Mango Grove (Old Coconut Grove) 1998 P. Crockett
E-mail submissions/ comments/whatever! to crockettartworks@gmail.com
I recently received the first contribution for posting, for which I am profoundly grateful. As explained, all names (or other identifying facts or circumstances) will be changed unless requested otherwise, in order to encourage wider participation. Despite the critical importance of such personal and sacred experiences of “contact,” in healing and growth, they for a number of reasons tend to be kept private, if not secret. I can understand that. But nevertheless, I also feel strongly feel “HEY, LET’S TALK ABOUT THIS!” The potential importance to another of your event, which you might consider “simple,” or “no big deal,” cannot be overstated.
Share however you might feel it. And please: no worries about grammar. No quizzes will be given. I’ll even run a spell-check for you! But all that aside, my primary intention here is to provide a forum for people to share these experiences sacred to them, in their own voices, and to create an opportunity/potential for feedback, dialogue, and God-knows-what-all! In the end I suppose that these are all love stories, and undertaking to share them can only help with the healing of everyone involved, in many ways and on many levels. It’s almost like we each hold one or two pieces of one anothers’ Great Puzzle, and do not know it. We are all on this path together, certainly for the interval between birth and death, and quite likely before and thereafter. And yet we forget, and feel alone.
We are not. At all.
And so we begin. Special thanks to this gentle reader for sending this in, and getting us started:
My husand and I lost our only child, our beautiful son Ben, to a drunk driver, when he was 16. There are no words for this horror. We were completely devastated. After he died I felt like I was still able to communicate with him. It lasted for about three weeks. Mostly he told me he was ok. He was in a good place. He was concerned for me, but didn’t want me to be upset because everything would work out. I didn’t really know if it was him or my wishful thinking until I asked him what it was that he was doing. Ben was a surfer…he was surfing at the age of seven…and very disappointed when we moved out here (to FL, from CA) and there was no surf. Anyway, when I asked him the question, “What do you do with your time?” He said, “I’m just kind of hanging around waiting and surfing the solar wind.” I said, “Solar wind…what is that?” He responded, “It’s electrical energy that surges through space. There are some areas that are violently filled with solar wind, and I don’t have the experience to handle those. Then there are the more calm areas and that is what I’m working on. It’s fun because when I fall it doesn’t hurt!” Then he was gone until the next time.
After that conversation was over I thought to myself…how weird. I had never heard of the word solar wind, or electrical energy surging through space… A couple of weeks later we were watching PBS and they did a science special on solar wind and electrical energy that surges through space. It had recently been “qualified” and determined to exists in more places than they imagined, and in different powers in different places. I was shocked! I had been told that by Ben!
I am very interested in science generally, especially astronomy and outer space. So from time to time I will hear or read something about “the solar wind,” and it always feels like a gift. It’s not like it needs a reason; it’s just that, for a second, I sort of feel my Ben with me and smiling, reaching out to remind me that “it’s OK, Mom.” And sometimes I cry, because after all of these years I still miss him so. But I cannot help but smile. Our Ben is happy and well, riding a surf that never lets him down.
Robin
The Solar Winds
Here is another story received, of another mother’s experience:
OK, here we go. I am a mother, actually now a grandmother of two of the most beautiful little girls ever…(I hope that some of your readers will know that feeling!) But about 30 years ago I lost my first born child, Christopher, only a few weeks after his birth. He never got to leave the hospital. He was born, after being carried to full term. I thought it odd that he was immediately taken from the room, but the Dr. told me he was being cleaned up and checked out. I’ll never forget the Dr. coming into my room later, and instead of bringing my son he was alone. He sat by my bed and told me my son was “incompatible with life”. A curtain was drawn as my roommate fed her child. I could hear babies crying as they were brought down the hall to be with their mothers. I was brought to see him as he was in an incubator. Christopher was beautiful. To look at him you would never know anything was wrong. Tragically, there was a problem with his chromosomes and nothing was right on the inside. He lived six weeks never leaving the hospital. It was hard to go home to an empty nursery.
I did not have a feeling of Christopher’s presence or communication with him after he died, but people said and did things that seemed to me to be messages from him. Looking back, that is what my soul needed to just “keep on going,” and that is exactly what, by the grace of merciful God, I received. It felt important to me to write because these signs were not really dramatic; he did not appear to me or anything like that. But one (especially a mother!) knows what she knows, and I cannot doubt that I was being touched through Christopher’s innocent, beautiful spirit, and in a way being led forward to keep on growing, even in my pain, deepening into a new spiritual level. Over time I even came to the conclusion that I had been blessed, and Christopher been not some “mistake,” but the kind of gift that only God can give. He was still a part of my heart, and part of my reason for being. It mattered to me less that he’d died, than that he had been born…
Paul, I just wanted to share because your story reminded me of how very much we need each other. In so many ways. Each and every one of us have gifts that have been given to us individually along the course of our life journey, gifts that have often been learned and earned at great cost. But we all seem to be find power and enrichment in the sharing. The loss is real, I guess always will be, but with this “light” on it, it is somehow different. Thank you for sharing your story.
Katy
Ladies, thank you SO much for contributing. Keep them coming.
This one just in today:
Forgiveness
As often happens in abusive families one child is singled out. In my family it was my little sister. The abuse she received as a child left her young, gentle soul scarred and left her emotional state unstable. She and I really never had a good relationship because of her instability, but she was my sister.
When I left my home state and moved out to Florida we rarely saw each other. However, as we aged we made the effort to reconnect and were doing a good job of it when our Uncle died. I don’t know what I did at the funeral, and even after I asked her she wouldn’t explain it to me, but I deeply offended her in some way. She refused to speak to me again…ever! To this day I don’t know what I did. But, knowing my sister, I decided to let it ride for a year or two and then start all over again.
And then, one night I suddenly woke up and literally sat up in bed with tears streaming down my face and this message in my head, “Your sister is going to die soon. Do not let her die without letting her know you love her.”
I thought, “No she can’t die, she is younger and healthier than I am. She can’t die before me!” But the voice was so real…and so I began the timid act of gently reconnecting. After about a 1 ½ years we were back to planning our yearly trip together. I thought perhaps my dream about her death was just a dream until I received a phone call from her daughter saying she had a massive stroke.
On the airplane to be by her side I couldn’t help but remind myself of the dream and how I was given the message so that when it happened I would be more prepared. However, my heart was still in tremendous pain, but I was thankful I was told ahead of time so that she and I were in a good place with each other.
She died curled up in a fetal position after a year of not being able to move or speak. It hurts for me to even remember the pain of that year for her, her family, and me. I am forever thankful we forgave each other for whatever it was we had done to each other before she died.
I give this message so that you realize in your heart that life doesn’t go on forever, so work at forgiving those who are close to you and bring them into a place of peace with your spirit. When they die, or you die, the world will be better for it.
Niki
Stumble It!
