Even on a Deserted Island . . .

Have you ever wondered why grief catches you offguard?

Recently, my husband and I watched one of Celine Dion's concerts on TV, and after the last song, I felt this tinge of sorrow. No stranger to sorrow, I was aware of the tinge. Because I'm the type that labels my tears and emotions, I asked myself why I felt sorrowful. What was this sudden onset of an ache in my heart? Was it due to the song Celine Dion sang at the end, My Heart Will Go On?

Perhaps that was it, I concluded. I smiled at the two photos on the mantel of Daniel, my four-year-old who died from cancer treatments in 1997. The song, along with the movie that made it famous (Titanic) came out shortly after Daniel's death. My eldest daughter and her friends sang it at a family and friends event the first Christmas without Daniel. I recalled how I had listened to every word and couldn't hold back tears.

It must be that song, I decided after my husband turned off the TV. After all, no signifcant date like Daniel's birth or death date was approaching. Christmas was over six months away.

It was days later when I stood in the upstairs hallway that I found the reason why I had been sad. There on one of the walls hangs the bear and quilt painting I had purchased at the Raleigh flea market days before Daniel's birth. When a vendor asked when I was due, I'd said, "Yesterday." Daniel was late arriving and sat on my sciatic nerve, making it painful to walk. I placed the watercolor in the room we had decorated while waiting for his arrival.

Across from the painting is a curio cabinet I bought after Daniel died. In it are some of his favorite toys---airplanes, Matchbox cars, and a collection of tiny books we read to him in the hospital. Next to the wooden cabinet is the plaque a cancer organization gave us after donations were made in Daniel's memory. In the nearly twenty years that we have lived in this house, I never realized the significance of the wall sharing an item I bought before my son was born and one I bought after he died.

While that was one of those aha-moments, the real aha came when it hit me why this was a tough week. Sunday was Mother's Day! We'd be celebrating with family and my three children. And, once again, Daniel would not be with us. Why had I not connected the dots? The first Mother's Days since his death, I had been keenly aware of how bittersweet the special day would be. Now twenty-seven years later, I was surprised the days before Mother's Day could cause a pang of sadness.

I've often said that a mother could be on a deserted island without a calendar and yet still know that a significant day surrounding her deceased child was approaching. You cannot hide from it. That's how tightly looped mamas and the holes in their hearts are.

This is grief. And we grieve because we love.

What We Never Lose

I always think, "the wound won't be as painful this year," and I am always reminded that love never dies and missing my son is part of who I am.

Prologue: Life at Daniel's Place

Weeks after the governor shut down North Carolina due to the coronavirus pandemic, I put on a pair of tennis shoes. It was a Sunday in April, yet my church held no services. Since I couldn't go there to worship, I drove across town to Markham Memorial Gardens. People feared the virus, but fear was nowhere on the rolling lawn dotted with grave markers and tall Carolina pines. The dead can't get Covid. And I can't get the illness from them. As I drove, I smiled at my dark humor.

But my humor evaporated once I faced the white wooden fence at the entrance. My eyes blurred with tears. The tears, which I'm a fanatic about labeling, were not tears of sorrow, hurt, or pain. They were those special tears cried when we know someone has cared for, looked after, and loved us, even when we didn't realize what was happening. My spirit had come to this place for safety, but not from Covid or our country's looming troubles. Long before news of the virus and the shutdown, this corner of the world had become my secure haven and respite.

As I walked the circular driveway, passing the familiar gravestones and landmarks, flashbacks played through my mind. Here, I had once wanted to die, before my healing had begun.

Four years into my grief, I was invited to facilitate a writing workshop. Sascha, a poet and bereaved mother who had lost both her children— the youngest to drowning and the oldest to suicide—asked me to fill in for her at a conference in Denver, Colorado. She was ill and needed a substitute. I was instructed to share how beneficial writing from heartache is. As I stood at the podium before forty bereaved parents, I knew writing helped me. But did others find it therapeutic? I introduced some writing prompts and was pleased when parents stood to read their poetry in memory of their son or daughter.

After I made it through the workshop—where I hoped no one had noticed my insecurity from being a novice—one of the event volunteers approached me. I thought she was trying to make me feel good when she said, "Alice, there was a lot of healing going on in that room." I had no idea what a room of healing looked like.

Decades later, I know. I know how a grassy landscape of remorse becomes a sanctuary of discovery and gratitude. I know how God takes our most profound agony and replaces it with his joy. I know how pouring pain onto paper transforms pent- up anguish into hope. I have experienced how a mother lacking confidence dared to seek fulfillment. This did not happen over weeks; it took years.

