Is Your Well Full, or Are You Running on Empty?

© Ashwin82 | Dreamstime Stock Photos & Stock Free Images

Bad things happen to good people.

I think we’ve all figured that one out by now, right?!

So, bad things are going to happen to you. Or, like me, LOTS of bad things might happen to you, over and over, with rare pause between crescendos of pain, and you may wake up one day and think, “Wow, really, is this life? Isn’t there something more than this to life?”

I’ve been asking myself that question quite frequently as of late, and I think I’ve figured out a key to finding peace and joy, even in barrages of hardship.

The question is, how to see beauty around pain? Or, as one friend said the other day, how do I see rainbows in the shitstorms? (Please excuse my language if you’re reading this, Mom and Dad, but, well, the profanity was elicited given the circumstances of late!).

I once quoted a story I heard shared by author Mark Nepo on Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday, and I’ll share it here again.

“The pain of life is pure salt; no more, no less. The amount of pain in life remains exactly the same. However, the amount of bitterness we taste depends on the container we put the pain in. So when you are in pain, the only thing you can do is to enlarge your sense of things . . . Stop being a glass. Become a lake.”

~Author Unknown

I think I’m figuring out that when bad things happen, if my “well” is full, I can be more able to see the beauty around the pain, and “enlarge my sense of things.”

Are you filling your well by spending time opening up a connection to the Universe?

Your “well” is your spiritual energy input. It is the time you MAKE for yourself to be alone, to be in nature, to be creative, to write or paint, draw or bike, read or cook – whatever it is that refills your well. It is your coffee can on a string to the divine. It’s always there, but if you don’t pick it up and open a connection to allow creativity and beauty to flow into, out and through you, you will feel stifled in your life. You will feel unfulfilled. You will feel stuck. And when bad things happen, you will feel that bitter taste of being a glass, not a lake.

So, just as we must perform daily maintenance around our homes, for our bodies, etc., we must maintain our spiritual vessel daily as well. Every day you feed the dog, your kids, your spouse, but do you feed your soul – your spiritual well?!

We have to keep filling the well, so when a shitstorm comes to try and drain it, we have spiritual energy reserves. We have to have enough beauty in our lives coming in and out through self-expression, creativity, books, music, meditation, friendship and connection, and anything else that helps us feel we are touching the divine, that we can still see that beauty around the pain when it comes.

As Mothers, parents, spouses, employees, we are often sending all our energy out, out, out, out, out, and never taking time to bring energy in for ourselves. So, we’re too busy or broke to take a vacation or spend time in nature? Don’t worry, you’ll have a vacation soon enough when you get an illness and have to stay at home for a week. It’s your body’s way of saying, “NEED ENERGY INPUT!!!!”

I’m home sick right now, because I have not been filling my well, and through a lot more “bad stuff” this last couple weeks, I’ll admit, I could not see ANY rainbows in the shitstorms because I was running completely on empty.

I’m working on filling my well, right now, by writing, to you, because this is my coffee can on a string to the divine. What’s yours?

The next time you’re washing the dishes, fueling the car, packing lunches for the kids, or doing some other sort of daily maintenance on your home or life, remember your well, and please, make sure you’re taking time to fill it every day, too. You don’t even have to leave your house to open up a connection to the divine. Plan a vacation, read a book, call a friend, paint a beautiful picture, jam through a workout, climb a mountain, or just do something, to remind yourself, this is a beautiful lake…er…world, we live in, no matter what happens.

“To offer no resistance to life is to be in a state of grace, ease, and lightness. This state is then no longer dependent upon things being in a certain way, good or bad. It seems almost paradoxical, yet when your inner dependency on form is gone, the general conditions of your life, the outer forms, tend to improve greatly…”

~Eckhart Tolle

Dear Sweet Nephew: I’m Smiling at the Memory of You Today

Dear Sweet Nephew,

Hi, how are you? What’s it like living in the light you were on Earth?

I thought today I would write to you, because today it’s been 10 years since you left this Earth. I know you are still nearby, and all around, but, losing the chance to hold you in my arms and run my fingers through your beautiful blond hair again, that was the hardest thing I have ever had to let go of.

Marking 10 years today makes me look back on the last decade of my life without you. Of course, I wonder how things would be different if you hadn’t left. I wonder what an almost 13 year old version of you would look like, be like; how you would fit into a space in my life, how you would be a big brother, a son, a cousin.

But, I try not to dwell on thoughts like that, because obviously I can’t change what happened, I can’t bring you back. In my mind, you’ve stayed almost 3 eternally. In a way, that is a joy, because you were such a bright, beautiful, innocent beam of light in your short little life, and you’ve stayed that way in my mind.

These anniversaries have always been hard for me, but strangely not today. Today, I felt nothing but joy in remembering you. I can’t believe it’s taken 10 years to get to this point, where I can think of you and feel more joy then sorrow.

For the first few years after you died, I ached for weeks before March 15, every year. I wanted to hold a memorial service or plaster a huge sign on my roof, “I LOST THE BEST THING I EVER HAD IN MY LIFE!” I wanted the world to see my pain, I wished every person on this planet had known you, and known what they lost when you left this Earth so soon.

