Goodbye Mom. I’ll Always Love You
~ An Interactive Keepsake Journal for children whose mothers have died and adults who want to help them.
Pamela L. Chubbuck Ph.D
Interview and Book Review by Marie-Claire Wilson
MCW: This book touched me. What motivated you to write this book?
PC: I have been involved in assisting people with the process they go through around death and dying for over 35 years. In the early 1970s I was a counselor/educator at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington DC and helped family deal with death as well as taught medical students about death and dying. I have long known that people need help dealing with death and through that job I learned a lot and discovered I was very good at helping with this difficult life issue.
Six years ago the wife of one of my best friends was in a car accident. Their 11 year old daughter, I’ll call Susan, is my special friend too. I learned that Mom was on a respirator and not expected to recover. I immediately flew out to be with them and to assist as best I could with their shock, grief, and the decision making I knew they would soon face.
It was a wrenching experience for the family and I felt honored and humbled to be part of their deep process.
When I left, I looked for books that would continue to help Susan and her father. I discovered that either the books were very narrowly religious or psychological in content lacking a wider spiritual base. Susan was being brought up to think for herself and have an expansive view of life. She needed something different, something that spoke to her psychological, physical, and spiritual needs. So I sat down and wrote her a letter. I later realized that many kids need help in getting through the death process and that letter to Susan became the basis of Goodbye Mom. I’ll Always Love You.
MCW: For a child to lose a mother is truly an emotional tragedy. You give some really great suggestions for healing. Tell me about the results you have seen from your advice.
PC: Everything I do is holistic in nature. The suggestions in my book show the integrative approach that I believe is necessary for true healing to occur. I speak to the child and to the care giver in terms that include the body, emotions, mind and spirit and suggest ways to work on all the known levels of being. When the entire human spectrum is addressed properly healing occurs. The results for children using this approach are excellent. It works for adults addressing death and other traumatic life experiences as well. Children using this approach are able to eventually become healthy. That is to feel their feelings, feel OK about themselves, and grow up to be open loving adults. The contrast is that kids and adults, who do not take an integrative approach to healing from traumatic events in childhood, continue to have difficulty into adulthood. This difficulty may take the shape of physical illness, depression, anxiety, anger, and other neurotic, behaviors.
MCW: Death is an intricate subject for adults. As the ultimate mystery, it’s impossible to truly understand. Is talking about death to children harmful in any way to them?
PC: I like that you call death the ultimate mystery. It certainly is a mystery and I think that children can be invited to participate in the open pondering of that mystery at an early age. The first moment an infant notices a dead ant for example, or that most birds fly except the one he sees dead on the ground, starts the child’s unconscious dialogue about life and death. It is good to begin to help make that dialogue conscious early on so it is simply part of the cycle we know as life and death. Later small children are exposed to hundreds of deaths on television and movies. I think children should be shielded from seeing and hearing violence and death on television because that can be harmful in many ways. It is frightening, unreal, confusing, sometimes horrifying. It creates a distortion. Death in it’s reality of every day life, is something we all must face sooner or later. Children have much more consciousness about these “unknowable” things than most of us realize. That is why I stress that children should always be asked - what you think happened to your mom when she died? Where do you think she is she now? There is never any harm talking to a child about death in a loving, kind, open hearted way that is age appropriate. You must obviously talk to a 5 year old differently that you talk to a 15 year old.
MCW: You speak about when the mother dies and the father must become mother, too, while still grieving. Is it difficult for children, who are naturally intuitively, to know that the father is also in pain? What are your suggestions for that?
PC: A father can never be father and mother too. A father can never take the place of a mother. He should not try. He must just be himself. However we know that a father suddenly taking on full emotional and physical responsibility for his child/ren is under a lot of strain, especially if he has just lost his wife and lover. Most children will know that Dad is sad, hurting and having a hard time even if unconsciously. It may frighten the child more if Dad tries to hide it by putting up a false front and not talking about his own feelings. Dad and child should share their grief.
MCW: After the death of the mother, the child may become angry at the whole world and even rebellious, creating consequences and behavior patterns that can affect his or her adult personality. What are your suggestions for this situation?
