This Month: Ten Years

Dearest Daniel,


    In fifteen days, the calendar will have reached the day of your sudden departure once again. This year, it will have been ten years since you left Earth.  I know that time is marked quite differently in Heaven.  It sometimes feel as if your sudden death bent time right here.

               As you know, in the intervening ten years, we reside on the same farm.  Most of the animals you knew have departed and joined you, except for Sally, the golden labrador who is very old and is recovering from a recent stroke,  and Warrior Princess Camellia, the alpaca, who is quite mature but remains healthy. One or two of the ducks we bought together are still here, but the rest of them came to us after your departure. A number of the Rhode Island Red chickens and roosters are children or grandchildren of Ross the Rooster that you bought just a few days before your departure.The horses, the sheep, the poultry, and the rest of the dogs and the cats were all additions following your passing.

               Of course it has been difficult for us and for your siblings not to have had you here. The eldest three have all graduated from college and are on to jobs.  One has their own home, and one has their own business, and one of them is married, but I know you know this, because I felt your spirit in the wind that day when we entered the church.  You also have a precious nephew who knows all about you and would share your sense of humor and your taste in many things.

      Sadly, there are still twelves and teens who collapse and die with no other notice due to sudden arrhythmic syndromes, just as you did that day.  There are AEDs now in airports and a lot of public buildings.Your friend Olivia Hoff's mother, Corinne Ruiz has seen to it that many schools and porting venues have an AED now.   I have been less effective, in this regard,  than she has. Wal-Mart didn't wish to get one, citing legal issues. I know that even an AED might not have helped you that day.  I still have one here now.  Please look out for Corinne and for Olivia's brother if you can.

                It doesn't seem like ten years.  It feels like three.  If I live to be a hundred I will not forget
how it felt when you hugged me when you were almost as tall as I am. The friends you had while here on Earth are still so ind to me. Please send my love to Papa Lawrence.  I love you Daniel, wider than the oceans and deeper than the seas.



                

"Westward: The Novel is Released !

Westward:The Novel is a 6x9 inch book or available electronically, and is 322 pages long.

                      Since Daniel's passing, I have not returned to do any of the jobs I had before. Instead, I needed to be home with his siblings, his animals and on the land he new almost all of his life.  In that time, I have written books.  First, I wrote the one that told of Daniel's life and of his passing, called What I Learned from Daniel,  which is atop the page. Next there was the Rational Preparedness: A Primer to Preparedness book.  Then, there was a first novel, Portsoy Woods, which is my first novel and tells of a family during a US financial collapse who live in the country.  Lawrence DeWolfe Kelsey:The Life of the Explorer  is the true story of an American patriot and explorer, who also happens to be Daniel's grandfather.

                       Westward: The Novel is the story of a young woman with four children who loses her husband suddenly, just after he makes the final transitions from being a police officer to an attorney. She is left not only navigating life with four young children without her husband, but she is also left needing to return to work in order to support herself and her family. This is the inspiring story of how she does that while continuing to parent. Ultimately, she must also navigate finding the second great love of her life, and how she and her children adapt to his becoming a new part of their family.

                      Of course, Amazon has Westward, but my publisher seems to have the paper bound book and the electronic versions available less expensively at this link:

               https://booklocker.com/books/9981.html

 

                 Thanks so much for continuing to read from this collection.

   Best wishes to everyone. 

The Best Review

     

                          This book was released in the Autumn of 2012, and was the story of Daniel's life here on Earth, and of his sudden departure from it.  I wrote it for many reasons. First, I had a strong desire to share what a special person Daniel was while here on Earth and unless someone from my family told the world, then no one would know. Secondly, I had a strong desire to write down everything about his life and about his passing before I somehow forgot any of it. The memory is a strange thing after the death of a child. Some incidents are brushed with gold afterward, and other periods of time may be forgotten until years afterward. I was taking no chances. I also had a desire to help those who also were grappling with the sudden and unexpected loss of their own child, or who were navigating grief.  Lastly, I suppose I must have written for the simple catharsis of  it. There was relief sometimes, after a chapter at a time was completed. Sometimes there was also a feeling of closeness to Daniel as I wrote.

                        I did not experience great book sales with this book, but there have been plenty of letters or e-mails from all over the world in which people told me how touched they were by the book and how they feel they know Daniel.  One family, had a beach funeral and remembrance for Daniel where they said a few words about his loss, and tossed beautiful orange flowers into the ocean, and then wrote to tell me, including the photographs they took.  I have also heard from other families where their child had died of Sudden Unexpected Death in Childhood (SUDC) or of Long QT Syndrome, which is also a potential consideration in Daniel's passing.  The world's response to this book has helped me to feel tethered to the world and to my remaining children here, rather than to want to simply evaporate in order to go to find Daniel. I will always be grateful for the contacts from these people.