Then came all these ridiculous grief experiences these last few years, and each one has reminded me of you. So, I thought it was about time to deal with the pain of your loss. I started writing my book. I know you’ve been watching me write it – you’ve been right there in the pages of it with me. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to publish the parts about you or not – but I was meant to write them.

I know some people might think it looks like living in the past, but I think, actually, it was the first time I could look at the pain of your death with eyes of compassion for myself, with awareness, and courage to face the depths of the pain.

I wrote out every last detail of you – I put to paper every single piece of you I could remember. I wracked my brain for memories, so I could put into words exactly what it felt like when you ran your fingers through my hair, what it felt like to chase you to the Ice Cream Truck on a warm summer afternoon, what it felt like to hug you for the last time.

There were a lot of memories of your death that I had buried, and they were painful to dig up, but I faced them, courageously, so I could get past them. Writing about you seemed to help heal the wounds, leave them there on the pages once and for all, with all the ugliness and betrayal I felt over having to say goodbye to you forever.

Now, 10 years later, I’m not stuck in the pain of your loss anymore.

I’ve been reminded of how blessed I was to pay witness to your little life, your curiosity and zest for observing every little thing, great or small.

Now, I realize, the best way to honor your life, would be to live like you did, and to help others live that way – to live in pure JOY.

So, that’s what I want to do. I want to help people find a way to joy.

The pain of your loss was so hard because I thought I had lost that joy, but now I’m realizing, joy is not something that can be lost forever. It is simply lost, then found, again. It disappears, and reappears in other forms. When we hold no attachment to how we receive joy, we open ourselves up to receiving it from a gazillion different abundant sources. But, if we stay stuck in the sorrow of a loss, we lose out on seeing the joy that always exists around us.

After my Grandma died last week, I decided, I’m moving forward, just for the joy of it. I keep hearing those words over and over and over in my head since that day I sat at her bedside and felt her, as if she were standing behind me. I could hear her saying, “Just for the joy of it!” With that much exuberance, too! She was telling me to live just for the joy of experiencing every moment.

I needed that wake-up call because these last few years have sent me to Hell and back, repeatedly, and each time, I’ve come back with the fire and brimstone ashes of Hell’s fire on my feet, treading pain and anger everywhere I go.

I don’t want to live like that – in the pain and suffering; the lack of loss. I’m realizing, joy and sorrow are on two sides of one thread, and it’s up to me which ends of the threads I want to use to weave my life together from here.

So, today, on a day that has always made me wistful and melancholy, all I can do is smile at the giggle-busting memories of you. I usually cry on this day every year, but today, I don’t feel an inkling of a tear in me. I just remember how much I used to love to play with you – I lived to be invited into your little Universe each day. I would follow your breadcrumbs anywhere they took me, because I knew every moment with you would feel magical.

I've been trying to spread the smiles with my own two kidlets - looks like it's workin'!

I want to try now, to create those giggle-busting moments in my own life, with my own kids, and the people I encounter each day. I want to try to be to my kids as a Mom, what I was to you, as an Aunt.

I want to push myself to expand in joy, instead of contracting in fear and pain. I want to spread joy, not just to my family, but to tons and tons of people all the over the place. Will you help me do that? Nudge me with a little inkling of your light every now and again so I don’t forget it? Help me keep this promise to myself and my little neck of the world?

You are not a part of my past, sweet boy, you are part of my present, and always will be. The joy you gave me, the light you filled me with – it’s still here. You’re still here. I can feel you. Thank you for all the indescribably perfect memories you gave me, for making me feel so special in your world, for two years and ten months of joy I’ll never forget with you. Thank you for loving me then, and loving me still. I’ll see you in my dreams and giggles, sweet boy. I’ll see you in my smiles. 

Facing Another Loss

#13 is looming on the horizon…

Not going into details to respect my family’s privacy in such a hard time, but just thought, seeing as this is my place to share on life and loss, and my journey through it…I’d come here in the rawness of grief and tell you, think of me.

It’s been a hard couple days, but yes, the piano practice of grief has made me a beautiful composer.

I forced myself to get out in nature day before yesterday, and had the most blissful amazing day of “seeing the beauty around the pain.” I hiked all the way up a mountain, unprepared, not intending to. I had to carry books in my hands up steep cliffs, in the wrong shoes, with only half a bottle of water on a wind-whipped day. But, I forced myself to do it, to remind myself how strong and capable I am, how I always have everything I need within me.

It reminded me of the journey through grief. We often feel unprepared, but find, we have everything we need within to get through it.

On the way back down the mountain, butterflies danced with me. Butterflies are my sign from the other side, that my angels are with me. Yes, I do have lots of angels. Lots of angels on heaven and earth with me. That is one thing I have in abundance.

As hard and numbing as this space is, I feel so raw and pure, so unadulterated, unfettered, innocent and hauntingly vulnerable. I am proof that there is beauty in pain.

Maybe it is my job to BE the beauty in the pain.

Maybe it is my job to simply SEE the beauty in the pain.

I’m not sure, yet, because right now, I feel more pain than beauty, but I am trying, trying, trying…trying to be the beauty, see the beauty, and not let the pain consume me.