The cemetery welcomed me that Sunday in April. True, the dead were still silent; they could no longer share their opinion, ponder, or rush to be anywhere. For them, what was done was done; it was over. As for me, I still had a course to run— peace to absorb, ideas to wrestle with, lessons to invite, and healing to embrace. Gratitude for the quiet landscape rich with my history filled me; I started to sing. I belted out one of my favorite hymns, repeating the first verse six times because that was the only verse I knew from heart. “Our God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come, our shelter from the stormy blast, and our eternal home.”

And that is another pleasure of being at the cemetery: the dead don’t complain.

Read it all! Get the memoir here!

Love: Does it End with Death?

I love Daniel.

Daniel’s been gone from Earth for almost 25 years (February 2 is the day he died). Over the years I’ve discovered a multitude of things about grief, about my grieving self— guilt, longing, the lonely hour of 3 AM—and about the way society handles loss.

After a loved one dies, we tend to use the past tense. Instead of I love Daniel, the acceptable thing to say is I loved Daniel. Since Daniel is not living any more, society speaks of him in the past tense. All of the characteristics of him are spoken in past tense, too. Daniel liked to collect stickers; Daniel’s favorite movie was Toy Story, the very first one. He recited jokes from a weathered joke book. He fought bedtime. He had a mischievous smile, especially on the day he went into my desk drawer, took out a self-inking Thank You stamp, and stamped his legs with it.

I know Daniel died. I was there when it happened. I’m not delusional about things, except for when it comes to algebra because that has never made sense to me. I believe that when Daniel took his last earthly breath, his soul arrived in Heaven. He is now in the presence of Jesus, his Savior, whom he learned about in church and through Bible stories from an illustrated book. Daniel still exists; he’s just doesn’t exist here on Earth anymore, except for in our memories.

I loved him while he was my son, for those four short years that I was privileged to be his mama. I still love him, as I love my three adult children who live close by. My love for Daniel has not stopped just because he isn’t with us and I can’t see him open a birthday gift or eat the grilled cheese sandwiches he was fond of enjoying or get his photo taken by the Christmas tree.

I love Daniel. I’ll say it again. I love Daniel. And I invite you to use the present tense when you are talking about the love you hold for your loved one that has passed onto the heavenly eternal.

Even death cannot end the love we have. We don't stop loving a person just because he or she is gone. Love goes on.

Every Loss I See

Every death is your death. Every sorrow I come across takes me back. Even the TV moms portrayed as suffering loses of a child cause the wound from your death to ignite. I cry for their loss, their broken story. The actress who does a realistic job of conveying her woe gets more tears from me. I wipe my eyes and think: it never goes away, that ache, that sadness, that loss in losing you, Daniel.

In a recent movie I watched as one of the characters, an older woman, tried to console a young boy of twelve who had lost his baby sister. She said that the child was with Jesus and that Jesus is here. I thought: ah, that's a good way to think. Jesus is with us and he is also with Daniel in Heaven. Jesus bridges the gap between Daniel and me. He is with us both, even if Daniel and I can't be together. As I continued watching the movie, the sweet woman telling that boy to be bolstered by thinking of death in this way made me feel both grateful and sad at the same time.

I suppose that what surprises me most is that even after 24 years I still shed tears unexpectedly.

Every loss I see, every loss I hear, takes me to that place that never fades.

I miss you, Daniel.

Lessons from a Balloon-sending Mama

On your 29th birthday, I make my pilgrimage to the grave. Carl parks the Jeep and at your marker, I wipe away the brittle patch of cut dried grass. There's a strip of blue painter's tape stuck to the side. It's in Rachel's handwriting. We love you, Daniel. You've inspired so many people. I take a photo of your oldest sister's note and smile, sending a text to her so that she can see my appreciation.

I put a bunch of red Dollar Store Gerber daisies in the dirt by your marker. They aren't my favorite color Gerbers, but they were the best looking plastic flowers the store had. I take another photo of your grave and wish I could take a photo of you instead. I probably have the largest collection of grave marker photos that any mother has ever accumulated. They span my life over the last twenty-four years since you left us.

I walk over to Solomon's grave. When I found his marker years ago, I shed tears. From II Timothy 4:7 the words are enscribed: I have finished my course. I have kept the faith. If the day wasn't so hot, I would amble over the grass to visit Taylor's grave because his is one that also has touched my heart. We're so glad you came. Beside your grave is Audrey, who has only the year enscribed on her marker. And a large heart. I assume she, like Taylor, died the day she was born.

Under the shade of a tree, I sit on your Thomas the Tank Engine towel and pour into a cup orange-grapefruit seltzer water. The liquid is welcomed. I had planned to stay a longer time seated on the towel, coming up with something profound to write. But the afternoon is hot and humid. The dashboard of the Jeep, says it's 97 degrees F. Carl sits in the Jeep because it's cooler there.

