Healing the Broken Heart: A Beacon of Hope for the Bereaved

By James Ray Ashurst Ph. D.

The author has lived in the northeastern Georgia mountains for thirty years. After nine years as a teacher in Florida, he moved to Georgia where he became a school counselor for twenty-five years. He has also been a private clinical therapist for forty-eight years. His purpose in writing this book is to be a lifeline through reaching out to others.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jul 30, 2018
• ISBN: 9781973634621

James Ray Ashurst Ph. D.

All of us have experienced the death of a significant person. The journey to healing can be lonely at times. This book discusses such kinds of death. Also, the book tells you how to cope and to adjust to the deaths of a loved one. Dr. Ashurst understands the tremendous grief and pain involving losses as he writes from his own personal experiences. Each person must travel through the grieving process in ones own way and time line. This book will help.

Book preview

Copyright © 2018 James Ray Ashurst, Ph. D..

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

Scripture references from The Scofield Reference Bible, Copyright © 1909, 1917; copyright renewed 1937, 1945 by Oxford university Press, Inc

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

1 [phone]

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-9736-3461-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-3460-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-3462-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018908448

WestBow Press rev. date: 07/24/2018

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1 Death and the Parkers

Chapter 2 What Not to Say

Chapter 3 Death In A Family

Chapter 4 Traumatic Death

Chapter 5 Love Everlasting

Chapter 6 Death of a Parent

Chapter 7 Death of a Spouse

Chapter 8 Death of a Child

Chapter 9 Death and the Funeral

Chapter 10 The Love of a Friend

Chapter 11 The Grieving Process

Chapter 12 The Journey to Recovery

Bibliography

How we walk with the broken speaks louder than how we sit with the great.

—Tobymac

This book is dedicated to

all those who call me Friend

Acknowledgments

I am indebted to these three ladies who gave up their time to proofread this manuscript:

Carolyn Baker

Jackie Frakes

Sandy Slee

The phenomenal cover of this book was created by a genius of photography, Chris Hefferen.

If you were drawn to the cover, the credit entirely belongs to him.

Introduction

The deaths of both my parents were unexpected, and thus, a tremendous shock in my life. My seemingly perfect life came to a piercing, screeching, gut-wrenching halt. Life, as I knew it, was no longer copasetic. It was far from it. Temporarily, it became a world of confusion, unbelief, and horrific sadness.

To me at the time, it seemed as if the world was spinning out of control, and I was in the midst of the chaos. My rational thinking was labored, and I was on an emotional roller coaster—a scary and unsure ride.

My loving mother was the first to succumb to death, and then just a few years later, unwelcomed death knocked loudly and snatched my wonderful father. On that dreadful day, my brother and I became adult orphans.

Of the two deaths, the unique one was that of my mom. An extraordinary experience and eye-opening life lesson took place for me after the funeral service, on the way to the grave site service.

Rationally, I knew that life didn’t stop for others just because one had suffered the death of a loved one. I knew it in my alert mind. It’s the emotions that didn’t coincide with the mentality.

On the way to my mother’s grave site, traffic was as normal as it usually was on any ordinary day. People had errands to do or appointments to keep. Traffic was congested.

Being in a funeral procession, vehicles in all directions stopped to give us priority. The individuals were demonstrating the utmost respect. Once we had passed, the cars sped on their way to various destinations. One would have assumed that I would have been pleased, but I wasn’t. At that moment, I was far from it.

Sitting in the car, I wanted a complete halt of everyone who was walking by and every vehicle that had begun to move to come to a standstill. Did those people not know who was being buried? Did they not comprehend what I was enduring? How dare they get on with life?

Furthermore, I was actually becoming angry. No longer was I focusing on the horrible death of my beloved mother but rather on the supposed insensitivity of the nearby population.

What brought me out of my irrational self-absorption was a complete stranger in a sheriff uniform. While still perturbed, I gazed out the car window and saw the gentleman, directing traffic. As our procession passed by, he removed his hat and held it tightly to his chest—a loving respect for my mom.

The idea of never hearing my mother’s voice of pure sweetness, like honey, was overwhelmingly traumatic for me. Just a month before, when I was with her, she looked frail but certainly not a welcomed visitor at the threshold of death.

36344.png

What God does is not always immediately evident to human eyes.

—John Claypool

36351.png

And then several years later, my dad followed. Still another voice that would never reverberate in sentences or songs. His deep voice resonated on a perfect pitch level. His base voice was melodious.

Being an adult orphan can be difficult to absorb into one’s thinking processes— a strange awareness of being left all alone to maneuver life without one’s mighty heroes. The mind becomes confused and twisted as to the absenteeism of those who once were, the emotions hit painfully hard like waves against the mighty cliffs, and the physical still longs to see one more glimpse of the missing persons.

No thoughtful sentiments or benevolent actions or sentimental gestures can even approach the hem of the garment of comfort. I felt an excruciating loss, mixed with a horrific sadness of the highest intensity that reaches the very depths of a person’s soul that seems at the time inconsolable.

Individuals who have experienced similar grief-stricken events can readily identify the bombardment of raw grief and are not the same person as before. The death of a significant family member, young or elderly, changes the dynamics of the entire family system and involves each and every family individual.

The most intriguing mystery that has perplexed the very essence of mankind is the swirling dynamics surrounding death and its aftermath. Theologians have expounded on an assortment of the varied possibilities of spirituality, philosophers have issued forth thought-provoking proposals, worthy scholars have submitted years of their long-suffering days of their diligent research to interpret centuries of scripture regarding death, and the curiosity of the man on the street has tried to conjure up some reasonable amount of elucidation that can satisfy one’s ever-persisting curiosity.

Simply speaking, many years ago, it had to jolt family members and friends when the very first Death took place. At the time, humans did not know such a phenomenon could occur. At that moment in time, a specific person was taking in oxygen for sustainable breathing, exhaling out the colorless and odorless carbon dioxide in order to successfully complete the cycle of life, and then quite inexplicably, Boom! the individual became part of an unexplainable form of no communication—Death.

Survivor—a person who has survived an ordeal or great misfortune.

—Webster’s New World College Dictionary

1

Death and the Parkers

It was a quiet evening. A soft snowfall covered the ground, and no one was seen on the streets because of the frigid temperatures. The Christmas holidays had finally begun. Beautiful decorations made neighborhoods look festive, and Christmas trees, outside and inside of the homes, paved the way for a joyous celebration of the season.

However, when the doorbell chimed unexpectedly at 108 Chestnut Street, the world of the Parkers changed instantly and forever. When Mrs. Parker opened the door, an army officer and an army chaplain were standing at attention, with faces of regret and sadness. The joyous celebrations, that the neighbors of the Parkers were experiencing, fell flat and empty in the living room of Mom and Dad Parker on that cold, snowy December night.

36358.png

Their son, Joey, had wanted to be in the military since arriving