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Post by charis on Mar 19, 2010 13:09:11 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/03/21/magazine/20100321-soliders-bedrooms-slideshow.html?hp?hpI do not want to trivialize this slideshow so I hesitated before posting it, but viewing it brought to mind many things--and some of them I view through the prism of whaqt we discuss here how heartrending it can be to remove the physical traces of someone we have lost the function of objects and personal spaces in regulating our memories and feelings the sacrament of cleaning those rooms and their collections of teenage treasures. the horrible, unchangeable fact that the world will go on without the dead, and their rooms will look empty without them, no matter how full of stuff When is it more hurtful to keep it than let it go?
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Post by Rory on Mar 19, 2010 13:18:58 GMT -5
Thank you for posting this. I found the rooms very empty even with things in them.
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Post by Fivecat on Mar 19, 2010 14:37:44 GMT -5
Wow. I've been and ss/sos'er alot of years, and this is a new one, something i rarely come across after having been around since the squalor stone age. I don't ever remember this coming up in discussion before. Very sobering and thought provoking. Thanks for posting. Fivecat
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Post by gini on Mar 19, 2010 15:34:01 GMT -5
charis
The photos are so poignant and haunting.
No. 12 especially touched me......the bed linens turned down.....
Thank you for posting.
gini
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Post by fluffernut - now Jannie on Mar 19, 2010 15:47:11 GMT -5
A parent's worst nightmare. My kids are a handful, constantly costing me money. I got a traffic ticket for my daughter in the mail today, another $175 I have to pay. But they're normal and healthy and alive, Thank God. . I think of all the awful things that could happen...
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Post by CaringFriend on Mar 19, 2010 16:38:47 GMT -5
Charis, thank you for posting that. It was such a sobering experience.
Photo #1: He'll be back any minute now ...... his laundry bag is full, there is also a laundry basket - possibly with clean clothes, and his sneakers are ready to go. He will be back shortly? Right?
Agree with gini on #12 - the turned down bed.
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Post by Platypus on Mar 19, 2010 17:50:19 GMT -5
It is the toys that get me.
The stuffed toys on the bed, the truck on the dresser. Favourite childhood toys? When as a species are we ever going to stop doing this?
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Post by notsomessyshell on Mar 19, 2010 23:38:20 GMT -5
The turned down bed...that one really got to me. All of them speak volumes. My heart breaks for these families. How do you deal with it? How do you put their stuff away? I wish no one ever had to deal with this ever again.
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Post by mrsmess on Mar 20, 2010 0:11:42 GMT -5
I am crying just reading this thread, imagining how heartwrenching it must be...not sure I can go there, to look at the slideshow. It may sound lacking in courage to not look at it, but having a child who nearly died from cancer, the thought of 'what if' is too much to bare.
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Post by tinasabrina on Mar 20, 2010 0:50:25 GMT -5
Oh wow, how sad.  Very poignant indeed. |
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Post by success19 on Mar 20, 2010 1:33:31 GMT -5
I remember an Oprah show about a woman - I will try to remember her name - who came home from a walk with a friend - something she did each morning and found her 4 children had been murdered by her exhusband while she was gone - the 3 oldest were from her first marriage and they youngest was his . She had to make a 911 call and they played it on the show. The exhusband had committed suicide as well. The hour long show has stuck in my mind as a person who has survived one of the most traumatizing things imaginable. She was now living second to second trying to find a reason to live - getting intense therapy and on medication - but I will never forget her words.
Several years go by and they have an update show - she remarried and because she was older - used a surrogate and now had twin baby girls - her home still was the way it was when her older 4 were murdered - everything still in the rooms - her older children had left handprints on the ceiling - sort of a running joke in the family - that they were tall enough to touch the ceiling - and she still hadn't washed them off. And she was living there with the new husband and girls. But now they discussed that as the girls got older - would she leave it this way - since they needed to create new memories. Everything in the older kids rooms was the same.
Whenever I have a bad day - she is one of the people I remember who has survived and gone on to create a new life.
Helps me put it into the right perspective.
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Post by mrsmess on Mar 20, 2010 2:47:00 GMT -5
She was now living second to second trying to find a reason to live - getting intense therapy and on medication - but I will never forget her words. Several years go by and they have an update show - she remarried and because she was older - used a surrogate and now had twin baby girls - her home still was the way it was when her older 4 were murdered - everything still in the rooms - her older children had left handprints on the ceiling - sort of a running joke in the family - that they were tall enough to touch the ceiling - and she still hadn't washed them off. And she was living there with the new husband and girls. But now they discussed that as the girls got older - would she leave it this way - since they needed to create new memories. Everything in the older kids rooms was the same. Whenever I have a bad day - she is one of the people I remember who has survived and gone on to create a new life. Helps me put it into the right perspective. Wow...that sure does put things in perspective.  |
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Post by mafixit on Mar 20, 2010 9:44:51 GMT -5
so sad, they were all so very young, younger than my oldest boy..
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Post by charis on Mar 20, 2010 10:09:43 GMT -5
I remember seeing the initial story on Oprah, S19, but not the update. I am glad to hear that the mother was able to make a new family.
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Post by CrimsonKat on Mar 20, 2010 13:08:16 GMT -5
wow. those photos were amazing.
number 10 just said "suicide". it would be doubly tragic to lose a child to suicide when he is at war. and i realized, we probably would've gotten along so well. he was a sci-fi nerd just like i am.
number 17 broke my heart because of the dog on the bed. it shows how deep the loss really was for that family that even the doggy was looking for him. so sad. such a waste.
sigh...
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