                        This Autumn, the book will have been available for sale for six years, and Daniel's passing will have been ten years ago. However, the book and the experience are still giving to me, and I would imagine, to others as well. This week, the very best review the book has received was posted on Amazon.
 (Link to the review below:
 https://www.amazon.com/What-Learned-Daniel-Jane-Alexandra-Krehbiel/dp/1479752657    )

 

The tragic account of Jane-Alexandra Krehbiel and her family's sudden, tragic and completely unexpected loss of 12 1/2-year old Daniel goes well beyond a sad and tearful account of loss, grief, and the search for catharsis, understanding, acceptance and healing.

This little man was particularly bright and insightful, having a soul and a spiritual connection to the hearts and minds of those around him. He was kind almost to a fault. He had an uncanny understanding of science and technology, the terms of which he used to draw parallels to the brokenness he observed in other people.

I don't think the author wrote this account without the fear of what the sense of vulnerability can do when you open every thought and emotion for anyone to read and react to. Jane-Alexandra Krehbiel takes us into the innermost otherwise secret chambers of little Daniel and the family's love and reverence for the dozen years they were allowed to enjoy such a precious gift from God.

The book should be read by anyone who suffered a loss and feels the grief that accompanies an event that cannot be changed or reversed. But I recommend it too to anyone who loves to peer into the souls of others...if you value the visceral dimension of our human condition, and cannot seem to find much beyond the typical accounts of people you cannot relate to, I urge you to buy this book. It will be food and sustenance for your heart and your spirit...I promise.         Rodd Mann

 

               Daniel, I think he understood. 

 

 

 

You Departed Nine Years Ago Today

  


 

Daniel, one year in costume as Charlie Chaplin.    Daniel would be 21 years old in the present day.

        
 Daniel,

     I won't ever forget your special days.   I will always remember your birthdays. I will always remember the anniversaries of your sudden departure to Heaven.  I will be here until I am called. I will continue to take care of your animals, and there are still quite a few you would know from the farm.  The ones you knew seem to try to live lives as long as possible as if to spare me any more grieving, for as long as they can.

      This year, it is not only the birthday of a special friend of yours, but one of your friends has a baby that is due today.  Please look in on her if you can. 

       And so, the anniversary of your departure nine years ago today, is no different.  I will man the fort. I will find warm homes for the things you owned and loved while you were here. I will watch and care for your siblings as they grow, and I will continue to be comforted by the love we shared while you were still my youngest son, here on Earth.

        You have my love and my respect always.   Please send love to my Dad.

A Cataclysmic Loss: Nine Years After

Dearest Daniel,

               On the twenty-eighth of this month, you will have been gone from Earth for nine years.  I can just imagine you at 21, had you remained here.  You were only 12 1/2 when you departed.  I have to wonder how I might feel, in three more years, when you are gone for as long as you were here.
                I know that you keep an eye on us all.  Somehow, some of your animals are still alive. It's as if they knew you had to depart in haste, and they wish to stay as long as possible in order to support us.  Sometimes, when I am scrubbing a horse bucket, or working with one of the horses, I feel as if you are watching me.  I think of you often, and I try to be as busy as I can be.  There is no "closure".  The loss of a child will always be a crater in one's life, but we must continue, for your Dad, for your siblings and your animals, and also it's what you would expect from us, and I wouldn't want to disappoint you.  You know, I still love you, wider than the oceans, and deeper than the seas............and yes, I know, just as you always said, you love me more.

And the Bathroom Still Stands as Witness

              

Daniel

         In a few days, it will have been nine years since you entered the bathroom, collapsed, and died. My immediate  CPR, a precordial thump, a shot of epinephrine, and then another, followed by the sheriff's deputies use of the AED made no difference. You hit the floor, and you were gone.  In the crazy days and weeks which followed, there weren't many answers. Eventually, multiple world class pathologists at university medical centers said that although your autopsy was negative for anything that should have caused your death, that your collapse, your fall forward, and the number of sudden deaths in older members of our family coupled with our strong family history for arrhythmia (heart rhythm disturbance) is likely what took you, even at only age 12 1/2.  Since then, so many more children and teens have died suddenly from sudden arrhythmic death syndrome (SADS) and sudden unexplained death in childhood (SUDC), that although I am sure you have a lot of company and friends to talk to about it, it is of no consolation to their families, or to myself.

