The Loss of a Friend....

Oh, man do I feel like I've become 50 and feel like an 'old crone' (which is a compliment actually), in that I'm seeing so many things or hearing about them and saying 'I remember when that happened half my lifetime ago and it really threw me'. 

There is an art reception tonight in my city and I was calling people to see if they wanted to go.  Some had to get their climate control systems going as it is getting HOT this weekend, some needed more time to plan than I gave but I was busy with lots of LumiDuties today () so didn't get around to my PERSONAL time planning until 4 or so.  And the last call I made is to a wise and for SURE a crone who does very well managing having fibromyalgia and immediately I could tell something was going on in her life as she sounded positively wilted.  Family member in hospice .. and I laughed and said 'LAST Friday I was out with a gal I ran into at Vitamin Cottage shopping after work and her plans for the weekend were being re-arranged on the cell as we were having some food and beverage together catching up because HER friend had family in hospice too! --- this is becoming a trend ... SOON as I turn 50!  

This woman has had a lot of loss in her life, and she was telling me that people say the WORST things to you the first 1-2 weeks after a difficult death.  So I'm now afraid to say anything to you except what I told my friend about an hour ago --- Based on the piece I wrote on Lumigrate from what Cheryl Young had so brilliantly demonstrated at an inservice (Forums, Psychology, Shame/Blame to Letting Go -- I'll provide the link, below FYI), the best thing you can say and which so many people don't know, is 'I am sorry this has happened to you.  Let me know how I can help.  May I suggest or offer _______', Ironically I had JUST used those very words in the last interaction I had before I called her, as I was talking with someone who is struggling with substance issues and had just been very appropriate and honest in revealing what had gone on, AND said that whatever I gather up will be at least looked at and considered as options for treatment or 'what to do from here'.  SO, I might hope that when YOU read this, it has as much 'good resting' on your eyes and ears as it did in my other two conversations today. 

My friend Christine was had just finished her masters in nutrition in 1986 and was truly the sweetest person I had ever met.  She could be honest yet very gentle, she seemed dingy but was really VERY intelligent, and she had married the man of her dreams and they had a dream of both being psychiatrists for youth.  I got a Christmas card from her saying 'I'll be on vacation with my husbands family in Maui and then flying back with my parents and aunt and uncle who have never been out of their (midwest state) and I'll call you to get together.  And in the last handfull or so of hours in the year, she was murdered when out going for a dusk run on the beach, in a very affluent area of an island that had 2 homocides a year. 

It turned out that this occurred within hours of when I got married to my second husband, who had not only extremely trying medical issues but his daughter -- who was a GREAT kid -- suffered from being raised in that stress, and suffice it to say I had a very rough next two years.  My mother also unexpectedly died 2 months later, which was the day after a very close coworker died in his 40s and left a wife and kids. 

THAT is what tipped the cart for my health, which had been slipping a big in my 20s after having warning signs in my teens of what could come had we only known (low blood pressure, blood sugar swings, difficult menstrual periods, 'eyestrain' headaches).  How it was that it took me years and years to really accept how much stress had eaten me up, I don't know -- I guess I'm 'stoic' or something, and don't want to admit mental weakness.  But it truly is a time I encourage you to do what you need to do for yourself.  In this case, Candace notified me she would not be doing her usual LumiDuties (grins... I just invented that word now) and I hope I said 'no worries, thanks for letting me know'.  And here she is pulling up to us and including us, asking for our understanding and telling us what some people might want to do that would help HER, which is to pray for Brian and his family and shall I say, family of friends such as our Candace.    

I couldn't wrap my brain around it then, but at that time I was just starting to see that maybe some things that I was experiencing or thinking didn't fit with the spiritual void my parents intentionally raised me with (atheism).  I'd had a dream the morning before she died of my coworker who was on vacation with her husband hiking to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and who also was blond, very bubbly and vivacious and kind, and that she was dead and her body by the water but off a ways in some brush and her father and husband were looking for her.  Yes, I had the wrong person, but the idential situation.  And this was the SECOND time something like this happened related to someone young I was close to dying tragically -- that one was a car crash of my to-be brother in law.  It's one thing to accept a car crash as a reason... that's the risk of driving.  But WHY with Christine? 

My best friend from high school's mom had gotten into spiritual things back when we were in high school I think and so when I told her, she said 'it just was her time to go -- we don't know why'.  Today, that friend is studying the effects of spirituality on law enforcement and believes that if law enforcement, because they have continued contact with the public, could understand spiritual concepts they could be a vehicle for change in society (as I understand it, I might be mistaken in my interpretation).  And Christine's brother is an amazing public speaker who I have been told is one of the best keynotes seen by someone who sees a lot of conference keynote speakers.  I know I saw him a few years afterward when I went to a improv comedy club in Denver and I know what kind of performer her is -- and I talked with him on the phone about that related to his ambitions to utilize the experience he had to motivate others.

Grief takes you through lots of feelings and the Kubler-Ross theory is that you get to an acceptance stage and you are just there.  But a PhD I knew in the past wrote a book about how it's a circle really and at any point you can just plunk to one of the anger, denial, etc stages, and I have personally found that to be true.  When Christine and my mutual friend was married and I was maid of honor I could NOT figure out why she started crying when walking down the aisle and I later found out she saw Christine's parents.  Right now just thinking of that moment I cry too, because I will forever miss her shining spirit in my real world but I will, as long as I have a memory, be able to remember her.  And beyond that, I'll just say that you'll find your own way hopefully of embracing YOUR experience, and making it fit in with the overall of life.  Keep in mind you're a very wise young woman, but life's experiences directly, through reading and hearing others and THINKING is where we develop our wisdom, and that only gets better then longer you live. 

Here's to the Brian's and Christine's for touching our lives, and to the Candaces and others at Lumigrate who are forming a community of respect and intelligent communication and education to help us ALL understand all there is to digest these days.  And it's a lot. 

I also will suggest people follow a link to Cinda Crawford's website, as she provides a wide array of spiritual information which I find very progressive and valid and diverse too.  My personal favorite is 'What the @#$% (Bleep) do we Know?' about quantum physics.  It explains how it was my dream occurred, and how the chemicals of the brain make our brain work, and a lot of things .... and suggests how much power we have in our mind.  As you know, integrative medicine includes body, mind, spirit.  I trust people who read what I wrote about 'spirit' and my experiences will be appreciative of my honesty at the very least, and respect that it is my belief and experience and it might be very different than any one else's 'truth'. 

Link to VERY cool Wolves and Wise old Indian piece (provided to me by a friend the week after her husband died by the way), which has the link in it to the piece about 'When something bad happens to you, how to get to letting go': www.lumigrate.com/forum/two-wolves-exemplifying-shameblame-or-let-it-go

Link to Cinda Crawford's information on Lumigrate which then you can link from to her sites of your choice:

www.lumigrate.com/forum/cinda-crawfords-awareness-day-activities-fmscfs-health-matters-show