Thanks for listening to my grief ramblings.

“And With This Compost, He Made A Flower Grow”

“If you look deeply at a flower, at its freshness and its beauty,

you will see that there is also compost in it, made of garbage.

The gardener had the skill to transform this garbage into compost,

and with this compost, he made a flower grow.”  

~ from “You Are Here” by Thich Nhat Hanh 

Did Thay (I like to call him that, because that’s what his followers and friends call him, and when he speaks to my soul, I feel him like a friend) say this just for me? Did he see my life and speak it just for my soul to remember it is simply growing?

I’ve been struggling the last couple weeks, just sitting here looking at the latest pile of garbage I’ve been handed, wondering what to do with it. I am always the first to damn the obstacles in my life, no matter how well I know better. I look at them, yell at them, curse at them, shake my finger at them, and then I curl up in a ball and pout ‘til they go away.

‘Cept that just leaves me curled up in a ball, pouting, waiting forever, because I am living proof that an obstacle-free living does not exist.

“You are a gardener, and you have in your hands the power to transform garbage into flowers, into fruit, into vegetables.

You don’t throw anything away, because you are not afraid of garbage.

Your hands are capable of transforming it into flowers, or lettuce, or cucumbers.” 

~ from “You Are Here” by Thich Nhat Hanh 

I think this may be the most beautiful analogy I have ever heard for how I have felt these last few years. I’ve been handed so much garbage. Sometimes I have to sit and look at the garbage for a long time before I remember my ability to turn it into flowers again.

I’ve had to work very hard at reminding myself that I am the gardener. It is so much easier to play the helpless victim, whining, “Poor little me!” in the corner.

It is remembering our power that is so hard. Being willing to step into it, own it, and wield it like a sword, because the Earth was created for us to live fully in it. We are not born to breed a small, pinched existence. Our purpose in this life is to remember our inherent nature as limitless beings.

Thich Nhat Hanh goes on to speak of how flowers and garbage are both organic in nature, that we should not condemn the garbage (anger, fear, sorrow) because it exists in us in the same way love and compassion do.

He’s so right – it’s when we create this duality in ourselves of things we are “for” or “against,” that we create suffering. I look at obstacles and feel against them, and then I reject them, repel them, do whatever I can to make them go away, or pretend they’re not there. That creates my suffering, because I’m living in a constant state of not accepting ALL of what I’m feeling. I don’t like feeling angry and sad so I condemn those feelings. I forget that, as the gardener, it is my job to transform those “garbage” feelings into fruits or flowers. I forget that I know very well, just how to do that – I have, after all, had lots of practice!

The truth is, our anger and sorrow are equally a part of us. They are not ugly or even “good” or “bad.” They are simply the garbage, waiting to be transformed into flowers. They are the necessary compost to our inner garden.

Thay’s teachings on compassion towards our “garbage” have been the most transformative tools for my grief and pain. He teaches us to simply look at the garbage with eyes of compassion. It’s amazing how this simple practice has transformed me out of the pent-up swells of anger, into a place of peace, even as I’m still riding out my hurricanes. I take a moment to go within, and in the stillness and silence, I look at my pain and acknowledge it, softly. Immediately, it begins to break down, just as garbage breaks down into compost.

For the last week or so, I’ve been curled up in that ball cursing the latest obstacles in my life as this recession hands me more lemons upon lemons. Thay’s words today reminded me that I am the gardener, and I’ve already turned so much garbage into abundant corn rows of lilies and blooms!

