On the second night in the big old creaky house, Corey comes to me in a dream. She stands right in front of me, appearing as beautiful and spirited and strong as ever. With a rush of indignation, she throws her hands onto her tiny waist and says, “This is not right! I am supposed to be getting married!”
And there it is, her palpable sense of surprise and ferocity, the way she always was when she saw an injustice and immediately set her Leo mind to correcting it.
It has been three and a half years since the accident, which I still call “Corey's accident,” because my mouth refuses to form the words “Corey’s d—th.” Understand the dichotomy: I want to be all good with it, I want you to be able to look at me and see a sane person who has “worked through her grief.” But Corey is not gone from me; she is always a whisper away. And she visits me in dreamtime and daydream time. There is a secondary reason, which is that if I said the words out loud, my heart would stop beating that very instant. Because it is an impossible sacrifice to ask a mother to keep on living when her child's beating heart has stopped. I don't really know why my heart is still thumping in the cavity of my rib cage.
What are we supposed to do when we feel the intermittent presence of our dearly departed? As a parent I must acknowledge that my daughter is still with me. How could I possibly ignore or deny this child's presence when she is so vividly apparent?
My daughter’s question deserves an answer. Corey wants to know why we are not all in California having her wedding!! I pray on it, asking for guidance, waiting quietly for a leading. The answer comes, and it is the most simple gesture of all. I will do what I would do if she were alive and asked me that question. I sit up in bed, get my mind quiet, and say, “Honey, you are absolutely right. You should be getting married. We should all be having your wedding now. But there was an accident, and you don't have that beautiful body anymore, and Ryan can't marry you that way that we had all planned. The promise was there, the plans were there, and then the laws of the physical universe interrupted it all. Honey, there is a new way that we will be celebrating you and your marriage, but it is the marriage of your beautiful spunky self with the spiritual graces, with the heavenly realms. Ry must, and we all must, find you on a different channel now, call you and text you from a different kind of cellular mobile connection. I promise I will continue to be your devoted mother in this strange journey of love and loss and light. And I will answer this question for you, and any others, as many times as you need to ask.
Love
Mom
And there it is, her palpable sense of surprise and ferocity, the way she always was when she saw an injustice and immediately set her Leo mind to correcting it.
It has been three and a half years since the accident, which I still call “Corey's accident,” because my mouth refuses to form the words “Corey’s d—th.” Understand the dichotomy: I want to be all good with it, I want you to be able to look at me and see a sane person who has “worked through her grief.” But Corey is not gone from me; she is always a whisper away. And she visits me in dreamtime and daydream time. There is a secondary reason, which is that if I said the words out loud, my heart would stop beating that very instant. Because it is an impossible sacrifice to ask a mother to keep on living when her child's beating heart has stopped. I don't really know why my heart is still thumping in the cavity of my rib cage.
What are we supposed to do when we feel the intermittent presence of our dearly departed? As a parent I must acknowledge that my daughter is still with me. How could I possibly ignore or deny this child's presence when she is so vividly apparent?
My daughter’s question deserves an answer. Corey wants to know why we are not all in California having her wedding!! I pray on it, asking for guidance, waiting quietly for a leading. The answer comes, and it is the most simple gesture of all. I will do what I would do if she were alive and asked me that question. I sit up in bed, get my mind quiet, and say, “Honey, you are absolutely right. You should be getting married. We should all be having your wedding now. But there was an accident, and you don't have that beautiful body anymore, and Ryan can't marry you that way that we had all planned. The promise was there, the plans were there, and then the laws of the physical universe interrupted it all. Honey, there is a new way that we will be celebrating you and your marriage, but it is the marriage of your beautiful spunky self with the spiritual graces, with the heavenly realms. Ry must, and we all must, find you on a different channel now, call you and text you from a different kind of cellular mobile connection. I promise I will continue to be your devoted mother in this strange journey of love and loss and light. And I will answer this question for you, and any others, as many times as you need to ask.
Love
Mom
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