I come to the cemetery with rituals that I have gathered over the years since you've been gone. One is to walk the premise. I have a pair of new tennis shoes on this afternoon. What better place and day to break them in. Briskly I make the round, and am grateful for a breeze. I remember when this location made me feel shame for not having been able to keep you alive. I never expected to have grown from my visits here. I never knew solace at my son's grave was possible. The years have been hard; the journey filled with sadness, but the lessons I have acquired are nothing short of priceless.

After my lap, I write a note to you on a slip of paper. It is my usual note about loving and missing you. On the back of it, Carl writes some words. I peek to see he has written. His words are: Too bad I never got to meet you. He has drawn a heart and signed his name. The love he shows for me by coming with me on this cemetery pilgrimage shouldn't be overlooked.

Inside the Jeep, together we string the note (I've punched a hole in the sheet with a pen) to another Dollar Store purchase----a red star balloon filled with helium.

And then we walk to the center of the cemetery as I hold tightly to the string. "Happy birthday, Daniel," we both say. I release the string which allows for the balloon to jet away from me and climb into the sky. We stand watching the wind do its part as the baloon travels. Soon it's blocked by two large oaks. Carl steps to the left and I follow so that we have a better view. We watch, eyes shielded from the August sun, until the balloon becomes a dot and then vanishes from our sight into a distant cloud.

Twenty-four years of lifting balloons into the sky, my symbolism of releasing love, of watching something perform what I cannot---an item sail into the sky on its own, climbing closer to Heaven. Twenty-four years of an ache that will not leave. I love you, Daniel. My love for family and friends has grown over these long years, so it makes sense that the love for you has increased also. I love you today and I will love you more tomorrow.

And those are a few of the lessons that grief has taught me.

Make it Come to Life : Prologue to a memoir

A view from a train window can kick start a fascinating story. Look what it did for Walt Disney. On a journey from Manhattan to Hollywood in 1928, Walt looked out his window as large towns gave way to wheat and corn fields. And there, under an apple tree, Mickey Mouse showed up. Perhaps Mickey waved a white-gloved hand, or maybe he just smiled. Walt captured him on a sketch pad and the stories began. Walt’s gone now, but his cartoon mouse has traveled all over the world and lives forever.

Although I grew up on trains in Osaka, Japan, my creations weren’t the kinds you sketch, but printed words. I looked out the windows and instead of a mouse, four teens appeared on a boat. They needed an ocean to take them to a remote tropical island where they would get lost, build campfires at night, eat mangos the size of footballs, and have fascinating adventures with the natives. I put them in a rowboat (at age eleven I was not the smartest seafarer which meant neither were my characters) and let a storm fester with just enough wind for their vessel to wash against the shoreline of the island. I named the island Blue Hama (I suppose I didn’t have the knack for good names at age eleven either).

Later, when I had crushes on boys with names like Ethan and Harold, I looked out the window as trains took me to and from school, and saw handsome boys on bicycles near parks where they met pretty girls named Belinda, Camithia, and Sylviana. I bought spiral notebooks at the local stationer’s near my home in Awaji, knowing that each notebook would be the place where a best seller would be brought to life and I’d be rich and famous before I turned twenty.

Each train ride from Awaji to Karasuma—the station closest to my international school—took forty-seven minutes. That’s a lot of time to peer out of windows. In the afternoons, the train was less-crowded and when I got to sit down, I lured my characters, bringing them from outside where they began along the tracks, to inside the pages of my notebooks. I gave them words, obstacles to conquer, and lots of love in their hearts.

If Walt and I had ever crossed paths, or if we’d been seated on the same train, he might have used his pencil to draw me as a kid. Two blond ponytails sticking out from just below my ears, plaid skirt, red tights that bagged around my ankles by the time school got out, and a pair of black patent-leather shoes that were magnets for doggy poop. In my hand would be a yellow number 2 pencil sans an eraser on the end because erasers never last the lifetime of pencils. The pencil would be scratching out my messy words (I had what was known back then as sloppy penmanship) over the lined notebook’s pages, and my ears, although not as prominent as Mickey’s, would be stretched to listen for the conductor’s announcement of my train station.

I spent my childhood on trains. And when I wasn’t on one, I was running to catch one or if I missed it, waiting for the next one on the platform.

Every parent has some story they repeat and repeat, passing it onto their offspring. That’s how those tales of suffering get handed down like certain unwanted family heirlooms: “I had to walk to school in the snow.” “I had to walk up hill in the snow both ways.” “I had to walk in the snow both ways with no shoes.” Mine is: “I had to ride the train to school every day for forty-seven minutes. And that was just one way!” And like any other parent, I’m always subject to the indifferent attitudes my children display when my story is told.

