Keep your hands and arms inside the car

For so long I fought healing.  The word “healing” was offensive in my situation.  In my mind I didn’t consider it a possibility to heal from the devastating losses my family experienced in 2013.  I am a proud mother of three beautiful boys.  My youngest son, Aiden, died by suicide in March of 2013.  Eight months later, in November of 2013 my oldest son, Conor, died in an accidental fall while away at college.  Often the words “time heals all wounds” were given to me with the best of intentions from people who so desperately wanted to “fix” my grief.  Oh no, time doesn’t heal this particular wound, not this one……at least that is what I thought.

My boys, Jack and Aiden especially, loved rollercoasters.  They delighted in dragging me along with them knowing that I was terrified of heights.  I didn’t want to be the mom that stayed on the ground not engaging while waiting for them by the exit.  There would come a time soon enough as with all children when they wouldn’t want me to tag along.  So, I would gird my loins and agree to go.  Anxiety would mount in my stomach and in my brain with each step towards the car that would take us to the top.  I would just repeat over and over in my head, “You can do this.  Just get through this. Just get through this.”.  Then sitting in the car with my head down, eyes closed, sweaty palms grasping the metal safety bar for dear life, we would slowly begin the incline. Click…Click…Click.  One of the boys would say, “Hey, Mom, we’re so high up we can see the parking lot. Let’s find the car!”.  With my eyes still clamped shut, I would say, “yep, there it is.  I see it!” They, along with anyone else close enough to witness this would laugh at me.  The boys would goad me to open my eyes.  What would come next, I’m almost embarrassed to admit.  After the car hesitated just at the peak and during the plunge downhill and subsequent loop-d-loops at a speed that I was sure would put us at a G-force that only an astronaut could handle, I would let out a combination scream/laugh that was totally maniacal and out of my control.  It is surprising that anyone is capable of either of these sounds let alone both emanating at the same time.  The boys thought this was a hoot and would usually want to hop on the ride again.

My grief is a bit like that rollercoaster ride.  Once strapped in, there is no choice but to ride this out. Terrifying speeds, heights, dark tunnels and just when you think you’ve reached safety grief sends you through again, backwards.  That is what it felt like for me.  I had no control over any of it.  Yet, I had a family who still needed me including my mother who was slipping away into dementia.  All I wanted to do was hide with my eyes shut, grip this steel bar of pain and just get through this, just get through this.

Conor and Aiden showed me in such miraculous ways that they hadn’t left me. I was so grateful that somehow, in spite of the pain and fog of grief, I was able to recognize them and see the signs. The first sign Aiden sent was the night he passed.  He sent us snow.  He always loved the snow.  It wasn’t in the forecast.  It fell so quietly.  Andy and I saw it at about the same time.  We instantly knew Aiden was letting us know that he was with us.  I stood out on the back porch with my face turned up letting it fall on me.  Embracing this moment, I thanked him for showing up and begged him not to leave me. One afternoon, a little over a week after the snowfall, I was sitting on the couch just staring at the TV like a zombie. Then very gently I felt a touch on my face.  This was something that Aiden use to do when he was a toddler, he would hold my face to keep my eyes on him while he talked to me.  When he was older he did the same thing as a joke.  I knew this was Aiden reaching across time and space to touch my face again. Showing me just how powerful love is and my soul instantly recognized his.  In that moment, I felt peace.  In that space we connected.  It felt as if time didn’t exist and the pain was gone.  I could breathe for just the briefest of moments.  

In the first couple of months after Aiden transitioned to his Heavenly home, I had gotten into a habit every morning.  As I woke up, I would think about all the things we would miss doing. Things I wanted for him and things I wanted for me were all gone.  I would be a puddle before getting out of bed.  Then one morning as I started my litany of “missings”, something stopped me. A new thought interrupted this stream of bullying.   ‘What if you are doing this wrong…. what if instead of “missings” you should be thinking of all the wonderful things you had with Aiden.  Find at least one thing a day to be grateful for.’  I know now that was my sweet boy leading me away from negative thoughts uplifting me to a place where I could recognize him more easily. Later I would come to learn that expressing gratitude helps to rewire the brain and enhancing our mood.  Aiden was clearing a path for clearer communication with me.

Just as I felt I was getting my feet back under me, Conor left this physical world.  I was back in the free fall and terror.  Still, the visits, signs, and synchronicities continued and the boys were now working together.  Conor came to me the night he passed.  I saw him, fully, sleeping on the couch looking absolutely perfect.  That feeling of being wrapped in love and peace enveloped me.  What I didn’t realize at the time was he showed me the side of his face where most of the damage was done due to his fall.  I found that out a few days later.  I knew he was sending a double message, “Open your eyes mom.  I’m right here” and “Don’t worry, I’m perfect”.  That is something I have come to realize with their messages; often they have a deeper meaning under the surface.  My husband and I will sometimes search spiritual meanings to “see” the deeper meaning or gain better understanding of what the boys are saying.   Most often what we find is a richer message from the boys which has become more of a conversation than a drop in.

Knowing the boys were speaking to me, I was determined to learn their language or more accurately, remember my original one.  This trail of signs and synchronicities has led me to some of the most amazing teachers, mediums and mystics.  My heart bursts with gratitude for them and the Heavenly help I have received. They have helped to open my eyes ever so slowly to this greater reality, which is a life with my boys not separate from them.

I wish I could say that the grief process was linear and I could track my progress neatly, but that is not how it was for me.  Grief is messy. The highs and lows and loop-d-loops continue as I balk at the word “healing” every step of the way.  It was somewhere in the 4-year mark when I made the shift from believing to knowing that my relationship with Conor and Aiden continued in real time, not random at all.  This was not a conscious shift.  It was an inner knowing, a rhythm of communication that was occurring.  I do remember consciously saying, “I don’t believe that they are talking to me…I know that they are talking to me.”  It sounds so small, but for me that shift in perspective has made a huge difference.  I realized that grief isn’t meant be healed.  I can’t heal what happened.  I read in David Kessler’s book, Finding Meaning, The Sixth Stage of Grief, “Grief does not happen if you do not love. I can’t take away pain – that’s evidence of love. So, pain is inevitable, but the suffering is optional”.   I realized that “healing” was offensive to me because I knew that grief was an emotion, a reaction to profound loss.  Emotions are not broken not something to be healed.  So, when people would tell me that my grief would heal I felt they were saying that I would move through my grief.  I would have closure.  I would move on.  Reading David Kessler’s words put all my conflicted ideas and feelings about healing into perspective.  You don’t heal grief.  It is a part of me now, but not the whole of me.  It is an emotion just as sadness, anger, peace, happiness and joy.  I will continue to feel all of these emotions and some days some more than others.  

There are so many things in this life we cannot control, but we can control how we react.  That is empowering because I can choose to heal my suffering.  For me the suffering is in the feeling of separateness from my boys, from spirit, and from God. I know this is what the boys have been leading me to all along, the fact that there is no separation.  They have opened my eyes and my heart to the fact that our relationship continues.  Our relationship has shifted, not ended. My perspective on this shift is where my healing occurs.   

For the past seven years Conor and Aiden have been whispering to me, sometimes shouting through our continued conversations, signs and synchronicities, “just open your eyes mom.  See things from a higher perspective.  We haven’t left you….”  So, maybe I’ll loosen my grip on this safety bar of old beliefs.  I’ll raise my head and open my eyes to the greater reality.  I bet when I return to my true home Conor and Aiden will greet me with high fives and pats on the back like they did when we exited the rollercoaster saying, “See, you were safe and loved the whole time Mom.  Wanna go again?”