I was speaking with a fellow parent who is missing her child yesterday. She recently joined Helping Parents Heal and we were discussing the organization and how we differ from some other grief groups we have attended.
1 Thessalonians came to mind. “Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope.”
The thing I love about Helping Parents Heal is we are all about hope. We know our kids are right here with us, cheering us on. We know they are arranging the meetings that have brought us together. We know that they are still involved with our families on a regular basis. And, most importantly, we know we will see them again. While, we are very real about the difficult of this journey, our meetings are typically extremely uplifting because we know the pain is only temporary and there is light at the end of the tunnel.
The woman I was speaking with nailed it when she said “I know what you mean. I feel like it’s more of a longing than a grief at times.” That resonated so deeply with me. Yes! I don’t grieve for Shayna. I don’t think Shayna’s missing anything. I don’t feel sorry for her. I don’t think she wishes she could have stayed long enough to learn to drive or to go to prom. I think she’s off to bigger and better things. I long for her. I yearn for the days when she was here and I could hear her voice, see her smile, kiss her cheeks. I long for the day when I see her again. I know that every day it’s one day closer. I grieve. But, I do not grieve like those who have no hope.
Oh.. And, as an aside. While I was talking with this woman, she was giving me ideas for our HPH meetings- how we could get more people. She suggested speakers. Then, she mentioned Joanne and Rose. Joanne is a medium who was on my radar for over a year to invite to our group. I had bookmarked her after seeing her at the Victory of Light conference. I hadn’t gotten around to it because we don’t have enough people coming to ask anyone to commit their time to come speak to us. Joanne’s business partner is the medium that Kayla mentioned to me a couple of days ago, just out of the blue. I thought “Huh, that’s weird.” Then, the woman I was talking to on Facebook yesterday, also mentioned Joanne. That’s twice in the span of a couple of days. I guess maybe I’m supposed to talk to Joanne at some point in time.
