On healing after child loss...

Well August has come & gone. The birthday month for both my girls, whom we lost in their first years of life. Usually, at this time of year, I post stuff about them & what it's like living with the pain. I try to be positive, I do all the things that seem to work, etc... but not this time. I don't know why. Maybe I'm just tired of doing all the same things AGAIN, maybe I'm just tired of giving it my energy, or maybe I'm just tired.

But the pain has reared its ugly head more this year. Cheyenne was supposed to celebrate turning 18, going off to college, voting for the first time, & all that comes with being a new adult. Emily was going to be 12. Ahhhh adolescence! No comment there. Given the sheer beauty of this child, I'm sure the boys would have been running away from the point of a shotgun about now. Her porcelain skin, jet black hair, & eyelashes that could sweep a floor would be irresistible to any smart young boy.

As for me, I just put my head in fantasy. I spent hours watching marathon runs of Merlin, took David to the pool, ...well, ok, I dragged him to the pool kicking & screaming something about wanting to stay home & play minecraft all day. As usual, the school year began with a week of teachers' inservice. Day three was Cheyenne's birthday, the first of two in one week. I woke to the alarm, sat up & the fountain of tears came rushing in ...no, they came exploding in! I could not stop. All the way to work, sitting in my office, sitting through meetings. I called my department chair, Cindy, to say I would be late to the meeting, not sure if I could be around anyone. She lovingly said come anyway, we will hold you.

Thank God for Cindy.

I got it out of my system, & by the time we had finished the workday, been to the cemetery to do flowers, & gone to eat, I was way better. The next birthday, for Emily was much easier. I had a classroom full of students who politely sat through the first of what will be many moving stories I share with them to teach them that love never dies. It stays with you for ever. I spent that day not teaching theatre, but teaching faith. That's right, I taught about FAITH in a public school. DEAL WITH IT!

Did you know that Shakespeare lost a son? He understands.

The last several years I thought I was healed enough to start talking to the public, ideas of Ted Talks have been floating through my head, starting a support group at the school for the teenagers who have lost their family members, etc... I was HEALING!

I revisited my old support group with a friend who brought her neighbors, newly bereaved, to the meeting. When it was my turn to talk I lost it. After 14 yrs I found myself a total inconsolable mess. I guess I am not healed yet. What was I thinking? I have been self-medicating my grief with hobbies out the ying-yang, staying so busy that I won't have to feel the pain. I chose (smartly) when to let it out... because I was in control ...yeah, right. Whatever.

As a theatre teacher (long hours all year) & a mom of a 7 yr old boy, I have plenty to keep me busy, but now I know it is time to step back, face the music, & deal with the pain. I'm still not sure how I will do this, but I have to. Never once in all these years, not even when it was happening... and it happened TWICE, did I ever question God's plan. Never once have I said "why". One thing I am proud to say is that I have an unusually strong relationship with the creator of the universe, not influenced by religion, but by my own relationship with God. What I say & do each day is between Him & me, no one else, & I know that my God will hold me through it all just as I held my children through it all: with LOVE, COMPASSION, & SUPPORT. ...even when I'm wrong.

I was recently given a great gift from a student & her mom. It is the memoirs of Barbara Bush, signed with a beautiful note... 

She & the former President have also lost a child. Their sweet beauty, Robin, was 3 yrs old, as was Cheyenne. I remember after we lost Cheyenne, our first of the two, as we attended the Astros games, with seats just a couple sections down from the Bush family, I would spend more time watching the First Lady as she kept scores on all the players than I spent watching the game. I would just sit there & think to myself "If she can do all the things she has done, so can I!" God put everyone together on this planet so we could commune, support, and provide as needed for one another. Religion is irrelevant, but FAITH, good, positive, living-in-the-light kind of faith, is essential for success & happiness. My daughters came to this mortal world for their own reasons, their own impact on the universe. And so did I. Just as they would both be leaving the nest at 18, I must let them go, always keeping them in my heart & my soul. In a letter to his mom, President Bush said:
                "But she is still with us. We need her, & yet we have her. We can't touch her, & yet we can feel her. We hope she will stay in our house for a long, long time."

Well said, Mr. President!

My girls live on, celebrating their birthdays, and continuing to teach us how to live in the light.

So I will continue, adjusting each moment to make room for more time to face the music. I will spend more time in meditation, and in faith. Love will get me there.

Please, Let Me Explain...

In July of 2011 I posted a blog about why the Lord of the Rings is such a passion of mine. I mentioned an essay I was once given that compared the burden of grief from loosing a child to the burden Frodo carries with the ring he must destroy. I always knew I loved the story, but this hit home. Today I found the essay & want to share it here. This is the original post as well... so now I relish the fact that my sweet 6 yr old boy wants to be Frodo for Halloween, & he is loving his new LOTR Legos. December 14th is a whole new journey when The Hobbit opens in theaters around the world!

I sincerely hope you take the time to read the essay & maybe even my old post. I'm sure you will find inspiration & understanding.

Love & Blessing to all my readers each day.

