insanity, perhaps
There have been times, when I felt I would go insane with grief.
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"Then, Kathy, a scientist, told me a ghost story. Her bravery in sharing this story touched me. Five years after Meaghan's death, shortly after settling into a new home, Kathy awoke in the middle of the night. In the darkness she saw the apparition of a curly haired girl who looked under the bed, into the closet, and then vanished. The girl was about the age her daughter would have been.
"One thought ran through my mind," Kathy said, "I though, My God, Maeghan's with us all along. We had moved and she was checking out the new digs."
Did Kathy really see the ghost? I think she did, yet I don't know. But I will tell you this: In the middle of the night, I watch."
Lorraine Ash, "Life Touches Life: A Mother's Story of Stillbirth and Healing"
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After reading that story, I watched too. In the middle of the night. I opened my eyes, and I searched, intently, for any movements. I pricked up my ears, and I listened, for any whisperings. I never breathed a word of that to anybody. They would think I am insane. Totally insane.
I felt insane. I needed desperately to connect with my son, whom I was supposed to be cradling, nursing, loving. Instead, I am told he's gone. Gone where? Is there an address? Is there a number I can call and talk to him?
(Insane.)
Even though I felt him in my heart, and sometimes it feels as if he is still in my womb, I yearned for a more "tangible" connection. I wondered, is there a way we can visit, and talk? And not just by way of fantasy and imagination?
Then my friend L told me that he visited her one evening,
just when she was getting ready for bed. She told me he came and sat next to her on the bed. He was about four
years old. Looked like my older daughter and looked peaceful and smiled
and bowed to her with his hands in prayer to the heart. He said that he
had been trying to talk to me but I could not hear him. (That
devastated me.) He also told her he sent his love and that his Light
wished to return one day. She was shocked, not expecting that, and she asked
him if she could let me hear this and he said YES. So she told me the following morning.
L had said before that since young she could see and hear things. Do I believe her? I do. I want to. Needed to.
I know, insane. There is no way to verify. Only the choice to believe, or not.
But I did not think L saw a ghost of my son. In my system of beliefs, there are souls and spirits. I believe it was my son's spirit whom she saw, and communicated with.
Insane? Perhaps. Or perhaps, absolutely totally- insane.
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I just wish, that his soul had come to visit with me. I could not understand how was it that I could not hear him? Though I have to admit, my mind had been busy with so many thoughts since he died. I am not present, even though I am "here." And, I am not as intuitive as my friend L.
I still wait, I still watch, I still listen. I am not sure if that makes me insane. I guess it depends on who you ask.
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Reader Comments (30)
Falling asleep I've had my own tired, sore eyes play tricks on me, and sometimes have rubbed them and tried to ignore it... other times, I've focused on the movement, eyes shut in darkness but seeing light form and shift, willing it to take some kind of shape, to impart some kind of message. Sometimes it does, sometimes not.
The cerebral part of me says "you see what you want to see" and credits moments like this to chance or circumstance or an overactive imagination but then my heart thinks, "why not?" and I try to stay open.
I try to imagine myself on the other side, sending love across a dimension, and the object of that love being blind and deaf and unwilling to set aside doubt and just explore.
I've also been sorely tempted to connect with someone like a reiki practitioner or medium.. I still don't know what I'd want them to say, but I'm curious anyway.
Provoking post janis...
My mom had her gran and her mom in law come to her bedside and tell her it was all ok.
My husband has been visited in his dreams by his mom, telling him she was fine....that his dad was ok too.
he dreams a lot about her..and she is clearly dead...talks about it.
me..nothing.
never dreamed about my dad..nothing.
Have seen ghost cats though..that was about it.
When I had my miscarriage I tried to look for signs of this mere embryo, this baby that never came to be, and I never saw anything. But sometimes the wind would blow just right, and the leaves would dance. I would think, is this him?
A few days after my miscarriage my husband and I were taking a drive at night, and the wind let loose a gentle breeze. Flowers fell from the tree above us, and one drifted through my car window and into my hand. I don't think it was my lost one, not with my logical mind, but I want to believe it was him. I want to believe it was the great spirit, my guardian spirits, my son, someone telling me that it's going to be okay. He's okay.
