With You

the earth holds me still;

with gravity,

with sunlight,

with you.

I Felt You Near

From: Papertissue

All The Time

Personal moments from a million different lives are shared as wall posts on Facebook every day. One of these posts stole my heart.

It comes from the wall of one of my friend and goes about a conversation between my friend and her 5 year old daughter (who is the same age as what Daniel would have been):

My friend asked what she wanted to be when she was older, to which she said:

"I want to be a mom. And when you are a grandmother and you die, you will become a star and I won't know which star you are because there are so many. But when I die I am going to become a star too and be right next to you."

I wrote to my friend afterwards:

...it is so beautiful it makes me cry....for me it is a message to confirm that one day I will be next to Daniel again. Stars were one of his most favourite things and one of the first words he said....

She wrote back:

I'm glad i shared then. I wasn't going to. So I suppose I know now why I did. I know you will see your son again. He's waiting for you with a smile on his face. I'm glad i could make you smile. I always think about you and what you've lost. But he is with u every day :) :)

I also always think about what I have lost, about what Henry and Alecia have lost and all I am will be filled with sorrow. And these thoughts....about us losing outDaniel....I cannot imagine anything ever to be more painful.

My children miss their brother. I miss my child. All the time.

Karma (Daniel died on a Tuesday)

Written by Deepak Chopra, The Seven Spiritual Laws for Parents is a book for parents who wish to raise children with values that create the experience of abundance as well as satisfy spiritual needs.

The 7 laws are:

1. Pure Potentiality - Everything is possible.
2. Giving - If you want to get something, give it.
3. Karma - When you make a choice, you change the future.
4. Least Effort - Don’t say no, go with the flow.
5. Intention and Desire - Every time you wish or want, you plant a seed.
6. Detachment - Enjoy the journey.
7. Dharma (the path of righteousness) - You are here for a reason.

It moves us beyond focusing on private triumphs and failures towards experiencing the fulfillment and success that comes from having some of the most valuable skills anyone can possess: the ability to love and have compassion, and the capacity to feel joy and spread it to others. .

Deepak Chopra offers profound advice on how to convey these universal truths to a child and how to embody them in age-specific activities. He follows an approach of devoting each day of the week to a specific principle, starting with Sunday being the day of Pure Potential where everything is possible.

Daniel died on a Tuesday, the day of Karma where we promise to explain right and wrong to our children in terms of how choices feel.

We teach them that by choosing actions that bring happiness and success to others, the fruit of our karma will be happiness and success.

We reflect on the law of Karma:

1. No debt goes unpaid in the universe.
2. To bring yourself love and happiness, do what you can to bring them to others.
3. If you don't see an immediate result to good or bad action, be patient and observe.

Look At The Stars (Yellow)

Dearest Daniel

You know how much I miss you and how I cry for you every single day. The pain I feel is not something I would be able to endure for years and years and years, that is something I know.

I wish I could understand what went so wrong that you had to pay with your life. Where was the disconnect between what I believed I saw in your father and the reality? 

How could anyone not care about our life? And as they didn't care for you why came and take you away from me and Neni and Lecia and all the other people that love you so much. Any of us would have given our lives for you, my Angel Danny, if only we had known. 

I love you more than I can say, more than I can express, more than I can show, more than anyone can comprehend.

I walk with you in my heart everywhere I go and I fall asleep each night imaging holding you in my arms. 

I feel your spirit.

Look at the stars,
Look how they shine for you,
And all the things that you do.
They are all yellow.

Your skin and bones,
Turn into something beautiful,
And you know
You know I love you so.

Namaste, my dearest Daniel. 

I see you. Always.

Mamma x x x

Winnie The Pooh

This video clip comes from one of Danny's most favourite movies, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. I cannot watch more than 10 seconds of this video before the pain gets too much. This music and pictures brings back memories that touch the centre of my soul. 

Dearest Danny
The "Winnie Poohs" are for you and for the special times we had watching this "DVDV" together. You have touched the core of my soul and to say that I miss you will never be enough. I ache for you, cry for you, look for you, wish for you. Losing you was to lose a part of my very being...my Angel. Sleep well, my love is with you forever, now and into the next life - there where we will find each other again
Mamma

Hole In My Heart

Time heals...but not everything.

While I recognise the parts of my life and of myself that have come an amazingly far way towards recovery over the past 16 months, there is also a part that will never be able to heal. Of all that may get better, how can having lost Daniel ever get better? It won't. For the rest of my life the intensity of my longing and the depth of my sorrow will remain with me, untouched and unchanged from the very day that Daniel had died, as will be the painful gaping hole in my heart.

Grieving Parents

If I look back at the Last year and a bit, the time that started after I lost Daniel, I see so many wonderful things that came to me. I see how God gave me all these blessing to make life easier and as good as it could possibly get.