Beware the Power of Prayer

    The power of prayer is a dangerous thing. What you are really doing is sending deep, heartfelt thoughts into the universe, into the source of energy that feeds our souls. This is a strange blog for me, but I have had trouble sleeping, and as a dear friend lies in a doctor-driven coma for another month I am painfully aware of the prayers people so freely promise to send.

    Let me preface the rest of this by saying that I am fully aware that there are those who really do feel fear of the negative turn life might take for the one in need & their prayers are so deeply genuine for the healing of that person that magic happens. True magic!

    You see... it is my feeling that many people, though some are unaware they do this, are actually thinking of the (dare I say) excitement of the drama unfolding around their otherwise mundane lives when they are sending up a prayer for someone in urgent need. It might be a crime victim, a disease ridden friend, or a sickly infant, but the genuinely thoughtful person doing the praying is really rubber-necking in traffic to get a closer look at the wreck on the road as he passes on his way to wherever he is going. Somehow being able to say to others "I prayed" makes them feel better I guess.

    People can often mistake "healing" as physical recovery too. They are genuinely feeling the compassion and the desire for recovery, but sometimes for healing to take place, the physical body must be left behind. Prayer is often selfish. We want them here with us, so we can hold them, see their smiles, hear their laughter. That was the case for me when I prayed for my daughters to live. They didn't, so I stopped praying. I never lost faith, I just stopped praying. What's point, right? I mean if it's the universal plan, the destiny, or whatever you want to call it, then it's going to over-ride us anyway, so why bother? That was what I thought for many years.

    Quoting from a favorite movie, Kingdom of Heaven, "God will decide, God always decides." I am reminded that we are not in control, thought we do still have free will to strive for better experiences and growth in our lives.

    We pray because it's in our human nature to fix things. To feel productive and helpful. If we don't, then after that need is gone - no matter the outcome, we have not truly participated in that life. I have seen individuals who truly feel the compassion and the desire to help those in need actually create miracles.

    So keep praying, keep sending your compassion & your desires for the betterment of the source of your prayers to whomever you call that which is the eternal source of energy which feeds our souls. Prayers truly are medicine for the soul.

But beware the power of prayer. You might just get what you ask for.

Variety is a good thing!

This week's prompt over at Bliss & Folly, for the Focus 52 project, is VARIETY. Since I always blog about my personal daily wonders & occasionally post peeks of my client sessions, I thought a great way to explore the variety of my creative surges would be to do a post about my scrapbooking.

I started scrapbooking when my oldest daughter passed. It was very helpful in the grief healing process, and it helped me to celebrate & share her life. No, those pages are not posted here. I never photographed them it was a long time ago, though seems like yesterday.

I continued through my second daughter's life, and the scrapbooks for her were displayed at her funeral. This allowed me to share those sweet little moments with people who otherwise would never have known what a sweet & funny little girl she was. No, those pages are not posted either. I do have them photographed, but not saved on this computer. Sorry.

Now I get to scrapbook my son. He will live to be a ripe old wise man...if I have anything to do with it! His books are for everyone to watch him grow into the man we all hope to see our boys become. 

I even throw in some smaller projects about my own life, my travels, my wonderful husband, my passions, & whatever else I feel inspired to document for memory and archiving.

Did I mention it's also a great way to show off my favorite photos?????

The Importance of Sisterhood

Yesterday I spent my day getting my batteries recharged. I knew I was scheduled for a dinner date w/ a couple girl friends, Huli & Shelly, but first I took my son to the pool. We do this (the pool run) once or twice a week, but today I noticed so many girl groups. Usually we have the pool to ourselves since it's SO HOT these days & no one wants to go out, not even to the pool. With summer coming to a close very soon I guess everyone wants to get in those last precious days. I could not help but approach these great groups of the sisterhood, & get permission to take their pictures. Women come in all shapes, sizes, & colors but we are all sisters.

 Girls are the women of the future. What does that mean you ask? Well, simply put, (& I paraphrase a well known quote) when a man finds himself basking in the glories of success there is always a woman sitting behind him quietly smiling & leaving it at that. Women know this, girls are learning it. Watching the younger group run & play, bonding in sisterhood, discovering that they have friends who understand no matter what, reminded me of years (OK, decades) gone by & my own wonderful young friends.

When the older group of girls arrived, then later joined by a couple more, I watched as they sat in the pool quietly chatting about college registration, getting ready to move out on their own, and other topics. Again, this took me to those days when I said goodbye to my own sisters in friendship, and only later did I come to understand that parting does not mean leaving. 

My friends & I are now women in our upper 40's & older, & we now know that we are never too far away to recharge the batteries for each other. Meeting for drinks is just an excuse to do this.

It might be a phone call, a Facebook post, or a dinner date, but we sit, chat, laugh, comfort, and support each other. Until we are ready to get back to our daily lives and face the challenges that come with being a woman.

 Then we part, this time knowing that we are not leaving.

Show me your pictures of your sisterhood groups! Post them in your comments here or link them here.