Getting Started: Blogging My Grief Journey

I really have no idea what I am doing. I am about as computer illiterate as they come! But I have found, over 15 years, that putting my feelings into words on my computer worked best for me. As a transcriptionist for 25 years, obviously me and the keyboard have had an intimate relationship. Whenever I woke from sleep and found that I had thoughts rolling around in my head that I couldn't put to bed, or was afraid that I would forget them in the morning and needed to remember, I stumbled to my home office and started typing.

I began that practice 15 years ago, after my 15 1/2 year old daughter was killed by a drunk driver while on a family vacation in Florida. Nina was one of three victims in that horrific crash just outside of Disney World, where our family had just spent a fabulous day together five days before. Sadly, the day she was killed was also my 45th birthday. The day I was given life, my daughter's was taken away from her. From that point forward, that was all that May 11th became; the death "anniversary" of my "baby girl", my precious youngest daughter, Nina. No more would I ever be able to celebrate that day as my birthday. That day now signifies the very moment that my life changed irrevocably...I began the lifelong business of trying to live with grief. And trying to find a way to live in a world without Nina in it. A task more impossible than anyone could even fathom.

I started putting my feelings down on paper two days after her death without realizing that was what I was doing. Two days after a loved ones death, you are "running on empty" and securely protected in a blanket of numbess that allows you to do things that without that blanket you could not possibly do. Whether that be making decisions to pick out a coffin for your young daughter who you should be thinking about picking out a car for--NOT a coffin; planning a funeral and obtaining a grave site; robotically going through the motions of this horrific nightmare you are in, you couldn't possibly make it through without that protective cocoon surrounding you, as well as love and assistance of friends and family. The first thing I wrote was a letter to Nina, telling her my feelings and thoughts and deep love for her, that I put in her coffin to go with her on her journey. My eldest daughter had the foresight to make a copy of that letter in case I would ever want to see it...to this day I haven't read it, but I believe I will some day.

Shortly thereafter, I remembered a conversation between Nina and I about two weeks prior to her death. I walked into the office and she looked at me and firmly said, "Mom, you need to start writing more." I looked at her quizzically and said, "What in the world would I have to write about that anyone would be interested in?" I had written the rare Letter to the Editor but not much else. She again looked at me, without even the hint of a smile on her face, and said emphatically, "You are going to need to write more." And she walked out of my office.

When I found myself writing about the crash in the wee hours of the morning to a wonderful forum that appears in the St. Paul Pioneer Press called the "Bulletin Board", that earlier encounter with Nina popped into my head. And then I wondered...did she subconsciously know that I would need to write about this unwelcome grief journey that I had been suddenly plunged into head first?

And write I have - during those 15 years since my darling girl left this earth I have put my heartache and sorrow down in words, as well as hope that my experiences have helped others who walk this same grief road. And 15 years later, I find I am a much better communicator on "paper" than in voice, and I still need to sort my thoughts and feelings out, especially now that my beautiful Nina has been gone as long as she was here with her loving "mommy". Thus, I will give this "blogging" a try and see where it goes...