The letter is from me to someone whom I first met as a fellow blogger around the middle of last year. From the beginning his friendship has been a source of strength and support and I felt immensely sad and helpless when he recently lost his son, as suddenly and unexpected as I lost Daniel.

Dearest Friend

I hope you are as well as you possibly can be so shortly after your loss. If I think back to how I felt a year ago, I relive the intensity of complex emotions and unanswered questions. I wish there was more that I could do to ease your pain but to be your friend.

When I think of Daniel, I have so many thoughts and feelings but among them are two things that I now with my entire being, heart, mind and soul and that is that Daniel is safe and happy where he is now and that I will definitely see him again. I also believe this to be true for your son and for you.

I wish you strength and peace. You are an amazing person and I know you will conquer your pain but it takes time. This is not a quick or easy journey and don't push yourself to remember if you are not ready for the memories.

It took me a year before I could look for the first time at one of the few small video clips I have of Daniel and I still have a brown paper bag in my cupboard which I haven't open. It came from the hospital where Daniel was taken to after he had drowned. When I arrived there he was naked under a sheet and the clothes he had one were put in a bag. I still don't have the heart to know what he was wearing when he died.

There is no time limit on how and when we open ourselves to all that encompass the loss of our children. When we are personally ready and strong enough to face each memory, we will. It can be today, tomorrow or never. There is no right or wrong. And my only advise to any grieving parent is to do what you feel are best for you. I have seen how unique we are in our mourning. Just be as good and as kind to yourself as you can be.

I keep you in my prayers and thoughts.

Love, Alison

Penguins

In my world a penguin means to have an endless amount of love for a special little boy we called our Pikkewyntjie (little penguin).I gave this nickname to Daniel when he was but a few weeks old, long before I ever could imagine that he would leave this world so soon.

It was about a week ago that I thought of finding what the symbolic meaning attached to a penguin was. I was amazed about the answer:

Because of the penguin's association with water, astral projection and out of body experiences are keynote. Their movements both in water and on land indicate an ability to glide easily from one dimension to another.

Penguins have the ability to consciously go out of body. They teach how to embrace and understand all realms of life. Individuals with penguin totems are vivid dreamers and often receive messages through the dreamtime or in a meditative state.

The colors of the penguin are also symbolic. The color black represents the hidden or the unknown and the color white reflects the light or awakened consciousness. The merging of the hidden with the known produces a balanced state of being. Penguin teaches you how to blend, merge and balance the dark with the light.

Penguin is a powerful totem to have and helps you change your reality, move between the worlds and awaken full consciousness.

Conscious Universe

 A small piece from a bigger picture....

When I write a blog post I always finish all the writing before I select a title for the post and only after that will I select a photo. Sometimes I know exactly which photo I want and sometimes I would just browse through our pictures until I find one.

My find tonight was a happy discovery. I looked through the photos of our December holiday just before Daniel died so many times but never before did I notice that in the background of another photo were Daniel and I - close as we always will be - building sand castles on the beach.

Last Day

Today a year ago was the last full day that I had Daniel with me, a day before I would take him to visit his father without seeing him again .

This last day that we had together was significant, happy and sweet, just like every other day I had with Daniel.

Daniel and I slept until late that morning. As we came back from holiday the previous night and he slept for so long in the car, I expected him to be up early but he just woke up to ask for his bottle with warm milk before cuddling back to sleep with me. Since he was a baby it was one of our favourite treats to stay in bed for a bit more sleep after waking up and that was how we spent our last morning together.

Later that day I took Daniel for a drive through the mountains It was a beautiful afternoon in many ways and I wrote all about it in an earlier post with the title "Dreams and Wishes"

As Daniel was a child with very clear ideas about exactly what he wanted and exactly how it should happen it was very important to him to make sure that other person (mostly me) understood what he needed. He explained to me that he wanted to go to his dad when we came back from holiday and so the visit was arranged. I told him that I would take him the following day and his confirmed it with a phone call.

But to make sure I knew what to do, Daniel presented me with a photo of his father and firmly said:

"This is my dad!" (as if I didn't know who his dad was), followed by

"And I want to go there!"

I just smiled and said "Yes, I know" wondering about his sweet serious underestimation of my intelligence and thinking how much I love him.

Much later that evening he asked if I could play with him. I said yes and asked what he wanted to play. He said I must take Barney and he will take Simba from The Lion King and we must talk. Daniel enjoyed these role play games and often used it as a way to tell me about himself and about what is happening in his life. So we started our conversation, me as Barney and Daniel as Simba.

Simba:     Hello, who are you?

Barney:    I am Barney and who are you?

Simba:     I am Simba.