When the Amtrak thundered over the track that day in 1996, I no longer rode the train to school. I was a grown woman of 35 with three of my own children. My middle child, Daniel, aged three, was by my side as we watched the silver cars streaked with red, white, and blue. One after another, after another, racing along, going somewhere. We stood, silent, as one does during the singing of the national anthem or during a prayer. The track was just beyond the slide and swings and the shade of the massive oak tree where we’d had a picnic lunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches because those are the easiest for moms to make.

The sound of a train has always tugged at the wild hope chord of my heart. A train symbolizes a way toward a happy destination, but more—the actual journey, looking out the window, passing places you’ve never set foot in, capturing vistas that are quaint, majestic, or even spiritual.

Daniel seemed to understand my need for reverence, he paused from playing with Caleb and tickling his baby brother Ben to be captivated with me.

But once the train was out of sight, he left me for the slide. He climbed up the ladder and at the fourth rung, stopped. “Where is the train going?” he asked.

“To the next station.”

But my reply didn’t seem enough for my son. “Where is the next station?”

I know that Moms are supposed to have all the answers, it comes in a kit they hand you at the hospital after delivery, soon after the umbilical cord is cut. Since the park was just miles from the state capital, I offered a guess and said, “Raleigh.”

“The train’s going to Raleigh?”

Why not? “Yeah.”

“Where’s Raleigh?” Daniel asked.

“Oh, about two miles from here.”

Satisfied with my answer, Daniel continued his climb to the top of the slide. From there he lifted a hand from the railing to wave at me. Just as my motherly instincts kicked in, and with them, the familiar phrase that all moms are taught to say, “Be careful!” Daniel said, “Bye, Mommy! I’m going to Raleigh.” And down he slid, his blond hair flying with the speed of an oncoming train. At the base of the slide sat his friend Caleb, whom Daniel managed to only nick with his shoe. “Sorry, Paleb,” Daniel apologized.

Caleb, unalarmed, continued drawing in the sand with two sticks, one in each hand, swirling them around as though stirring a pot of stew.

It was April, a warm and sunny Southern day. Baby Benny played in his stroller, his chubby hands wrapped around a stuffed blue dog, one that Daniel let him borrow. We often came to the IBM Park on clear days because kids and the outdoors are a freeing combination and moms should get away from houses that need cleaning. Everyone is entitled to some kind of liberation. On days when I babysat Caleb so that his mother, Susan, could work on her music duties at our church, he came with us. Susan packed him lunches in brown paper bags—chocolate pudding cups with peel-away lids, fat ham sandwiches, fruit gummies, and homemade cookies.

“You want that? How about this? Paleb, are you gonna eat this?” Daniel would sort through Caleb’s bag, pulling each item out, shaking it in front of his friend’s face, and asking. That which his friend did not want, Daniel, happily indulged.

They tell you in the Mom’s Kit that your children will always prefer the lunch of another child. Something to do with the grass being greener on the other side of the fence, which boils down to other moms are cooler because they know what kids really like. Sometimes, when I encouraged him, Caleb ate his ham sandwiches. Daniel eyed those sandwiches and every bite Caleb took as he solemnly chewed his own peanut butter and jelly. I eyed those sandwiches, too. Mother and son wishing we had a mom like Susan to make us lunch.

About three weeks later, when a train whistle sounded and a freight train clamored past us in the park—oil cars, refrigerated cars, a car with graffiti—Daniel waited until the caboose was only a dot on the landscape. Then, turning to me where I sat on the grass with Benny who was getting sand in between his bare toes, Daniel said, “The train’s going to Raleigh.”

I smiled. “Oh, is it?”

“Yes. Raleigh is the next station.”

Years later—eighteen to be exact—I was seated in my grandma Stubbs’ mauve recliner, one I had inherited after her death. I looked through old photographs, color prints that mark time. It was a parade of matte and glossy visits—Easters with baskets bigger than my children, the Christmas we got the puppy, birthday cakes decorated with thick butter cream icing, our first night in the new house on Monticello—all made their appearances, chronicling the passage of the years. Rachel, Ben and Liz had all walked in and out and back in the new house many times again and again, even the puppy that grew into a senile beagle, made her way through and out the doggie door. But there would be one person who would never walk through the laundry room door inside or out. No one would ever see his smile or hear his laughter. He was gone, and yet he was everywhere. He was in every story we remembered and told.

The afternoon in my living room of remembering gave into the evening. Through the winter stillness, a train whistle sang—low, mellow, permeating the air. I didn’t stand, but my whole being was attentive until the song turned into only a murmur, as I envisioned its journey down the familiar tracks, tracks I could not see, but knew too well.

