This Is Not Easy For Me

In light of all the recent sadness brought on by so many suicides, I feel I need to share a story with you all. This is not easy to speak about.

When I was a young girl of about nine or ten, my parents took me for a visit to our relatives in the next town. I had cousins almost the same age as me, so I hoped it would be a fun time. It must have been a very hot day, so everyone decided we would head to a local pool for swimming. I was terrified of water, and not happy with the decision. I hated when rough older kids played near me, dunking one another and acting silly, and spent the day popping in and out of the pool to avoid them.

A little later in the afternoon--and this is sketchy--my uncle came to pick us up. It seemed that a little emergency had happened at his house, he'd said. And I found out it involved my mother. She'd been taken to the hospital. By this time, I was used to her hospital visits. Unfortunately, I knew all too well what her depression and mental illness looked like. I was used to the haunted look on her face, the words that didn't make sense sometimes when she spoke. I thought it was just another routine visit.

My father had asked my aunt and uncle if I could spend a few days at their house. I wasn't sure why, but I knew it was important. I was already a backward, sad young girl, not a carefree spirit as my cousins seemed to be, and I felt that I didn't fit in well with them.

When Dad picked me up after a few days, he didn't say much. I was thrilled to be back with him and my grandparents who lived next door to us. I became a bit needy, asking a lot of my father, wanting to spend as much time as I could with him, not realizing what he was going through. Mom still wasn't home, and quite a bit of time passed.

What I hadn't known, was my mother reached an all-time low during her visit with our relatives. In her mind, she felt worthless, unloved, guilty and condemned. Nothing looked right to her. Nothing made her happy. She fell into a pit of despair and decided she didn't want to live any longer.

When I saw Mom again, I had no idea what the bandages around her wrists were. All I knew was my mother was back! Maybe this time would be different and she would become a normal mommy.

As time passed, with the help of a great therapist, the love of my father, and a true miracle, my mother's depression lifted. It was as if the sun began to shine in our home for the first time!

My mother remained strong during my battle with scoliosis only a few short years later. A true steadfast presence and blessing to me, she helped keep my spirits up through frightening, serious surgery and a lengthy recovery. She used humor, great stories and prayer to get me through.

 She got pregnant in her late thirties, and though she was told to terminate the pregnancy due to complications from losing two other babies, she went on bravely to have my brother.

 She became an antique dealer, something she'd only dreamed about, and then went on to run a sweet little Mom-and-Pop grocery store where so many high school kids and others would stop daily for great conversation with her. Mom's infectious laughter, soft heart, and listening ear became known all around. To this day, I still hear stories about lives she touched during her time there.

In my later teen years, Mom had a talk with me about her dark time. She admitted her attempted suicide, and shock resonated in my whole being. Didn't she love me? Would she really have wanted to leave my father and I? Anger simmered within me. I needed time to process what she told me. But as more and more of her story unfolded, I began to understand the lost girl she had been. The child who hadn't been wanted. Who had heard her own mother speak of aborting her. Who had a father who seemed like a monster as he beat his wife and frightened the children with his alcoholic rages. And then losing the most precious person in her world, her dear sister at a young age. All of these things coupled with the sensitive person my mother was, would contribute to the black hole of depression in her life.

It was as if the scales fell from my own eyes. Not only was I able to forgive her, but my mother and I became like best friends during this time. I could talk with her about anything. And I learned compassion, forgiveness and goodness from her. I spent my life thanking God that my mother was still here!

What if?

What if she'd succeeded in her attempt? How many lives would not have been touched, blessed and affected in an amazing way? You see, my mother also had a near death experience when she suffered a cardiac arrest after the depression. She was able to share her story of a glimpse of the afterlife and to describe just how wonderful the feeling of being in God's presence was. Her story would go on to bless countless people throughout her life, giving them a reason for hope when they lost a dear loved one.

My mother's life had a purpose and a reason. Yours does too! Talk with someone. Even one person could change the course of your life. Share your feelings with anyone who will listen. Find a therapist, counselor, pastor, or friend. Be real with them. Be raw. You are needed in this world. Like my mother, you have so much more to offer. There will be someone who will benefit from your life, your very good life. There will be someone who is grateful for you being a survivor.

All my prayers and good wishes for you.

My Unknown Siblings: A story of a heavenly reunion

Miscarriages seem to be a taboo topic still to this day. But I want to share some stories that will perhaps be a blessing to a young mother mourning the child she never had.

When I was a little girl, among the many other issues going on, I remember a very difficult time of hushed words, whispering and tears. I saw a sadness in my mother that didn't seem like her usual depression. It wasn't until much later that I learned that Mom had miscarried two pregnancies within a short time of each other. One of them was so bad that my mother almost died.

