A Journey Through the Darkness: A Story of Grief Recovery After the Death of My Daughter

By Frank Goulet

The ramblings of a man still on a journey through the darkness created by the loss of his only child to opioids. This story is filled with the recovery of grief, the signs and symbols seen along the way, and the drive to develop a life worthy of seeing her again in the afterlife. Taking the stuff that happens to us and working to carry it along in the character of his being. A unique story with emotional heart felt writing. Just a guy, his loving and best friend in marriage of forty years, and how they worked together to manage life without their beautiful daughter.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: May 19, 2020
• ISBN: 9781698701356

Book preview

Contents

Prologue

Your Grief is Not My Grief

Beginning with The End

Looking Everywhere for Answers

Into A Spiral

Discovering Light

Damage Assessment

Starting Over as A Texan

Soaring with Eagles

Let’s All Remember (The Date)

Fatherly Advice (Line Em Up)

Did You Know (More About Steph)

Carry it But Don’t Haul it (Baggage)

Thirteen is A Lucky Number (Make Our Own Luck)

Pandemic

What Can I Say? The Last Pages

To Sharon, the most forgiving, loving, kind hearted person

I know. My BFF, my lover, my wife. I am honored that she

calls me her husband. I’m not just saying that either.

In Memory of Stephanie. Even though she is gone from here, we

will work daily in order to see her again in the Glorious Afterlife.

A special note of thanks to Sharon for her endless reading of

drafts, correcting, editing, and the incredible inspiration she gave

me to finish this mess of a story. I love you with all my heart.

Also to Ann Fuller for keeping my punctuation, over

use of the word well, and usage of colons in check.

PROLOGUE

O n the day we received a phone call and heard the Massachusetts State Police Officer tell us our daughter died we felt a darkness cover our souls like no other darkness we had ever experienced. This darkness had physical form. The pain is as real as it gets. Our 22 year old only child was pronounced dead, and her body was going to a morgue for an autopsy. Think on that a for few seconds and let the words pronounced dead settle. This book is my way of continuing on the journey through the darkness that this one short telephone call produced.

Nothing prepares us for the loss of a child. Nothing can compare or at least in my humble opinion, there was no experience in my life as devastating. Our minds simply won’t allow us to imagine what it must be like. That’s probably because that kind of darkness can’t be imagined. It is better that way. Believe me!

Stuff happens to us all. It’s not what happens to us, but what we do about what happens that makes the difference. Throughout my life from the time of my earliest memories it was filled with with loving, caring, and very Roman Catholic parents. I had pretty darn good siblings too. In fact, Sharon has often said: Ok Beave, meaning I lived in a Leave It to Beaver TV show kind of home growing up. Hers was very different. Well, anyhow, I have experienced the stuff that happens. Loss is part of the stuff. My Grand-mère (Mémé) Pronounced:[Mem Ay] is an example of that kind of loss that gets categorized as the STUFF.

I was 17 and stopped by her retirement living home after school pretty much everyday throughout my high school years. We played Canasta, and she always had cookies that I was not supposed to have before dinner, but somehow there was always a few warm cookies and milk during cards. One day during school I was asked to go to the principals office. This by the way, was not an uncommon event. Heck, I think they had my home phone on speed dial. This time a family member was there, so I knew I was in big trouble. Turns out, they didn’t want me to walk over to her home that afternoon because Mémé died in her sleep. I felt that loss come over my body and wasn’t sure how to handle it. Thankfully my Mémé and parents taught us to believe in Christ and the salvation He promises. It doesn’t make the pain from her loss any lighter, but it does help me to know I’ll see her again and who knows, maybe I’ll actually win at Canasta once. She was what the players in our family called a pack picker because she always picked up the discard pack and then went out to win. Gosh I miss her.

We deal with loss all the time. Changing schools from elementary to junior high, to high school, to a move from out of our childhood homes, to the loss of a pet, and so on, and so on. It accumulates and can compound like interest in the bank. What we do, who we speak with, and how we manage through the darkness that pulls over us, is what makes us the character we are in this play called life. Are you the lead or are you a tree in your play? We have to have trees, and flowers, and actors with lines, but I prefer to be the lead. I am the instigator, the leader, the one who can be a pied piper or so I’ve been called. I can make others who think they are leaders a bit nervous if I am not simply ready to follow them blindly and without question. I have discovered how to have more political savvy with my questioning of other leaders, especially in business. That turn the other cheek thing we learned as kids has caused me some recent discomfort, but it is truly a better way.

This book is about my journey through the darkness. A darkness that consumed me. Almost beat