Powerful Peace Moments
I use this phrase Powerful Peace Moments because the things I have experienced in relation to the deaths of my friends, sometimes years after they have passed on can not be better described then they are in that phrase. A moment where you are filled with a powerful feeling, but that feeling can only be described as peaceful. Let me explain.
Paul’s Moment
One day when Ashley, Paul’s daughter, was around 7 years old, I was at Janet’s house spending some time with the two of them. As Janet went to fix lunch I heard Ashley babbling in her bedroom. It is one of those things parents cherish the most, when they catch a child, being just that, a child. I recall softly walking to the door of Ashley’s bedroom. I remember when I got to the door, the exact conversation Ashley was having. It was as if I was listening to her talk on the phone. A one sided conversation. It took me a moment to realize who she was talking to. She was playing with an assortment of baby dolls.
“Ha ha, I know. Well, I like this one.”
“I don’t know, I guess because she is soft all over and has big blue eyes.”
“I am not silly!”
“I have to go each lunch soon but Ill be right back, don’t go without my hug Daddy.”
I turned from the door and walked back into the living room and tried to comprehend what I had witnessed. As Janet came back to call Ashley to lunch she seen me on the couch with tears running down my face. She asked what was wrong. After several deep breaths I was able to tell her what I had seen. I had to tell her that knowing Paul as I had, it was clear to me she was bantering with him. That’s how Paul talked. “Verbal sparring, that’s what Ashley was doing Janet. She knows him, she knows Paul just like you and I did.” Janet cried too that day. After lunch and Ashley went back to play in her bedroom we talked about how children have not yet been taught not to believe in things like spirits or ghost, as they were always likely to see things like that and speak of them in such a matter of fact manner. What a powerful peaceful moment in my life. There I was feeling horrible for this little girl who never got to know her Daddy. And all along she did know him. He was there for her. I wouldn’t have believed it had I not seen it, and even then I was somewhat a believer. That was a full six years after Paul’s death. It did not surprise me, just shocked me for a moment. Janet tried to steal a moment watching Ashley in her room, but the moment was gone. I was singularly lucky to have witnessed it and been able to share it with Janet who had the same fears I did. That Ashley would never know her father. We both shared in a powerful peace moment that day. I realized then that the looks she always gave us when we talked of her father in past tense the look of confusion, all made sense. I am also sure that after that moment, we were careful to not assume Ashley had no idea who we were discussing.
Alex’s Moments
With Alex I lived almost a full year of moments that left me scared, shocked and in the end, at peace. Two months after Alex died I got my very first apartment. Almost immediately I began having odd things happen in my apartment. It didn’t strike me until years later that the only time these occurrences happened were at night; as I lay down to go to sleep. Those are usually the worst moments of loneliness for someone who has recently suffered a loss as I had. I would lie in my bed and toss and turn, usually hours after lying down to attempt sleep. As I would finally get to sleep I would awaken almost petrified with fear the first few times I felt a presence in my room. The first couple of times I wrote it off as night terrors or even just simply bad dreams. After the first few times I had to buckle down and admit that something was going on. About a week into the occurrences, I woke up and ran to the light switch. Out of the corner of my eye I could see a shadow in the corner of my room. I had an old vanity, the only piece of furniture I had as a child, and one that Alex and I had played with and around for years. I was terrified to look directly into the shadow I knew was there. I began sleeping with the light on. Every night I would still wake up the same way. I knew I was being watched. I thought it was Alex, but I was scared to look and see. Although the presence in my room was disturbing, I was so sure it was Alex that I never looked over there. I desperately did not want it to disappear. I began to get used to it, but still slept every night with the lights on. I know it may seem incredibly ridiculous to some now. The little kid in me I suppose because I almost felt like if he knew I had seen him watching me, he would run off.
Three months after Alex died I found myself pregnant with my second son. I decided before I was even 100 percent sure of the pregnancy, that if I gave birth to a son, he would be named after my recently departed best friend. For months I hoped that I would run into Alex’s mom. I wanted to ask her respectfully if I could name my child after her son. I still suffered the long nights of trying to get to sleep aching with loneliness and regretting that Alex couldn’t be around to see my new apartment, knowing that were he still alive, he would have been living there with me. And I was still waking up nightly sensing the presence in my room that I found comfort and fear in at the same time. There began to be nights I would wake up, sensing the same presence in my room, always sitting on the vanity in the corner, and it was almost as if I could feel a smile, a protective stare, a guard in a sense. Although I sensed comfort from the nightly presence, I still slept with the light on. Being twenty years old and sleeping with the light on leaves you with very little room for doubting your fears, or that you may have some. It leaves you with precious little room for denying what you feel is going on, when it occurs like clockwork.