Simba:     Barney, what are you doing?

Barney:    I am talking to Simba. And Simba, what are you doing?

Simba:     I am looking for my son….

Said in the saddest tone of voice and so Daniel continued on his own, as Simba, searching the house, looking everywhere for his son.

He did it in such an intense and sad way that I agreed with Alecia to "ban" the Lion King movies and books from our house.

If we only knew that Daniel wasn't acting out a scene from a Walt Disney movie, he showed us our future, in only four days we would all be like Simba, searching in distress and deep sadness, looking everywhere for our lost son.

All Around Us

When I started this blog, I found writing or talking about my pain therapeutic. And I could cry. Now I find my pain so intense and complex that it just unsettles me to talk or even think about it. When I cry it happens without tears or sobs, it feels as how if my body has stopped reacting to the pain in my soul, it is a pain of longing and despair, of how it feels to have lost Daniel.

This photo was taken on 25 December 2005 - my first Christmas day with Daniel, now I am facing my first Christmas day without him.

My wish is to spend the day with purpose and in peace - I have never been attracted to any mainstream Christmas celebrations and after the death of my child my perspective on what I believe is real and important is even more clear.

Namaste. Let love be all around us.

Dear David
Bozho Nikan
Thank you for healing me
I greet you in peace
Alison

Awareness

A picture of my love, my life, my dreams, heart and soul.

I Am You And You Are Me

Dearest Daniel

My entire being still aches for you, all the same and my thoughts are constantly filled by you, sometimes with memories and sometimes with dreams.

Please stay close to me, my Darling. I feel so torn between my children on earth and my angel in heaven, without an answer and afraid of all my possible futures. Life and death have become strange concepts and to stop my mind from spiraling into darkness, I believe without seeing reason and without understanding.

I miss how beautiful you are, to hear you talking, to wake up with you, to see you discover the world. I miss YOU and the feeling I have for you is a deep, powerful emotion, something greater and better than love – it is a confirmation that our souls will forever be bound, as mammadaniel, in all the worlds to come and beyond the end of time.

I hold you and kiss you in my dreams tonight and always be well my precious Pikkewyntjie as I am you and you are me.

Mamma

About Happiness

Re-establishing my ability to enjoy life turned out to be a journey on its own filled with contradicting emotions and ideas. My list below is a random mixture of my thoughts and feelings about finding personal happiness in my world without Daniel.

• To be happy is not as easy and clear as it was before Daniel died, it has become a complex, confusing and often impossible emotion. It feels completely wrong to be happy but it is still so essential to my well being.
   
• I am aware that it is very normal for bereaved parents to feel guilty whenever they feel happy and I know all the reasons why to release the guilt but I cannot overcome the strong sense inside me that any happiness in my life will reduces from the severity of the tragedy caused by Daniel’s drowning. It feels as if my sadness is testimonial to the depth of my loss and that the only way to stay loyal to the love I have for Daniel would be to continue to mourn his death.
   
• It is okay with me that it will be a different happiness that I will find because regardless of what good fortune may cross my path, I will never feel so resolved and deeply content as I felt while I shared my life with Daniel.
   
• There was something unique and very special about Daniel’s love and I will never be able to put to words how it really was with Daniel and how it really is without him. Whenever I talk with Henry and Alecia about Daniel, we always say that no one but us will ever completely understand how broken we are. Daniel was far far more than just my child or their baby brother. He was our world and centre of our happy togetherness as a family.
   
• On the day of Daniel’s funeral I made a promise to myself that I will do my best to live what is left of my life as happy as I could possibly be and that I promised that I would not allow sorrow to destroy me. At the time, I was in such a deep state of shock that it felt quite possible and achievable. As the disbelief and initial devastation subsided to make place for the reality I often doubt my ability to fulfill this promise.

My Heart's Desire

Our journey from life on earth to death to a renewed life in the next world will always be wrapped in mystery and there are many dogmas mainly based on religion, quantum physics or New Age spirituality about the afterlife. After Daniel had died I felt it was important for me to find more information about these beliefs but nothing was substantial enough to change my view that we cannot factually conceptualise something that is ultimately unknown.

I also have seen many poems and other inspirational pieces about our angel children in heaven – written out of love and from the heart with the intention to bring comfort rather than to give an academic insight.

About a week ago I saw this quote on Andrea's page No Empty Chairs, touching my heart possibly more than anything else that I ever have read about our eternal life. I cannot say that I intellectually agree with or specifically believe in this doctrine as taught by Joseph F Smith but his words will stay with me as a message of beauty, peaceful and heartwarming.

"The infant child that was laid away in death would come up in the resurrection as a child; and pointing to the mother of a lifeless child, he said to her: 'You will have the joy, the pleasure, and satisfaction of nurturing this child, after its resurrection, until it reaches the full stature of its spirit.' There is restitution, there is growth, and there is development, after the resurrection from death."

