Charlie and Cassandra Holley, shown in in a family photo with Torrell and Kiana a few years before Torrell died, have formed a ministry to offer conversations, books and seminars with families struggling with grief and anger over untimely losses. Holley speaks Saturday, May 12, 2012, from 2-3 p.m., at the Huntsville-Madison County Library's main location on Monroe Street downtown. The presentation on forgiveness is free.-- The family galaxy of Torrell Holley revolves around a black hole of collapsed matter.
Just off the living room of the Madison home of Charlie and Cassandra Holley is an empty bedroom, as still as a museum, but somehow still ringing with the energy of the 13-year-old boy who used to live there.
Football and basketball trophies queue on a shelf where a red jersey is folded. On the bed are two scrapbooks, each full of letters written in the impatient scrawls of middle school students, talking about Torrell, about their memories of him, about his talents and his smile. Lingering in the air are wisps of prayer and tears, courage and despair.
“We’ve pretty much kept our son’s room the way it was when he was here,” Charlie Holley said, looking around the room Monday evening. “We can come in here, and it brings back memories. It’s a source of peace.”
Helping others
Peace is a long time coming to the hearts of families who have lost children, he said. That's one reason why he and Cassandra began C.L. Holley Ministries to speak to others, whether individually or in groups, about a way out of the nightmare labyrinth of deep grief.
Holley will speak Saturday, May 12, 2012, on forgiveness of self and others after a tragedy. The free talk will be at the Huntsville-Madison County Library's main location on Monroe Street from 2 to 3 p.m.
Torrell, an athletic, cheerful kid, dropped dead in October 2001 at 13 during basketball practice at Liberty Middle School. He died, doctors decided, of a previously undiagnosed heart condition for which there had been no warning.
Holley speaks on forgiveness and practical ways to release anger and restore happiness after tragedy
Saturday, May 12, 2012, 2-3 p.m., at Huntsville-Madison County Library main location on Monroe Street in Huntsville. Recommended for church leaders, counselors, victims of violent crimes and abuse. Free, but please reserve a place at CLHolley@yahoo.com, 256-417-7242.
Holley speaks June 2, 2012, 2-3 p.m., at Huntsville-Madison County Library on how women can develop a relationship with God. Presentation based on Holley's novel, written from a women's viewpoint and full of the insights he's learned as he has talked with his daughter, "Whispers from My Father: Comfort, Guidance, and Counsel for the Daughters of God."
Other books by Charlie Holley include: "The God of My Midnights," Holley's deeply personal journal where he wrestles, tracked by the experiences of the biblical Job, with his own grief, with helping his wife and daughter, and, as a biblical counselor, coming to understand what practical steps others can take to comfort their friends.
"Daily Inspirations from the Scriptures," a collection of a year's worth of the Wednesday morning devotions he began to send to friends several years ago. Written with the story-anchoring, Bible-centered rhythms of a long-time pastor, the book offers a boost for anyone. Information: www.CLHmin.org.
So, in the middle of a nation’s mourning over the World Trade Center attack during the fall of 2001, Holley said their family’s immediate world also imploded.
The next few months – Thanksgiving, birthdays, Christmas – moved by them like the cardboard backdrop for a bad backyard movie. They jerked themselves through those months, mere silhouettes of their former selves.
The most helpful friends, Holley said, were those who came and sat with them. Let them tell their story over and over and over. Did not instruct them to give thanks that they still had a daughter, that God had a plan, that it was time for them to be moving on with their lives.
“People mean well, but they just don’t understand,” Holley said. “There is nothing you can do to rush grieving. Each person grieves in his or her own way.”
That first Mother’s Day without Torrell was especially hard, Holley said. Cassandra surrendered to sorrow and simply kept to her bed in a darkened room, immobilized at the center of an inescapable chamber of pain.
“There really wasn’t anything anyone could say or do to stop the hurt at that time,” Cassandra said. “But having loved ones there to hand me a tissue or hug me was a tremendous help.
“There are no words that can ease the hurt; only time and greater understanding will do that,” she said. “This is something we must allow people to find on their own.”
Little by little
This is the main message they take to families when they present their story: The only way out of grief is through it. That friends, eager to “fix” the grief have got to shelve their own desire for the crisis to be over and just encourage the bereaved to keep breathing, keep weeping, keep remembering, keep moving at their own pace and in their own way toward a different life.
Holley, who is a computer administrator at Huntsville Hospital and a longtime association minister at Union Chapel Missionary Baptist Church, found his healing at his desk, with a pen in his hand. He poured out his grief and anger at God in books. Since Torrell's death he has finished a master's in biblical counseling from Heritage Bible College to learn how to better help others.
Kiana, now a computer and drama student at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, mostly kept her feelings to herself, Holley said. And Cassandra kept moving, as best she could and sometimes with the help of counselors and anti-depressants, toward a semblance of her former self.
“People were walking on eggshells around us,” Holley said. “They didn’t know what to say. I wish we’d told them, ‘It’s OK to talk about Torrell.’ Actually, we wanted them to talk about him. We didn’t want to just leave him out.”
Because, like a black hole, even an absence can be a presence.
“Sure, we’re going to cry,” Holley said. “But it’s better than pretending it’s not there.”