The Twelfth Christmas Without You

                   

                    It rained all day.  Your sister explored this area of her property.

 

 

                Tonight is Christmas Eve, and it has been twelve years since your sudden passing.   I don't think it ever gets any easier not to have you on Earth. I think I just become more resigned to it. I am also mindful of the terrible challenges your brothers and sister have had this year, and it's more constructive if I am positive and move forward with them, rather than pining for you at this time of year.

                     As I mentioned to you Daniel, in an earlier posting, this has been one unusual year. Much of the world is locked down due to a viral infection which has caused the deaths of those who have certain additional medical disorders and those who are elderly. This lockdown which has been cyclic since about March has separated families, ended jobs, closed restaurants, many permanently, and caused a financial collapse in a good deal of the world. People aren't allowed to go out without masks on their faces.  Yes, we have to wear masks on our faces to bank too, although we usually just go through the drive through.  Please know that we are doing all that is reasonable, and that all of us are well.

                    I am writing this note in lieu of the one in your Christmas stocking, although there is a little remembrance in the stocking for you.  Please know that I miss you and Papa Lawrence very much.  Thank you for watching us whenever you can, which I know you do, in tandem with God. Please know I remember my conversations with both of you as if they were yesterday. Sending love this Christmas which is wider than the oceans and deeper than Earth's seas, yes even the Mariana trench.

Twelve Years Gone

             

             This year at this time, the Autumn has advanced farther than it had when you departed.

 

 

    Somehow Daniel, I always feel closer to you each year on the day you suddenly departed for Heaven.  It's as if time is a rotating circle and that each time the circle completes an annual turn that somehow, I might see you again, if I could just jump from one square to another on the constantly rotating circle.  It's silly, but when you lose a child, you think of many things, some of which are nonsensical, and you are aware they are.   This year, my young son who departed for Heaven at age twelve and a half had been gone for twelve years.  Somehow, I thought that the twelve year gone mark would bring some magical insight that it really hasn't.

                Please know that being gone from Earth for twelve years has not erased or even blurred the years that you were here. I still remember the day you were born and the days that followed, with uncanny technicolor precision. I remember things you made and did all through your life and a very young child and as the quasi-adult you became before your departure.  As you know, we had a pleasant Thanksgiving yesterday and your sister was laughing about something you had said. I am lucky that as many remembrances as I have of you, that we have an entire family with their own remembrances of you, and I love hearing them.

               As I mentioned this year on your birthday, you would now be twenty-four years old.   Your bedroom still has many of the items you held dear. This year though, I have begun to give some of those outgrown toys and collections you had to your nephew. He knows all about you, and sometimes borrows DVDs from your vast collection of films and television series. I will still keep and maintain things that were important to you, like your drawings, your computer programs, and other things you did while you were here.

              This year has been a difficult one for many people. As you likely know, a fair number of people worldwide died as a result of a hybrid virus which emerged from China. It killed many people there before spreading across the world and causing unprecedented closings of schools, colleges, businesses, restaurants, government buildings and disrupting the hours of many stores. Almost any gathering has been cancelled this year, including the Celtic Festival we used to enjoy together.  I am relieved that you did not have the endure the challenges of this particular year, here on Earth, though I miss you more than you can know.

            In addition, this year will be remembered as the year in which an organized effort for launched to subvert the presidential election. In some cities, they counted more mailed in ballots than there were total voters registered.  Despite the fact that there are many lawsuits pending with regard to many different aspects of voter fraud, most of the media, both domestic and foreign, have been saying that there is "no evidence of fraud", which is absurd. They are no longer reporting, but are advancing an activist agenda which could destroy our republic.  If we have reached a time in American history where our votes are meaningless, then I am fearful for our family and for your siblings. Other nations also have their own problems and so departing for them does not solve our problems, but simply creates new ones.

             Other than my dad, your Papa Lawrence, I know that there are lots of people you know who now occupy some branch of the Kingdom of Heaven.  Please take good care of the animals that one by one come to you there. I miss them, and you very much. Please send best wishes to my Dad. I am still not pleased that you had to depart from Earth but I am on at least some level, relieved that one of my children will escape some of the obvious and not so obvious trials to come within our country.