As I grew into my teenage years and beyond, I thought many times of the two who were lost. I wondered were they boys or girls? What would they have been like? How would it have changed our family?

 It wasn't until my brother Rick came along fourteen years later that I didn't think about them so much. I had what I always wanted: a sibling! Rick was named Matthew Richard. Matthew means Gift of God. He was truly that in our lives, the miracle baby who survived the odds, a great blessing in our lives.

But as the years marched on, and our parents began aging, when times got difficult, I began thinking of my two lost siblings once again. How nice it would have been to have a larger family! Perhaps they would have shared the burdens of our parents health issues and been a strength that our family needed so desperately.

I had read a book about the little boy who died and was brought back to life. He mentioned to his mother about his near death experience and said that he had spoken with a young girl and called her by name. His mother couldn't believe it, for it was the daughter she had lost in pregnancy and the name that would have been chosen!

I see so many women who mourn their lost children, wondering what life would have been like if they'd carried them to term. But I believe those dear little angels are in Heaven and they are waiting for us just like the story of the little boy who had met his unborn sister in the presence of the Lord. They are not lost forever and we will be reunited with them someday.

I now know who my siblings were. Their names are Kevin and Roxanne. Mom had always been fond of those names, and had almost named me Roxanne, and Rick, Kevin. I'm sure they would have been the names of my brother and sister.

And there's some neat stories during the end of our parents lives. There was one point that my dad wasn't doing too well. Rick was in the hospital room with him when Dad mentioned, "your sister's there in the corner." That really stuck with me because it certainly wasn't me. But I know now, I feel it deep in my spirit that it was Roxanne, waiting for her daddy.

A similar story happened to Mom. She was in the emergency room for the last time. She was drifting in and out. At one point, she awoke and said the word, "Bible". I asked if she was seeing one, and she said, "yes". I asked if anyone was there with the Bible, and she said "no". But shortly after, she, too, looked in the corner of the room and said the word:"Baby". I believe one of my Heavenly siblings stood there, ready to embrace the mother they hadn't known here on earth.

When I was saying goodbye to my father as he lay in a coma, I whispered to him to go to his children who he'd never met. I knew they were waiting for him. I told him how blessed Rick and I were to have him all these years, and now it was time for the other two to get to know their beloved daddy.

I have no doubt that there were two amazing family reunions in Heaven when Mom and Dad passed. The rejoicing of the children they hadn't known, the laughter and happiness that we cannot even fathom. Somehow it's easier for me to let them go to that glory and not hold on so tightly to my own grief. The Bible says: Weeping may come for the night, but joy comes in the morning. Wow, what a morning it must have been!

The Earrings

Last summer, after my mother passed away, I had been in a deep sadness, unable to find a reason to smile or laugh. Nothing made me happy, and the weight of loss lay deeply on my soul.

I saw in my email a note from Guidepost magazine. I'd sent them several of my writings before, but had totally forgotten about it from all that had gone on with my mother's failing health. When I opened the email, I saw that they accepted one of my stories! Joy flooded back in. A reason to smile, and even to sing once again! Someone had recognized something good in my writing. And of course, it was an article I'd written about my mom. The timing couldn't have been better.

I want to share that article on my blog today since everyone may not be subscribed to "Mysterious Ways," Guidepost's sister magazine. It is not as I originally wrote it, as their editors had an idea to focus on the earrings. I had to make a few changes to my first draft. Looking back now, I see exactly what they intended. May you be blessed by the little story you are about to read:

The Earrings

     Mom’s earrings. I had to find them.

     I dug through the top drawer of my bureau, rummaging through my jewelry box and the knickknacks accumulated over the years. Printed scarves, strands of beads, dried flowers. Where were those earrings? I could see them clearly in my mind. Pink teardrop diamonds framed by rhinestones. Costume jewelry from the nineteen fifties, certainly not worth much. Yet Mom had to have them.

I’d been at my parent’s house earlier filling their pill containers and washing a few dishes left from the night before.

     Mom had been sitting at the kitchen table, nibbling the corner of a jelly donut and licking her fingers like a little kid. Her wiry gray hair stood on end around her face. Food from the previous day stained her sweatshirt.

     “Kar,” she asked, using the nickname she always called me. “Do you have those earrings I gave you? The ones with the rhinestones?” She stared at me expectantly as if she needed me to understand.

Dad and I glanced at each other. I knew what he was thinking. How in the world could she remember something like a pair of earrings when she could barely remember the names of her grandkids? Dementia had turned my mother into someone I barely knew. And here she was trying to tell me something with those earrings—giving me a clue of some sort. But every time she mentioned them, I felt like we were speaking two different languages. Like I was losing my mother all over again.

