Our attachment to those we love is so strong that when we lose a child we are thrown into the heartbreaking pain of grief as that physical bond is severed, often abruptly: we are adrift, desperate and desolate. When I consider my personal journey of grieving for my son, the greatest help to my own healing has been finding an ongoing connection, a subtle thread to the unknown, to where he is now.
After experiencing a loss, we are expected to want to know where our loved ones are and what they are doing. They’re safe’? Can we connect with them somehow? Can they see us, hear us, and still be with us? Exploring the premise of life after death is something that is common practice among bereaved parents. we want to know as much as we can about life after death. For my part, I challenged my own beliefs and read a lot, devouring everything I could to get the answers I wanted.
To integrate my grievance and adjust to that loss in my life, I have chosen to connect with my son in three main ways, these are the ways I weave my web:
♥ I SPEAK WITH HIM: In my early days of grieving, I bought the nicest, most beautiful journal I could find and began to write. I told him how much I missed him, how I felt, what he meant to me, and what I was doing with my strangely altered life. I wrote about despair, about wondering where I was, about doubting my ability to get through life without him. I dated the entries and noted how many times a month I wrote to him. In the early days, it was every day, sometimes twice a day. The messages were the same, the lack, the longing, the despair, the anger and the injustice of it all. Over time this has changed, the posts have become less frequent, the messages less laced with anger, more acceptance and love has crept in, always a lot of love. It’s my way of connecting, of continuing to ‘talk’ to him, of keeping him a part of my life, of maintaining our bond.
♥ I HEAR ABOUT HIM: I know that for many people the idea of visiting a medium or psychic goes against their belief system, or they view it with a high degree of skepticism, but I have found it to be a very positive experience. The messages I have received over the years have been totally affirmative and have left me feeling encouraged and supported. When I lost my son, it was what he wanted to do more than anything else. He wanted to see if they could communicate with him, in a way that I couldn’t anymore. She longed to know where he was and if he was okay. In the last 3 years, when I have been in the presence of a medium, they have been able to reinforce my belief that my son is happy, he is happy; he is not alone, he takes care of me and knows what i am doing in my life. This is described with amazing accuracy and I have the feeling that he is really around me: I hear him at such moments.
♥ I SEE IT: While I wish I could, unfortunately I can’t. What I want to say here is to recognize the symbolism of our loved ones around us. To me, the spirit of Stuart has always been a bird, we set him free, free to fly and spread his wings. After his death, I would sit in the gazebo in my garden, writing or reading, surrounded by a little honeyeater that perched on a rock and watched me intently. There have been many, many birds over the years, but each one leaves me with a sense of peace that his spirit is with me. I know that for many others it can be a dragonfly, a butterfly, a feather or a dolphin. His loved one will find her own special symbol that ‘speaks’ to him in a way that is truly HER. Stuart was always obsessed with money from a very young age. Very often, I find coins in the most unlikely places and I think ‘Hello Stuart’ and smile: he is with me.
Our children continue to communicate with us in many different ways, but which we can quickly dismiss as nonsense and fanciful notions of mourners. When I am surprised by the weight of skepticism in me, I choose to believe, because there really is nothing wrong with choosing comfort and hoping that our connection to our beautiful children will continue in one form or another from this world to the next.