At nearly eight months pregnant I finally ran into Alex’s mother at the local library. I almost ran up to her to hug her. Choking back tears I asked her the question I had been desperate to ask her for months.
“I am having a son, he is due in May. I would like to ask your permission to name him after your son.”
She looked at me, tears in her eyes. She reached out and ran a hand over my huge belly and asked me the most heartbreaking question I had ever heard.
“Is there anyway this could be Alex’s baby?”
“No, I’m afraid not.” I am so sorry it is not.
If she would have not been so hurt and confused by the moment I’m sure she would have realized that it would have been impossible for it to be Alex’s son. When I told her it was not a possibility. She told me she would be honored if I named my son after hers. She reached her hands up and cradled my face for a moment. She looked as if she wanted to say something profound. She hugged me again and we silently departed the library, both with more then a couple tears on our faces.
As my belly grew and my due date approached, my friends began getting antsy. Alex had died on May 16th of 1993. The day we had all been dreading since the New Year had passed. On April 19th, 1994 I went into pre-term labor. I rushed myself to the hospital where I was put on medications to extend the gestation time of the baby. I was dilated 3 centimeters for almost a month. For those who are not familiar with childbirth this is well into the labor process. It was painful and seemed impossible it could last more then a few days. A week seemed eons away. I did stay in labor for a week, for almost a month. The presence in my room offered its usual comfort and fear as I sat on the edge of labor through 28 long days.
I called Janet on May 16th, 1994. She answered the phone and asked how I was doing. Great, was my simple reply.
“Well, as long as you don’t have that baby today, I think everything will be alright.”
“Too late, he was born almost an hour ago. Come and see him.”
I joined my friends that day in a bittersweet type of ending to this journey we had all taken in the past year. Bitter to lose my best friend, sweet was my son born a year to the day he died, and named in honor of him and his life. The odds on me carrying that child for almost a full month after entering pre-term labor had to be high, astronomical. My first son had been born three weeks early as well. All signs pointed to me having Alex’s namesake early too. He wasn’t early; May 16th had been his due date for a couple of months before I began pre-term labor. Whereas before it had seemed haunting it now seemed a little miracle.
The day of his birth was full of ups and downs. Friends came to see him, and as they held him, they all seemed to have gained the same sense of peace that I had upon seeing him for the first time. There were tears, and there was laughter, and underlying it all was that this was the one year anniversary of my best friends’ death. People seemed scared to mention it. I encouraged them to recognize it. The ones that were comfortable discussing it with me left with that same feeling of peace that I had gotten. The ones who were not comfortable with it just left feeling alone as usual. I had to welcome it, what choice did I have?
I was excited to go home a couple of days later. I wanted to let the baby sleep in my room. I wanted the presence that I knew to be Alex, my best friend, to see Alex, my new son. I wanted him to know it was alright now. Look what I had been given, a gift to pour my lost love into. I wanted to face the shadow in the corner and set it free if that is what I needed to do. The first night I was home from the hospital, I lay down with the baby, got comfortable and went to sleep, with the light on. I never was awakened that night by the presence of my friend who had kept me company those long nights alone in the months after his death. The next morning I woke up and felt sad for a moment. He had not come, for the first time in 10 months. What was wrong? I looked down at my sleeping son, and I knew nothing was wrong. Everything was, indeed, right with the world for a moment. My son Alex slept not only near me, but on my chest most nights those first few months of his life. Nothing could part us. He was a quiet, reserved and happy baby. I could see worlds of wisdom in those newborn eyes. I am still not sure what caused him to be there all those nights, the presence that loved to sit on my vanity dresser in the corner of the room. I am still not sure what caused him to depart. I am sure however, that I traded one gift for another that day in May when I gave birth to my best friends namesake. To this day he has the same peaceful spirit that Alex had in abundance. In the lesson I had been forced to witness and learn thoroughly, on that day of earthen angels and newborn babies I offered up a heart full of emotion when I put the baby in his crib, walked into my room and faced the vanity in the corner for one last good-bye. Thank you my angel. I hope more then anything that you made it…home. I look forward to you welcoming me there when it is time. I said those words with my heart, and a little bit of my soul, but not my lips. There was no need to speak.
Just as with his death I would never be the same, nor would I be after that intense personal, powerful peaceful moment.
