Yes, this is my life

I think there are no coincidences in life. Everything happens for a reason. I don't always know the reason until I'm meant to know. I am okay with that. When you are of the opinion that nothing is chance the world seems a bit magical and situations can even be divine. Perhaps it's my convoluted imagination or simply wishful thinking. Does it matter? Nope. I'm not hurting anyone or myself in this thinking and it makes me smile. I will give you an example of this occuring:  Tuesday after school I took the kids to Del Mar Beach on base. It is the ONE place where I can almost always feel Mike's presence. It was our place. It's where we built sandcastle with the kids, jumped waves and had several family photos done. It's so strong, this feeling that it brings tears to my eyes just stepping in the sand. So, back to my story...we went to the beach this week. As the kids are jumping in the shallow waves I walked along the shore line. As per my usual I began to tear...

Today a mentee asked me how to tell her kids that their father died by suicide. I'm not a doctor or expert by any means so I offered her my person experience in letting my own kids know. It's probably the hardest thing I've ever had to do. To tell my kids their dad is in heaven and to follow that with the fact that he took his own life. I know this is a biggie. It weighs on every surviving parents shoulders and in our hearts. It's a nagging anxiety ridden question in our minds. It keeps us up at night. How do we explain something we as adults don't even fully understand?  I read every book, googled, spoke to my therapist, spoke to other survivors and did as much soul searching as I could before I talked to my two youngest children about their dad. I slept on it, prayed on it and really reached deep to find the best way to approach the topic. My youngest two were six and eight when he died. My eldest was fourteen. He had more life experience and could understand comp...

I have written many times about the hurtful, inaccurate, hateful, inappropriate comments people make after your loved one dies by suicide. It happens more than you know. I'm sharing yet another random comment sent by a childhood friend of Mike and I. He's actually the eldest brother of Cayce (I've blogged about her a ton over the year. She is the one who died in a drunk driving accident when I was 16.) The crazy thing about this particular situation is I haven't seen this guy since his sisters funeral in 1995...yes, that's 20 years. Mike hadn't seen him since 1993. That's 22 years. Even after we retired and returned to our home town he didn't go visit. They never spoke. He might as well be a stranger. But looking at his message to me you'd think he and Mike were besties and he had some great grudge against me. We lived 2000 miles apart for the majority of those 20 years. However, as I said we hadn't seen him since MC Hammer was 2 Legit 2 Quit.....

On Mar 19, 2014, at 12:34 PM, "Brown, Chris" <ChrisBrown@mail.house.gov> wrote: Mrs. Blum,   Thank you for contacting Congressman Luetkemeyer to relay your story and ask important questions regarding suicide in the military and related benefits.  We greatly appreciate your willingness to take the time to contact our office.  I have reached out to the House Armed Services Committee staff to raise these issues.  At this time it does not appear that there is a legislative initiative that would change the military benefit structure.  However, I will also reach out to the Pentagon to make sure they understand that this is an issue that causes Congressman Luetkemeyer great concern.  I believe DOD has some internal administrative authority to change certain elements of benefit programs.  I would be more than happy to discuss with you further if you are interested.  At the very least I wanted to reach out to thank you for raising this issue and shar...

We are struggling with the VA to reclassify his death as service related suicide. As of now it's just a 'self inflicted gunshot to head".  In order for this to happen I must collect letters from people who knew him and witnessed his behavior change. I found out this week that I must also write a letter. So, as hard as this will be to write out I am doing it today. This may be incredibly raw and extremely hard to read. I will warn you in advance. But remember; as hard as it is to read it was even harder to live through.  My name is Misty Blum. My husband was SSgt Michael John Blum. He served 20 years in the Marines. He retired May 01, 2013. 136 days later he walked into my garage and shot himself in the head. He died instantly September 15, 2013. The pain he'd been in for the past 8 years finally got the best of him. He could no longer live with it. At the time of his death we had been married for 11 years. But I knew him since childhood. We grew up in the same small to...