We hadn’t always been close, Mom and I. When I was little, she suffered from deep bouts of depression. She’d been in and out of hospitals for most of my childhood. She got better around the time I entered high school. A time when we became like best friends. We remained that way until three years ago when Mom was diagnosed with dementia. Now every day only seemed to bring more darkness as Mom became like a stranger. I was worried for her. I was worried for Dad and me too. What did the future have in store for us? What little did it hold for Mom?

     “My earrings,” Mom said again.

     “I’ll look for them when I get home,” I told her, giving her a kiss. “I promise.”

     Now I picked though the clutter in my bureau, searching for a pair of earrings she’d given me some twenty years ago. She’d gotten them from her mother and then passed them on to me. I’d never seen her wearing them. Why were they so important now?

     I turned to a small wooden jewelry box, one I’d kept since I was a kid. I nudged aside my grandmother’s gold locket and an old cameo pin. Underneath a tarnished seahorse necklace, I saw them. Two brilliant pink gemstones. Mom’s earrings!

     The rhinestones twinkled, casting prisms of light against something else in the box. A piece of paper so worn I could barely read the writing. What was it doing in there? I picked it up and stared at it, recognizing it at once. A page ripped from my girlhood diary.

     I plopped down onto my bed as tears welled up in my eyes and then made their way down my cheeks.

     February 14, 1970, it read. Mom went to the hospital in an ambulance today. . .

     The memories flooded back. Valentine’s Day, 1970. Mom was thirty-three and I was eleven. Too young to know the full extent of her battle with depression, but old enough to know it was bad. Mom would arrive home from one of her hospital visits with dark circles under her eyes and a haunted look on her face. When relatives and friends came to visit, I’d hear whispered words like “crazy” and “suicidal.” Dad did the best he could to take care of both Mom and me, but I felt so alone. I’d escape to my room, soaking up fantasy books and writing in my diary, trying to imagine what it would be like to have a normal mother and a normal life.

     That Valentine’s Day, her admission was different. Mom had been rushed to the hospital. She’d suffered a cardiac arrest in our upstairs bathroom. I’d watched terrified as she was taken out of the house on a stretcher. I thought I’d never see her again, that she was gone. That her depression had finally caused her heart to stop. But a week later, Mom was back at home. And she was completely different.

     The dark circles were gone and her face glowed. When she spoke, I noticed that the confusion, anxiety and sadness had vanished. There was a lightness to her step I’d never seen before. My parents became affectionate once again. Laughter replaced hushed voices and secrecy. Mom finally fulfilled a dream of becoming an antique dealer. And several years later, at the age of thirty-nine, she gave birth to my brother. Life settled into the kind of routine I’d always envied in my friends’ lives.

     I didn’t question Mom about the change, too afraid the spell would be broken. It wasn’t until four years later, when I was in high school that my mother shared what had happened that Valentine’s Day.

     “You remember my cardiac arrest, Kar?” Mom asked one night while we made dinner together. “I didn’t tell you the whole story. I didn’t tell anyone except your father. I was afraid people would talk.”

     “What do you mean?” I asked.

     Mom paused. “Kar, that day in the hospital, I died.”

     I stared at Mom, confused. Died?

     “I remember falling in the bathtub,” she said. “But the next thing I knew, I was at the hospital, staring from above my body on a hospital gurney.”

     She felt herself floating away and found herself at the entrance of a dark tunnel. The further she traveled through the tunnel, the brighter it became. She became wrapped in a brilliant light, unlike anything she’d ever seen. The feeling of complete love washed over her, surrounding her. Yet after a few minutes, Mom felt herself being pulled back. All at once, she was on the gurney again. She heard the doctor’s exclaim, “She’s back!”

     “The light was so pure,” Mom said, a starry look in her eyes. “Like an all-encompassing love. That’s the only way I can describe it. I got a glimpse that day, sweetheart. Of the joy waiting for us all.”

     I stared at the page in my hand now, and the earrings—their light so brilliant, so like the light that returned to Mom’s eyes that long-ago Valentine’s Day and the light Mom encountered when she died and came back.

     She knew. Somehow, even in the midst of her dementia, Mom knew that I needed a reminder. Of the joy that awaits her, and the light that overcomes darkness.

This is my actual diary entry that I'd found. 

 

Sometimes strength feels like brokenness

Yesterday was a mixed feeling type of day while visiting my mother at her house. I felt wonderful that it went so well; that Mom and I bonded in the kitchen with a little cooking project. She peeled potatoes while I fixed pork tenderloin. She laughed so much, and shared some sweet stories. And yet at other times, she broke apart while talking about my dad.

