sum ergo sum

Dying with dignity~  What better way to honor our loved ones then to give them a good death.  I am melting my way back into reality. After spending a weekend learning all about how to support others in their final days.  Our group of 51 came together with the intention of being trained as death doulas. End of life doulas are the people who will assist the family and medical staff to ensure the dying person is well cared for during the final moments and into transition.  We all learned how to support the family, before, during and after the loved person has left our world. Offering love and support, but mostly presence.  There are many things the doula creates with the family and the loved one before the final moments. Including a legacy project of gathering memories and pictures stories and favorite things. Helping to facilitate the project through the process and then leaving the family with a beautiful way to remember the loved person.  ...

Another sweet message from my daughter. I'm staying at my friend Sue’s house in Palm City Florida. The morning is clear and windy. The house is quiet I am alone. I have been feeling a bit uneasy. I am happy to be in Florida, I am excited to continue working on my flight instructor certificate but for the moment I have had a hiccup with finances and do not have the money to pay for any training.  In the meantime was thinking about getting involved with a grief group or possibly teaching a yoga workshop to help alleviate the pain of loss. Maybe even work part time with hospice. I'm sure I can create someway to fill my time and give back to the community.  I have been going through my journals wanting to find entries to add to my next book  “Year two,”( I actually filled 8 journals since Juliana died.) I found an entry about feeling confused and frustrated and not knowing where I was going. This seems to be a theme these days. I realize it was written last year ...

 Today I was at the family home watching dogs while Darren is out of town. I went into Juliana's room as I usually do when I visit the house. I started speaking to her out loud, I was the only one in the house and wasn't worried about being heard. I suddenly had a need to look in one of her dresser drawers. I found a notebook of Juliana's from high school. When I opened the notebook I turned to a page where she had written a story about her death. I wrote her words below. She must have known something about how she would leave this world.   Juliana's words~ The day my heart stopped Life was normal calm and busy vibrant and dull loud and quiet all in the same. There wasn’t even a indication that the following moment would be my last. Bzzz, (immanent crash) then there was nothing. For a moment the dark consumed my entire being and in a blink I was back outside of my car racing to them screaming “ARE YOU OK? I'M SO SORRY, PLEASE PLEASE JUST LOOK AT ME” they ...

Spirit support 11 months today, our beautiful Juliana left this world.    Its been a whirlwind of an experience.   I haven’t been posting in my blog as my attention was intensely focused on studying and passing my flight exam and check ride.  I’m happy to announce the instrument rating is now behind me as I passed with flying colors, literally.  The magnitude of the preparation has been all consuming. I didn’t know that I actually had the ability to study with such dedication. The flying practice itself was extremely challenging and many days I wanted to give up.  During the check ride, (after we had been already flying for over an hour,) I was feeling extreme doubt and exhaustion. My examiner was doing his best to cause a disorienting situation by changing my instruments. He placed sticky notes on three of the critical instruments then expected me to find my way with only use of a oscillating compass, all the time remaining on cou...

Something has shifted~  The day before the 18 th  I woke with an amazing feeling of clarity. My eyes shot right open as I felt the heavy mental fog lift off my tormented brain. This feeling was so intense that it was all I could talk about for the past two days. I feel wonderful!!! Its been 9 months since my daughter left this world. I have been writing everyday, spilling my heart out to my journals trying to make sense of my world.  Every single day she would bombard my thoughts.  Every single day I would have intense emotion flooding my cells.  Every day tears would flow, so much some times that I couldn’t be in public.  Every day I questioned my course of action and my purpose on this planet.  When am I going to feel better?  How long does it take to grieve the loss of a loved one? When will I actually let go of the sadness? When can I just be happy to be alive? This whole process has been one of learning to le...

As most of you know my beautiful 19 yr old daughter passed away just a few months ago. She was in a tragic car accident and died,( according to coroner), immediately on impact. The last few month have been so challenging to navigate. I have been searching for comfort and understanding and made an appointment with a psychic medium. It took 6 weeks to talk with her and I am happy I did, here are some of the words that came through. enjoy. side note: the woman has an adorable Australian accent and some of her expressions didn't make sense but I wrote them anyway. Who’s lost a child? I hear some one say, “I’m her child.” have you got, one in heaven? -yes-   Your girl is well, yet she went tragically She also said you didn’t have time to say goodbye to her. - no- So she’s come in today to tell you all about everything ok.   There’s a birthday coming up? I hear happy birthday – she just had her birthday- You all were around for her birthday? She’s ...

Soul reboot~ Question?  When we die does it feel like waking up from a dream? Do we remember the details the love the people the story, or does it all disappear when our eyes open. Do we even have eyes to open? After the death of my daughter I have been doing everything I can to stay connected to her essence. I look for signs everywhere. I search my dreams, I search faces, pictures, animals, butterflies, the wind. Everything is now somehow connected to her. Its actually pretty wild how my mind can turn a song or conversation into something about my daughter and truthfully, it’s comforting. My youngest daughter and I decided to take a little time away and go on a trip together. We are working on completing Juliana’s extensive bucket list. Surfing and cliff diving are two things we get to check off after our fantastic stay In Puerto Rico. During our stay there were so many beautiful moments of clarity and understanding. Seeing the course of events unfolding and...

Beliefs I have had lots of time to ponder the deeper meanings of life in the past few weeks. My entire world has shut down for a little bit and I am left to think about many things. Something that keeps coming up for me is “What do I believe?” Dissecting my beliefs one by one asking if they actually make any sense or if I just believe them because I always have. I realized that beliefs are a unique force in nature that causes things to happen.   They literally are the beginning point of all creation.  W hat’s fascinating about them is they can change according to what we want to experience, but only if we believe so. For instance, if I had a belief that “I’m fat” running through my mind and I never gave it a question. If I just accepted it then my body, my world, the mirror, would begin to prove my belief to me. In every instance, I would begin to feel uncomfortable in my body. I would loose motivation to eat right and exercise. I would spend my days on the co...