And though in the back of my mind I say, "It was just the wind."
There's a part of me that says, "No, that was my Sebastian."
And I like to think it was him.
The next day, my mom miscarried. That loss was the hardest physically but emotionally, she felt oddly comforted by her son's promise of change.
Three months later, she was pregnant again, and 9 months later, I was born.
To this day, my mother contends that the encounter with her son's spirit was not a dream. I believe her, and I believe that it really was my brother's soul.
My mother's story always comforted me with the idea that even when left behind we aren't left alone. If...if anything ever happened to my children or to my husband, I too would watch, listen, and wait.
That reassurance has given me a lot of comfort the past few months.
Another time, in college, I woke in the middle of the night to what felt like something sitting on the edge of my bed. It sounded like it was breathing. That would normally terrify me, but I immediately knew that I shouldn't feel frightened. I had the strange sensation that it was my father's spirit, sitting by my side and visiting. He was gone shortly after that. I remember feeling warm, safe, calm and completely unafraid.
Now, every night I wish that I will dream of Charlotte. I never have.
Feeling like I had some little person following me around and that I could catch sight of them if I turned quickly enough during my 1st pregnancy after my 1st miscarriage. I lost that baby too and the morning after my d&c never felt that little following presence again.
My firstborn and first living child telling me one of my lost babies he knew, knew was a girl and that her name was Carena and "I played with her before I was born." Him being 5 and not knowing one single Carena in real life.
The warm encircling feeling I felt about my shoulders when I was falling apart in the doctor's office after finding out another one of my babies no longer had a heartbeat, and after I had cried out saying I needed to be held.
My mother giving me a framed piece of art with 5 cherubs nestled together the year after I had my 5th miscarriage. Then, a friend met over the internet and never in real life, several years later sending me a book with the same 5 cherubs on the cover, not knowing.
Other moments - smaller, briefer, more fleeting moments - but no less moving. Little hints, reminders, nudges, letting me know that they are never far off.
Kate, I loved what you said about imagining yourself on the other side, trying to send love.
I think I might have been "closed" to such things before. I hear so often amongst my own family of vivid dreams and messages from those who have died (esp my grandfather) but I've never had any, and wondered if I am not favored, neglected, or something.
But after F died, I vowed to be open.
The next evening, our son was born via c-section, in part because of a transverse lay, in a hospital far from home, and died shortly after.
I dont know how to explain this. I know part of it was because I had had a series of BH contractions a few days earlier that lasted much of the day but never progressed farther than that, so premature delivery was on my mind. But the rest of the details?
I dont know.
after effie died i wanted more than anything (anything except not to have lost her) to see her in a dream. i never did.
months after her delivery i told my therapist about this dream: i was walking down the street, holding the hand of a little girl who was about five. she had blonde wavy hair and very sharply defined features. she was mac's daughter, not mine, and in fact looked more like one his exes than she looked like him (or me, for that matter.) for reasons that were not clear to me i was taking her to live with another family. well, not a family, but a pastor. i was talking to her about how her life would be different but it would still be good.
when we got to the pastor's house i learned that he still lived with his aging mother. that made me uncomfortable. the house made me uncomfortable. suddenly the whole thing made me uncomfortable. i wasn't supposed to be bringing this child here. everything was wrong. i was wrong to tell her that her life would still be good. there was no way i could leave her here. i didn't know what to do though. my job was to leave her, but i didn't feel right doing it.
holding my hand, standing in the kitchen of her new home, she looked up at me and said, "it's ok. everything will be ok."
when i told my therapist about this dream i burst into tears. i still don't *feel* that the dream-child was effie -- and i don't think that's just denial, because i would love to believe that it was her. but i *do* feel that as much as i want to see her in a dream i'm not fully open to it. it's a bit like wanting to see her after she was delivered: i really wanted to, but was so frightened of what she would look like.
i really have no idea what i believe about souls and spirits; in this regard, i have a hard time reconciling the distance between my brain and my heart. but i have no problem believing and hoping that my daughters will come to me in dreams. it's just that they seem not to.
I saw them in their incubators, in a dream, but a couple of months before they were born. I saw them premature, tiny, purple.. I remember seeing their legs and arms and being shocked at how they were so small, that they had no baby-pudge to the point where they were all knees and elbows and feet all folded up, unmoving, which is how they both looked.