I walked through the rooms of the house I had lived in from the early nineteen seventies. My old bedroom became my brother's room, and then later our father's little workshop. Many of Dad's projects are in that room--boat models, thousand piece puzzles he'd glued together and hung as pictures on the walls. A huge dollhouse, completed, sits on a built-in dresser--the tiny furniture askew in the many rooms--now forgotten. And everywhere--Dad. . . His little notebooks filled with writing; organizing the many bills he paid and doctor visits he kept in order. A few of his favorite DVD's still lay scattered about the room, as we haven't had the heart to move them just yet.

 My parent's room still had dad's shirts folded over and old blanket rack. I picked one up and became lost in the scent of my father, and memories which threatened to start me sobbing uncontrollably. I looked at the furniture in the room, an old bedroom set my parents had since I was a little girl. Many nights I used to wander into the room, frightened from a bad dream to make sure my parents were there. And Dad would wake to take me back to bed.

Mom began nodding off after our beautiful dinner yesterday. And the innocence of her dementia hit me hard. Once the strongest woman I'd known, she now talks like a little girl at times--memories of the past more clear than those that just happened. I thought about her life and the time she had with my father. They'd been married over sixty years. They'd shared a love like no other I'd seen, for they remained with one another through good times and bad. Moments of plenty and moments of lack. Sickness and health. Yes, they'd taken their wedding vows quite seriously. And my heart broke into tiny shards watching Mom sleep, and knowing she'd awaken alone once again without the love of her life there beside her.

We talked yesterday of death, replaying the moments Dad had been in the hospital and the events which led to his passing. When my mother seemed to spiral downward, when depression threatened at its ugliest, I reminded her that she knew better than anyone. The near death experience she'd gone through in the early seventies were proof of the Love we will know and the Place we are headed. Dad is waiting for her there, and she will spend eternity with him. In her cute childlike way, she said, "Oh, I'd forgotten about that."

We are broken right now--my family. And in our time of grief, there have been moments that we showed a strength I didn't think we'd possess.

 I chatted with a friend this morning who'd lost her beloved husband some months back. We spoke of our loved ones and how much we miss them. We reminisced about better times and happy memories. And she said something to me that really made me think. She said, "Sometimes strength feels like brokenness." It didn't take me long to realize just how true that is.

My mother's brush with death......

     It was February, 1971.  Snow had fallen the night before.  Dad was outside shoveling as I watched cartoons on a Sunday morning.  A huge noise from the room  above me, startled me.  My dog, Buffy, ran to the stairs, as I almost walked up to see what had happened.  I heard the strangest sound, a snoring, or gurgling from above.  My mother was upstairs, and it sounded scary.  I ran outside to tell my father.
     He came into the house to check on my mother, and called down to me from upstairs to phone my grandmother for an ambulance.  My eleven year old mind couldn't process what he was telling me, but I knew it was very serious.  I called my Nonna, who must have quickly dialed the ambulance service.
      A few moments later,  the ambulance crew arrived, quickly going up the stairs to see what had happened.  My mother had fallen, having a cardiac arrest, something we didn't know at the time.
     As they carried her out on a stretcher, she was conscious and spoke to me.  She told me not to worry, and to have fun.  My little mind couldn't process any of this.
     Years later, I heard details of her strange  hospital experience .  It seemed as they stabilized her for the night, my father was leaving the hospital to come home to me.  As he was walking down the hallway, he heard the code blue called over the loudspeakers.  He just knew it was for my mother.
     My mother had another cardiac arrest, this time much more serious.  She had to be revived, something I never knew at the time.
     The doctors and nurses were able to revive her after a few minutes.  When my father was able to see her again, she said something odd to him.  "Rich, I'm not afraid to die."  Then she told him her story.
     She felt herself being drawn down a long, dark tunnel.  The further and faster she went, she began to feel a profound peace settling about her.  She felt as if she was the only thing, only person that mattered in the world, and love was wrapping Itself about her.   She went no further, but was quickly drawn back to consciousness  and heard a loud "popping" sound as she came to.
      As I became an adult myself, I read many encounters of near death experiences.  They sounded very similar to what my mother had described.  She wasn't "out" as long as some of them, but long enough to have the experience she told us about.
      Mom has often shared this tale with people she meets, especially when they are grieving, or forlorn about a loved one who has passed.  Many times, she moves people to tears, and has often inspired others with her story.  I believe in what she says. 
     So, as St. Augustine said:  "God loves every one of us, as if there's only one of us."   I believe my mom had a glimpse of this.