                I often think about the bathroom you died in.  The house was new when you died there. The shiny walls and lights, new marble tub and shower. The mirror and new shower curtain, and the photos of lighthouses are still there.  When you died, the baseboards and shoe moldings were new. Today, they are showing just a little age, the result of steam and occasional splashings by your siblings and your toddler nephew. A few days after you died, I lay on the floor, as you had, looking up to see if anything resembling a stairway to Heaven were there, something, anything, but there wasn't anything.  It was simply a bathroom. I couldn't imagine how your active and shining soul could have seeped out of the cheery new room.  How could something so cataclysmic have occurred in such a pleasant and ordinary room?  One of your doctors called it a "supernatural passing".  How could a supernatural passing have occurred in a modern bathroom. Wouldn't it have needed to occur in a church?

               Since then, we haven't changed  much in the bathroom.  There are some prints that are hung on the wall in blue and white which look quite good.  James uses the bathroom more than anyone, since he occupies your old room, after we moved all of your things to a new bedroom we finished in the basement. (To those who don't know us, James in a young teen who was adopted the year after Daniel died, something Daniel had always wanted us to do.) Also since that time, your nephew bathes in the tub in that bathroom, and spends more time in the tub there, than anyone else ever has, since all of you preferred showers.

              The bathroom remains the same, and on some levels so do I.   I still can't believe that my youngest son could celebrate Thanksgiving with family and friends, play a soccer game with college students, and then arise the next day perfectly well, with the intention of Black Friday shopping.  We were getting ready to go, when you collapsed and died.   Black Friday is all it will ever be for me.

               

Our Family's Story of Halloween

                  Daniel, I remember telling you that when I was a young child, my absolute favorite holiday was Halloween.  Christmas and Easter were the purview and territory of the adults, and you had to dress as they wished you to.  Halloween was another matter. It was the child run and mediated holiday, and we adored it. We often had our costumes planned months in advance, and we would buy elements of them from garage sales or church sales. Some of them were incredibly creative.  We would choose our costumes and then my mother would sew an accessory or two for us on the sewing machine.
                   When we were very young, we walked, before dusk, to all of our neighbors, and since we lived in the country, that would only be about nine neighbors if you walked several miles. Because the neighbors knew that we would be getting to a maximum of nine, they would give fairly generous offerings. It was also the only time we would see some of these neighbors all year.

                   As we grew and became twelve or thirteen, we went farther afield. We walked and hit the local neighbors before dusk and then when dusk came, my friend's mother would take us to the subdivisions which were about fifteen miles away. She gave us shopping bags and the name of the game was to move as fast as possible. Of course, the people who were seeing fifty children a night adjusted their offerings downward, but that wasn't the point. It was a candy treasure hunt......a one day special.  The funny thing is that we didn't really eat all of that candy.  Our parents would check it, we ate some, and we would give some away to our friends at school. Some of it would still be sitting in the bag at Christmas.  The last year I trick or treated, a pizza place in the valley gave a slice of pizza to each child on Halloween.

                    By the time I had my own children, the carefree days of letting your children walk on country roads at dusk were over.  We feared poisonings, abductions, and accidents on those same country roads, because by then, all of those things had happened.  When your brother and sister were small, I would take them to selected neighbors who knew us, and since your sister was a Type I diabetic, they had special sugar free treats especially for her.  When we moved to the suburbs, and had the big white house, your Dad took the two older kids, your brother, and you to neighbors, while I gave out candy to more than a hundred kids, most years.  One Halloween evening, your Dad had to go out and restock our supply two more times!

                  By the time you were of prime trick or treating age, America had fallen out of love with the holiday. By then, we lived here on the farm, and the closed gates at dusk ensured that no one would be coming here.  Instead of trick or treating, churches and local groups arranged Harvest Festivals, with a bonfire, a pot luck dinner, candy, costumes and all your friends.  On that Saturday, you and your friends would play games until late at night.

                    I hope you had as much fun on those days as we did. 
                

The Edge of Autumn

                 

                  Yesterday, outside on the farm it was clearly late summer. Dogs were still shedding hair, honeybees were still seeking flowers, and squirrels were quiet.  Today, the tide has turned. Squirrels are gathering acorns, trees are turning yellow, leaves are falling. So many trees here grew so tall this year that it's now time for them to sleep.It smells like autumn.

                    So finish up those last summer joys and tasks because the page is about to turn.  Have you noticed that the pages turn faster and faster each year ?  I certainly have.  Happy Autumn.

