Participants: Alanzo & June Smith
Series Code: FFH
Program Code: FFH00003A
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00:04 With each new day families are failing and homes are broken.
00:09 Marriages are threatened, fathers are absent. 00:13 Children are rebellious but all is not lost. 00:17 Homes can be healed and hearts can be mended. 00:21 Let's reclaim our Families 4 Heaven. 00:32 Thank you for watching Families 4 Heaven. 00:35 My name is Alanzo Smith and this is my wife June Smith 00:38 my co-host. 00:40 We have a very interesting topic that we are going to 00:43 talk about, Surviving the Ultimate Loss, Death. 00:48 You know, every one of you listening to this program 00:52 you have had a close relative or a friend 00:57 who passed away. 00:59 Yet death is not something that people want 01:03 to talk about. 01:05 Dr. June, why is this so? 01:09 Loss is painful and if you have ever experienced losing, 01:14 especially a family member, it is even more painful. 01:19 When you love someone you like to have them around for a 01:23 very long time. 01:25 Especially when you lose someone in a tragic situation. 01:29 Sometimes families or people just don't know what to do. 01:33 Nor how to handle it. 01:34 So for all those reasons people have difficulty talking 01:38 about death and loss. 01:40 Let's talk about some myths, about grief, because when 01:46 we talk about death, people are at different stage on 01:51 the continuum of how they handle and manage their grief. 01:56 Part of this is because of some stereo typical thinking, 02:01 myth, or mythology that exist. 02:03 For example, children grieve like adults. 02:07 What would you say to that? 02:09 I would say that is certainly a myth. 02:11 Children have different ways of grieving, in fact or a 02:15 experience in loss. 02:17 I have worked with children who you wonder if they even 02:20 understand what is going on. 02:22 I remember a story of a little girl who, after she had 02:25 lost her sister, her parents and her went shopping and 02:28 she said to her mom, let's get something for, and she named 02:31 her little sister that she just had lost. 02:33 So in her mind her sister was still in the hospital 02:35 or someplace. 02:36 So they know the person is not around and sometimes are 02:39 not sure where the person is or what death really means. 02:42 Okay, do we all grieve the same way, all deaths, 02:49 are they all alike? 02:51 Loss is painful and no not all deaths are grieved 02:56 in the same way. 02:57 For example, there are people who lose individuals who 03:01 are in a lot of pain, and they are at the end stage of 03:04 life, and they accept that this is the next step. 03:07 So the loss, or the response to that grief is not 03:11 necessarily as upsetting as losing a young child, 03:15 or losing someone unexpectedly. 03:17 So it depends on the circumstance of loss. 03:20 What if I go through my pain now and after a year or two 03:28 I am healed, does that mean I am permanently healed 03:32 from that loss? 03:34 Again people respond to loss in different ways. 03:37 But the average time that one takes to grieve clinically 03:42 it is said 24 months and sometimes 48 months. 03:45 It will take an individual to get to the point where they are 03:49 ready to move on, but people could get there much faster, 03:52 it just depends on all the supporting factors and their 03:55 psychological state and all the other things that goes 03:57 into the way they hope and handle their loss. 04:00 We have someone with us here who actually has gone 04:05 through what we are talking about. 04:08 Not in the contents of dying, but in the context of 04:11 losing a loved one. 04:13 We have Dijon Plummer, did I pronounce your name 04:19 correctly? Dijon: yes you did. 04:22 Won't you help me welcome Dijon as our guest. 04:31 we are very happy that you took the time out coming. 04:35 We know that you flew in from afar and we are very happy 04:38 that you have come spend time with us here on this 04:41 program to share your story. 04:44 Something happened to you, you are a successful, 04:49 progressive, happily married young man. 04:54 You've been married for eight years with a family of 04:58 three and life couldn't be better, it was at its best. 05:02 Talk to us about what happened. 05:06 Approximately 4 years ago, on December 21 my life 05:12 changed forever. 05:15 Alanzo: before your life change was there any thought 05:19 in your head as to what or where your life was? 05:23 Yes, actually that evening when everything happened we 05:28 were at home and some friends had come by and I was 05:33 talking to them and had said to them my life is perfect. 