              I will always love you, wider than the oceans, and deeper than the seas.

             

Sometimes, a New Song Helps

             Twenty-three years ago, singer songwriter Carolyn Arends wrote this song over the loss of her friend, Rich Mullins. Although she recorded it as a demo, she didn't do anything else with it during the intervening years.

              This year, this song was finally released as a streaming single.

             Losing Daniel, twelve years ago, at age twelve and a half has made me an unwitting collector of songs that inspire as a result of grief.  I think this one stands up well against the others.

       

Meeting the Nemesis for the First Time

            

 

 

       Many of you know that the passing of Daniel, now twelve years ago, was not the end to the trials of our family. Some of you know that my grandson, who is now five, has cystic fibrosis. He has never been sick, but was diagnosed near birth when our state did that myriad of tests that many of us think might be unnecessary. As a result of his early diagnosis, he has been treated at a state of the art center with an eye to preventing the nutritional, gastrointestinal and ultimately the respiratory complications which keep cystic fibrosis classed as a terminal illness for most people afflicted. 

            Although our family takes very seriously this diagnosis, and does the breathing treatments, medications and everything his specialists tell us to do, our grandson lives as close to a normal life as is possible. Because he is well, I don't think he really accepts that he has any type of an illness. He is also blessed with lots of energy and enjoys outdoor play.    Because physicians and specialists don't want children who may share similar problems and to share organisms that one cystic fibrosis sufferer may have and another one might not, they are discouraged from visiting or playing with one another. Most physicians say they should not be closer than six feet.  We have been amused at times by people's reactions to COVID-19 restrictions because our grandson lives with such restrictions, all the time, and therefore so do we.

 

             This week was the first time that our grandson accidentally met another child, of about the same age, also with cystic fibrosis.  Unlike our grandson, this child was already limited by the disease, short of breath and on oxygen.  It was the first time our grandson saw what this disease could become, what it might look like, and what the future could potentially hold.  I wanted to cry as I witnessed the compassion our grandson had for the other little boy. He genuinely had empathy as he conveyed to the boy that he too had this illness.

                              To this point our grandson had known cystic fibrosis as an annoyance, an expense, and a worry for his cystic fibrosis specialist physician and for his parents. He knew it as an abstract, and perhaps he thought of it as a fantasy his doctor had.  It broke my heart for him to see it for the very first time as a reality, as an issue that could alter the course of his life, or even end it. It hurt to see him processing later that day, what this disease could mean.   "Nana, will I have to go on oxygen ?" he asked me later.  I took a deep breath.  " We are lucky that your cystic fibrosis was diagnosed when you were a baby, and this gave the doctors the chance to start many medications and to see you every three months. It is their plan to try to stop the disease from activating in your lungs.  So far, you have only had symptoms and signs of the disease in your gastrointestinal or tummy region". I told him.  He asked a few other questions and eventually I had to tell him the truth, which is that whether the disease will activate in his lungs is in the hands of God, and that we will do everything possible to try to prevent this."   When we finished our discussion he understood and seemed to accept that the matter, and all matters, sit in the hands of God.  This of course is true for all of us, and was also true for Daniel.   Prayers for our grandson's continued relative health are appreciated.

In Notes to Heaven

Daniel,

           This Autumn it will have been twelve years since you departed from Earth.   You might think that the memories and the specifics of that day have muddied over time, but they haven't. I can recall them in the sharp visceral detail in which they occurred.  Although that moment is preserved in time, the bathroom in which you collapsed and died has changed.  The shower curtain is different. It shows ancient ships. I think you would like it. The room has been redecorated somewhat and I plan to paint the room this year.  This leaves me with thoughts of other things I should do.

            You are no longer 12 1/2 as you were at your departure. Twelve years later if you were on Earth you would be 24 years old.  As you know, a couple of times I have paid for an age progression of your photos, and haven't been awfully satisfied as they just don't look like you.  Recently, one of my friends who has a son two years younger than you would be, had a college graduation. His smile and the way he carried himself reminded me so much of you. He looked like you.  I decided that I don't need to get any more photographs age progressed because I would recognize you no matter what age you were.  Most of the time I am joyous about the achievements of your friends and of the young adult children of my own friends, but once in a while, it smarts.