“Where is it going?”

Oh, Daniel, you know.

“The train’s going to Raleigh.”

And back again. And even beyond. There is so much to be discovered.

The story was already there, I just had to find the best way to make it come to life.

Always Keep Good Tissues Around

The other day I was optimist as I worked on a different slant to my memoir, deciding instead of making it so Daniel-and-me-centered, I could make it more God-centered. I even thought that after twenty-three years, I could make the portion about intense grieving less fierce, because, after all, twenty-three years since Daniel's death has gone by. I wasn't that once-upon-a-time young mother who couldn't help but get nostalgic and cry over a grilled cheese sandwich or a little yellow raincoat with a frog on the pocket. I was not that mama who kept asking God "WHY?" I had adjusted.

And then today came along. This afternoon I spent time online looking for a mountain getaway for Carl, the boxer-dog Levi, and me. Church friends seemed to all be taking trips to the mountains and then when a neighbor walked by (keeping over 6-feet apart) telling us her plans for a family trip away, I thought it was time to convince Carl of my intentions. I'd been tinkering with the idea that Carl and I could head up to the North Carolina mountains and have a break from our home business. I could write the great American memoir and Carl could play with his new drone. Levi could gnaw on a bone.

Most of the listings on VRBO had their COVID-19 deep cleaning statements. There were paragraphs about how they adhered to the CDC guidelines on cleaning, using an EPA-approved disinfectant between customers. That sounded super safe to me.

Carl's never been to Asheville, and while the Biltmore isn't open, I figured that we could venture around that artsy city. I dived into looking at rental cabins, at their porches that overlooked mountain views, the nearby streams, even photos of black bears. And that was when the nice little planning of a getaway went into full flash-back. I was surprised that it took no effort at all. It was October 1996: I was in a rustic bungalow in the Banner Elk region with three of my kids and their father. Four-year-old bald-headed Daniel, in a blue T-shirt that covered the catheter in his back, was with Rachel by a stream. They were laughing together, enjoying the water running over their toes. With that scene in my mind, I was no longer excited about a mountain adventure; sadness swept over me.

The churning in my stomach went up towards my heart. I swallowed the lump that had formed in my throat. I didn't have to think about if I were in a movie what music would be playing. As tears hit my eyes, the Jazz playlist I had on played an instrumental version of Eric Clapton's Tears in Heaven. As if it knew what I was going through and what that song does to me. I closed all the browser windows. Goodbye to the cute cabins with crisp mountain ranges surrounding them. So long to imaging myself on a porch swing with a morning cup of Earl Grey.

I thought I could be normal. I thought I could plan like my friends and neighbor do. I called myself a fool for thinking that I could slip into suddenly being unbereaved, especially at this time of year. Daniel's birthday is next month. I always say you could be on a deserted island without a tangible calendar and yet feel that pang in your heart and throat as your child's birth date approached. There's no hiding from it. We mothers know these things.

So for those who wonder how we mamas go from happy to sad in the click of a mouse, this is one way it can happen. We are bee-bopping along, content, going to plan something or do something like normal folk do. And then, that trigger --- a song, a word, a memory --- reminds us that ever since our child died, we lost the ability to be considered normal. We function at a different level and the truth is that it often brings tears, loneliness, and isolation. We might be in a room filled with merry people and we might even have a smile on our face, and then, as quick as a lightning bug flutters across a summer lawn, we are no longer one of the merry.

Eventually Tears In Heaven reached its end. A happier song filled the room. But my heart and mind had not caught up to a mellow-Sunday-afternoon feeling again.

What saved me is knowing that I could write the scenario I had just experienced and post it here on my blog. I could share what had happened to me via social media and others would read and go, "Ah, yeah. I know." And that would suffice. Knowing that I am not alone and that many mothers can relate to this breach of normalcy somehow makes me feel less lonely.

I will get back to searching for a mountain place to rent. But first let me understand who I am and never be surprised at how even after twenty-three years I can still be caught off guard by tears. Parental bereavement with all its hidden characteristics never goes away. We just learn how to adapt to living with it.

Perhaps that's why my motto is: Always keep good tissues around.

Morphing with Memories

When Daniel died, he left behind toy trucks, plastic dinosaurs, a joke book, and lots of clothes. In a bereavement magazine I saw an ad from a woman who made memorial quilts. I called her and after learning more about her quilts and the cost, I commissioned her to make a twin-sized quilt from Daniel’s pants and shirts. Cotton shirts are the best, she told me. In his room, which had been taken over by his baby sister, I sorted through his clothes. Some were in his laundry basket that had sat untouched in his closet since his death. This will be the last time I’ll get to do Daniel’s laundry, I thought. Downstairs I placed his clothes in the washing machine and watched the water, detergent, and fabric blend together.

