Somehow, I am Still Lucky

Dear Daniel,

           I don't get the chance to go out by myself as often as I used to. I am busy with your nephew, the horses, the dogs, the alpacas or something else at the farm most days.    This week, I got the chance to run and errand in Richmond, and it went fairly quickly, and so I had the time to make a couple of stops during the return trip.

           One of the stops I made was at an antique shop. There were a couple of things I knew they had that your sister would like, and so I bought them with a plan to put them away for her.  While I was there, I felt compelled to talk to the shop owner, a man who'd been there a long time.  I spoke about all of the kids, and the man actually had met your brother Adam and knew his work.   Then, I told him about you.  After nine years, I deal with the matter and your loss matter of factly when I relate the story. It's not that I don't feel it, and it's not that I am not, at times, sorrowful, but I have the faith I had the day of your departure, and I have the perspective that comes from nine years of contemplating that if God called you in such an unusual way, that he must have had purpose in an action that has touched so many other lives.  I told the man what had happened, and it brought him to tears.  I told him that it was alright, because God has you.  I thought you might like to know that people are shedding tears and missing you, and remembering their own losses from Earth, even nine and a half years after your departure.

            Most days I deal well with your being in Heaven while I complete my work with the rest of your family here on Earth.  Of course sometimes, I shed tears, or wonder what I could have done that God would see fit to call my youngest son home.  I don't think it's about me though. I think it's that you are so important, that you were needed at Home for some reason, and that I must accept this.
             My life has been so much richer as a result of your having been born to us, and have occupied the place of my youngest son.  I remember your presence on Earth as if it were yesterday. Sometimes, when I am deep in sleep, usually at four am, I feel you sitting with me. I am so proud of you, for so many reasons,
even now.

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

There Are Others

As you may have guessed, my own relative composure in writing many of these posts starting only about five or six weeks after Daniel's passing, is owed to a lot of other people other than myself. Other than God, Daniel and Dad, our friends and family, we have received support in a variety of ways. One of these ways has been a number of bereavement support groups. In general,I am not a "joiner". I often prefer to manage life's hardest lumps myself, make sense of them myself, before going headlong into support where there will be people with complications, reactions,and nightmares I have not even yet considered. I need to make sense of something first and then somehow climb out in tandem with others. I did join a bereavement group however, consisting mostly of women, which was internet based. They have been a wonderful opportunity for me to have people to lean on, who truly understand, and an opportunity for me to support those who may be a few months or a year behind where we are now. Grief is indeed a personal and an individual thing, but there are so many commonalities, particularly for the mothers who lose a child, that sharing with other women who are veterans of a similar profound loss can be a godsend. In our group, my family and I are not the only people who believe that we have had after life communications with a passed loved one. There are many with stories of "how they knew" or "how their child behaved the last time they saw them" or how their child's voice woke them, several days or weeks after their child had passed.
It was therefore wonderful to be able to share with this group, a feature from 20/20 which profiled the families who lost people from 9-11 and how they have experienced everything from premonitions, to after life communication. Here is the link.

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/video/911-messages-10958471

Apparently, one of the families has written a book on the various phenomena post the 9-11 losses, and it's quite interesting.

http://dianapagejordan.com/2010/06/03/what-really-matters-a-book-called-messages-bonnie-mceneaney-book-review/

Still Those to Tell

It seems that no matter where we go, I still encounter people who do not yet know what happened. I travel periodically to another county where I buy certain supplies for the animals, and I stopped in at a new hardware store. While Matt and I were departing, a woman I've known for about eleven years was entering the store. We figure that we haven't seen one another in about a year and a half.
I caught her up with the news about Daniel, and she was shocked, and she told me about her own. Apparently, her eldest son lives in Florida, and one day she was driving to town to buy some supplies for a visit her sister was making to her home. She saw a cemetery and one of her eldest sons friends there, near dogwood trees that were all in bloom. She had a sense of foreboding. When she got home she was very tired and fell into a deep sleep. She was awakened from the deep sleep by her eldest son telling her in her head, that he had just been shot and had died. Shortly after that, her husband woke her to tell her that her son was dead. She sat right up and told him, "Yes, I know. He was shot. He was murdered." She believes she has heard from her son since. It is surprising how many families who have lost a loved one, have a story of post death communication. So many of these are so compelling.
She is presently raising her 12 year old granddaughter and was understandably distressed to hear that Daniel had passed away at only 12 1/2 without a known medical issue other than some food allergies.