I have to laugh at it a little because, really, for all the garbage in my compost pile, I’ve got an arboretum of copiously fragrant flowers coming, folks!

~~~

I know you have suffering, anger, hurt and sorrow in your heart, my friend. I hope you can look at them today with eyes of compassion, and remember their beautiful place in the fields of your soul.

That’s why you are here, because you wanted to remind yourself that you are the gardener, too.

Be A Lake, Not A Glass

A beautiful story for you…

An aging Hindu master grew tired of his apprentice complaining and so, one morning, sent him for some salt.

When the apprentice returned, the master instructed the unhappy young man to put a handful of salt in a glass of water and then to drink it.

“How does it taste?” the master asked.

“Bitter,” spit the apprentice.

The two walked in silence to the nearby lake and once the apprentice swirled his handful of salt in the water, the old man said, “Now drink from the lake.”The master chuckled and then asked the young man to take the same handful of salt and put it in the lake.

As the water dripped down the young man’s chin, the master asked, “How does it taste?”

“Fresh,” remarked the apprentice.

“Do you taste the salt?” asked the master.

“No,” said the young man.

At this the master sat beside this serious young man, who so reminded him of himself, and took his hands, offering:

“The pain of life is pure salt; no more, no less. The amount of pain in life remains exactly the same. However, the amount of bitterness we taste depends on the container we put the pain in. So when you are in pain, the only thing you can do is to enlarge your sense of things . . . Stop being a glass. Become a lake.”

~Author Unknown

And The World Spins Madly On…

This is a true story that was shared with me recently. I have omitted last names to respect the family’s privacy, and re-written  to the best of my memory in the stunning of hearing such a moving story. 

Cathy’s husband Gary was one of our twelve. The twelve deaths in three years, I mean. He was like a second Dad to us in many ways. We always felt like part of their family.

Gary was a tall man with piercing blue eyes, a salt and pepper beard, a sort of Sean Connery, get’s better lookin’ as they age kind of handsome. It was the light and the kindness in his eyes that met you first, though – drew you into his, made you feel like family.

When he was diagnosed with Stomach Cancer, I believe it was right around his 50th year. His oldest son was having kids, his youngest was off to College. He told the family of the disease, but never told them, it was terminal. 

He fought it for about a year and a half before he finally passed away, leaving behind his beloved wife Cathy, three children, two grand-children, and a few more “adopted” kids like me.

It’s been almost two years since he  passed.

One day, Cathy was at work and was introduced to a man and a woman. Within seconds of meeting them, the woman stopped the flow of conversation, looked Cathy square in the eye, and said, “I’m so sorry for your loss.” Cathy had never met this woman. She went on to tell Cathy she was clairvoyant, and continued, “I’m so sorry for the loss of your husband. He wants you to know he’s with you now, and always. He’s standing behind you, he’s tall, very handsome, has a salt and pepper beard, and piercing blue eyes.”

Cathy’s disbelief turned to faith, as she continued to listen to this woman describe her husband perfectly.

A few minutes later, Cathy’s son walked up, and without introducing him, the woman stood up, shook his hand, and said, “And you, I’m so sorry for your loss, too.” 

As they began talking, she said to Cathy’s son, “I know the hardest thing for you, in losing your Dad, was wishing he could’ve seen your kids grow up.” Danny has two kids, a boy, age 6, and a little girl, age 3. He began to cry as the woman spoke, for it was truly his heart’s deepest ache that his Dad did not live to watch his grandchildren play and grow up.

The woman saw the tears in Danny’s eyes and continued, “He wants you to know, he is here! He watches your kids play all the time! In fact, his favorite spot to hang out is in your living room. He loves to sit in the red velvet chair and watch them play, every day!”

Danny began to weep. Yes, there is a red velvet chair in his living room, right where his kids play every day.

A week later, he was on the floor playing with his daughter and snapped a photo of her on his phone. When he went to look at the picture, he saw something amazing. A giant orb hovering over the red velvet chair watching over his daughter.

The woman finished her conversation with Cathy with a request. “Your husband says there’s something he wants you to do for yourself, something that he used to do for you, and you haven’t done since he passed. Can you think of what it might be?”

Cathy thought hard, but couldn’t come up with an answer. She was still taken aback by this experience, and overjoyed to feel the presence of her husband again.

The woman said, “Well, I’m going to come back in a couple days and ask you. You think hard, and let me know if you figure it out.”

A few days passed, and Cathy wracked her brain incessantly, trying to come up with the answer. What was her husband trying to tell her from beyond the grave? Surely, it was something important! And, if it was so important, why couldn’t she figure it out?!

When Cathy saw the woman again, she asked immediately, “Did you figure it out?” Cathy looked bewildered, “No, I wracked my brain and I just couldn’t figure it out!”

The woman chuckled, “Do you remember how every night before bed Gary would shine your shoes? He wants you to shine your shoes again. You haven’t done it since he left. He wants you to know, it’s o.k., and he’d really like it if you’d do that for him again.”

Cathy began to cry and laugh, all at once. She hadn’t even touched Gary’s side of the closet since he passed, and she hadn’t thought of him shining her shoes, either. But yes, he had done that every night before bed – a little ritual for her. He’d leave them on her side of the closet, ready and waiting for the next morning – a gift for her to start her day.

Cathy and her son may never have believed in angels before, but they sure do now. 

(Thank you to Cathy and her son for giving me permission to share this story here, in hopes it will speak to others.)