             As you know, your room has been redecorated but we have pretty much kept most of your things, as much as remembrances for family and siblings as much as possible. By watching your DVDs in your room, we recall the moments in which we watched them with you, and somehow we are just that much closer.  I have been thinking lately that a good deal of fairly new and expensive clothing is sitting in your closet. I kept some of it to remember you, and sometimes to open the closet and sniff some of those clothes. As I look through some of the cotton summer shirts I am reminded of times we spent together and places we went and so I had no desire to give them away. I still have a pair of your fairly new Merrell shoes which somehow fit me as well. I have worn them on and off around the house for years, as somehow I have felt closer to you. Either that or I have felt your laughing at me all the way from Heaven.   But it's time. This has been a very difficult year for many families, and some of your things are needed by people who are still tied to Earth and have earthly needs.  And so, I must begin to pass things of yours to people who need or would care for them.  Your nephew already has his eyes on some of your things. Your niece is a little small but I am thinking that it won't be long before she wants some of the things you had. Don't worry. I will keep some remembrances, and I will let you guide me, if you wish.

         I am still doing everything I promised you, the day you were called. I am still doing my best. It is hard sometimes and sometimes I am sad, but the price we pay for loving this much is that when one of us departs, it hurts.  I love you, and I am so proud to be your mom, wherever you are,  be it on Earth or in Heaven.

Daniel's Overnight Appendectomy

           

Daniel's ward had light green walls and all brown blankets and room accents, a bit like hospital design by Target.

                    I had a strange dream last night.  I dreamed that Daniel was still alive, and, at age twenty-four, was still in college getting a PhD in one of the obscure aspects of computers. We had been notified that he was in the hospital and had just had an emergency appendectomy. When I got the call, I was simply pleased to hear that he was alive. Both my husband and I, and my daughter were driving in separate cars to come to see him.  My husband and I arrived at the hospital first.  The hospital was very full, and had taken a room that had intended to be a double room and had arranged the beds so that four people, all males of about the same age were in beds in the same room. It looked as if Target had decorated the room which had light green walls and brown room accents. It turned out that all of the patients in the room were about the same age, and all of them enjoyed computers and gaming. They had named themselves the "Nerd Ward".


                  Daniel seemed to be progressing nicely and it appeared that he might have found some new friends as a result of this hospitalization. The hospital was not entirely unfamiliar to me although I recognized that things there were running in an unfamiliar manner. Although no one mentioned COVID-19, I suppose that could have explained some of the things I saw there, and why staff seemed in such short supply.  Daniel's surgeon told me that he needed two units of packed cells and a couple of injections afterward, and that he could be discharged later that day. The problem was they didn't have the staff to do that.  However, if I wanted to administer the blood and give the injections, then the physician would complete the discharge orders and we could take him home.  This was strange because it's very unusual to need two units of packed cells following an appendectomy, even an emergency one. Still, I agreed so that we could take him home.


                    I don't know why I had this dream. I know that Daniel passed from this Earth twelve years ago now. I know that I miss him and wish I could see him at what would now be age twenty-four. I do wonder what he would be doing now. I also know that his siblings miss him very much, especially my daughter.  Sometimes I think that when Daniel died, the right time line was damaged, and that we have continued life in one that is not the correct one.   Still, it's strange to be dealing with challenges and life as if he is still here.   Still, it was good to see Daniel, in good health, successful, happy, even if he was temporarily in a hospital under admittedly strange circumstances. Maybe my own mind creates circumstances where I can see him and convey that we have never stopped loving him and caring.


                    I love you Daniel. I miss you, and I always will.