In Remembrance of Lieutenant Commander Doris M. Artz

  

                 On the occasion of Memorial Day, I would like to thank a person from my own life, for spending her own in our military.


       Lieutenant Commander Doris N. Artz was a navy nurse who ran the naval hospital in Hawaii at the time of Pearl Harbor. She also served with distinction in a number of ways in the profession of nursing, including as a writer of nursing board exam questions and in the structuring of nursing programs.

          She was also an extremely bright and independent woman who loved playing the piano, gardening, teaching, and taking six year olds to Christmas pageants and church functions. She was also a very good soldier of Jesus Christ.

          Courtesy of her extremely good health in retirement, she was also my piano teacher, good friend, and, I suppose,  mentor when I was six years old.

           Despite the fact that there are papers of her's held by the Naval Museum in D.C., there may not be enough data or enough people that knew her and about her life and times for me to write the book she so richly deserves.

          Instead, I must honor her today for all she did, for our country, for the soldiers in her care, and for me. At least part of the registered nurse I was and am, was seeded by Lieutenant Commander Artz in those days we shared. She conveyed a love of animals and of God's world, a meticulousness in her desire to aid living things, but never in a manner which interfered with nature or did harm.

         Thank you Doris, for the gifts you gave to me, both material and symbolic.  Thank you for all you did for me, and for our country.  You are remembered not only on this day, but always.







https://www.history.navy.mil/research/archives/research-guides-and-finding-aids/personal-papers/a/papers-of-lieutenant-commander-doris-m-artz.html

Mother's Day: 2017

                

Graphic: casesder.info

              I am not a big proponent of days devoted to special groups.  I would rather that people treated me with respect and consideration all year rather than saving it for a special day and calling it Mother's Day.  I also have a birthday and one day a year is enough for me.   That said, I usually am treated well and so the special day is not normally a point of my focus.

                    Once you lose a child, Mother's Day becomes a bit of a double-edged sword. It can become one of those days in which there are both happy and profoundly sad memories. I am not advocating that you ignore the day for such mothers, but I am advocating that you perhaps ask before surprising mothers who have lost a child or a baby.  It would be nice to acknowledge the day without making it an exercise in endurance.   Consider flowers carefully. Sometimes flowers conjure funeral memories for some Moms especially if the loss was fairly recent.

                   If you are a mother reading this post today, then you are likely processing a loss. I send prayers for you for a good day, and for lovely memories for you, despite their bittersweet nature on this day.

                   And to Daniel, we will always be connected through space and time, even though we might not occupy the same dimensional space here on Earth.  Some connections are static in time, and not subject to entropy. Love endures all things.  I love you, bug.  Today and every day.

Another Sudden Cardiac Death at Thirteen

Joshua Isaac Perkins

                     

        Most of the time, I hear fairly quickly about someone who died under similar circumstances to Daniel.   Occasionally, I do not.  Joshua Isaac Perkins died suddenly and unexpectedly at age thirteen a year ago.  Like Daniel, Joshua was the youngest of four children. Joshua had been homeschooled and also had attended New Covenant Christian Fellowship School.   Daniel died at home, but Joshua collapsed at church, and despite CPR, he was pronounced dead later at Sturdy Memorial Hospital in  
Attleboro, Massachusetts.

           Joshua will always be the beloved youngest son of Mark A Perkins and of Carleen A (Hazen) Perkins.  Joshua also left three siblings, (Jacob, Brandon and Hannah)  many relatives and lots and lots of friends.  He brought light wherever he went.  He loved video games, board games, and the family's beloved beagle, Buddy. He loved hiking, movies, and fishing with his grandpa. He loved being with his family.

           This happens to too many children, and particularly to too many boys of Daniel's and Joshua's age.  Please pray for this family. A year is a short time on a journey of grief.






                    His family requests that donations in memory of Joshua be made to:

  Massachusetts General Hospital in support of cardiology research led by Dr. Tomas Neilan. 

Gifts can be made online at giving.massgeneral.org/donate,

 or mailed to

 MGH Development Office, 
 Attn: Carrie Powers,
 125 Nashua St., Suite 540,
 Boston, MA 02114

payable to Massachusetts General Hospital. Please include in honor of Joshua Perkins on the memo line.

          

More information:

http://www.dyer-lakefuneralhome.com/memsol.cgi?user_id=1793830        

Happy Twenty-First Birthday, Daniel

                 

Is this an adult enough cake ?