This story is a testament to the truth, that our loved ones never really leave us. They simply change forms. I feel my Grandmother’s presence more strongly now then I did when she was alive, and now she’s not so cranky anymore! Tonight, watching this video below, I felt my nephew’s presence strongly again, in a way I haven’t felt in so long. We’ll be coming on up 10 years since his passing soon, but it still feels like yesterday. It’s hard, though, because he wasn’t even three, our time together was so brief, my memories have faded and I often have to reach deeply into the recesses of my mind to pull up the feeling of his soul around me again. I think, though, that I just forget how close he is, really, all the time, and watching something like this reminds me. 

So, for you…a gift…for anyone who has ever lost someone they loved. 

The World Spins Madly Round

This video is for Cathy and Gary, Joy Plastid and the memory of her husband, for everyone here who has lost someone they loved, and in memory of my angels before me. 

Now to finish, one more beautiful thing that was shared with me recently, from beyond…

Megan,
I received this message from “the Universe” soon after my husband’s best friend and our best man committed suicide last year. I pulled it back up recently to comfort myself as the anniversary of his death approaches. Thought I would share it with you.
I especially love the last line, #10, kinda what you have been saying too!

The top 10 things dead people want to tell living people are:

1. They’re not dead.
2. They’re sorry for any pain they caused.
3. There’s no such thing as a devil or hell.
4. They were ready to go when they went.
5. You’re not ready.
6. They finally understand what they were missing.
7. Nothing can prepare you for the beauty of the moment you arrive.
8. Don’t try to understand this now, but life is exceedingly fair.
9. Your pets are as crazy, brilliant and loving, here, as they were there.
10. Life really is all about love, but not just loving those who love you…

In their own words,
The Universe

Dear Blogiverse: Hello…and Congratulations

"The World Revs Its Heat Engine" Photo credit: from NASA on Flickr, no known copyrights exist

Hello, 

Nice to meet you.

Thank you for greeting me so warmly.

I’ve recently begun my own WordPress Blogiverse journey, and find myself to be quite content here in the WordPress hemisphere, because, well, you guys are awfully nice. I love meeting bloggers from all sides of the globe, and I’m thankful for my “homeroom” WordPress peeps!

I feel like I’m now a part of something - part of a rare community of self-expressing abandoned minds and insightful hearts. We all seem to share a common trait – we’ve got words stirring within which we’re compelled to expel at least 1-5x a week! So, we are joined in our self-expelling!

But, what really gets me is this: I talk, and you talk back! Huh?! What?! 

Some of you are even following me, connecting with me, and I’m connecting with you, too! Yes, the WordPress Blogiverse simply…ROCKS. 

Isn’t it a wonderful thing to have a space to write your world, and know that probably, someone somewhere out there is going to read it?

Photo courtesy of http://www.fromthebungalow.wordpress.com "Blissfully Bald" Freshly Pressed post

From My Blogs Giving Me the Finger to Blissfully Bald: Why My Wife & I Decided to Shave our Heads, Coming out of the Bloset to Brain Dead…Take her off Life Support…what a wonderful little Blogiverse we have here, wouldn’t you agree?!

Add in Grim Reaper Girl – Part 1, or two (yup, that’s me) and thousands more self-expressing word-ists joining daily, and what have we got?

Well, seems to me, that we,  in our totality, are encouraging a bit of…diversity! Some home-grown validation, connection and acceptance..all at once.

Wow, congratulations to you Blogiverse and fellow blogging bloggers and readers! You are bringing a warring world to inspiring peace, one well-chosen word at a time.

Now, I leave you with the Stars Wars anthem (duhn duhnn…duhn duhn duhn duhhhhhnnnn duhnnnn…) probably zinging round your head...as you venture back to your bit of the Blogiverse, boldly going where 445,814 other bloggers have gone today! 

Keep up the good work, and thanks for taking me along for the ride!

Yours truly,

Recent WordPress Inductee, Megan Aronson

P.S. If I haven’t met you already, please introduce yourself below so we can unite within our divine little Blogiverse!!!! LOL! 

Today Made My Top 5 ~ Rockstar Mamas, Cancer & Bliss

1/21/12

I can hardly begin to compose myself to write this blog tonight. Today was – simply – one of the TOP 5 BEST DAYS OF MY LIFE. Yup, weddings, babies, then today. That’s how my list would go.

#499 on the invisible, unwritten Bucket List of my heart – completed.

Eleven beautiful, stunning, ROCKSTAR Mamas walked into my life today, and changed me forever. They were in Sedona to be part of Camp Soaring Eagle’s Winter Oncology Retreat, designed specifically for families of children who have cancer.

Ingrid has a 3 year old daughter with ALL Luekemia. She's been in treatment for over a year, and still has 1 yr to go

For three days, dozens of businesses, and an amazing team at Camp Soaring Eagle made it possible for these families, whose lives walk the line of life and death daily, to simply be – family – enjoying one fun-filled weekend of magic, and respite from the traumas of childhood cancer.

Allie Olson of Allie Ollie Boutique participated in giving each one of these women a complete head-to-toe makeover today. It was my pleasure to be there to meet these women, watch their remarkable transformations unfold, and hear their stories of “mini-miracles” and strength.

“I feel like I woke up this morning and went to a fantasy land, and I haven’t left yet!” said Mary, whose 14-year old daughter has been fighting leukemia bravely for the last year plus. I fought back tears when she began to unveil the rest of her story. Her daughter’s name is Hope – and how fitting – because for Mary, Hope is her hero. She just started losing her hair again, but she still gets straight A’s in school. Her Dad had a heart attack just before Christmas, so now both parents are now taking time off work to focus on the health of their little family. But Hope keeps…well, hope. One day her Dad said to her, “Hope, God has a plan for your life!” And Hope replied enthusiastically, “Well, it must be a good one!”