Happy Twenty-Fourth Birthday, Daniel

                 Sometimes it seems as if I am sprinting through this life. I can remember the day you were born as if it were yesterday. I was actually glad to be in the hospital that day, because we were about to have a third day of nearly one hundred degrees.  This year, it is actually cold for what would have been your birthday. This week, had you remained here on Earth, you would be twenty-four years old.  I can barely imagine what life would be like had you been able to stay.  You would be through college, and either working or you would have started a business as one of your brothers and your father has.  You might have had your own home by now, or you might still have been at the farm with us, while you saved money in order to launch a new business.  You departed this world twelve years ago, which means that later this year, we will pass a day in which you have been gone from this Earth longer than you were actually here on it.  The twelve years you were here are very memorable to me and to the rest of the family and we talk about you all the time.  Your nephew is now five, and although he is not like you at five, he is a little spitfire. He is full of energy, and ideas, and he knows all about you.  He is especially fond of your CD and DVD collection, and I really do try to protect them from becoming sticky.  Sometimes, I think that I should give some of your things to him or to your niece, but I believe I will know when that time arrives, for each item.  I do know that you don't need them, and that you want them to be used and appreciated once again.    You remain a big part of our lives just as you did, when you were here.

           
 

                       By now, all of the animals you knew when you were here have passed and are home with you, except for the alpaca Warrior Princess Camellia (whom we still call Cammie) who is still here. Please let the animals with you know that we love and miss them. There is also a precious girl, named Sable who passed recently from here, that you didn't know, but that you would have loved. Please look after her.  I know she will come to find you and my Dad.     

                      I don't know much about your existence now.  I know that you know something about the happenings here on Earth.  I am grateful that you don't have to endure some of the scarier parts of life here on Earth this year.   Please know that this week, and every week, that you are not just loved by the Lord God, and the relatives and ancestors you have with you, but also by your siblings and your parents who love you and miss you more than you know.

       Remember that you are loved, wider than the oceans and deeper than the seas, always.  No matter what happens on this Earth, love endures all things, the temporal and the non-temporal.

Telling Daniel the News

 Dear Daniel,

          I'll grant you that I don't post here as much as I once did.  It's not that I don't think of you each day, but I think I choose to take on enough that I am still very busy. This year, you will have been gone from the farm, and here on Earth for twelve years.  Had you remained, in eight weeks, you would be celebrating your twenty-fourth birthday.   Sometimes it hard for me to fathom that your friends are now employees and husbands. One of them is a soldier. Your siblings have also grown and gone out into the world. Almost all of the wonderful animals we had on the farm when you were still here, have joined you there.  Please tell them all that I love them and that I miss them.  I know that you see my Dad, but I know that you aren't together all the time now.

        This week I am actually glad you aren't here on Earth.  There is a new virus that seems to have originated in a city in China which incidentally has a level four biosafety laboratory.  Originally, the information we were given is that it was a "flu-like" virus and that although it was creating problems for those who lived densely in China that it was unlikely to be a hazard to the rest of the world. Sadly, this particular coronavirus, dubbed COVID-19, has caused 3300 deaths there. Many nations feel that China has lost far more people, but that their communist regime will never be completely honest about the number of people who have died.  The virus spread quickly and has killed many people in Italy, in Iran, and is now infecting Iceland, Luxembourg, Germany, the United Kingdom, selected spots in Africa and even Australia.  Russia claims that they have relatively few cases. Of course, the United States is infected. Unprecedented actions are being taken to avoid a pandemic that completely clogs US health care.

       Apparently, COVID-19 is a particularly pathogenic organism. Depending upon the dose of the virus one gets, one either gets an influenza like illness, or an interstitial pneumonia which has been causing rapid deaths, first in elderly people, then in those with a prior diagnosis of some kind, and now also in younger people as well.  I don't know whether the virus has continued to mutate or whether younger people who received a significant dose of the virus were always destined to become ill in significant ways.  The virus also has a potentially long incubation period which has allowed in to spread significantly before being recognized and allowing the patient to be quarantined.  The person is exposed, then about five days later, a sore throat begins, and about a week later the virus replicates and moves to both the upper airway and the lower. Mucinex is therefore less than effective. Many people are mildly ill, but in a number of them, the alveoli swell creating an interstitial pneumonia and preventing the work of gas exchange on the cellular level. The mucus solidifies, and the patient with a 99% pulse ox all of a sudden is in distress with a pulse ox of 88%.  Many of these patients require intubation and a ventilator. Even then, a percentage of them code and die.

      Of course since your nephew is just a little tyke, and since he has cystic fibrosis, we are quite concerned about his getting this, and we are remaining at home as much as is possible. It IS a worry.