Rob’s Moment
Janet and I had lost touch for about 2 years before Rob died. She didn’t know where I lived or my number any longer. We had grown apart off and on through the years, but when we were reunited it was always the same, as if we had never parted. About a week after Rob died, I received a phone call. Before that call I had kept my eyes open. I remembered the presence that kept up with me with Alex’s death, and because of it I kept my mind open. Surely Rob would let me know he was ok and watching over me if he could. The call wasn’t welcomed by me right away. I was still horribly angry, and horribly alone without Rob. I was still desperately seeking signs of Robs presence in my life.
“Joy, its Janet. Hi.”
“Hey Janet. How are things going?”
“I was just going to ask you the same thing. I just realized that Rob died.”
Her words cut to the core of me. She just realized it. I pretty much was still trying to.
‘Yes, he’s been gone for about a week now.’ I was angry, wondering how she even got my number. My mother never gave out my number, ever. She would always call me and have me return a call.
“Your mom didn’t want to give me your number, but I think she knew it was important from the tone of my voice.”
“What’s wrong? Are you ok?” I was beginning to worry a bit. I still loved her, my old girlfriend I had such great times with and shared in such sorrow with.
“I had to tell you as soon as I could. Don’t hang up ok. Just listen. I had a dream last night. When I woke up I wrote it all down so I wouldn’t forget. I have been trying to find you since around 8 this morning.” It was almost 5 pm.
“So tell me Janet, what’s so important about this dream?” I was annoyed.
“Joy, the dream was about Rob.” She almost whispered.
I was enraged. Why was she dreaming of Rob, she hardly knew him. That was my dream. I wanted to see him, in sleep or not, I wanted to see him again.
“Just listen please. In the dream he gave me a message. Are you ready?”
“Of course I am ready!” I was more then annoyed by now. My voice reflected it.
“He said, ‘You have to let it go Joy.’ He said ‘Not to be angry, that you are keeping everyone out and that you are keeping him out as well.’ He said that he is ‘ok’, he is ‘happy now’ and he ‘wants nothing more then for you to be too.’”
Silence.
“Joy?”
Silence.
“Joy, are you there?”
“Yes I’m here.” I did whisper.
“Did you hear what I said? He said you have to stop it, whatever you are doing stop it now. Its hurting him, its keeping him out, he said.”
Out of what I wondered?
“I heard you.” I seethed.
“Are you ok?” I could hear the genuine concern in her voice.
“No Janet, I’m not. I have to go. You have my number now. Let me think this through and call me back sometime ok?”
“Ok Joy. You know I would never hurt you. I am just telling you what he said. At first I thought it was just a silly dream. But in the dream I was big and pregnant.”
“And?” I wasn’t being very nice, but it was beyond my personal control by this time.
“And I am pregnant, but I haven’t even told anyone yet, not even my sister or my mom. It was like proof that he was really there, sharing a message. I had to find you, I had to tell you. Joy, I did not know he was dead until he gave me that message. Ok?”
“Ok Janet. I do thank you for sharing this with me. It’s just not what I wanted to hear right now. Do you understand?”
“You know I do Joy. I love you, ok girl?” she meant it.
“Thank you Janet, I’ll talk to you soon.”
I was appalled by my behavior towards her. She had been my best friend for years. We had shared in so much joy and so much pain. I should have meant it when I thanked her. I should have embraced the care and concern she was giving me, it was so needed at the time. I should have told her I loved her too. Intense pain does make us act out of character and that is understandable. It is not understandable to be fully aware of a mistake while you are making it, and still not make amends.
Around 6 months after Rob’s death. I had an intense moment of clarity. Rob and I used to joke about how it seemed Janet was always pregnant. The insistence that I had to let things go came into a sudden clear view of the pain I had been living with. That is how Rob would have handled our relationship too. After all, that is what I had done to him just a year and a half earlier. In the driveway that bitter night I had shown him that I loved him, I had told him that I loved him. Aside from the initial notion to disbelieve what Janet had told me in the first place, I had no choice to believe in something by this time. I had seen Ashley, knowing her father. I had been given the gift of life on the same day, a year from the day I had lost one so important to me. Those are just the peaceful moments truly. There are others as well.
