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.

          

        

Daniel's Eleventh Christmas in Heaven

Dearest Daniel,

         I still think that this is the most beautiful song, that says the words with which I struggle, so well. As I know you are aware, your brothers and sister have continued to grow here on Earth. Some of them have married, and some of them have children, and are thrust into the challenges of being young parents. I know you watch with interest as they navigate within this difficult world.

      Sometimes, I still feel your gaze and sometimes in dreams I hear your words. I know that you think that it is time to shed some of the possessions you had while you were here, and that your nephew and niece might enjoy them. I will do this. Please know that although I don't understand why God called you, along with Papa Lawrence, that I trust in the Lord God to keep you both safe. I know that you both looks after the animals who depart this farm at the end of their long lives.

    I look forward to seeing you both, and all of them, when it is my turn to go. Merry Christmas to you both, with great love,


 Mom

On the Anniversary

                  

Autumn in the region where Daniel lived.

       This week, on November 28th, on what is this year, American Thanksgiving, you will have been gone eleven years.  I am already wondering how I will feel next year when you will have been gone for as long as you were actually on the Earth.  Having my youngest son in Heaven ahead of us does not get easier, I just get a little more graceful about it.

                     I was hospitalized last month, as you know, for a medical problem, and interestingly, I weathered it well because I knew I would not be dying as a consequence of that particular hospitalization.  I knew it because, you usually give me some hint or advance warning in dreams, as to the bumps of life, and you mentioned not a word, and so I knew that in the grand scheme, I would continue as I have been, and a month later, that has turned out to be true. Dying someday will be a complicated proposition, because I need to remain here as long as possible for grandchildren and my remaining children, and yet the prospect of seeing you, Dad, and all the animals who have passed from our farm in my lifetime, looms as an attractive eventuality. I think I scared my doctor when I rewrote my Living Will, but it was time anyway.

                     Daniel, you are still so missed, and I still remember the sound of your voice, the things you liked and disliked while you were on Earth. I know that Thanksgiving was probably your favorite holiday.  Your eldest brother and his dear wife got married, on this week several years ago, simply to give our family something to celebrate at this time of year, rather than to mourn. 

                      You are still so loved and you are remembered by everyone. I still remember what a hug from you feels like, and I think back to it fairly often. I am sending you both one of those big hugs.  Sometimes, I still hear you in my dreams.  We continue to live. We move on, while we remember.  Love to you and to my Dad, always and forever.

I Did As I Promised

          

         Daniel,  This year in November it will be eleven years since your sudden and surprising passing. I still remember that within a week of that passing, we had a conversation in dream where you told me that you were fine, but that you had to leave Earth and that you had stayed as long as you could. Longer, in fact, than had originally been planned. So much sorrow washed over me then. There were so many things I wanted to show you about the world. There were so many experiences I wanted you to have. I also wanted to watch you grow and see how you would find your way and succeed upon the Earth.  In that same conversation, you told me, summarizing here, that I was to watch your siblings and your Dad, and take care of your animals until they made their passage back to you.  I have tried to be faithful to the promises I made then. There have also been some animals the farm has acquired after your passing, and I hope as they pass, you and my Dad can ensure that they are loved until I eventually arrive.

             I have fulfilled those promises.  I do what I can, and the new joys you promised have come as you said they would. However, you should know that each day I think of you. Each day you are missed. Almost each day we speak of something you did or said, and you are remembered very fondly.  Your nephew enjoys looking through the items in your room. I have occasionally given him some of the smaller things I didn't think you would mind.  I am keeping things, for the moment, that you enjoyed particularly.

             I miss you.........and yes I know, you love me more.

            

Wishing Everyone a Festive Fourth

       From Daniel's family, his animals and his friends, we all wish you a festive Fourth of July and a safe and memorable Independence Day, however you like to celebrate.

Daniel's Last Dog Has Gone Home

Sally

                   In 2004, we were in the process of relocating our dogs and alpacas to a new barn and acreage, in advance of having a home built there. During that time, we had a particularly hot July, and one of our dogs, a male golden retriever named Albert died as a probable result of angry yellowjackets, which likely caused an anaphylactic reaction. Since we were at the new place while waiting for the old one to close, most of the time, we probably missed his being stung and his passing, by only minutes. Sadly, we actually had animal epinephrine in the event that someone had a reaction when given standard immunizations. We were devastated at the loss of sweet Albert. It also made us wonder if our new acreage was repelling us rather than welcoming us.

                  A couple of weeks later, a female golden labrador, who could have been a sister to Albert arrived there. She had a cheap blue collar I noted had come from the Dollar Store.  She was in no hurry to leave. We fed and watered her, and tied her as we tried to locate her owners.  I put pictures of her with an information sheet at seven different local gas stations and grocers, and since we are very rural here, I placed some as far as thirty miles from here, since so many people commute. I contacted five animal shelters as lost animals in the country often originate from surprising distances, all to no avail.  No one called us, and no one locally had ever seen her before.  We took her to the vet to get her a rabies shot. They didn't know of anyone missing such a dog, and eventually they put us in touch with the local pound, and several weeks later, we adopted her.