        As I promised you, I am doing all I can to remain here and take care of the animals, your siblings, your dad and your nephew. I don't plan to go anywhere and I am being as careful as I can.  Schools are closed across our state and 45 others. People are being asked to remain in their homes, or to work from home when possible.  The Belgians are using some antiviral drug cocktails and adding chloroquine to it.  (Yes, tell my Dad the same drug that made him so sick after malaria, may have some redeeming value for another illness.)  The Z-Pak, Zithromax is also being given in tandem as it has a synergistic effect with the chloroquine.  The world response to this pandemic is like nothing we have ever seen, perhaps since The Spanish flu which impacted your great grandfather as he returned from France in WWI.  It may have impacted your maternal great grandfather also, but I will let you ask him about it.   I am keeping my promise to you, though I have to admit that the possibility exists that I may join you.  I am trying to remain here in order to help everyone else.  Please pray for us.  I know you often know now what is to be a bit faster than we do, but whatever it is, don't be sad. We will all be together again one day, and then none of the sad things that have happened to us will stop that day from coming. I love you and my Dad wider than the oceans and deeper than the seas, but then, I know you know that.

On Fragility

Harley Dilly

One of the results of experiencing the death of a child is that you learn that it isn’t rare. Until my son Daniel died of sudden arrhythmic death syndrome, the day after Thanksgiving, eleven years ago, I had only known one person who’d lost a child, other than in stillbirth. Following Daniel’s death, I think many people I’d known felt the need to convey that they too had lost a child they too had been half way through raising. People who, until then, had been acquaintances told me that they had lost children to car accidents, choking while eating, to leukemia, to unrecognized Type I diabetes mellitus, and even to the flu. I learned that the loss of a child isn’t nearly as rare as we would like it to be. Still, I am one of the lucky ones in that my child was loved, happy and healthy, until the moment he wasn’t. I did immediate CPR on him while the sheriff brought the AED, and the helicopter ICU landed on our farm in front of the house. I was probably the first to know he hadn’t made it, despite the fact that I let them try for a considerable period of time afterward.

As a result, I have a lot of empathy for those who have lost a child. I have particular empathy for those whose children are missing. My grief is simple. I lost my beautiful youngest son at 12, but I always knew exactly where he was and what was happening, and I know I did my best. In the US, we have huge numbers of children who are missing. Sometimes, these are teens, children or kids who were temporarily housed in foster care. Sometimes, these are children or teens who have been snatched by non-custodial parents. Sometimes, these are teens or children who are the victim of stranger abduction, either by pedophiles or human traffickers who want them for other reasons. I know where my boy is, but many do not. Not to know where your child is, or whether he needs you, must be one of this Earth’s most difficult feelings. It is for this reason that I profile missing teens and children on my social media pages. Today, Amber Alerts are often quite successful and a child may well be returned to his or her parents, and so it’s worth the effort and the occasional grief I myself experience.

On December 20^th, a fourteen year old Ohio teen was reported missing by his family. Harley Dilly quite literally disappeared without a trace. No one saw anyone abduct him, and hundreds of local citizens and the police combed about a hundred and fifty acres looking for him. Each day, I combed news reports in order to keep my own social media listings of missing kids up to date. All through Christmas and New Year’s Day there was no news on Harley Dilly. Yesterday however, his body was found by police in a summer home around the corner from his own, within the chimney. It has been theorized that possibly close to the hours in which Harley was first reported missing, he had climbed a large antennae which enabled him to enter the chimney of the empty house. His coat and his glasses were found near the flue. His body was found wedged tightly within the house’s chimney. Harley had been there almost four weeks before he had finally been found. Police had actually considered searching the house, but the windows and doors had been secured when they searched and so they thought there had been no way he could have entered. I am praying for his family and for those who searched for him, and especially for those who found him and dealt with the aftermath.

