Mary and Joe made our transition into their family rather easy, but it definitely was not easy to live without my mom and dad.
Every time anyone at school would mention something about their mom or dad, I would cringe a little on the inside, knowing that I could never share in a similar encounter with them.
There would be times that I would become jealous of my cousins, because they got to still have their parents to grow up with, while my sister, brother and I would never have that.
We did come across instances, though, where we would encounter our parents in some form, and could not quite explain it.
Here are some examples:
After my dad passed away, my brother was laying in the grass in my mom’s friend’s front yard. Jack started laughing to himself. My mom’s friend walked up to Jack, and asked him why he was laughing. He said, “I am laughing because my daddy is tickling me!” Jack was only 2 at the time.
Another example was not with my siblings, but with my Gigi’s friend, Dorothy. As you may remember from my one of my previous posts, my mother passed away while she was in the Hospice House of Kansas City.
Dorothy did a lot of volunteering at the Hospice House of KC after my mom passed away. One night, she got a call from them, asking her to come in, as there was a baby that was close to passing away, and they did not want it to die, alone. Dorothy came in that night and rocked the baby. While she was rocking the baby, she heard a voice from behind her say, “I can take it from here, Dorothy!” When Dorothy turned around, she saw my mother standing there in her most angelic form. When Dorothy turned back around to look at the baby, the baby took its last breath, then was gone. When I heard this, I began to cry. To hear that God was using my mother as one of his angels, gave me such peace to know that she was in a wonderful place, and was continuing to do good acts.
These stories helped us to carry on, when we really missed them. It helped with our coping process.
After losing them, we saw so many different therapists, through Solace House of KC, through a private Therapist, and of course our school counselor.
My favorite had to of been with my school counselor. She was incredible, and really knew how to make you feel comforted. I was also in a group with others that had gone through similar situations.
You see, when you meet someone that has also lost a parent, it almost is a sense of relief, because THEY GET IT! And you can share your thoughts with them, without feeling ridiculous. It creates some sort of bond between the two of you that is unlike any other.
As the months drew on, and life started to take over with our new normal, we got settled into the new way of things. That did not mean, of course, that we moved on and forgot about them.
Remember this: Time does not allow you to move on from them; it simply gives you time to learn to live without them.
There were still times when an emotional wave would hit me out of nowhere and I would want to do nothing but cry. Sometimes this wave would occur during the middle of class, while I was driving, or at night, when I was alone with my own thoughts. As time did go on though, it helped to make these occurrences happen less and less.
Regardless of what point you are at with your grieving process, I am here to tell you that YOU WILL GET THROUGH THIS. Whatever you are feeling is exactly how you should feel. If you need to reach out to someone because you need to vent about where you are in your grieving process, I am here for you. I do not care if you are one of my best friends, someone I have known for a while, but we haven’t talked, or something that I have never met. Do not ever feel like you are alone with your problems, because you are not!
One of the reasons I started sharing my story through this blog, is to hopefully help at least one person with their grieving process, so if you need someone to talk to, please do not hesitate to reach out. I am happy to assist you with providing resources, or something as simple as just being there!
You are never alone.
