I am a Mother of an Angel. I refuse to say I lost my child. I never will do such, since he can no longer be found physically does not mean he is lost. I am ALWAYS with him in each second of my life. He is not lost. He is very much within me and around me each day and a very large part of me. My son Joseph was 7 years old, he had severe food allergies. He fought his final battle with anaphylaxis on Halloween 2014. As a parent, we attempt to keep our children safe and cannot fathom that our child will not be with us all of our lives.
As I call myself now a Mother of an Angel, I have learned that I need to explain my reasons of new meanings towards looking at grief, since even the definition of the word is non-related to when our child becomes an angel. 
We awaken in a world of before and after. Days are as well a new meaning. The days are no longer Monday thru Sunday, but now good or bad days. Emotions are a roller-coaster. Basic living functions have a new meaning. Walking into a store. Down an aisle walked many times for years since it had been filled with your child’s favorite items, so we need to relearn to walk in grief. I mean the hardest f*cking walk … courage must hold you up. This into so many places, at times. It is like our body keeps the memory and we need to push through it. Baby steps, with a 400lb weight on your chest, learning to focus on the breath, revisiting, this takes time over and over. Baby steps. Takes years, some places. Everyone is defining it.
We need to see again, as we look at the tree or plant that you had planted with your child or their favorite bird. We need to learn to hear again. when the store you finally gained strength to entering, starts to play a song that brings you to your knees. We have to celebrate holidays, events and even a special time of the day we might have saved to picking or making dinner for our child, to find a way to relive. We must learn to find counseling and healing with others direction when times become unbearable to our understanding, faith kicks in. Not the faith most assume to think they understand, real faith. We know much more of a deeper understanding that many a guru cannot even phantom. It is not written it is felt, it is the process of self awareness to a level of compete removal.
In my case, I completely shut down. Memory of current events …gone in a split second because now I am back in a place that I want to be… Many cannot understand that just a shirt I owned when he was alive, that I had to pick up or touch can set me into this. A picture, anything that I had when he was with me, I cannot tell you the attachment. My own things, everything from movies to songs, to a hairbrush. A towel that I had bathed him with at one time, that I have still everything becomes treasures, but have a trigger to me. since I am highly connected so deeply to the energy of each. I go back to a moment, but I get stuck there sometimes since I want to stay there so much.
I look forward to small hopes, the little bit of light we receive from others. I have been in hospitals and I try each day to staying part of the current world around me. When your front door seems to be a gateway of the now unknown, people still going on that have not a clue what I see now, how deeper life seems, cherishing each element. It is so hard to watch others still complain, and shit all over what they have not a frigging clue how lucky they are to having.. I have to remove myself and keep to myself when inside I want to tell them to shut up and stop looking for problems when they have what they actually need, they are blessed. I keep to my faith to saying they just do not have a clue, as to what I as a grieving parent have been blessed to seeing, now ever more about life, love. I seem to be the light to many since the darkness they seek, they could not even imagine what is really is like. Trust me when I say dont look for problems look for cherished memories, be thankful for what is right in front of you in each second.
Many believe they cannot afford to do things, f*ck it do them. Life is to be cherished and especially to be making memories, because at the end when darkness REALLY is all you might be faced with trust me they will keep you going and alive. They are the light we see … what we have left to hold on to.. If I just met someone standing in line in the store and they are complaining while they hear a child crying or the line is to long they start to get frustrated, I just look at them as children still new to this world themselves. So unaware of the gifts they have available to be either happy in life or to be weak in false self gloat. Please I have to regain and hold onto holding compassion for them and just look at them and smile attempting to break them from their self inflicted conflicts they have complete control over. When you have no choice, faith kicks in.. our own inner faith. Our knowing just becomes. We question everything, everything to relearning what really makes sense to us, if we are staying part of this life, what really is right from wrong, real or fake. We awaken and share a bond that we cannot explain, it just becomes. Not a priest or a guru of any religion can explain what we behold within, trust me. They need to walk it to know it. They can paint the picture of Heaven, but we still look for our own comfort of truth.. I seek it all…
This still is hard to do, weeks and days pass and to me, it seems a few moments. Since I am still in day 1. It is so hard to explain. It comes on any day so I cannot plan it. It can come on at any hour so I cannot plan it. I face such all the time, in cycles this since I suffer from a lot of trauma. So after months of their help, the light even to being okay today. One more day that it might be I sat on a chair completely disconnected, for hours to it only feeling to being a few moments to me.
I trust my faith that my angels, send the right people around to help me, but I know those that are closest to me, cannot understand what is happening and just expect the old me. It is very heartfelt, but I cannot help them to see me now. Little miracles have come into my life, as I see in each step… now. The little things mean so much.
So, lets me start with why I say I am a Mother of an Angel. I was stuck in listening to the basic what others termed to being grief process. That it would be a cycle we all face, to eventually becoming a place of acceptance. This is not true for me. I could either stay in a dark place which many call as a loss or learn to relive as a Mother of an Angel.