 


   Happy twenty-first birthday, Daniel !  I know that once you leave the Earth that celebrations commemorating the age of the flesh suit aren't important, but your birthdays are cherished memories for me, and I need them, so please indulge me for just a moment.  It has now been eight and a half years now since your abrupt departure from the farm, and yet in some ways, it seems like yesterday. You are still discussed here, and we laugh about things that would have amused you. We talk about your friends and what your responses to some of the things they are doing would have been.  Your toddler nephew knows you from pictures and calls you, "Unco Daniel".  Among our many dogs, there are still three dogs, Sally, Sable and Benjamin, who remain here that you knew and loved. They are all very old and will probably join you there soon, but we are very much enjoying their continued presence here, particularly since they remain healthy.

                  Please know that I love you with all my heart and that you are missed from here every day. My faith remains strong that God called you for a specific reason and for specific tasks and that is a comfort to me.   I continue to keep the promises I made to you on the day that you were absent from your beautiful flesh suit.  I am sending a hug just like the one we shared, when Papa Lawrence was in the hospital. I know you remember.   Please send my love to him as well.   Happy Birthday, you gorgeous brilliant man !   I have always been so very proud of you, and I still am, even though I don't really know everything you are doing.

                I love you, and I still feel your presence sometimes especially when something momentous happens.  Happy Birthday !

Ugo Ethiogu Dies

                   

               It has been announced that famous football (soccer) player Ugo Ethiogu has died of a cardiac arrest during practice at Tottenham in England, last Thursday.  Ethiogu enjoyed a very successful career as a soccer player for both England and for Aston Villa.

                 He was very successful as a soccer player and as a personality and was gaining credibility and great popularity as a coach.

                 Ugo was married to his wife Gemma and they had two children, Obi Jackson, a son, and Jodie, a daughter.

                 Cardiac arrest of the arrhythmic variety afflicts those of any age, and may especially afflict those who hearts are pumping rapidly during exercise during sports.  This is not the first sudden death of an accomplished soccer player. Piermario Morosini died in 2012.

                  We send our prayers to his family and to his children.





This is more detailed information on Ugo Ethiogu than I can possibly tell you.


Information on Piermario Morosino

The Grey Metal Casket

          

This is it.

             One of the strangest things about having a child die suddenly is that all at once, there are many questions asked of you. Will you be wanting burial or cremation ? Where are the remains to be buried ? Where is the funeral to be held ? Do you want an open casket or a closed one ?  How much do you want to spend ?  Will you be needing embalming services ?  No one really cares that your child collapsed and died three hours ago, and no one knows why.

                 In the past I have thought of myself as someone whose mind works fairly quickly. As a critical care nurse I have functioned well and thought clearly in any number of pretty horrible emergencies both in and out of hospitals, but nothing can compare to the sudden absence of your child's spirit from his body, before your eyes. Nothing can compare to being told that since there was no "foul play" suspected that any autopsy would have to be at your own expense ***, and nothing can compare to being asked a number of fairly complex final questions when you have absolutely never considered such things where your child is concerned. We actually didn't know of a single funeral home in our area.

               Part of the reason I had difficulty answering such questions is that the questions and the answers were complex. Our farm actually has a family cemetery, and despite the frozen ground, we wondered if it could be used for Daniel's remains now. Secondly, how could someone have an open casket funeral after an autopsy ? Thirdly, why was embalming required by law ?   Somehow we navigated this very difficult time and item by item came up with answers to these mind bending questions. We chose to have the funeral in the county seat of the place in which Daniel and our other children had homeschooled. We thought that more of his friends could attend this way, rather than holding the funeral in Charlottesville, which had been my first leaning. We learned that despite the autopsy, that great care had been taken to allow an open casket funeral afterward. I did not want this, but my husband did, and who was I to argue ? He too had lost his youngest son that day. Also at that time, we chose cremation, just as my parents, grandparents, and aunts had.  And so, we needed to buy a casket, not for him to be buried in, because his remains wouldn't be, but simply for the hours of the viewing and the funeral itself.  Afterward, we could have given it back to the funeral home where it would be refurbished and presumably used again.  We selected a rather heavy metal casket painted a matte gray with shiny silver toned handles.  Inside it was lined with a particularly soft pillow and white soft lining which reminded me of the fabric of the gown and clothing Daniel wore for his christening. The funeral itself was quite beautiful and well attended. It truly was a celebration of Daniel's life with many people ranging in age from babyhood to in their eighties in attendance. Even a cat named Macintosh, that Daniel truly loved, that belonged to a friend, attended the gathering in a carrier.

