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.

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.

WOW! Follow up on previous blog...

Well, having said all that about believing without proof, I went to my Facebook page to read comments on Emily's pictures I posted & my own wonderful husband posted the commercial which reminded me of at least one hello from Heaven I got from Emily. She loved commercials. JC Penny's was, at that time, airing an ad using the "All Inside" campaign. Most ad campaigns run under a year before they come up with something new, but this one ran for a couple years at least. I liked it because not only would she sing so loud & proud along with the song, but it reminded me that what matters is what's inside of us, not outside of us. I always feared what I'd feel when that day would arrive for JC Penny's & I'd no longer hear Emily's voice singing the All Inside song. That day came. It was a day of abnormally deep depression for me & I was not doing well. The new ad they created was using a song from who else but my FAVORITE lead guitarist & writer, Pete Townsend of The Who. What song was used you ask? "Let My Love Open The Door"! Seriously???? It was at that moment that I decided to follow her advice & let her love open the door to faith for me once again. I guess I should mention that the very next day the ad campaign was back to All Inside & I never found that Pete Townsend song used in a JC Penny's ad again, though I'm sure it exists somewhere. So yes, I believe. Deal with it you naysayers. May you never have reason to do the same.

Believing when there is no proof

I am tired. Grief does that to you. Today is my little froggie's 10th birthday. She was only here on Earth for 18 months. Emily was a soul with her own plan. She finished & went home suddenly, in my arms, after a long day at work for me. To this day I hate it when people yell out in joy "It's Friday!" All I hear is myself saying that very same thing as I left work...then the rest is history, to me anyway.

This was shot just two weeks before she passed. It's not my shot, but a friend's work.

In my previous posts this month I spent the time sharing the joys of life & the mysteries of death from an easy perspective....PROOF. I had the proof that those things were happening during Cheyenne's life & after. But with Emily it was very different. Because she was so young, not having established her own verbal abilities yet, we really never got to know her or recognize her presence like we did with her older sister. When she passed we had to rely on FAITH. Believing without seeing. It was not so easy. I mean I believed, but I had a harder time seeing things in the first place. Does that make sense?

Steve Alley, our pediatrician & friend, believed in us. We met the weekend Cheyenne was in the hospital & passed. He was so moved by her spirit, wisdom, & whatever else she hit him with that he says she changed the way he approaches his work. He became our pediatrician for Emily, & now for David. If I told him things were not right, or I was not comfortable he always trusted my intuition, even if he did not have the scientific proof to back it up. As a doctor that had to be hard, but he believed in us as parents. That is one thing so great about the awesome people in his practice, Fannin Pediatrics of Houston. Yes, I'm plugging my friends business. WHY? Because I BELIEVE. But then I have proof on this one.

It's easy when the evidence is in front of you, as it was with Cheyenne, but to know she is still around me, hearing me talk to her, knowing how much I miss her when I'm not seeing any proof, well... that's where the challenge lies. When Cheyenne died I used to criticize & judge those other grieving parents for not KNOWING they are not separated from their kids spiritually, but after Emily passed I understood the challenge. They did not have the "Cheyenne" in their lives to provide the proof. Their faith that they would be together again had to come from other sources, for some those other sources did not exist. They are lost in their pain to this day & may not survive. But I pray that they do. That they find something to hold on to, to believe in.

Then there are those (forgive me) JERKS in life who have to naysay & chop down whatever tiny bit of evidence we can dig up to maintain our strength & sanity. They have to accuse us of imagining that which they think does not exist, say we are just desperately grabbing on to things, that we are lost and are not making sense. I was once called by a woman "emotionally unstable" and not equipped to be in the classroom as her child's teacher. I was the one sitting calmly as she spouted these things & she was the one screaming, cussing, & yelling. WHO is emotionally unstable? They have no idea what we are going through, will continue to go through, & how it will change us forever. They are ignorant to our pain. I disregard them & continue in my faith, believing without proof at times, writing to help others who need that strength, & hoping that one or two of those "jerks" will wizen up & find a little compassion in their hearts.

I've got some shots of Emily here to share with you. Take a look, feel her energy (she was a happy little froggie for sure!) and BELIEVE.

The bottom line: So what if you think it's not true, if it helps us heal & continue being contributing members of society why do you have to steal our lifeboat?