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