Comments on: Family Secrets

By: Keith Lockwood

Keith Lockwood — Thu, 15 Oct 2020 03:12:03 +0000

https://drkeithlockwood.medium.com/genealogy-dual-citizenship-n-y-mafioso-and-the-murder-of-my-great-aunt-claudia-de27cb576f5a

By: Carla Vornheder

Carla Vornheder — Sun, 27 Sep 2020 22:52:40 +0000

I have spent a lifetime trying to kill myself. I’m ashamed of that. I was told years ago that survivors of my suicide if I did manage to finally do it might have a harder time than I was having. My suicide would be a way of telling my family that I believed there were some things God couldn’t handle. In the covenant that God spelled out to Moses, God described the results that would occur if we embraced life and the results of embracing death as a lifestyle. Suicide is a way to embrace death. It impacts others, teaching them that death is better than life. Should it be kept a secret? No, because secrets always come out. I have mixed feelings. Secrets are certainly harmful when kept hidden, but some truths should maybe not be shared with everyone or especially people who don’t have the strength to handle them. As a person who was in therapy since I was 14, I always had the feeling that there must be terrible things that were hidden by my family. When I got in and explored things though, the actual secrets were not as terrible as I had expected them to be. Sometimes when people are all broken up over something, they may not feel able to share some things. Secrets are not necessarily terrible. But they should be handled like dynamite, very deliberately.

By: Laura Warfel

Laura Warfel — Tue, 15 Sep 2020 15:09:42 +0000

My Uncle Charlie was murdered when I was 16. Our family lived in a small town where murder didn’t happen. My Mom and Dad were honest with us about his death, but I was unable to process my personal grief until I was an adult because murder was such an unbelievable reality to me.

By: Karen Watson

Karen Watson — Tue, 15 Sep 2020 09:11:08 +0000

So many relished the scandal of our Archbishop’s parentage when it came out. But his response, and forgiveness, were exemplary. As was the crystal gold of his declaration:-

” I know that I find who I am in Jesus Christ, not in genetics, and my identity in him never changes. ”

He who is Truth can handle truth. God bless all.

https://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/news/latest-news/news-archive-2016/archbishop-justin-welbys-statement-his-father

By: MKR

MKR — Sat, 12 Sep 2020 01:16:31 +0000

I learned after my parents’ deaths that my beloved saintly grandmother, the only grandparent I knew, was 4 months pregnant when she married my grandfather. She was 18, my grandfather 21. Early 1900’s.Their firstborn son born 5 months after their marriage tragically was killed at age 3. My mother told me that my grandmother had told her that this was the only thing in her long and very hard deprived life that she never could put behind her. I finally understood, at least I think so. It was good for me to know this about my grandmother, because I have guilt about sins and mistakes made in my youth, and I had been so upset with my own children for their sins and mistakes made in their youth. By seeing that my very devout grandmother also sinned and made mistakes when she was young, yet she still was a holy woman, I can better accept that I, and my children, are on a similar path as she. “We ALL have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” But praise be to God that He can make good even out of our mess-ups. And the good may be a few generations later when a grandchild learns that if even saintly Grandma can mess up royally, and still be a woman of grace and faith, so can I.

By: Jude DiMeglio Trang

Jude DiMeglio Trang — Thu, 10 Sep 2020 01:17:52 +0000

David & Philip,
Thank you for having this dialogue on the blog – it is so timely and important. The Opioid Epidemic is raging even stronger as Covid19 brings hardship to many marginalized communities. As David Such mentioned in his comment, the loss of our son pressed us into action. We knew that if we were ashamed of his death we would shame him instead of honoring his life and the struggle he had to be clean and sober. I turned our grief journal, kept daily for a year, into our memoir with the hope of bringing awareness to the opioid epidemic, to comfort the millions of other parents like us, and to help parents of the young people who are just growing up learn ways for their kids to avoid becoming addicted in the first place. The book shares our personal grief journey, our family background and genetics, societal pitfalls, resources and ends with Stories of Hope from three young friends who are clean and sober after many years. It is now available in eBook & paperback on all platforms & bookstores. Thank you again!

By: David Such

David Such — Tue, 08 Sep 2020 21:44:52 +0000

David and Philip – thank you for sharing this. We have friends who lost their 25-year-old son to a heroin overdose after battling drug addiction for a decade. True to their character, they chose the tell-all approach, and wrote their painful story in an award-winning book, “Opiate Nation – A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Acceptance” (https://opiatenation.com/) that has been helpful to those struggling as well as to those who have had losses. I will send Jude & John a link to this post. Thanks again.

By: Tom King

Tom King — Mon, 24 Aug 2020 15:37:55 +0000

We are all purchased for salvation, burdened and not in this world. In the next world there are no burdens.

By: Carrol Grady

Carrol Grady — Mon, 24 Aug 2020 02:44:41 +0000

I am writing a family history for my children and grandchildren. My youngest son is gay, but ended up dealing with it by marrying a woman, and they have three fine young sons. It’s hard to know how to deal with this in my family history. I sense he would prefer not to mention it, but it affected all of us. Before he decided to get married I had become an all-out supporter of LGBTs and still am. We are also supportive of his decision to get married. I feel it is important to casually mention it, in case someone else in the family has to deal with this someday.

By: Martin Bowie

Martin Bowie — Mon, 24 Aug 2020 00:32:51 +0000

Thank you, Phillip, for allowing David Bannon to be your guest blogger. I never knew my father and my mother was paranoid-schizophrenic:-( When I was 13 yr. and 10 mo. old, my mother was put into a mental institution. Then my aunt, my mother’s sister and her husband took my brother and me into their home. My aunt was also paranoid-schizophrenic:-( Then, unexplicably, I had to be treated for deep depression with electroconvulsive treatments as an outpatient from about 2007 to 2011. Once I stopped taking my depression medicine due to my family’s stigma, and I became zombie-like. Not all Christians “get me.” who were raised in a two-family, loving home!