Chapter 3: The process of mourning

In recognition of National Crime Victims Rights Week, Appleseed is sharing a series of blog posts on grief, trauma, loss, and healing by our Community Navigator, Callie Greer. Callie is a powerful voice for survivors in Alabama. Based on her own experiences losing two children, working through grief, finding forgiveness, and passing on her life’s lessons to others, Callie has been a catalyst for healing. Her wisdom needs to be captured and shared. 

By Callie Greer,  Appleseed Community Navigator 

Greetings, pray all is well with you and yours. I’m here again to continue the conversation about my lived experiences, specifically with violent crime. My last couple of blogs were an introduction of those experiences and future blogs in this time and space, which has been proclaimed Crime Victims/Survivors Month. I previously offered a trigger warning; that offer still stands today.

Here again, I am attempting to share with you some of my journey and the different roads I have taken to reach a place of healing and peace. In the process, I’m also trying to bring others into the fold so they can share as well and offer suggestions, ideas, and actions– resources we can use to gain strength and knowledge to help us along the way. 

I am not and will never claim to be an expert in this, but who I do claim to be is a woman, mother, wife, sister, aunt, and friend who needs others I can sit and talk with who get me. A place where I don’t have to explain every reason why I’m some kind of way, or as they say nowadays, “in my feelings”. For example, April 2nd was not necessarily a special day for a lot of folks, but for some it was. For our family it was Edwin’s 32nd birthday. Edwin is my nephew who died from gun violence, and we never really got the whole truth about his death. They labeled it, “accidental self-inflicted”. That never really sat well with us; there are too many unanswered questions. This is a hard place to be in, and I don’t promise you that it will change today. But I do promise you that confronting, naming, speaking, and finding healthy ways to release your stress and emotions will bring about a better change in your life. This is a life-long process for most of us, and it requires attention early on. The longer we don’t attend to it, the more layers we have to remove.

Mourning for me was and still is, just not as often. Accepting the new reality of my loss and what that means is constant. These life-changing experiences have altered our lives in ways we never imagined and ways we still can’t quite comprehend. I have to be careful not to get caught up in the “what if’s” or the “why did it happen to me’s”, because, for me, it only creates more layers I will have to peel back later. 

Callie and her husband Greer, a strong and steady force for good as she navigates grief, mourning, and healing

Am I suggesting that we move along as if this never happened? Lord, no! We have to push forward, work through, and find that niche that gives us what we’re looking for. It’s different for all of us, but in many ways it’s the same. We all want peace, assurance, safety… some kind of guarantee that we won’t have to endure this again. That’s not something anyone can offer, but we can find peace, become motivated, and create the legacy we want for our loved one. My motto is, “Don’t waste your pain, create something terribly beautiful out of it.” Take control of your healing process. I’ve brought my husband, daughters, granddaughters, son, and other family members into my healing process, exposing them to the same experiences that I and others dedicated to this work receive. They get to take the medicine, too. Accepting the truth is powerful. Having family with me to help also creates an opening for more conversation. There have been times when we’ve had some deep and revealing conversations about our hurts where we realize our experience of the loss of our loved ones looks different– that’s part of what the peeling off the layers looks like, too.

Callie founded MAAVIS, Mothers Against All Violence in Solidarity, to bring other families in her circle of support support.

I talk with so many strong women who have endured, and are enduring, loss after loss. I pull on them for knowledge of how they are able to continue and strive after so much pain, hurt, and loss. If you want to know, you’ll have to come and see us. It looks like they go through these losses in ways we could never see ourselves, but they would be the first to tell you they weren’t always like this, that they still mourn their losses and they just found their niche– the outlets that work for them. Some paint, write poetry, cook, bake, sew, sing, and encourage others. Some make healing baskets, do outreach, start organizations, and put up with folks like me. But they each worked until they found it, and then they put it to use to help others. 

Callie Greer, the author

In my 27 plus years of mourning, I have found that helping others has been one of the strongest healing medicines; the strongest medicine I have taken is forgiveness. It has helped me through my healing process in ways you can’t imagine. It truly is, for me, a medicine for my mind, heart, body, and soul. 

Mourning and the process of mourning are necessary. If done in a healthy way, we can find it easier to move forward without feeling guilty about living a good, happy, healthy life. It doesn’t mean forgetting your loved one. We find a place in our thoughts for them that leaves room for others to be loved and valued as well. 

I’d like to leave you with a story if I can. Not long after Mercury was killed, my friend Michelle Browder took me to Atlanta, where her sister, Tracey, lived. Tracey told me she had been in her prayer closet for me daily. We attended a conference called “Woman Thou Art Loosed”. At one point, the Minister was speaking to the audience– but I felt like it was directed to me. They said, “There’s a woman here that’s carrying a dead child in the womb of her heart. But what about the living!?” I was struck. You see, I had been consumed by the loss of Mercury, overwhelmed, and guilt-ridden. But Mercury was not an only child! He had 4 other living siblings! “What about the living?” That changed things for me. 

I don’t know who needs this; maybe no one’s reading this. But just in case someone does, I’m sharing it and I’m asking: when you lost your loved one(s), did you die with them and leave your other family members? Are you still gone? I’m going to close out now and ask you to sit with this. Ask yourself some hard, real questions. Has your mourning destroyed you and others? If so, what are you going to do about it? 

I’ve got one more for you. Until then,

Mama Callie