One of my very first realizations is he will be with me, in each step of my life in each second of each day. He very much is still part of my life forward. How I now viewed each experience much different than others around me, much deeper, as I was seeing a lot more than I had before to smaller things. It is very hard to explain to others and be around others that have not experienced the same. I have met people that are truly empaths. I have made the greatest circles of those that have the same experiences and feel in different ways their own healing and own definitions.
The roller coaster of emotions I have battled with and still do to redefine. I feel is the same pain as day 1 I cannot find him beside me physically. Day 1 is the first few moments of my day, as my eyes open to grasping that the nightmare is still going on, as others might have the convenience of waking from.
I decided I do not want to walk in a nightmare each day, I am still a mother, I still can be part of this world I am just a little bit more special than the next……
Because I have an Angel with me in each step….. that brings both the heaven and earth much closer than most can see in their daily lives.
I now walk with him as I see a new flower budding, knowing with my faith that he has the new function to creating such beauty before me. So it is so very much more beautiful to see the heavenly blessings with what had been once just a flower growing. I cherish the ways of cherishing the gained wisdom he provided me, to cherishing life evermore. He helps me understand the new meanings each day in ways that bring again heaven to earth. The songs that play are now a sign from him, telling me he is walking down that aisle with me, or to stop and look around that I might be missing something so magical that we might walk passed since we had been to busy to look at. We learn to look deeper, with our souls, we learn to think through our heart, we learn to walk to help another even through their feelings of small troubles, how we have the strength to keep forward. We learn to teach the mother feels she is having such a hard day since her child is crying, or tired is a blessing. Oh, how I love to see the smile on a child’s face or a laugh that we hear that reminds us of our child.
We learn to relive, as our angels are creating our heavens that we would be so very proud of them when we one day if we live as they had been so pure. We can join them so we live as they had, pure as a child to give that chance to our futures. We become their innocence. Cherish it. I do believe as my faith has noted over and over, that we must be as kind-hearted and see as pure as a child to enter the next gates that await us one day. So again we search our faith ever more, we face heaven more on earth in each step. How a rainbow can bring new life to me…
We walk with them our child’s energy/soul each day, making new memories. As the roller coaster appears of such grief comes, and we cannot bear those moments of pain, I have redefined such as well. I know my soul can see things that I have never been explained just yet since it is unseen and unknown. I know when the pain comes, that takes every ounce of strength from me, it is my soul seeking to find him and it is okay for me to allow those times to accept the process, be it that I might not be able to communicate and actively participate with others. I still have to understand that there are things happening to me that I am not aware might have a higher understanding that I am aware since many have not shared these experiences. I understand that when my body can feel the pain so strong, it might not be my pain, as it is defined. It might be them holding me and the ecstasy of loving energy they give, I am not aware and assume to being a pain, but it is the highest love, yet unexplained can bring tears. We are not taught to understanding this when it takes place. I assume it to being an overbust of love that our bodies are not equipped to reacting too. So the tears, the overwhelming pain I accept as still an unknown to me, I allow the cycle to be felt in each phase. I hold acceptance, and at the end I remind myself, he is with me.
I am learning the difference between when I am filled with compassion to those that had attempted their all, such as miracle doctors and nurses, his teachers and friends that shared life with him. Even the sorrow and pain and moments of cycle filled with disbelief. There are many cycles, these are self-learning experience is not the same. When it is really just my pain. That part is the coping of healing little by little of realization to the reality of truths that contributed to my child not being here in the physical. I place my energy from this constructively when I am learning to teach others. I voice, I am his voice.
So I define on my own, as each of us relearns our own ways. Everyone has their own way and definitions.
I am learning that different the cycles of pain. To what is either my own, or what I carry forward his.
The pain that ends with a smile is a big part of my healing and recognition to each defined cycle. One, a concept I have learned is that I am unknown to when he is holding me now. We are not taught this. Can it be when my body and mind is not equipped since it is not taught? Let me place this concept out there.
When we are overjoyed. We do cry. How does the brain know not a pattern it was not aware, is it just a function of the soul. The soul controls a big part, that is felt within our hearts center. How do we learn to breathe? Sometimes we feel such love that it brings such feeling as pain since a part is missing from our knowledge. It is overwhelming love that my soul is feeling I have accepted into my knowledge in times when after the tears and cycle comes I am filled with his image and then a heavenly smile.
I remind myself that in these cycles, that I have redefined my experiences to being moments as my child might see me sitting in a chair in sorrow when my angel is really holding me… because that is what my son would be doing.
If someone places your child in a chair in front of you and they are crying the first thing you would do is go and hug them and pick them up. Comfort them, we stop feeling our own troubles and focus on them, and that is what we have to remember. Our child is still very much in front of us, and in each step and in each new way recreate the heaven and world that you share the new memories. We regain strength with this explained image of it taking place, don’t we. To stand up, if we imagine our child before us, because they are. It is okay to have our moments to grieve, but know it times our child is very much part of the fabric around you still… so we gain our ways of strength. Individually, this being one of mine.