I also dreamed that they were aliens - because they had huge eyes that were black, with no whites. This is also how they looked, all-eyeball.
And I knew I wasn't going to deliver vaginally. The whole time, I was trying to prepare myself for a catastrophic c-section. I just had a feeling it would happen urgently, and that it would be the antithesis of within my control...
It is amazing, all these dreams. I have had a friend tell me her dream feels real, not surreal at all. Not like watching a movie, but that she was truly there, and can still touch, smell, feel everything in the dream.
I had the dream once, and then again. That second time I woke up bleeding. She came swiftly, much too early, black of hair and long-fingered, just like her father. She died after taking two breaths.
She would be old enough to have her own children now, and still I have the dream.
She is still laughing. And still, I cannot reach her. I have long thought that the night I can take her in my arms is the night I will die.
Someone gave us two lilacs as a gift after she died, one for her, one for Bella. There was a freak snow the week they arrived, I kept them watered, and put them in the ground as soon as I could. I didn't want to assign them, but of course we did, and sure enough: Maddy's died. Bella's flourished. After weeks of warm weather, Bella's was a leafy bush, Maddy's was a dead stick in the ground. After accepting that the gig was up, one morning I got online and ordered a new lilac from the same company. Immediately got up, went out to pull the stick out, and there were tiny buds on it. It's now a small bush, and we have a third lilac in the bed, "for the dogs."
Never since, but that was always enough to make me wonder...
I did the same thing after reading that passage in Life Touches Life. Searched for my son in the middle of the night, hoping he would come to visit me like what was described in the book. He hasn't or at least I don't think he has.
I want so desperately to believe in things like this. So desperately. I have a friend who says that when I say things like this, it sounds like I'm seeking permission to believe. And maybe I am, because, in my mind, it is crazy. Totally, completely crazy. And only because I can't hold proof of it in my hands. I don't know what's crazier, though, believing in something or believing in nothing at all?
The second pregnancy with the twins (Summer 2007) I had "irritable uterus", ended up in the hospital on bed rest, and had recently had labor stopped when I had the dream. We again hadn't learned what we were having, but I dreamed of a little boy and little girl, very happy, letting me know that they needed to be here for a little while. The next night I went into labor and delivered a stillborn girl and a boy who died shortly after.
I don't know what to think about the dreams I had. I would like to think that everything has a purpose, and that my children were truly communicating with me. I dreamed about the correct genders, even though we didn't find out what we were having, and each baby gave me a message of hope. I still cry about them a little bit each day, but thinking/knowing that they talked to me and comforted me makes it a millimeter less difficult.
I just discovered this site, and I'm glad it exists. So many people think they know what I'm going through, but they don't. It's good to have a place where the people who know can share their thoughts.
C., I think I have the issue too of thinking it's crazy. I actually was told that I am still "holding bacl", still not believing with 100% abandon. I would not say I'm a hard-core scientific type, and still... ...
Amazing dreams, everyone. Thank you so much for sharing. I feel a bit less insane. xoxo
and similarly, but not the same at all I had a vision of my second daughter while I was considering the possibility of my first being an only child.
I wish that everyone could have the comfort and encouragement that my family has had.
my grandma visits me in dreams about twice a year. i always, always am aware during these dreams that she is just visiting me for a short time, that she is still deceased, and to enjoy it while I can. She is always in great spirits and great health and we eat, dance, hug, and just talk. They are always such peaceful, loving visits.
in terms of the spirit world, it helps me to remember the quote that "We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. But rather we are spiritual beings having a human experience". And to me, it makes so much sense that we would still be quite connected to the spirit world.
Loving you.
I think I slept about an hour that night, after crying myself dry. And in that hour, I saw them for the last time. I'm not spiritual or religious in any way, but sometimes I think they gave me a memory-that's-not-really-a-memory, so my last vision was not them lying cold and bereft at their funerals.
It sucked, it sucks, and I wish so deeply that it had never happened. I do hope quietly every night that they arrive in my dreams.
xo
Holding you in my heart, and hoping you find a connection soon. ((hugs))