Once the clothes were dry, I boxed the shirts and pants and sent them to the Quilt Lady in Nebraska. About a month later, I received a box from her. I had seen photos of memorial quilts before. But I was not ready for the emotions that came when I saw one that held squares of clothes that had belonged to my child. At first I couldn’t look at the swatches of the clothes he’d worn. The Barney dinosaur in the middle of the quilt brought back memories that made me cry. Daniel had that shirt on when he was diagnosed with cancer. He’d been three.

But as the years progressed, I was able to drape the quilt over the sofa or over an arm chair in the family room and run a finger over the blocks of cotton and embrace the memories. Barney and the other shirts held stories that were precious. One of my favorite memories came to me when I saw a blue and green squiggly swatch. That had come from a shirt with a label that read Wild Boy. Daniel had been energetic--knocking over houseplants before he could stand, jumping into puddles, and peeling off his messy diaper after a night of sleep. We called him Wild Boy. He laughed at the name. I think he was proud to be wild.

As we enter onto the journey of parental bereavement, our whole world changes. In a matter of seconds, we morph into different creatures. These new creatures have different eyes and hearts, causing us to see and feel things we did not know were valuable. To the rest of the world we look like we used to. But we know we will never be just like we used to be. Now we cry when see a toy, a picture, or when we hear a certain song on the radio. We even cry when we experience a new quilt.

Life has turned upside down. From the simple tasks like the way we drive a car to how we celebrate Christmas are under scrutiny. Even our faith and religious beliefs are questioned. Spiritual platitudes that perhaps we used to quote get shot down by our new world-view. We replace them. We toss out the illusions about life we once had. Perhaps we used to believe that wearing a seat belt offered all the protection needed, until someone we love died even though they had their seat belt fastened. Eating vegetables and fruit, exercising, and being positive don’t guarantee a long life. The control we thought we had was a myth. We have selected new thoughts and methods, dug deeper into our faith to see what is real and differentiate between that which is scriptural and those false securities that were never promised to us. We have fashioned our quilts out of what is honest and true. We have not hidden from reality because we can no longer do that. We are weathered and real and growing each day into new creations.

When I teach grief-writing workshops I ask participants: What squares of truth have you incorporated into your grief pattern? How have your thoughts changed since the death of your child? What swatches of fabric are you carrying with you on your journey? And perhaps the most important question to grapple with: How can you rid your life of things that stifle you from becoming that precious being you want to be?

I think that the key is to focus on a memory that makes you smile. Recycle that moment over and over and refuse to let the negative ones or the ones that make you feel guilty live in your heart. Always choose life-giving memories. Let them bring the sunlight you need. The wise gurus say we can't change the past, so there's no point in going over it and disciplining ourselves as we think of all we should have or could have done.

When I look at the memorial quilt, I see the energetic and fun boy Daniel was. The quilt makes me smile.

Carrying happy memories into each new day opens me up to grow into that bold, loving, and fun being I want to be.

Our Memories Fill the Stars

When a loved one dies, all we have left are memories. While the memories are sweet, they are never enough. We wish for more.

When my son Daniel died, I felt cheated that I had only four years of life with him. But after the horrific pain subsided, slowly, I was able to think of the happy memories I could hold onto and carry with me.

I'm no artist, but I did go to Michael's many times to find items I could paint or decorate that connected me to my son. On one trip to the arts and craft store, I got a plain basket and some paint. I also picked up wooden objects from various bins. These were already cut and painted, which was great since I don't think I could draw a boy in a blue-striped shirt to save my life. Daniel had blond hair and a blue-striped shirt, so that made me pick that wooden piece up and put it in my shopping cart. I got a boot because he had cowboy boots and a pig because he once fell on a prized pig at a petting zoo and the pig bit him. (Security contacted the owner of the pig, but he never showed up.) I also picked out a watermelon slice because there are many stories about Daniel revolved around that juicy red and green delight.

I painted the box with gold, red, and blue. I managed to paint a few yellow stars, too. I wrote on the lid: Our Memories Fill the Stars. The quote is one I came up when I stood under a velvet sky and watched the distant stars. I cushioned the inside of the memory basket with a red bandana that Daniel was given at a Make a Wish event the last autumn of his life.

Each wooden object holds a precious memory. My memory basket gives me a way to take out the pieces, touch them, smile, and remember.

