My Mom Was Murdered

By Pamala Messinger

One day I was a happy mother of three with a great husband, wonderful job, and looking toward the future. The next, I was a devastated zombie who was hardly able to talk in complete sentences. My mother had been murdered. As a counselor and writer, I began to journal to try to help myself. After several years, these were packed away, but never forgotten. As the years went by, I often found myself counseling others who were going through the same type of grief. I pulled out my journals to see if there was anything in my writing that might possibly help others. It was then I realized I could put my words in a book and write about the techniques I learned to get me through each of my stages of grief. My Mother Was Murdered: A Survival Story was born. It is my hope that my words can somehow help other wounded souls through their own personal journey. My heart holds a lot of love and I am sending it out to all of you, my fellow survivors.
God Bless, Pamala

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Apr 15, 2014
• ISBN: 9781496902863

Pamala Messinger

Pamala Pittmann Messinger holds a Bachelor’s of Science in Education and a Master’s of Science in Counseling. She is a 30 year veteran of the public education system in Texas. Twenty of those years have been spent as Counselor, Mentor, and District Counseling Supervisor. Though the story is placed in Detroit Michigan, Pamala now happily resides in Houston Texas.

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© 2014 Pamala Messinger. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 04/11/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4969-0287-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-0285-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-0286-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014906513

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Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. [Biblica]

Contents

Foreword

1.   Shock, Disbelief, And Denial

2.   Zombie Functioning

3.   Coping

4.   Knowing And Despair

5.   Fear

6.   Looking For Escape

7.   Slippery Slopes

8.   Making Sense Of

The Bad Times

9.   The Search For The Truth

10.   Anger

11.   Remembering The Good Times

Final Words

References

About the Author

Dedication

I dedicate this book to my husband George, who has supported me throughout our thirty two year journey. Also, I must give love and thanks to my very creative children, Megan, AJ, and Joshua. Their antics have made my writing a joy. Of course I can’t forget my bonus daughter, Lorah. (We discovered each other about 14 years ago and she has added spice to our family.)

My heart has a special place for my friends whom have shared their life with me—yes Barbara—I am including you too! Finally, I would like to thank my sisters and brother for their unconditional support and love. My life has been enriched by all of you.

Foreword

Through my years of education and counseling, I have become quite familiar with the stages of grief first introduced by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. In fact, I remember making a study of it in one of my counseling classes. I have helped numerous clients, students, and friends through the tumultuous stages of death, and personally experienced and survived its devastation. I guess you could have said I was an expert of sorts in the field of grief. Then, on the day of Cinco de Mayo, 1992, my mother was murdered. Any heretofore knowledge I might have claimed flew out the window, and I was left to fend for myself.

I remember the day it happened. I worked in a largely Hispanic school, so most of the classrooms were filled with celebrations for Mexico’s Independence. Though I participated, I had this nagging feeling of something not quite right, like the universe was slightly off center. I kept thinking my spiritual antenna was sending signals of impending disaster, but what it was I could not identify. It seemed like I was participating in a fog of dreadful anticipation that day. My friends later told me that I had talked about my mother constantly throughout the day. Was this a form of precognition? I don’t know, but it certainly could have been.

This is my story and the stages of grief I went through. My Mother was Murdered, is