                   All of the decisions we made we solid reasonable ones, perhaps except for one. Rather than giving the coffin back to the funeral home afterward, we decided, in advance, to keep it. There was a great deal of metal in it and we'd paid what we considered a great deal for it. Daniel was a big believer in recycling and repurposing almost everything, and perhaps this was a hats off to him.  Perhaps our eldest son, who was completing his degree in sculpture at university could use the metal and fashion an incredible sculpture of some kind. He certainly had with other heavy large metal items. The funeral home wanted it off their property as quickly as possible after the funeral.  The day after, we secured it to one of our trucks using multiple bungee cords and covered it with a tarpaulin. As we drove the distance to the farm, periodically the tarp would blow upwards in the wind, and drivers behind us would see that we were toting a coffin. Daniel would have thought this hysterical. I remember being an odd combination of distraught and amused as they passed our truck, looking strangely at us. Why shouldn't I want the casket? I thought. We didn't yet have Daniel's ashes back. I still wasn't sure that the happenings of that week weren't a terrible nightmare.  When we got home, we placed the coffin in one of our outbuildings on its back. I was surprised to see that the pillow and lining were still intact and clean and had not been removed.
              It didn't matter how much we said that Daniel's casket didn't really have anything to do with him and how repurposing it as a sculpture would have pleased him. Our eldest son, who had originally planned to use the metal in a project was struck by lightning while closing up another wooden building with a metal roof here in August of 2011. Although he survived, he had a number of ongoing medical problems which limited his use of the welders and equipment necessary to completely take down the casket to its component parts.
            And so, an empty gray casket sits alone and waits in an empty building here on our farm, and has now for eight years.  It remains as beautiful and as clean as the day in which I first saw it. It has taken eight years for me to be able to tell you this. Perhaps 2017 is also the year in which the casket is set free to become something else other than a symbol of a very sad day indeed.

















***The University of Virginia Medical Center eventually chose to make Daniel's case a teaching one, as no clear structural cause of his passing could ever be demonstrated. Since his cause of death was theoretical, we were never billed for multiple autopsies by different pathology teams. The cause of death was surmised to be a functional cause of death, a supposed heart rhythm disturbance in a heart that appeared healthy otherwise. We learned later that this flaw of heart rhythm does run in our family, and it had to be treated by ablation in other family members.

You Love Me More: Our Christmas Letter

       Daniel,

    It is now eight years counted in Earth years since you parted so quickly, at the beginning of that Christmas season.  Since you missed the Christmas in 2008, then you are actually about to miss the ninth Christmas since your departure.

                      There are a number of things you know I do since your departure, in part as remembrances of you, and in those early years, as a probably attempt to stay sane.  Each year, I have either written a Christmas letter to you that is found in your Christmas stocking, or I post it here on your blog, or both.  I place your ornaments on the tree each year.

                    As you know, this year has been richly challenging.  Your brother's wedding was beautiful and memorable, and yet, I did not see you there. I hope that while I concentrated on suppressing happy tears that day, that you and my Dad were able to sneak in and get good seating.  The wedding cake was superb and unusual and I hope you both got a taste.

                   The world continues to be difficult, fitfull and uncertain at times.  Sometimes, even I will admit to having learned to appreciate that you will not know some of the trials that are all too common here.  This year when one of your brothers were hit on the interstate and his car rolled over, I was two things. I was grateful for the life of your brother and for his safety, and a small part of me was grateful that this would never happen to you. You will be spared many of the sorrows of life, and I have learned to be somewhat grateful for this, even though I have no real choice.

                 The animals are still fine, and when they are not, they are home with you.  I still remember your big shining eyes. I remember your rare but generous tears. I remember your generosity to people and how well you conversed with human beings of all ages. How can it be that this year you will be twenty-one ?  I love you and my Dad more than words can say.  Each one of these years beings me just a bit closer to the breath that will see me reunited with you both.   I love you, Daniel.   Yes, I know,  you love me more.




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Eight Vast Years

           

       I found this picture of you taken when you were about eight at Christmas, at the first farm. I believe your sister says you were being dressed to be an elf.   I can't believe that it's eight years today since you had to depart. I love you just as much as I ever did, and the memories of what you liked and disliked when you were here are still fresh. You will always be my son whether you had continued life here on Earth, or in Heaven. Your siblings and your dad mention you often and we often giggle at things you said which have turned out to be quite true. Love to my Dad and everyone with you. I love you wider than the oceans, and deeper than the seas, and I always will.