Allie Olson (center) and two ROCKSTAR Mamas

Another ROCKSTAR Mama (whose privacy I suddenly feel a Mama-bear instinct to protect so I’ll just call her Susie) was the face of the day for me. Her story almost seems too shocking to share, too unbelievable to be real and true, and sitting in an arm chair at a boutique across from me. I asked Susie if her husband was here at Camp with her and she replied, “No, my, uh, ex-husband shot me with a shotgun, and now he’s in prison.” Now, her seven-year old son has leukemia, and she must face it alone as a single mother to two young boys.

I’ve handled a lot of pain in my short life, but it doesn’t begin to skim the surface of the daily tragedies these ROCKSTAR MAMAS face. Tragedies of having to explain what cancer is to a two year old, or having to bolster your fourteen-year old daughter’s confidence in the midst of losing her hair again, or helping your seven-year-old son understand why his friends don’t come around to play anymore.

My 4 year old daughter's grief...

I came home from my experience of fussing happily over these ROCKSTAR Mamas, who earn that title for nothing less then simply showing up for every day of their lives, and I looked at my daughter, whose faced so many of her own personal tragedies losing places and people, with new eyes. A simple evening turned profoundly blissful in it. Tickle fests, handstand races, cuddles and giggles with Mommy and Daddy were a mini-miracle for us, because for all the mourning, a perfect evening is a miraculous reprieve. For us, a joyous night that comes not on the heels of any recent tragedy, is a memory worth treasuring.

I’m humbled, though, at imagining the mini-miracles these eleven Moms find each day – theirs could be as simple as “My child didn’t vomit today,” or “My child laughed today,” or, “My child didn’t die today.” It makes my mini-miracle moments more grand in light of theirs, and it made spending a day with these ROCKSTAR MAMAS well…BLISS.

It made today…one of my personal TOP FIVE. Yes, absolutely, one of my TOP FIVE.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of this incredible story on how we can KICK CANCER’S ASS!

Honored to stand amongst the ROCKSTAR MAMAS - that's Allie & I in the middle.

___________

I named these Mamas from today ROCKSTAR Mamas for another ROCKSTAR Mama who moves me. Her son Ronan recently died from Neuroblastoma Cancer at the age of 3. Her blog has received 2.9 million hits for voicing the raw bravery she was must muster every day just to go on without her little boy. She named her website ROCKSTAR Ronan. I name her a ROCKSTAR Mama, among the lovelies I met today.

____________

Of course, I couldn’t write this without giving you an opportunity to feel what I felt today – if you feel so moved to participate in what Camp Soaring Eagle does in any small way, they host these retreats twice a year and many more camper weekends throughout the year. They are a non-profit organization focused on supporting the whole family, giving them one memorable weekend, or even just a day, away from hospital bills and medical treatments. In many cases, the memories they grant these families are some of the last they have together before a child passes away. It’s nothing short of miraculous what they are doing, and words can hardly begin to convey how deeply I feel that. Here’s their website. 

My Baby Died…And Taught Me to Believe

That little voice within me is always right but, it’s taken me a long time to learn that. I tend to drown her out with the noise of my mind.

She knew, when I first found out I was pregnant, on my daughter’s birthday, May of 2009, that it was the beginning of an end.

She tried to tell me something was wrong. Every time I uttered those two simple words, “I’m pregnant,” she’d given me that kick in the shin within – it said, “Not yet, wait.” But I didn’t listen.

My Aunt Debbie, 51, had just passed away in March, after a long battle with lung cancer, and the pay cuts for Kory and I both had hit in January, and again in May, decimating our income.

When we found out we were pregnant again, with our second child, JOY wasn’t even the word for it. It was like we were climbing a sheer cliff, scrambling at slippery rock walls with bare fingers, and someone had just tossed us a rope from above.

The day we found out we were pregnant with our angel baby.

In many ways, that baby was the only good thing happening for us.

We were already picking out names and planning the nursery, when I woke up – on Kory’s birthday – to find the end had come.

My baby died, and with it, a little piece of me died, too.

The miscarriage was the most physically and emotionally painful, personal experience of grief I’ve experienced yet, out of ten more deaths since.

I felt like my body betrayed me, and I had so many questions my Doctor could never answer – why did this happen? Was something wrong with me? Would I ever be able to conceive again? Had I passed some invisible age barrier in the short two years since I’d last given birth, and now I’d unknowingly become an infertile maid? Was it a fluke? Was something wrong with the baby?

My mind could torment with these questions ‘til I reached my death bed, and never find answers.

I needed to find peace – not necessarily a definitive answer on how or why this had happened – just peace. And for me, that was maybe just accepting NOT knowing, NOT being able to understand.

This is something I’ve struggled with repeatedly since – because loss doesn’t make sense. There never is a good reason why. It simply is as it is, and there’s nothing we can do to change it.

But we can find peace, if we trust the voice within.

I have learned that peace is accepting this moment as it is, whatever it brings. That doesn’t mean I have to say, “YIPPEE! I’m so happy my baby died! I can’t wait to find the gifts in this!”

It means, it’s ok to feel angry, sad, scared, betrayed, and bruised. It’s ok to feel the pain, and acknowledge it. Facing the pain is how we create a path to peace.

I highly recommend journal-ing if you are going through any sort of transition. It's a place to dump all our raw feelings, then in re-reading, it gives us self-empathy.

So, I bought a journal, and I ripped my pain out onto those pages in large scribbles and scrawls.