Andrea who has lost her little boy Wyatt added to it by saying "I love this truth. It speaks volume of happiness, of joy and gratitude to my soul. Thank the Lord he has revealed these principles to us."

I know why I am so attracted to this learning. It is because nurturing Daniel was the most joyous, pleasurable and satisfactory experience that I will ever have and there nothing that I would want more than being given another chance to take care of Daniel.

Mermaids

I dedicate my post today to my 2 Canadian friends Blake and Denise who are walking the same heartbreaking, challenging road than I do.

Blake has lost his son Joshua as a result of accidental drowning and I feel humble and inspired by the amazing work he does in order to create water safety awareness and stop young children from drowning, making the world a better place.

I quote from a message he wrote:

"We are in the most rotten club a person can belong to. I am going to try my best to lock the doors to this club and keep other families from joining. And I am going to teach the children to help me lock those doors"

Denise is my grief sister, a special friend, an angel. She cries with me and we share our thoughts, experiences, sad and happy memories and real life moments.

She taught me not to shy away from the symbols and signs that remind me of Daniel. She explained to me that it is Daniel’s way to tell me that he is with me and that I should embrace without fear all that symbolises Daniel's energy, like the penguins, mermaids, sea shells.

Today I bought a small beaded penguin that now drives around with me in my car and I started to smile whenever I see a pretty girl with long hair because Daniel said they were all mermaids. He loved mermaids and even Barbie and Brats dolls were mermaids and he would be very impressed if I covered his duvet and pillow with Alecia’s old Brats duvet cover and pillow case so that he could sleep and dream with the mermaids.

 "I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each" 

- T.S Elliot -

The mermaid weaves a siren song that leads you to vision and mystery. Half woman, half fish, the lovely mermaid represents the power of our unconscious desires.

She gives us the power to seek beneath the waves of our emotions and dreams for the pearls that lie beneath, and she reminds us that unless we follow the truth our inner selves, then our lives are as ephemeral as sea foam.

Mermaids are symbolic of a happy and joyful time and of transmutation. They have been associated with love, intuition, hope and they live in the water realm which is the realm of the intuition, feeling, and the unconscious.

Dreams of mermaids come from deep within oneself and I often listen to the mermaids singing because they are, in fact, singing for me.

A Mother's Song

If snow falls
on the far field
where travelers
spend the night

I ask you cranes
to warm my child
in your wings

- Ancient Japanese Song -

Luke's Army

To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.

- William Blake -

I dedicate these true words to my crystal angel child Daniel and to sweet little Luke Borusiewicz (22/09/2006 - 18/01/2009).

Please join Luke's Army - his story made me feel humble and thankful for the wonderful quality of the time I had with my son. No one is perfect and no one is a perfect parent. I have been emailing Michael, Lukey's dad and I have experienced him as a true person, a great father and someone who needs all the love and support that he can get and that he deserves.

Their story is too sad for me to tell and I thank Michael for the detailed comment to this post describing the horrific circumstances surrounding little Lukey's death.

Carnival Of My Dream

In the carnival of my dream I was standing on a carousal. It was one especially for mothers and small children. Around me were beautiful happy people, fancy dressed in colours and stars. Faces were painted and the little girls had long hair streaked with purple, pink and blue decorating their sweetness.

I heard the familiar melodies of nursery rhymes while we turned around, going up and down. The mothers laughed and sang along holding little ones in laughter and love. Tears were streaming down my face and for a moment I wondered why, just for a second or two before I remembered that I had lost my Daniel.

Next to me were a mother and her daughter. The little girl had pink in her hair and purple hearts painted on her cheeks. I reached out to stroke the girl's hair and she looked back at me, confused then pulled away into her mother's arms. It was the wrong carousel, a place where there was no place for me.

Our ride ended and I went looking for a quiet spot to sit.

The girl from the carousel holding her mother's hand later found me there where I was sitting against a wall hugging my knees to my chest.

The girl asked me why I was crying, her mother said that they had seen me before being so sad. I told them about Daniel. The girl took my hand while her mother handed her a bracelet. It was their special gift to me, a beautiful bracelet made from seashells.

I felt love as they walked away and I looked at the pretty charms around my wrist. I knew.

I knew in my dream just as I know now that Daniel will never be lost. He is with me. Every moment. Close to my heart, not only in my dreams but also in my world.

Daniel was born under a Piscean sun and seashells were one of his strongest and most prominent personal symbols. Seashells symbolise deep religious content and have ancestral mystical tradition.

Ancient Mexican philosophy explains the shell as a symbol of birth, generation and origins, that is to say, of life itself.