At first when Daniel died, I thought he wouldn't be remembered by many. His friends were only four and five years old. Perhaps adults would keep his memory alive, but I couldn't be sure. At his grave, I promised that I'd tell Daniel stories. Over the years (there have been 23) I've discovered that no one can steal the memories. They are life-giving and connect me to the Daniel I love and miss every day. While I have had to struggle (immensely) with the events that surrounded his demise and death, I don't cultivate those memories. I've learned not to dwell on the treatments for cancer he went through and the shock of his passing.

Those of us who have lost a loved one discover how to recycle the memories that bring sunlight. We tell the stories again and again, and each time, we feel the boldness that lets us know it's not only okay, but acceptable, to talk about our beloved child. No one should try to shut us up. Our child died, but he also lived!

May the memories we choose bring joy today and always.

The Hand of a Preschooler: Mother's Day Reflection

It happens; things are moved, hidden items appear. I think that's some sort of law of nature. If it's moving a dresser to fit another piece of furniture into the room, what appears might be as nondescript as a couple of dust bunnies. You haul out the vacuum cleaner and let the evacuation begin. Run the Hoover over the spot and a dust-free carpet emerges. But if it's a tender memory that has been hiding, well, then, you bring out the tissues.

When Carl and I got a new king mattress and bed, we had to move the highboy dresser to make room. I expected dust. Dust and I are old pals, and I think she really likes me because I let her hang around, sometimes for weeks.

But it was what I didn't expect that got me emotional. There, along with the dust behind the dresser, was a Mother's Day card. Not only was it brittle with a rip in it, but it was from my son Daniel who died in 1997.

Wow.

On the light blue faded paper were his hand prints, a glitter heart, a heart in marker, and a few other squiggly lines, the kind preschoolers draw that hold hidden meaning no one else knows about. His teacher must have written the words for him: Happy Mother's Day, Love, Daniel. I wondered when this was created, perhaps something he had done in Sunday school the Mother's Day he was three. His last Mother's Day to give me a gift.

These are the kinds of things that you are relieved to find: Lost keys, eye glasses, a check for a nice sum of money. Finding a card from a child who has been gone from you for over twenty years falls into a whole different category. You aren't relieved because it wasn't lost. You are grateful. And a feeling of sacredness falls over you. The discovery of something he created is a sacred love letter that shouts out again and again: He lived! And he loved.

I suppose I placed the Mother's Day card behind the dresser when I first moved to the house. Probably with the intention to do something with it. Most likely thinking I'd find a real place for it. One day. And one day turned into fifteen years because you know, out of sight, out of mind. 

I ran a finger over the two hand prints on the card. Right-handed prints. Daniel was left-handed. But in the hospital it was his right hand that I held that night he was having trouble getting to sleep.

"Mommy, where's your hand?"

I was in the chair bed next to his hospital bed. And he reached over the railing of his bed for my hand, I gave him mine. Holding hands against a cold hard railing got uncomfortable. When I thought he was asleep, I pried my fingers from his.

He wasn't asleep. "Mommy!" His tone was accusatory. "Mommy, where's your hand?!"

"Here it is." I put my hand out for him to grab.

And he did, clinging to it until, at last, he fell asleep.

That right hand was the same hand I held when we walked across the mile-high bridge at Grandfather Mountain. He was three, nine months before he was diagnosed with cancer. The bridge swayed in the wind. Daniel held tightly to my hand, not because he was afraid, but because I was. We walked together all the way to the other side. I wasn't sure I would make it. Frightened by heights and feeling paralyzed, I thought I'd wind up as the only person to need a helicopter to pull me off the bridge. When Daniel and I got to the safety of the other side and off the bridge, I almost kissed the ground.

This Mother's Day I'm grateful for memories and soft tissues. I've found over the years that emotions are never far, and sometimes they still surprise.

Happy Mother's Day to all the bereaved mamas out there who'd covet and treasure one last time to hold the hand of a son or daughter. May you find those gentle memories. Hold them close and remember.

And Daniel, thanks for the love.

Broken People

I wrote the following years ago on my Broken Psalms blog and wanted to share it here.


We are a broken people.

Lots of people don't want to admit to that.

Even those who follow Jesus and have deep faith. They want to prove themselves educated or well-off, or sufficient, their own saviors, their own independent clauses.

When I was little, my line was: "Alice can do it." This meant, step aside, Mommy and Daddy, I can set the table, I can put my own shoes on, and later it evolved to, I can be sufficient. I don't need anyone.

Some of us try to cover ourselves up with accessories and the newest fashion, and fill our minds with an expensive education. There's nothing wrong with looking good or being smart. (I tried it once; it was wonderful!)

