{"id":13274,"date":"2014-09-16T13:31:42","date_gmt":"2014-09-16T20:31:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.momservations.com\/?p=13274"},"modified":"2014-09-16T13:31:42","modified_gmt":"2014-09-16T20:31:42","slug":"facebook-a-suprising-life-ring-in-a-mothers-ocean-of-grief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/momservations.com\/index.php\/2014\/09\/16\/facebook-a-suprising-life-ring-in-a-mothers-ocean-of-grief\/","title":{"rendered":"Facebook: A Suprising Life Ring in a Mother’s Ocean of Grief"},"content":{"rendered":"

Momservation: <\/strong>No mother has a child to spare.<\/p>\n

\u263a\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u263a\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u263a<\/p>\n

\"Wyatt<\/a>
Wyatt Bredell, 15 yrs, forever the heartbeat in his mother and father’s hearts.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I had been avoiding Facebook because sometimes you just get tired of too much information, feeling obligated to wish someone happy birthday, like their status, or act like you care about another picture of some fringe friend\u2019s food.<\/p>\n

But of course, I got sucked back in like I always do. Only this time the first status I saw didn\u2019t make me roll my eyes or scroll quickly down in disinterest.<\/p>\n

It clenched my heart and punched me in the gut, sick with sorrow for a virtual stranger I claimed as a friend on Facebook.<\/p>\n

A girl I had last spoken to in high school or maybe a reunion (and whom I still related to as the girl I knew instead of the woman she became), was reeling from the sudden and tragic loss of her 15 year-old son.<\/p>\n

Suddenly it didn\u2019t matter that I didn\u2019t really know her anymore despite the years of Facebook status updates coloring in who she\u2019d become and making me voyeuristically familiar with her life and family.<\/p>\n

She was a mother who lost her child. She was someone who was seeking the comfort of Facebook friends, gasping for something, anything to help her breathe again. And I wanted to help her as if she were my very best friend\u2014because in this sorority of motherhood, even a relative stranger\u2019s pain becomes your pain when the unthinkable happens.<\/p>\n

How did he die?<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t matter. When you lose a child, as my mother has\u2014giving me a front row seat to life\u2019s cruelest blow, the \u201chow\u201d doesn\u2019t become about what happened. It becomes about how to carry on. How to survive. How to make the hollow pain that threatens to consume you from the inside out, just for one second let you catch your breath. It becomes about how to keep finding the will to live in a world that doesn\u2019t include your beating heart anymore.<\/p>\n

In a heart wrenching reversal I became instantly appreciative for Facebook. At her lowest point, Amy was reaching out to this forum to find strength from a collective of random friends\u2014old, new, fringe, fake, genuine, loyal, colleagues, neighbors, family, congregation, community\u2014made in her 43 years of walking this life.<\/p>\n

And this community responded with heartwarming love, support, prayers, kind words and kind gestures; desperate to prop this woman up in her darkest hour of need no matter what their relationship to her had been or was.<\/p>\n

My heart recoiled in horror when I briefly allowed myself to step into Amy\u2019s reality. I could not even for a nanosecond imagine such a fate for my own nearly 15 year-old son without feeling like I was being buried alive. And yet, here was Amy: Liking each and every outreach of support. Posting pictures of her beloved, handsome, the-world-at-his-feet son; Pictures of her family as she would always see it\u2014with Wyatt in it. Posting pictures from her son Stuart\u2019s graduation from Navy A-school despite having to immediately leave to go bury another son\u2014so achingly painful a reality that despite it seeming impossible, life still does go on. Giving a painfully raw Facebook status update both eloquent and devastating:<\/p>\n

\u201cChicago skies have now opened up to cry tears of heaven with me for my beautiful boy Wyatt Bredell<\/a>. I am headed home to a world I no longer understand, to a reality I can\u2019t accept, to a void that will never be filled. I don\u2019t want to come home because the nightmare will be real. Thank you for your love, prayers, and kind words.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

For the first time in a long time I loved Facebook for what it was giving this old acquaintance of mine: a life ring. It didn\u2019t matter the make-up of this database of people or how she collected them. All that mattered was that Amy was reaching out, drowning in her ocean of grief, and a Facebook army created one big arm to reach back to try and keep her afloat.<\/p>\n

\"Vigil
Vigil for Wyatt Bredell facilitated by Facebook<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I cannot stop thinking about Amy and her family and their torturous road ahead. All of us who have left words of support on her Facebook page know that though it eases our heartache for her, there is nothing that can stop her and her family\u2019s devastated sorrow. But since it seems to give her a measure of comfort to see this outpouring of love and support, all we can do is try.<\/p>\n

If you would like to become part of the army of Facebook friends trying to be Amy Ruefenacht Callahan\u2019s <\/a>life ring of support in her ocean of grief for her son Wyatt Bredell<\/a>, please share this story. Let her see that though we didn\u2019t know her son, we didn\u2019t need to to know his life mattered and that he will be missed. No mother has a child to spare and her pain is our pain.<\/p>\n

#RipWyattBredell<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Facebook stops becoming annoying and becomes a life ring of support for a mother struggling with the sudden loss of her son.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":13275,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1460,1271,294,2,86,3,1066,5,6,1075,1461,1462,1463],"class_list":["post-13274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-parenting-2","tag-amy-ruefenacht-callahan","tag-best-mom-blogs","tag-facebook","tag-family","tag-kelli-wheeler","tag-kids","tag-loss-of-a-child","tag-momservations","tag-parenting","tag-surviving-grief","tag-surviving-the-loss-of-a-child","tag-the-positive-side-of-facebook","tag-wyatt-bredell"],"yoast_head":"\nFacebook: A Suprising Life Ring in a Mother's Ocean of Grief - Kelli M. 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