Stop Crying: This is the Good Stuff

             

  Today, just two days before Daniel would have been gone eight years, one of my sons was married in a beautiful church ceremony with friends and family in attendance.  He has married a lovely young woman that Daniel clearly would have adored. Perhaps our entire family will benefit from a wedding anniversary that occurs just two days from Daniel's sudden departure from Earth.
            
              There were lots of tears at the lovely well attended wedding.  In fact, some of the bride's nieces and nephews asked me why so many of the adults were crying.  I told them that first, we were crying because seeing two people very much in love who finally are able to marry one another is both rare and sweet and makes us cry. Also, such beautiful music, which was especially chosen by the bride and groom makes many of us cry, all by itself.  Also, if we are the parents of the bride or the groom, we cannot help but remember them as small children and wonder how they made the jump from toddler to kindergartener to teen, college student, graduate, and then husband or wife. We wonder how the years could have passed so quickly when they might seem not to have for us.  Lastly, we cry because we are just a grain selfish. When our children marry the love of their lives, there simply will be a bit less time for us, and we cry because we may, just a bit selfishly,know that life will change and that we will miss them.  The kids seemed to accept this, or perhaps they simply were sorry they asked.

              In any case, I send understanding and good wishes to anyone who has had to sit through beautiful music and has been the mother of the bride or the groom.

Our Fragile Times

                

Daniel,  May, 1996-November 28, 2008

 

       This week, two ladies who worked with my daughter died on the same day.  Later in the week, the lady who took over work for one of our family members while he vacationed, passed in a car accident.  The end of this existence will come for each and every one of us, and yet, we work, play, and sometimes plan as if it will not.

    We are just five days away from the day when, eight years ago, my son Daniel, who was only 12, collapsed and died here at home. He had a clean autopsy, and so the prevailing pathologist's theory is that he experienced a sudden heart rhythm disturbance, as increasing numbers of children who play sports are doing, and that despite immediate CPR, his rhythm disturbance was non-recoverable. He's had a physical with a professor of pediatrics just a week or so before his death, and now ironically, both my son and that physician are dead.This time of year used to be my favorite, and yet, even eight years past Daniel's passing, I am fragile around Thanksgiving. It seems to me that almost everyone in our family eventually passes within October or November.

                    I am however, not quite as destroyed as you might expect because I know a few things which ease the journey.  Our trip to Earth is a temporary one for us all. Each one of us is issued a mortal flesh suit and then raised with the idea that our stay is somewhat open ended. After all, when we're in school we may be told that by the time we are middle aged, there will be a cure for all the cancers, and failing organs will be laboratory grown and transplanted. You'll live to 120 the school physician told me at 16 when I had a tennis physical.   Of course, none of this is true. Our bodies are on loan, a bit like a tuxedo rental from the Men's Warehouse. We work and play and over time, we age. The aging that is evident on the exterior indicates that similar or even more severe aging is occurring internally.  Entropy is real. We age in steps and eventually must evacuate our flesh suits even though we wish, at that point,  simply to shelter in place. It is universal. It will happen to us all.

                   I have actually accepted my own mortality pretty well over the years. The only reason I fear it now is that I have more skin in the game than I used to.  I still have four children remaining on Earth, and a grandchild. I dislike the idea of feeling as if I will ultimately be abandoning them all in a world that is not quite as friendly as most mothers wish it were.

                 Still, we come to Earth. We live, we love, we work, and this too is very important.  Eventually, we leave the rental suit and go home to a more permanent arrangement.

                  Make sure that tomorrow when you see family and friends that you drink the water and realize how cool and quenching it can be. Be kind, even to those who don't really deserve it, because this could be their last Thanksgiving.  Drink the sparkling cider and don't be tempted to drink anything that muddies your memory of this rare day. Realize that the little kids who will spill gravy on the oriental rug are going to remember tomorrow always. See that they remember you for forgiveness.  Remember always to place people above even valuable things.  Make sure that although you have a strong work ethic, that you are also known for the important ability to set work aside, even just for a day.   Eat and enjoy, but not so much that you make the rental suit sick, because you will have to inhabit it the day after, as well.

                   Enjoy this day as if it is your last, not because it will be, but because someday there will be a day that is.