Because I am older than Harley Dilly I know that periodically a burglar is found dead within a chimney. The lucky ones are discovered by a homeowner, and emergency services deconstructs the chimney while taking the perpetrator first to a hospital, and then to jail. If you are an EMS or Law Enforcement officer, and you are looking for a person with dementia, confusion, or a teen or child, please consider checking both ends of any chimneys. If you are a parent or a grandparent, you might consider telling the children you know that chimneys are not built as some of them were in colonial times or in our folklore. Many of them might be very narrow in the center or may have a flue that makes them impassable. This Christmas when I was reading a story to my grandson, I conveyed that when Santa comes to our house that we don’t have a chimney that can accommodate him, and that we just let him in when he arrives.

The vision of an adventurous fourteen year old trapped in a narrow chimney, cold, thirsty, fearful and unable to take a deep breath, haunts me, as I’m sure it does his parents, his family, and the people who were involved in the exhaustive search for him. The medical examiner released the cause of death as compressive asphyxia, which implies that he died rather quickly, and not over days or weeks as my own imagination had been considering.

There are too many ways to lose a child. Make sure yours know how much they are valued, and how much you love them. Help them to identify the reasonable hazards in your area. Most importantly, have compassion for those who have lost a child, have one missing, or who must seek or recover a child as part of their occupation.

Daniel's Uncommon Wisdom

          

         This week, a pretty blonde actress was televised receiving her Golden Globe award. She was obviously pregnant, but made a point of telling us that she believed that she wouldn't have been receiving the award had she not chosen to abort an earlier child, some time earlier, presumably in order to work on her career in order to attain the level of success she now had. It was a shocking thing to say, or even for her to believe.

              Of course, I have never been in danger of receiving a Golden Globe award.  When I look back on the few acting gigs I have had, other than voice acting,  I think I am about as an abysmal actress as I am a cook.  I had four biological children, and one child who came to us through adoption. There were foster children in between. For me, the most joyous and most important achievements in my life have been those children.  For me, no book, no record or CD, no job, no home or estate, no business, and certainly no award, is as important to me as having raised those children. Each of them have been true joys in my life, and I am really proud of each of them as young adults.   

             I was fairly young when I started to have children. My first two were born a year apart when I was just out of college.  My shower gifts had to be practical ones like diapers and wipes. I had no changing table, special toys, or cute clothes, other than shower gifts or gifts from friends. I struggled with pediatrician co-pays, and I missed work when they were immunized and became febrile. My life hasn't been a picnic. Our crib was a portable one that fit the tiny room we had for the kids then.  Each time a child was born, we had prospered somewhat, and I think we had an easier time financially, when our third and fourth children were born. 

              When Daniel, who was our youngest, was almost five, he asked me what an abortion was.  He'd apparently heard the word on television.  Since I always answer a point blank question truthfully to my children, or to anyone else, I explained that it was the removal of the placenta and the fetus from a woman before it could grow to the point of being able to live outside the woman's body.  "Why would someone do that?" he asked.   I tried to step carefully here, as I didn't need to tell a four year old boy all of the aspects of this complex issue all at once.  Instead I told him that sometimes there are very good reasons to remove a baby very early. For example, a woman with a serious medical problem that requires treatment that may not be possible if she is pregnant, sometimes necessitates a very early abortion. "Like cancer?" he asked.  It wasn't until a few years later that I told him that my aunt had chosen to give birth to her own son despite the fact that she required lifesaving treatment that required she was not pregnant at the time of treatment.  Then he said something I will never forget.

        "God is good", said Daniel.  "It only takes nine months from your life, to give someone else a whole lifetime," he said, in awe.

      "Yes, that's true", I answered. "And usually women are limited for only a portion of that nine months". 

            Daniel, of course, grew to know that sometimes abortions are done in the cases of rape or incest, or for a variety of medical problems for the mother.  I remember mentioning to him a twelve year old child who'd had a abortion in a hospital because her seizure disorder was badly controlled and that she was unlikely to survive a full term pregnancy, even if the baby had been placed for adoption afterward.   But I was glad that he understood what a gift and a blessing that a child is to a woman and to a family.  I told him how happy I was that I'd had all of my children and not missed out on raising them.

            There is no award that could have taken the place of having any of my children, but then, that's just me.  Even though Daniel departed this Earth at twelve and a half, there is nothing on Earth that would make me wish that I had chosen not to have him or to enjoy the twelve and a half years that he was right here within our family.