The day I went back to the doctor to have an ultrasound that would show an empty womb, no longer bearing the beauty of my would-be baby, I took my journal and my pen to the creek, and reminded myself of the beauty around the pain. Simply surrounding myself in beauty completely changed my perspective. Life was no longer just the pain of the loss, life had beauty, too.

I closed my eyes, listened to the quiet whispers of the creek beside me, and asked for my peace and answers from within. I wanted to understand why this baby had come in, then gone. Why? Why did it come at all then? What gifts did it have for me? I believe, “All things work for good in my life,” so what good could possibly come from this?

The answers I found in my quiet reflection were this…

That baby didn’t come for nothing.

I thought maybe she’d come to teach me how to be a Mom to two, or how to give empathy to a three year old, or how to play catch with my first little boy.

Instead, she taught me FAITH.

I’m not talking faith like pick a religion, believe it and preach it. I’m talking FAITH…believing in the unseen, believing in me, believing in that little inner voice within.

Just a few days after the miscarriage had begun, I wrote in my journal.

No one could have prepared me for this experience. I have been completely caught off guard by how deeply it has affected me, and how far reaching the pangs of utter devastation and loss have spread into my heart. But what comforts me is this intrinsic knowing within that this experience has led me directly to…not away from…the beautiful, wonderful little being that is coming my way. Suddenly, I do feel a strong connection to a baby boy coming – I can almost see him! I can feel him, hear him (a little giggle), and sense him. He is playful and joyful and ready to come and play. He’s excited to meet us and know us as his parents. He’s already connected to Kayta and experiencing her as his big sis. He’s-a comin’ and he’s right on time.

I named that baby “Faith,” for what she’d taught me, and moved forward believing another baby was coming soon.

Just a few weeks later, I found out I was pregnant again.

I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy in Spring of 2010.

A few minutes after my son was born...

After a whirlwind natural delivery, I hemorrhaged and lost over a third of my blood. My parents said they thought they were going to lose me, as they watched my Doctor fight to find the source of the bleed and stop it. In the end, I made it through, but spent the first month of my son’s life not being able to stand up for more then ten minutes because I was so weak.

He was worth it though! He was a dream come true in so many ways. See, I had lost the first baby boy in my life – my nephew, when he died just two months before his third birthday. And I had lost “Faith” with the miscarriage.

But, in the end, that voice within was right again.

My son, Kanon

I now have the bubbly, cuddly, giggly little boy who adores his big sister (he’s sitting here kissing me repeatedly as I write this!). He is everything I knew he would be, and I treasure him more every day now, for the battle I fought to reach him. I always knew I would make it to him, somehow, I just had to have a little “Faith” along the way.

Not every story has a happy ending like this one, but every story can have that peace that comes from within – that “accepting the not knowing.” It’s hard to believe, but I’ve seen it again and again in my life. Change, death, pain are all a part of this world. But if we have a little faith, we can find the beauty around the pain. We can remember that every end is also a beginning.

_________________

As I was writing this, I kept hearing one line of a song in my head, “Trust the voice with…innnnn.” I went looking and realized it was an old Christina Aguilera song, “The Voice Within”. Listening to it again now, the words took on new meaning.  My gift for you: The Voice Within

Grim Reaper Girl – Pt 3 “Death Has Made Me More Alive”

I woke up yesterday morning scared to death of what I had done. I hardly slept the whole night before.

It was so scary to tell you how I really feel, what I’ve really been through. I was afraid you’d think of me as a failure, because at times I haven’t been able to figure out how to pick myself up again. I was afraid you’d think, “What she’s going through doesn’t begin to compare to what I’ve been through.” Or, maybe you’d think I’m just a whiny little self-absorbed brat.

But instead, you called me…brave. Wow.

From Hippies https://www.facebook.com/HippiesPage

I cried shirtsleeves of tears over your comments and posts. You being here, you showing up for this…it’s giving purpose to the pain.

So, I am insisting upon myself that I continue to be brave. I didn’t go through all this stuff for nothing. I drew all these experiences to myself to learn something…and then share it.

So, take what you can. I’m just here to try and give to you what it’s taken me 499 losses of every freaking painful sort to figure out.

I have so much more to say…such mind-blowing, life-changing, eye-opening, profound experiences that have brought me to the altar of my soul…and it was there that I found the greatest awakenings in the deepest pain, the purest joy in the deepest cuts of sorrow.

I’m so glad you’re here, and can’t wait to share more.

So now, for chapter three of Grim Reaper Girl.
This is it right here…are you ready?
_______________________

EXPECT BLISS

A couple weeks ago, I met a man after service at our local Unity Church on New Year’s Day. The morning had been a powerful “releasing of the old” and “bringing in of the new.” It was on this day that I decided to GIVE UP MY GRIM REAPER GIRL STATUS and start using my voice to echo the strength and beauty I’ve found in my experiences. No longer a victim of life…a creator of it instead.

I remember Michael Mirdad, the speaker, saying, “What’s going to happen now that you’re not hiding behind your pain anymore?” And I thought, “Oh, wow…what IS going to happen?!”

I had shared in the service, a little of my story, so afterwards, this man came up to me and said he, too, had witnessed many deaths in his lifetime, and he understood how hard it was. We talked for awhile and then out of the blue he said something I’ll never forget. He said, “But I just get up every morning and I try really hard to BLISSFUL.”

“Wow, you try really hard to be…BLISSFUL?!” I thought! I get up every morning and think, “How am I going to survive another train wreck?!”

I was so taken back…by his almost “expectation” that life could hand him pure bliss every day.

