death of a child

The Changing Face of Grief

Claire death, dreams, grief, healing, transformation , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

The morning after my Dad died, he came to me in a dream.

In my dream, my Dad is sitting in a chair with a large Tefla bandage on the upper right side of his head. His blue eyes are clear and twinkling and he’s wearing a sort of self-satisfied, cat-that-ate-the-canary grin. Without any words, he communicates to me that he’s been fixed up good as new. The damage from his right-hemisphere stroke and the debilitations of dementia he experienced in the last year of his life (and even longer than that, to a milder degree) have been healed. I smile and say, “Well, look at you, Dad!” I give him a hug and a kiss and tell him I love him.

I am amazed at how differently this loss is affecting me compared to Cameron’s death nearly five years ago now. Cameron visited me in dreams, too. But at first, every time he visited my grief and anger were so powerful that I ended up pushing him away. I would awaken from those dreams full of pain and sadness. My dream of Dad left me filled only with peace. It puzzles me a bit how unemotional I have been about my Dad’s death. I’m trying not to beat myself up over it, but I have been giving it a lot of thought. People offer me condolences and I feel like there’s no consoling needed.

Recently, as I was perusing other blogs on the theme of grief, I came across this post called “Good Grief,” which contains some good, basic information about grieving. The post includes a list of things that can affect a person’s response to a loss. I can see how some of the ideas presented there have applied in my own experiences of grief.

Anticipatory grief, for example, happens when death is anticipated over a long period of time due to illness or other circumstances. The reaction to an expected death is very different than the reaction to a sudden, unexpected death. It doesn’t necessarily mean the grief is lessened, but the shock is lessened. There is a level of anticipation or expectation that we will outlive our parents, but we don’t expect to outlive our children. The difference in feeling about these two deaths is partly because of that, but it’s more than that, too. With my Dad, I think my grieving happened before he passed. I felt more sadness in watching his brilliant mind fade away than I did at the passing of his body, which, at the end, seemed only a shell of him anyway. I had some anticipatory grief with Cameron’s death, too. He’d been struggling with addiction for years and I kept waiting for something terrible to happen. Yet, I was not prepared for his unexpected death in the county jail. I thought that there, of all places, he’d be forcibly protected from his self-destructive addiction. When the detectives from the jail came to tell me he was dead, the shock was incredible. While there was anticipatory grief with both my Dad and my son, in the end I expected and even hoped for my Dad’s passing while I resisted the idea of Cameron’s death right up to the moment I learned of it.

Another thing that impacts the grief experience is the relationship you had with the person who died. I was certainly much closer to my son than I was to my Dad. Even though I had been a caretaker for my Dad for the last several years, it was more out of necessity than closeness. Prior to the decline of his and my Mom’s health, I really didn’t see my folks much. Even though I love my Dad, my life was very separate from his life. Cameron and I, on the other hand, were extremely entangled – probably unhealthily so. I believe it is called co-dependence. So his death left a gaping hole in my own sense of identity. There was also a lot of unresolved business with Cameron, where with my Dad I felt I had no loose ends, no grievances, nothing I felt guilty about. Cameron’s death left a lot of things unsaid and undone. Over time, since his death, we have had an opportunity to resolve all those issues and to heal our relationship so that now I can think of him with love and with peace in my heart. But in the beginning, there was only pain and guilt and anger. So I guess it’s easier to let go of my Dad because there’s no baggage there.

One more thing the post mentions is that what you’ve learned about loss in the past will inform any future experiences of grief. This certainly seems true in my case. Cameron’s death and all the amazing experiences that followed have completely transformed my understanding of and feelings about death. Where before I supposed (or at least hoped) that death was not a final ending, I now know it without any doubt at all. I have had too many amazing communications with Cameron since he passed to think of him as “dead.” His passing also taught me that the bond of love survives the apparent separation of death. It not only survives, but becomes stronger and healthier. My sense of death now is that it is a return to our true soul state, while our adventures here on Earth are temporary challenges—learning and growing experiences. Rather than grieving my Dad’s passing, I can celebrate his homecoming and know that our hearts remain connected.

Wishing you peace on the journey…

As always, I welcome your coments here or by email (Claire@DeepWaterLeafSociety.com)

Visit my website: http://www.deepwaterleafsociety.com/

Here’s Your Sign. . .