We all relearn, redefine, recreate and design tomorrow to a different way of nurturing not only our child but much much more… we are all part of this redesign forward and I do very much have added love for so much more than before… in each moment and in each creation of the universe… it is a very big part of my personal healing.. My new way, of the world… I still have to find the courage to open that front door to step out into. Yes, so many others do not see as we do…
It is very hard to be with others… I am still working on such… because it is neverending healing… as being the most loving mother of all…..
I am a Mother of an Angel…
- I have lost physical functions until I discovered that seeking help to relearning such with miracle doctors to regain such. Seek help they do have prior experience with such we might not know.
- Continue to strive to find good in each step of my life. The experiences that I have can help another just starting to face. You are not alone
- Seek others that have the same experiences. We find it to being a world filled with others that are still very busy in their own lives without the same understandings that we are becoming to realize. Always seek groups of same like people. Yes, there are many online groups in social media that had not been there before. You are not alone.
- Study what is happening each day before you. Journal and document your feelings as they pass if you can if that is even to getting technology that helps to write for you as in my case with the crippling functions of losing basics. I had once been able to express clearly, now I seek to learn to find ways to help me express outwardly. A dear friend told me even if it a sentence a day, or even a word. Build on it. We can then go back to see how much we have grown or learned or matters that might never change to help ourselves firstly then others if we feel we want to share them.
- Keep to appointments with counseling sessions, this might be the only outreach to another that we may have in our lives that bring that balance of same like a person to talk with. Find the right counselors, if you are not comfortable with one, find another. There are very good connections if we seek them they are out there. Do not give up on the first one, since it cannot be a good match.
- Allow things to be not finished. Before we had completed what felt like hundreds of things before. It is okay to not do much. Write a list and if it is just keeping the list that is a step forward.
- Attempt to connect. Do not disconnect with others in your life. If it is hard to be physically social reach out online to connect in any way. It is good to keep to see how the world is still circling around us, even if we feel disconnected we are all very much still part. Just find how you can help when you see another facing a situation that you might have a deeper way and new way of looking at life. You can add value to a matter in your own new way. Your part is defined by your experiences and we all have our own ways. Adding in good intent to helping others can bring healing to ourselves. Never just disconnect, even if it is a few seconds of the day. Yes, you can stay in bed, but attempt to get to the next level of looking in the mirror and then the front door. Just to step outside to feel the sun or air or listening to the nature around you.
- If it is an outreach you are looking for and it is not available, create it. At the beginning when I was looking for the same like people there had not been a support group of others that had faced the same so I was told by my counselor to create it. Having social media can help in just creating a group that had not been there so when the next is looking they can find you.. You do not have to add to it just offer a place that others can help to discuss and create on their own.
- Find your own definitions and ways. Each of us heals differently. We are the designers of our own heavens and earth.
- Think through your heart. There are great videos that are out there on thinking and using ways to reconnect with your heart if we are feeling overwhelmed with our minds. This is, in fact, a heart center way that has helped me.
- Acceptance of our healing progress. Document ways and offer them to others. There are ways we learn, if it is dealing with nightmares as an example many are crippled by these and it is a way of understanding ourselves that there are ways that have worked for others.. Seek to find help yourselves.. it is our will to reliving and learning that we should never stop getting where we as now a child need to find.
- Be the love you had with your child. Nothing can take that from being alive
- Do not feel like you have to do or go when you cannot. Acceptance of our new life is in baby steps forward and our WILL and HEART brings us to do.
- See your child heaven on earth… because it very much is always around you…
- Make them proud… because they are seeing your light from you… your love.. trust that.
- Still, buy that favorite toy, or food create a treasure box. There are no rules to this… smile and do what feels right for you…
- Self-care. It is important to keep to finding help if needed. We need to still get help when needed during periods. Ask for help.
- Cherish life, you are the beauty and life of your child… design tomorrow for them still… in the ways you feel with your heart.
- You do not have to stop grieving, there is no time. In our case it is never over, it does not get easier. Let that be a realization. Learning how to create them in our lives and keeping them as part of it comes very easy. See life as you want it to be, just never give up. They are still with you.
- Bring blessings out of hard times, for never was our child’s journey, not a way to helping tomorrow for the next. His voice will continue in ways that we might not see so telling his story even your own, will help the next. Find the treasures in that.
I love you all, even if I never met you I know each of you. I am always here for you all.
Julianne
Mother of an Angel
I am disabled, but I never will stop due to my limitations. So I do apologize in advance for any grammer or spelling errors. I will edit this with the help of others in a later date. I just felt like journaling it so it helps the next. I just felt like it was needed to be said. I hope it helps one of you…
In Loving Memory of Joseph DeNicola 