PC: Be real and kind with the child. Don’t make up stories to gloss over death, but tell stores about death that will be useful. Help the child open up. Tell your child how you felt when your mother died…or grandmother. If you have yet to experience death of a parent tell what you imagine you will feel when your mother dies. Or father, friends. Ask what the child thinks and feels and keep the conversation going for years. For as long as the child seems to need - and that could over a lifetime. Don’t pretend that no one is angry or tell kids not to be angry – or that anger is bad. Anger is a human emotion and must be acknowledged and dealt with. If children are allowed to express their anger appropriately they do not have to hold it in where it will smolder until it finally bursts into flames and burns down the house. Sometimes literally! Get professional help for yourself and your child when needed.
MCW: Personal question: Do you believe in reincarnation?
PC: “The Great Mystery is too vast for the human mind to comprehend.” My father said that often. He was very much against any kind of religious dogma and one of the most spiritual men I have known. That said - I am conscious of what seem like memories of past lives.
MCW: Give me an example of a child who has lost his or her mother and who has had a constructive grieving experience.
PC: Forest, (not his real name) was left without his mother at age 8. His father and grandparents were very open with him both in explaining his mother’s illness and her impending death to him. They encouraged him to talk about his thoughts and feelings both before and after his mother passed on. They hugged, shared their grief, cried together sometimes and knew that anger was a natural part of grieving. The family took my advice and created a ritual that they continued for several months and then each year to commemorate Forest’s Mom.
Years later when Forest’s dad re-married they still held a ceremony for his biological mother each year. His step mother did not try to take the place of his mother but did love him well. Forest grew to be an open, happy college student who loved sports and got good grades. He is still sad sometimes about his mother’s death but that does not stop him from living a good well balanced life.
What if you or someone you know did not have a healthy grieving experience? It may never be too late to move through old stuck held energy about the death of a mother. A women I’ll call Pat, came to me at age 35 with serious physical manifestations of suppressed grief that had taken her to the hospital on several occasions. Pat’s mother died when Pat was 12. Pat’s family never talked about Mom’s death and did not allow Pat to grieve. After just a few sessions of expressing deep grief and anger all of her physical symptoms disappeared.
MCW: Death for me is transition. How do you describe death in all its complexity?
PC: Death is certainly a transition, but a transition from what to what? Death, like life is a great adventure. I can’t describe death in all its complexity because it is a Great Mystery. I think like religion – which tries to sometimes explain death with stories, metaphors, and myths, death is a conversation that one must have with oneself throughout life. Or lives perhaps. Religion is a search for truth. It is not being told what to think as truth and then trying to get others to believe it too. That is dogma. True religion is the wholehearted, perhaps fervent, continuation of the search.
————————————————————————————-
“Goodbye Mom I’ll Always Love You, is integrative, soul-filled, spiritual psychology at its best. A long time leader in the holistic field and a true healer, Pam generously shares her clear, open hearted wisdom and leads you and your child step by step through the most painful terrain. Absolutely, share this book with the bereaved kids you love!”~ Candace Pert PhD, Author of Molecules of Emotion and Everything You Need to Know to Feel Go(o)d, Chief Science Officer, Rapid Laboratories
Pamela Chubbuck PhD, Ordained Interfaith Minister, is an internationally known psychotherapist with over 35 years of experience working with individuals and families, including kids whose mothers died. Pam trains psychotherapists internationally, is director of Core Energetics South, and maintains a private practice in Holistic Psychotherapy in Atlanta Metro area. Visit www.GoodbyeMomBook.org Call Pam at 770-388-0086
Marie-Claire
Marie-Claire Wilson, author of The Spiritual Tarot: The Keys to The Divine Temple, is a bilingual writer and poet. She has been a practicing medium for 28 years using direct clairvoyance, the Tarot, numerology and palmistry. Office in Washington DC. To make an appointment for a phone reading call toll-free: 1-877-847-7330.
Click here to visit my web site www.marie-claire.tv
Click here to link to Oracle 20/20 where article is published.