But when our pride of what we can do starts to deceive us into thinking we are superior to others or better off or more loved, then we aren't living a life of humility or service. We aren't transparent. We're soaked up with ourselves. We can do it. Alone. Look at us. Like a kid swinging from the top bar of the jungle gym, "See me. I am strong. I don't need you."

Then we fall.

Where is God?

Why do I hurt so much?

What is wrong with me?

"Find rest, O my soul, in God alone. My hope comes from Him." Psalm 62:5.

God alone gives us hope. Nothing else.

In all our pain and struggles, He alone restores us to Him, comforts us, knows us.

We were born broken and we will die broken. There is no complete restoration of us---not the kind that transforms us into independent creatures without a need for The One who gives us the only Hope worth pursuing. We cannot save ourselves. We can't fix ourselves.

But we can accept our limitations. And quit trying to pretend that we are self-sufficient. We need Him. Sometimes I still fight how much I do.

Because inside of me is this little voice that wants to do it on her own.

Find rest, O my soul.

When you reach out to rely on Him, when you hand Him the broken pieces of your life, that's when real living happens.

Watermelon, Irises, Tomatoes, Geraniums, and a Spider: Does Time Heal Wounds?

In bereavement meetings parents have certain topics that continue to be discussed. One's about time and wounds. A mother who had lost her daughter to a car accident just weeks before my son died, said to the group, "They say that time heals all wounds." She was southern and I couldn't understand if she was saying "all wounds" or "old wounds".

I suppose the question that I wanted to ask was: Does time heal? At all? As the minutes, hours, and days tick away in agony, do all wounds get taken care of, soothed, do the scabs heal, do the ugly scars fade?

As a newly-grieving mom, I knew so little about the journey I had been forced to take, but I did know one thing, and that was that old scars do not fade away. I've had a scar since I was two, a paintbrush I was playing with in the bathtub attacked me and cut the skin near my left eye. My parents wrapped me in a towel, held me while I cried, felt awful, and later would wonder if they should have taken me to get stitches. The blood dried up, and healing started, but that scar is still visible all these years later.

So time doesn't heal old wounds. I suspect that after 54 years, that scar on the corner of my eye has done all the healing it is going to do.

No wonder I resonated with another bereaved mother, a veteran, who at fifteen years since her son took his own life, said to me over lunch one afternoon years ago, "I think I've done all the healing that I'm going to do."

She wasn't giving up on healing or digging a hole and hiding, she was being realistic. There comes a point in the bereaved parent's life when she or he knows that it is not going to get any better than this.

For me, I'm not going to be able to look at the things that remind me of Daniel and not feel that tenderness in my heart. Since his death, two fruits, two flowers, and one spider have kept me in the loop of significant memories. The watermelon, the geranium, the tomato, the iris, and the spider are some of the things that hold powerful remembrances for me. And depending on the time of year (Christmas, Daniel's birthdate in August or death date in February), if I encounter any of these, well, bring on the Puffs.

Society may think time washes it all away like an ocean wave. Build a sand castle at the beach and once the waves knock it down, there is no evidence that a sandcastle once stood in the spot. Many can't believe that after ten, fifteen, or twenty years a mother or father can still feel pain.

But it's not that our desire is to feel pain, it's that we want to remember and since our child is dead, of course, it's always going to make us sad.

When I see a purple iris blooming in my garden, I recall the time Daniel, at age three, couldn't say my name Alice well enough to be understood by strangers and they thought he was saying, "My mommy's name is Iris."

Daniel picked green tomatoes from our garden, even though I told him to wait till they ripened. He took a green tomato to the hospital once and put it on the window sill of his room. He had seen me place green tomatoes on the kitchen window sill at our home, with the hope that the sun would stream in and turn them red.

There are many watermelon stories, including the one where friends brought a watermelon to Daniel when he was in the hospital for chemo treatments on the Fourth of July. He ate a few slices, spit seeds (this was back when all watermelon had "spittable" black seeds), and then said, "I think I've had enough watermelon," and stored the leftovers in the bathtub.

One afternoon I heard Daniel chanting, "A spider, a spider for a pet, a spider for a pet," and when I found him, he was outside watching a tiny spider creep along the side of our house.

And then the geraniums. I would have forgotten about these flowers (and that apparently I was once able to keep flowers alive) if it weren't for the photo of Daniel seated in his blue plastic chair in front of a table with a cup of juice and a blue bowl of food. He chose to eat his lunch outside beside the potted red, pink, and white geraniums. He would have preferred to be naked if I didn't make him wear clothes. When I took that photo, I had no idea that the neck he exposed so nicely held a malignant tumor, one that would surface months later, and change his life and ours forever.

So does time heal old wounds, or even all of them?

No, and for me, that's a good thing.


[Daniel Paul Wisler, August 25, 1992---February 2, 1997]