There was the time I was going 65 on a highway in a torrential downpour when my truck spun out of control. Things suddenly slowed down, as they do in moments of intense fear or pain. During rush hour traffic where usually cars are at least 2 wide and a mile long, there was suddenly not a car to be seen ahead or in front of me on my side of the highway. I recall the speed at which I was going and it being so fast that it was a struggle to hold onto the wheel so I wouldn’t get tossed to the other side of the truck. I was spinning long enough, 4 full spins still going forward at 50 to 60 miles per hour, that I had time to realize this was the one weird time I didn’t have my seatbelt on. As the truck made the third spin I seen cars oncoming in the opposite lanes, there was a median. In reality, my truck should have hit that median, and jumped it or even begun a roll from the sloped medians we have on that road, and into the other lane of traffic. There were a couple of small signs my truck would have easily taken out. And suddenly right after the fourth turn it stopped. Dead stopped. Even without a seatbelt on I was stuck in my seat having seemingly bypassed the laws of force and inertia. In the least, the last I remember I was heading into my fourth turn and still actually taking up both lanes on my traveling side, then I was sitting there wondering why I hadn’t hit anything. The median, those other cars that were just a moment ago hurtling at me at the same speed I was flying towards them, in a spin. I thought for a moment I would jump out and see what I hit. Instinct, I think, told me to stay put and get out of the road before another car lost control on the same sheet of water that caused me to hydroplane in the first place. I drove away crying, shaking and saying verbal thanks to whoever had their hand in stopping my truck when it made no sense for it to have stopped. As I cried and shook from the sheer shock of it all I felt and heard a crackle of static inside the cab of the truck. The hairs on my arms and neck stood up and a relief like I had never known passed over me. The tears turned to laughter and to thanks once again as I slowly realized that perhaps it was not such a mystery that my truck had stopped so suddenly. It never really occurred to me until later to question why there was static electricity in the middle of a downpour. It was not an electrical storm. All these dynamic things have always happened to me. Some of my friends call me lucky now. It feels so out of place when I feel I have been quite a bit more unlucky then I ever thought was possible. Quite a bit more then most people I know.
I did not always recognize these moments when they were occurring. It makes me question my own sanity in those days, those years of my life. It shows me how down in that hole I really was. I had to stop to consider that I was again just wasting more time. I could be learning from this. I could learn something to help myself with later. I could learn something that would help someone else not sink into the despair I found myself in and out of for nearly ten years. Most of all, it makes me regret the happiness I could have strained into those miserable moments had I only recognized them as a beacon of hope or proof of some kind of love that isn’t absolutely of what I was taught my universe should be.
The problem was that I was so inside of myself, outside of myself and hating myself so badly I couldn’t see anything good anymore. It took me many months to realize what a blessing this could have been if I had been smart enough to see it when it happened. I finally had to admit to myself that Rob’s death had hit me the hardest. I was haunted for so many reasons. He was younger then me. That hurt a lot, so far the friends I had lost I had looked up to, knowing Rob looked up to me like he did, I felt like I had cheated him. I could have been better. What had I done wrong this time? Even though I fully understood that the universe was out of my control, how could so much death, so much horror, be so coincidental? I am quite sure to this day that the month following the death of Rob was the lowest point in my emotional state in my life. There had been a few.
A lot of people are raised with certain and sometimes even seemingly strict religious beliefs. Some people simply believe in something higher, they feel spiritual, but don’t practice an organized religion. Whatever you put your faith in I truly believe that it is alright to embrace things that may not make good sense. Sometimes we ignore things because we have it bred into our personalities to do so for whatever reason. The best gift you could give yourself right now is an open heart. Hiding yourself in a hole of your own making is only delaying the pain. Not everything makes good logical sense. Sometimes, in the case of Alex, even seeing is not believing. No matter what your faith is at a time like this, lean on it. Don’t be afraid or so strong willed that you can’t lean on a friend for help. Always be aware of how important we all are as links to one another. We are incredibly dynamic beings. Sometimes we feel small and unimportant in the world. The death of loved ones can intensify that feeling. What if today you introduce your best friend to an acquaintance, and next year that acquaintance just happens to be the same rare blood type that may save your best friends life in an emergency or fatal illness? What if years later those two people you introduced give birth to a future president? NEVER discount your importance in the big or the little picture we paint on this huge thing we call earth. You don’t have to be rich or famous to make an impact on earth. You may never even live to see the impact that you had no idea you made, but you have made a difference somewhere to someone along the way. Live your life as if you are well aware of the fact that you are an important link to something or someone. If you live your life everyday as if it may be your last, love your loved ones as if you may never see them again and act on things that you truly believe in right now, not later, then you are fully honoring the love and the lives of the ones who have been a link in your life, whether they are alive or have already passed to the other side.