient and keep moving forward and that your heart will begin to heal but always keep those memories of your beloved Hannah. If we try to assign a reason why bad things happen to good people, we will go crazy bc we are human and limited to our small scope of what surrounds us while God, Who is the Best of Planners, sees the whole picture that interconnects in such a larger circle than we can imagine. But you should never feel ashamed or bad for the need to work through this, just seek comfort in your family and friends. Maybe later you can start a scholarship in her honor or something else that can be like a butterfly garden as a memorial to her, but it may be too soon for big actions like that now. You are in my prayers and if I could give you a hug, I would. :sad02: Be strong, you touch many lives and we all want you to find peace. <3

 

Thank you midnight! I actually felt so helpless the week of her passing that I just had to do something, I knew the family had no way to pay for her funeral and that the parents would be out of a job from a couple weeks to maybe even a month after this passing. I started a GoFundMe and it definitely was hard trying to do this and mourn at the same time, but I was going crazy I needed to do something, anything, because I couldn't help her. Although I know I didn't owe it to her, I felt I did in some way. I ended up raising $5,000 on my own through the GoFundMe through insane amounts of promotion, hanging up flyers etc, I did a pancake breakfast fundraiser at Applebees and got money from there. I also had the community sign up to bring the family dinners, lunches and breakfasts and got them 2 months worth of food. That was 60 people/families that I got to volunteer to make meals for this family and just love on them. I was in shock and awe at what was accomplished. My mother ended up helping a lot with getting people sign up for the meals and another family close to my mother and father had started a GoFundMe and they raised around 5,000 too, plus the mother's work donated 4,000 toward the funeral, so we made above and beyond our 12k goal. I think after all this stuff passed and I stopped having something to do to keep myself busy and turn my mourning into something productive is when it all sank in that she was actually gone and that I still couldn't believe it.

 

I appreciate everyone's prayer and support. It means more than you know.

[nicolelouise]

I've visited this thread a couple of times now and umm'ed and aah'ed about what to say, because I've got nothing.  No words.  But I didn't want you to feel like I don't want to support you in this, even if I'm failing terribly on the words front.  We're thinking about you.

[life_eclectic]

I have been busy the last few days and didn't have a chance to post on the forum, but I saw this and wanted to comment as soon as I was able.

 

I had responded on your other post, however I wanted to say again I'm so sorry to know that happened, Musical_Shoyru and also midnight_spell, with what happened to your sister's friend. It is very sad, it is something that brings to mind the fact that we never know what will happen, we can only live our lives and do the best we can.

 

Though I don't have any such exeriences with children, talk of missing a loved one makes me think of my mom. I had said in another post that she passed away suddenly, however it was not from an accident. It started with my mom having stomache pains and she thought she had food poisoning. It lasted a couple of weeks and so she went to the doctor and was diagnosed with a stomache infection. They were working on healing her and ran more tests and it was then determined that she had pancreatic cancer and the infection was a complication. The cancer had progressed too far and was not treatable. By this time my mom was very sick, was unable to walk and could not talk very well. I hear about situations where the person seems healthy when they are diagnosed. They have time to really talk to their loved ones, but this was not the case with my mom. She passed away a week after being diagnosed and all of this happened wthin a couple of months and that is why I said it was sudden because the progression was so quick.

 

I miss my mom everyday, but of course the holidays are the time when we often think more about family being together. We can't help missing people and it's understandable to feel sad they are not with us, but we can remember all the wonderful times we had with them as well and that can make us glad. We also of course should always be thankful for the loved ones who are still with us and the time we are able to spend with them.

 

It's good to know you were able to help the family so much, Musical_Shoyru, it's a very caring thing you did. I wish for you and anyone else dealing with loss to have a type of closure and to find somehow a sense of peace.