05:38 Our money was right, the interaction between my wife and 05:42 I was okay and the children weren't given us any problems, 05:45 everything felt like it was under control. 05:49 It felt stable, it felt safe, it was perfect. 05:56 Dr. June: and what happened? 05:59 On that evening we had a teenage son, he was 16 at the 06:07 time and he wanted to go to a party. 06:09 So I decided I was going to take him, he did not have 06:12 his drivers license at the time. 06:13 So I took him to the party and left my wife and my two 06:19 younger children at home. 06:20 When we got to the party I realized that there wasn't an 06:24 adult at the home, there were only teenagers. 06:27 I decided that I was going to stay there until the 06:33 adult came, and after she came I decided it was going 06:38 to stay there. 06:39 Alanzo: so you decided to stay there at the time? 06:40 What happened? 06:42 Dijon: we decided we were going to go back home at about 06:47 12:30, 1 o'clock and by the time we got there we realized 06:53 the roads were blocked and the police were there. 06:55 I had left my phone in the car and when I went back there 07:00 I realized I had missed about 20 calls. 07:03 Alanzo: 20 calls. 07:05 Of course when I tried to return the calls the person I 07:08 spoke to just said come home, come home. 07:11 Nobody would tell me exactly what was going on. 07:13 It was not until we got close to the house I realized 07:16 that my brother was there, which was strange. 07:20 I saw that the house was damaged. 07:22 The whole reality of what happened was revealed to me. 07:28 Alanzo: was it an earthquake what happened? 07:30 No it was a house fire, and the house was 07:32 damaged by fire. 07:33 There were fire engines there and they had hoses 07:37 out and everything. 07:38 Alanzo: There was this fire and you had left 07:40 at home, who? 07:43 Dijon: my wife, my nine-year-old daughter, 07:46 and my seven-year-old son. 07:47 All three of them perished in the fire. 07:51 Alanzo: wow! 07:55 Dr. June: we are sorry, really sorry for your loss. 08:01 Dijon, when you entered that scene and realized, did you 08:06 realize, how did you relate to that? 08:09 My brother was there on the scene and he came up to me 08:14 and hugged me and told me straight out. 08:17 He did not mince any words, he said they did not make it. 08:22 It felt unreal, as if I was experiencing an out of body 08:28 experience, it didn't make sense, how could it be? 08:32 I was in disbelief and demanded that I wanted to see 08:36 them, I have to see them. 08:37 There's no way that this can be true. 08:39 It just felt as if I was watching myself from outside 08:47 of myself, it didn't seem real. 08:51 No matter how I looked I demanded them, to see them. 08:56 It didn't happen. 08:59 You notice he said his first reaction was one of denial. 09:03 Some years back, Elizabeth Hoover Ross, wrote this book 09:08 On Death and Dying. 09:09 She talks about the five stages that an individual goes 09:12 through, and the first one she mentioned is that of 09:16 denial, do you want to talk to us a little more about 09:20 why people go through this stage? 09:22 Dr June: this is consistent with what happens when you hear 09:24 very shocking news. 09:27 But psychologically what is happening is that the mind 09:29 is giving you time to absorb the shock. 09:33 As you tell yourself it isn't so, then gradually as you 09:37 see the facts, and as you gather the information, you 09:41 come to accept or to realize that yes it is true. 09:45 By that time you are able to hear it different, to hear more 09:49 so, so it is a defense that we use to absorb shock. 09:54 Really, shocking news. 09:56 So that is your reality now, three family members in a 10:01 split second, are wiped out. 10:03 How did that affect your world and your life? 10:07 Everything changed. 10:10 I lost, I felt, the only person on this earth who 10:16 understood me, who accepted me for who I was, who was 10:20 willing to work with me and spend the rest of their 10:24 life with me. 10:26 I lost children who, all I had to do was show up and I 10:31 was automatically a hero. 10:33 I wasn't the tallest, the strongest, the smartest dad 10:37 around, but to them I was Superman. 10:40 I lost my will to live. 10:48 I lost any reason to be happy, everything changed. 10:55 I had to now learn to be a father and a mother. 11:03 We are talking to Dijon Plummer who one sad night in 11:08 December, he went home only to discover that his wife 11:14 and two children died in a tragic house fire. 11:18 We have much more to talk about and hear more 11:21 about his story. 11:23 We are going to take a break and we will be right back. |
Revised 2014-12-17