That was an ah-ha moment for me.

Remember what I said in the first post? That it was at my lowest point that I decided I didn’t want to live a life of loss anymore?

Well, I don’t. I DO NOT LIVE A LIFE OF LOSS ANYMORE.

Bad things still happen. People still die. But I’m not living a life of loss.

I see the joy and beauty around the pain. I’ve learned the path to peace. I’ve learned to accept this moment as it is, and to treasure it.

Borrowed from Oprah

Mark Nepo, author of “The Book of Awakening” (a book Oprah thinks every human being on the planet should own) shared a story on Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday that changed me.

He said one morning he stepped outside and was just beholding the beauty of a gorgeous, sunny day, taking in all the opportunity that brand new day held for him, soakin’ it all up when BAM. He stubbed his toe on a rock. So bad he thought he broke it.

The pain overtook him. All he could think about was the toe, the pain.

And then, he had his own ah-ha moment. He looked up, looked around, and remembered the beauty of the day around him.

And he thought, “Is everything the pain in my toe? Or is the pain in my toe, within the miracle of the sun and the day and everything else?”

When I heard this, I decided…I am not my stubbed toes. There is beauty around the pain. I choose to see that.

Neale Donald Walsch put it best in his book, “Communion With God.”

“Your life lived is…a reflection of your deepest understandings.

If your life is an experience of constant joy and total bliss, then you truly have it. This does not mean that your life is without the conditions that can cause pain, suffering, and disappointment. It does mean that you live in joy despite those conditions. Your experience has nothing to do with conditions.

This is unconditional love, of which I have spoken many times…When you have unconditional love of Life, then you love Life just the way it is showing up, right here, right now.”

Yup, that’s me. That’s what I’m talking about. That’s what I strive for every day! That’s my little saying, “Finding peace in the middle of my own hurricanes!” I am not my stuff. I am not my circumstances. My joy comes from within, from knowing what a beautiful soul I am, what a beautiful life I am given each day.

I have asked myself repeatedly, why did I draw these experiences of so much DEATH into my life? I have known in my heart that it was, in fact, to experience more life. I’ve tried to figure out how to put this into words and here it is, so beautifully…

“…every moment is a dying. Every moment is the end of your life as what you were, and the beginning of your life as what you now choose to become. In each moment you are recreating yourself anew…

The way to produce more life is to experience more death. Don’t let death be a once-in-a-lifetime thing! Experience each moment of your life as a death, for that is, in truth, what it is when you re-define death as simply the end of one experience and the beginning of another.

When you do this, you can have a little funeral each moment for what has just passed, for what just died. And then you can turn around and create the future, realizing that there is a future, that there is more Life.

When you know this, the idea of “not enough” is shattered, and you can begin to use each golden Moment of Now in a new way, with new understanding and deeper appreciation, with larger awareness and greater consciousness.”

Yup, that’s been my gift. I use each Moment of Now in a new way. I have grown that deeper appreciation and awareness, in spades. I know, “This too shall pass.” I know that everything is always changing, that people come and go in my life. So, I try really hard not to suffer through letting people/things/stuff go – instead, to look at the space which is created when they do go – and remember that now, it can be filled with something new.

This means that every day, I look at my children with full awareness that their time may come tomorrow. I’ve watched two small children in my life die unexpectedly, and I lost a baby before my son was born. I know deeply, that every second with my two precious blessings is a gift.

But I don’t use that to live in fear. Instead, I simply try not to waste any of my moments with them. Does that mean I’m Supermom? No, it just means, I soak up every moment, big or small. Tonight we went to Wal-Mart and made a party out of our daughter spending a $15 gift card from Christmas – it’s the simple things, I tell ya, the simple things.

I try not to miss a birthday party or a dinner invitation because ten times now, that birthday party has been the last memory I made with a loved one – the memory I cherish now more then any other. And the one time I didn’t go to a birthday party…was the last time I could’ve held my nephew alive.

I reach out and connect with as many people as I can each day (even though being a hermit would be SO much easier and simpler!) because that’s what life is about! Because when I die, I want a funeral full of people saying I made them feel like they mattered in this world.

I give away as much as I possibly can because I know what it’s like to feel like you have nothing. And because creating a constant flow of energy back and forth, and around, between all of us – that is life! If we stop giving, we stop the flow of life itself!

I’ve found the most incredible faith possible…I mean, it is unbelievable how I trust the Universe to provide for me now because I have been at my breaking point again and again, and every time, found exactly what I needed to get through.

I don't know for sure...but I've always been told these orbs that show up in photos are our angels. I opened this photo to insert it here & suddenly noticed...10 orbs around me. This was taken on my birthday 2 weeks ago.

I wake up every day feeling BLISSFUL, people – heck ya, I said it and I mean it – I can’t believe it’s true but I wake up every day feeling BLISSFUL!!!!! Because I have a new day before me to create anything I want.

I’m not in survival mode anymore. I’m in full-throttle THRIVE mode.

I still struggle, I still need constant daily reminders of all this…but I have that now, with 12 new angels around me – they are my constant reminder.

Yes, death has been my gift…because it has made me more…

ALIVE.

And when I die, you better believe, I’m gonna die…a BLISSFUL woman.