                Daniel always enjoyed animals, and this one year old puppy was no exception.Daniel named her Sally. In fact, she also had a middle name, which was Ann.  She was very calm, sweet and devoted. She adapted quickly to our other dogs, and a couple of months later, we had her spayed. She enjoyed our farm animals, and she never ran off. She always stayed near the kids.

                Finally the new house was complete, more farm buildings came, and four glorious years passed. In 2008, when both my father and Daniel died, all of our animals missed Daniel desperately. Sally had a way of listening as if she understood all that you were saying. She had a very comforting manner also.  In the years which have passed, Daniel's dogs have all died one by one, each of them making it to quite advanced ages. Jake, the German Shepherd died the following year. Jared, the Siberian Husky also died in his teens. Rosheen, the Jack Russell Terrier was elderly, and Mark, the black labrador who had seizures, finally died at thirteen. Alvin, a tricolor hound who came to us as a rescue was said to have been twenty when he died. We even lost a couple of large dogs to advanced age that Daniel had never known, since Daniel has now been gone eleven years.  All through this time, Sally hung on. She was sweet and well, and it was hard to believe that she was as old as she was.  About three years ago, during her vet visit the vet prepared me for the probability that she would probably not make it through the Winter due to her advanced age. Of course, she did.

               In 2018 Sally had a stroke, and we knew from a dog we had some years ago who also had one, that if you can hand water and feed a dog through the acute phase of a stroke that many of them will recover almost completely within six weeks. So we worked hard to care for her. By six weeks she was nearly completely recovered, and the vet started her on an eighty milligram aspirin each day. We knew her days we limited, but we cared for this sweet dog as if she were human. My husband worked very hard to do her physical rehabilitation, and he has videos upon videos of her walking around the farm, in all weathers, sometimes with a coat on that resembles a turn out coat for horses. The vet was astounded at her longevity.

             The last few weeks have been rough. She has been failing, but she has not been in pain. We will euthanize our dogs if they are in pain, but she has just been slowing down, needing assistance with feeding, and using a sling in order to stand to use the bathroom and to ambulate.  Yesterday, she wasn't hungry and didn't want water. She wouldn't take my special home brew of lemon dog gatorade.   Sally passed relatively quickly and easily tonight at midnight with my husband and I standing beside her telling her how glad we were to have had her join our family.  She passed on to Jesus and to Daniel tonight, who now has all of the dogs he knew here on Earth, with him. There is only one more alpaca who remains on Earth that he knew, otherwise all of the animals here on the farm joined us after his departure.

           Thank you Sally for being such a wonderful part of our lives through joy and through sadness. Please know you are loved very much. Daniel must be thrilled to have you with him now, and you will see your old friends whom I believe are also with him, and with my father, who always loved dogs.   Godspeed, sweet Sally Ann.

Tunnels in Time After Child Loss

          

       The loss of a child is a strange thing. It can be a bit like moving into a time tunnel. One one side of the tunnel, the world is stopped in the place where you lost your child. In my time tunnel, this side is missing Daniel and he would be 12 1/2, and my other children would be the age they were when he died. In some ways, this is the last place I was before the Earth underwent terrible, sad and dark changes.  On the other side of the time tunnel, life has moved on and many changes have taken place. I have a grandchild who is four now. Some of my children are married, and some have their own homes and businesses. They are through colleges now. The other side of the time tunnel, known to most of you as the present has some other odd features. Daniel, is of course, not here, but if he were, he would be 23 years old now.  It's strange to try to imagine what a Daniel of 23 might look like, what he might be doing and where he went to college. It can be bewildering when you add his friends. Recently, one of his friends got married and they are a lovely young couple, and not at all too young to enter such a daunting commitment. It is hard to reconcile that even one of Daniel's friends has married.

          Other than that, I am still working, still writing, and still caring for one remaining dog that Daniel knew, named Sally, whose days are likely numbered now, due to advanced age. We have other dogs on the farm, but they were acquired after his departure. There is one alpaca remaining that he knew, and chickens who are the grandchildren of the rooster be bought the day before his passing.

             May your own tunnels in time be happy and secure places, on either end.

Happy Birthday Daniel

 
 Happy Birthday Daniel, on what would be your 23rd birthday here on Earth.   So much has changed since your departure, and so much has stayed the same.  Despite the fact that you have been gone eleven years this year, Sally, the dog remains from the time in which you were still here.  Warrior Princess Camellia, the alpaca, is also here, and hails from the times in which you still were.

     We think of you often, and send our love.