The emotions behind car buying

Well, there was no turning back. The Chrysler 300M we used as trade bait was towed. Towed by the dealer to a salvage yard. Thinking I could get one final look at that car and seeing if anything of 'value' got left behind like kids toy or stowaway 'M &  M's in the center pocket I was disappointed to learned that when they matched up the Vin number of the car with their list our car, the one that faithfully brought our kids to school morning after morning and the car that took us on excursions had been crushed.

CRUSHED. Such a painful ending for something we treated like a family member.

CRUSHED. I was hoping the dealer might have found a kindly old mechanic who loved the thought of putting a little labor of love into 'our' car for one of his grandchildren.

CRUSHED:  I was picturing this car being nurtured back to life with a newer used engine and sold to another family at a far away car dealership.

I remember clearly the day I saw that Chrysler 300M. Spring time 2002. It was shiny white and glistened on the small car lot in Eden Prairie beside highway 169. The car had that new car smell with it's black leather interior and the car of the year sticker on the back side window. The smell of leather and the sweet aroma of music wafting from the upgraded speakers was enough to 'sell' the car to my wife.

CRUSHED:  My younger kids at the time loved it because they could easily climb into the car without assistance from mom or dad.

 Once the paperwork was signed and the loan was approved the 300 M became our car. Memories of our car began accumulating like the interest on the money in the mutual fund.

Car sales managers told me that there are a lot of emotions when someone trades their car. Like watching a movie they retrace every scene they had with that car. Car managers tell me that people hang onto their cars longer than they should.

The question becomes, should I toss good money to fix a old car when eventually the car will die, or would I better off trading it for something of value?

Like a movie trailer I watch the scenes of our car over again believing we could have just a few more years with this trusted 'family' member who gave us so many memories.

Hearing those words 'your car was crushed yesterday' was akin to hearing the doctor say 'we couldn't save her'. 

CRUSHED: The finality of those words with no turning back. 

A car is not a person, but yet still conjures up similar emotions; especially when that car was the last connection you had with the memory of the child who died. 

Memories you struggle to hang onto. Memories you hope would never end like a train getting smaller in the horizon before disappearing.

Finally, I asked the Salvage yard owner what happens to cars that had been crushed? He said they are placed on a flatbed and sent to a company that makes rebar and then he a added ' some day your car will become the supports in a new building or bridge as though that would give me comfort.

CRUSHED. Time  to say goodbye and create new memories with the next car, or as my really young son once said to one of our other cars that faced the same demise 'bye bye car'.

50 Shades of Silence and the devastation it can have on our recovery from grief

6 When Jesus saw him lying there, knowing that he had already been there a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”7 The sick man answered him, “Sir,[b] I don’t have anyone who can put me in the water when it is stirred up. When I’m trying to get to it, someone else has gotten in ahead of me.”8 Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” 9 Immediately the man was well, and he picked up his mat and walked. Now that day was the Sabbath. John 5:6-8

No, this isn't a movie review of that current movie that was trending over the Valentine's weekend.

  I was thinking of lamp shades.

Every store that sells shades sell a variety of them . Depending on how much light you want to diffuse into the room  you are trying to design. Some rooms want just a little light, enough to set the mood of the room. Other rooms cry out for  a lot of light.  Whatever the light dimension you are desiring there is a lamp shade to help. 

As I wrote this blog post I am reminded by the numbers of people who sit in silence with long forgotten stories within, long forgotten by the person who knew that person, but stories that still linger in the inner soul of that person.  Stories that bring back images of the battle field, images of the loss, traumatic images of the loved one who died seemingly linger  on in the imagination of the person living their loss.

" Are you still dealing with that?", said one person to a grieving widow, " You should be over that by now--like it has been a year since he died."  It seems only in the American culture do we try to get people to bury their grief before they are even ready to let it go.

"The war is long since over," says one to a long suffering veteran. "The world is at peace and it is time to forget about the past."

Like the store that sells shades we try to get the person to completely cover up their pain source with no possibility of helping that person recover fully from their pain.

I learned first hand that the only way I was able to travel this road of traumatic loss ( think EMT's, ambulance, calling the time of death) was to journal my pain and talk to others, willing to listen, about that pain. I also learned that reading my bible and consistently attending a worship service each Sunday at a local church was the only way I was going to recover from those images.

For me, attending Church was the one constant I had before my loss and it was the one constant I had after it. Church was a source of comfort and gave me the hope of where my loved was presently lives.