Claire death, dreams, healing, synchronicity , , , 1 Comment

Perhaps some of you are familiar with the Blue Collar Comedy crew: Jeff Foxworthy et al. One of my favorite bits is Bill Engvall’s “Here’s your sign.” It’s the punch line he uses after telling a joke about some stupid thing somebody did – a reference to his suggestion that stupid people ought to have to wear a sign so that we’d know better than to ask them for help or advice. If you’ve never seen Bill Engvall, you might want to spend the three minutes it takes to watch this YouTube clip before reading any further. My story will make a lot more sense if you do.

I’ve been working on the inaugural issue of a monthly newsletter for The Deep Water Leaf Society. (Sign up to receive your own copy here.) Along with a short article or two, I thought it would be nice each month to highlight a book or a person or some other kind of resource that could help people journey through their grief. For this first issue, I wanted to highlight Jamie Clark, the medium I write about in my book. I am so grateful for the session I had with him about a year after my son Cameron’s death and I know that he could help others to find peace as well. So I arranged to have a brief phone interview with him a few days ago.

We spoke for about 30 minutes. As I tried to ask Jamie pertinent interview questions, like when he first knew he had a gift and how long he’s been doing readings for people, Cameron kept butting in (through Jamie) with various comments and things he wanted me to know. It was nice to know Cameron was around, and it was good to hear the things he had to say. For instance, that he’d be there to help my Dad (who is in the later stages of Alzheimer’s disease) cross over when the time comes. That was something I’d been asking of him for some time. But it was kind of hard to keep the flow of the interview going smoothly as Jamie would pop up with these things from Cameron every couple of minutes.

We also talked a little about my own abilities to tune into messages from Cameron and how I tend to dismiss so much of what comes to me. I confided to Jamie that I hadn’t felt as connected to Cameron recently and that even my dream state had been changing and becoming rather more chaotic and rather less clearly helpful than usual. Jamie assured me that the connection was still there and that I just needed to get out of my own way.

Toward the end of our conversation, Jamie said, “There’s going to be a validation coming soon. It’s going to be a sign and it’s going to involve a butterfly. So watch for that.”

I made a mental note, but I kind of dismissed it because usually Cameron speaks to me through dreams or through music or through heart shaped shells and stones. Butterflies have not been, or at least have not seemed to be, one of the signs he gives me.

After our phone call, I had to get busy preparing for a book selling event coming up the next day. I needed to print some flyers and gather some props for the table I’d be setting up. I wanted to display a copy of the recent newspaper article that featured me and my book. I had a copy mounted on a piece of foam core board, but I needed an easel to prop it up.

The image of a small wooden easel that I have popped into my mind. That would work perfectly. I had just had that easel in my hands a few weeks ago. I had taken it down from the picture it held on the fireplace mantel to use it for something else. I could not for the life of me remember what that something else was.

“Think, Claire, think,” I exhorted myself. “You just had it in your hands. What did you do with it?” It drives me crazy when I can’t remember what I did with something, and it seems to be happening more and more often as I get older. “Come on, Stupid, what did you do with it?”

I remembered that I had been cleaning and reorganizing the living room when I’d taken the easel down from the mantel in the family room. I’d wanted to use it for something in the living room. But what? I went into the living room and looked all around—end tables, bookshelves, the china cabinet in the adjoining dining room. “What did I use if for?”

I didn’t see it anywhere and I had no clue what I’d wanted it for. I gave up in frustration. I decided to go to Staple’s and get the paper stock I needed for my flyers. Maybe they’d have an easel there that would work, although it galled me to think of buying a new one when I had a perfectly good one somewhere around here.

A short time later, leaving the store with my paper goods, I realized I’d forgotten to look for an easel while I was in the store. I was feeling rushed and frazzled as it was already evening and I still had to print the flyers. “Never mind,” I thought. “I’ll just find some other way to stand the stupid article up.”

Driving home, it suddenly occurred to me: I’d used the wooden easel to stand a beaded ceramic butterfly up on my bookshelves. The butterfly is so large that the easel isn’t really visible behind it. I’d looked right at it and it just hadn’t connected. Then I remembered what Jamie had said about a sign coming up with a butterfly.

I could hear Bill Engvall’s country accented voice saying, “Here’s your sign!”

I laughed all the way home, a deep belly laughter the likes of which I haven’t enjoyed in a very long time.

Thanks, Cameron. Thanks, Jamie. I needed that!

Wishing you peace on the journey. . .