Relationships Change

I wish I could take all of the credit for some of the grief pearls of wisdom that get posted here. The fact is that my healing has been a collaboration. Things I have read, things talked about in grief groups or counseling, things said in passing between me and others whose opinion I trust and respect. I think it’s the only way to get through these devastating losses is to rely on others as we try to process what has happened. There is always inevitably someone who has experienced this too, who is further along in the journey, and feeling far more well adjusted about it all that doesn’t mind sharing their wisdom. Some of what they say are things that I am ready to hear, and some of it isn’t. When it is said again and it strikes my ears and finally rings true, I am able to let another piece of it go.

Something I have been hearing a lot, that is finally able to stick deals with the relationships we have with our loved ones that have passed. I have heard this thought a few times and it finally is beginning to take in my consciousness. I went through a phase this last year where I was very interested in reading people’s accounts of their near death experiences. What does it feel like to die? What do you see and experience? My motivation behind this was that being a good mother, I wanted to know where my son was, and in more detail than the tidbits in the bible about heaven. I wanted a human perspective from people who saw it. I talked to a few folks who had lived this. I also read a book called “90 Minutes in Heaven” about a pastor that had died for 90 minutes and came back to tell of his experience. The main thing that stuck out to me is the relationships we have here on earth. The old phrase goes “you can’t take it with you,” well that isn’t entirely true. Your relationships go with you. Commonly, people see loved ones that have died before them first when they die.

I wonder about Noah because he was only here for such a short time. Who came to greet him? Maybe Chris’s and my loved ones? Maybe there is time that the soul spends on that side of heaven before you come to be conceived and born? Maybe he had connections there? Who knows.

But, given this, the pearl of wisdom that keeps being repeated to me is this: the soul doesn’t die. The body dies, but your spirit lives forever. So, when your loved one dies, the relationship doesn’t. It just changes. This is finally a comforting thought to me. Noah is a very relevant part of our family. He always will be. I will always keep pictures of him up around our house. We will always celebrate his birthday, and we will find other ways to recognize his place in our family. We will never give up on him, and with this belief, it validates that choice that Chris and I have made. He is out there somewhere, and he will come back to us when it is our turn to pass on someday. All of the love we feel for him will not die, and it shouldn’t.