16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16
 Before the tragic loss of our loved one, I must admit,  I was more concern with the petty things in church: whether my needs were being met by what our Pastor taught.   After the loss it was though my soul had been soften ready to fully absorb what the Pastor would say to me from the pulpit.

I remembered not longer after our loss talking to a friend who was more self absorbed by the petty things of the church telling me all the things that were wrong with the current state of the church, but I on the other hand saw none of the things this man saw for where we were at this particular season of our grief looked forward to this Pastor's teaching with pages upon pages of tightly written sermon notes.  I have learned from my journey that brokenness opens up a small crack in heaven and gives us for one brief moment a glimpse of heaven and helps us to see life in the holy scriptures we hold in our hand.

In the case of recovering from grief and sorrow silence is not golden.  Sharing our pain with others willing to listen begins the healing process. I learned from Chris Kyle's story that his accuracy with the gun saved thousands of American lives.  His comrades knew that this sniper was watching their backs.

  Isn't it time for us to watch each others backs when traumatic grief enters their lives. The only way to help them recover from those traumatic images is to sit with them in the muck and mire of their grief until they have told their story so many times that it no longer haunts them in their dreams.

God wants us to recover from our emotional losses and help us to live and thrive. As your recovery takes place you will be given the capacity to help others overcome their pain.  Learning to share our pain, not burying it, is the beginning of learning to live again.

Sudden traumatic losses doesn't have to be the defining moment of your life

28 “Come to me, all you who are struggling hard and carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest. 29 Put on my yoke, and learn from me. I’m gentle and humble. And you will find rest for yourselves. 30 My yoke is easy to bear, and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30

I love movies with happy endings. Movies are a way  of escaping, momentarily, the ills of the world we live in. As kids we came out of these movies desiring to become the hero we just watched. 'We are Marshall' is a true story about a winning football team suddenly crashing into a nearby field stunning the town that had just turned out to celebrate with them prior to take off.

'We are Marshall' is a reminder of the impact that traumatic and sudden losses can have on the entire community and why we must not try to bury this type of grief.   As the surrounding community was plunged into sorrow there was the sense that football would never again be played at Marshall, because the university did not want to open the door of ripe old emotional wounds as people started comparing the new with the old team that died.

'We are Marshall' illustrates the powerful impact that institutional grief can have when traumatic events happen in schools, in homes and businesses around us.

 It is a reason why institutions should  have a crisis management plan just in case the unthinkable happens. Studies have shown, for example, that when a student dies the impact of that loss goes far beyond the immediate family of that child. When classmates are not allowed to process their own feelings of loss associated with their classmate, a profound sense of depression settles in over the learning that goes on in that school. Kids are thrust into just getting through the day rather than trying to maximize their learning. Survival, not self actualizing, becomes their focal point.

The same thing occurs in the business world.  After a workplace shooting in Minneapolis which took the life of the business owner and many others such profound grief enveloped the business community that it momentarily interrupted the flow of production within that business.

Schools and businesses must have a crisis management plan that includes the use of stand by grief and loss professionals to come on board to help support the students and employees impacted by this profound grief. You might think this sounds like common sense, but it really isn't; not when you understand that in America there is this thinking that burying one's grief  is the solution to getting over it. 

Grief doesn't  work that way. It is a skill equally as important as learning to drive a car,asking a girl out on a date, and filling out job applications because  grief is the general theme of this life and unless we learn to navigate it  'old' grief wounds will be re-opened as new grief surfaces.

It isn't just schools and businesses that are profoundly impacted by institutional grief. It also impacts our medical community with the rising number of suicides among our  brilliant medical professionals. Several years ago I discovered this first hand when a good friend, a surgeon, took his life. He was profoundly impacted the loss of some of his  patients that ending his life was the only solution to escape the inner pain he was in.

Lastly, learning to navigate grief is akin to learning how to surf the waves of an ocean. In the beginning we may keep falling off the board as the waves knock us off, but with plenty of practice we learn to get back on the board and steady ourselves for the ride.  As we learn to move through the emotions of grief we will develop valuable tools that will aid our survival and help us thrive as each wave of grief hits us.

 Finally, we have a Savior who desires to walk with us when the unthinkable happens to those we knew and loved. This Savior has the uncanny ability not only to carry our loved one home, but to also walk with the rest of us as we travel through the emotions of that loss. 

The death of someone doesn't have to be the defining moment of your life, but like a marathon runner crossing the finish line it will be the moment that makes you stronger!