                      Happy Thanksgiving

This Time of Year

           

      No matter how many times we revisit this time of year, as it approaches, I still have trepidation as if it's a train pulling into a dreaded station.  This year, it will be eight years since Daniel enjoyed Thanksgiving with friends and family and then, the day after, in preparation for Christmas shopping, collapsed and died in our home's main floor bathroom.  Even though we heard the crash of his falling, and unlocked the door with a key and started immediate CPR, there was no coming back. The helicopter team from the University of Virginia ran an exceptional code, but he was gone before they had really arrived.
               We live now in the altered, no fractured timeline doing the best we can to propel our children forward in a world frankly Daniel might not quite have recognized from eight years ago.
                 The song below, by Steven Curtis Chapman, is a comfort and I hope it will be to you as well.




https://www.facebook.com/stevencurtischapman/videos/10154374217952949/?video_source=pages_finch_trailer

An Alpaca on an Oriental Rug

Daniel with Cammie, in early August, 2004

                         Sometimes, I look back sadly on the twelve and a half short years Daniel had on Earth. Sometimes I feel as if I should have taken him to Europe, or to Canada or even Iceland.  The fact is, I believed all those things could wait or that he could do them as an adult. I believed he would be on Earth for an entire lifetime and that there was no reason to race through his life.  Other times I look back on his life and realize that in many ways he enjoyed an unusual and special life here, even though he may not have completed the things I might have wanted for him.

                         Daniel loved animals, and in late July of 2004, one of our alpacas, Queen Isabelle, gave birth to a third cria (baby alpaca)   Isabelle's milk did not come in as it should have, and the vet came to give the cria a blood transfusion from another animal in order to provide the immunity that the initial colostrum ordinarily would have provided. We also needed, for a time,  to tube feed the cria, and then nurse her through colic, all while running her outside periodically to maintain the bond she was to have with her mother.  At night the cria slept in some clean orchard grass in our empty deep jacuzzi in the master bedroom.  During the day, she spent time with her mother outside in the grass. The cria, named Warrior Princess Camellia, or Cammie to mere mortals like ourselves, came inside to the bathroom to receive orogastric tube feedings. At times, the little dear did walk over genuine oriental rugs ! Fortunately, even young crias urinate and defecate only in a dung pile out of doors.  Daniel was especially nurturing to little Cammie, who was all of twenty pounds during this period of time.

              Time passed quickly and Cammie grew.  As time passed she not only had the bond with her mother for which we had all hoped, but a bond with Daniel and the rest of her humans, as well.  Daniel may not have seen Europe or had pastries in Paris. He may not have have seen bubbling hot springs in Iceland, or have made it to Stonehenge in England, but he did live a remarkable life.  He spent a lot of time studying things with which he had a deep interest. He read a great deal and few had such a detailed understanding of a computer and the internet. In fact, he was looking at colleges at 12 1/2 and was academically ready to go. He enjoyed close relationships with animals and was an important caregiver to them, especially when they had difficulties. He enjoyed rescue dogs, and chickens and ducks. He did far more of the things he really cared about doing than many of us have the chance to do.

             We had no idea what was to come. Probably the reason that Cammie's mother did not produce milk following her delivery, is that she was later found to have an advancing brain tumor. The vet believed it to be astrocytoma.  Cammie's mother Isabelle died in the Summer of 2004. I remember Daniel hosing Isabelle down to keep her cool following a seizure in one of those last hours.
              Then, in November, 2008 Daniel died suddenly, and with a clean autopsy. It is theorized that he passed of a sudden heart rhythm disturbance, the type often seen in children playing sports. It is theorized to have been something called Long QT Syndrome.
              Cammie is ten years old now. She lost her mother, and then she lost Daniel.  Within in past few months, her father, Ditto, passed at a very advanced age.  We still care for her as diligently as we ever did, exactly as Daniel would want it.  Cammie may have known losses, but she has also known stability in that she has remained at the farm in which she was born, all of her life. She has herdmates she has known all of that time. She has a brother who has always been here also.

                In late Fall this year, Daniel will have been gone for eight years. Sometimes it feels like it was only three years ago, and then other times it feels as if it were ten years ago. So many of Daniel's animals have lived to advanced old ages and then passed. The world has changed a good deal in the eight years since his departure.
                 And still, both Cammie and Daniel have the memory of playing together within weeks of her birth, on oak floors indoors, and on oriental rugs. Most of all I remember their joy while playing, as we worked so hard to keep Cammie alive in those early weeks.

                   And so, if there is a moral to this story and to life in general, it's that none of us know what is to come or can predict it. Of course we all need to work, because work is a part of life, but we also need to make time to do things we genuinely care about doing.  I can't account for my grandmother living to near one hundred when she had battled health issues from about forty on. I can't account for how a healthy child could die despite CPR one November day.  What I can do, is make sure that everyone I love knows it, and that the most important things I care about doing are done. Make sure that the animals you love know that too, as their lives pass so much more quickly than our own.  Don't be afraid to put your alpaca on an oriental rug if need be.

My husband with Cammie.