angels are here
Christiaan sums it up perfectly. That is beautiful.
Yes... a very touching story. I guess it only goes to show there is a balance to the demons that all of us experience in the world today.
desertgrl, that is a lovely story. I haven't seen much on the Board lately that I've wanted to reply to, but I just had to respond to your post.
My father passed away suddenly and unexpectedly last year on Father's Day also of a massive heart attack. I had just had lunch with him a few days before and we were talking and goofing around as always. He looked fine. Seventy-two hours later I was writing his obituary. He was just 62 years old.
I had forgotten to call him that Father's Day, something that I now know will haunt me to my grave. After all, he'd been up north and I didn't think he'd be home. So when the phone rang that evening at 11:30 pm and I saw by the call display that it was "Dad" I thought, "Oh that silly man, calling to give me heck" and answered the phone with a smile on my face. What I got instead was the frantic voice of my step-mother telling me that Dad had suddenly collapsed. She said she'd called 911 and would call me back to let me know what hospital to go to. Forty-five minutes later she called again to say there would be no hospital.
It's been sixteen months and I'm still torn up that I never got to say good-bye. I miss him so much I sometimes can't breathe. All the things I never said weigh on my heart like a stone.
A week after my Dad passed away my step-mother called me to tell me of something strange that had happened. On the week anniversary of his death she woke up at 4 am to a beautiful full moon. My Dad, among other things, was an astronomer and loved the full moon. As she lay in bed looking at it she felt the mattress depress as if someone was kneeling on the bed and then she felt a hand on her shoulder. Then, just like that, it was gone. As a strict atheist and non-believer I just smiled and nodded through my tears.
A few days later on one of the many sleepless nights I've had since Dad died, I felt the mattress behind me move and shift down, like someone had just knelt on my bed. I thought one of my two cats had just jumped on the bed and reached behind me to see which one it was. There was nothing there. A few seconds later it was gone.
The scientist and atheist in me wants to shrug it off and say that it was nothing more than an emotionally and physically drained person imagining things. The devastated little girl in me who lost her Daddy at far, far too young an age desperately believes that it was Daddy saying good-bye.
It's been sixteen months since my Dad died and I still can't get over his death. I hope he knew how much I love him. I think I will probably wonder about what happened that night for the rest of my life.
My father passed away suddenly and unexpectedly last year on Father's Day also of a massive heart attack. I had just had lunch with him a few days before and we were talking and goofing around as always. He looked fine. Seventy-two hours later I was writing his obituary. He was just 62 years old.
I had forgotten to call him that Father's Day, something that I now know will haunt me to my grave. After all, he'd been up north and I didn't think he'd be home. So when the phone rang that evening at 11:30 pm and I saw by the call display that it was "Dad" I thought, "Oh that silly man, calling to give me heck" and answered the phone with a smile on my face. What I got instead was the frantic voice of my step-mother telling me that Dad had suddenly collapsed. She said she'd called 911 and would call me back to let me know what hospital to go to. Forty-five minutes later she called again to say there would be no hospital.
It's been sixteen months and I'm still torn up that I never got to say good-bye. I miss him so much I sometimes can't breathe. All the things I never said weigh on my heart like a stone.
A week after my Dad passed away my step-mother called me to tell me of something strange that had happened. On the week anniversary of his death she woke up at 4 am to a beautiful full moon. My Dad, among other things, was an astronomer and loved the full moon. As she lay in bed looking at it she felt the mattress depress as if someone was kneeling on the bed and then she felt a hand on her shoulder. Then, just like that, it was gone. As a strict atheist and non-believer I just smiled and nodded through my tears.
A few days later on one of the many sleepless nights I've had since Dad died, I felt the mattress behind me move and shift down, like someone had just knelt on my bed. I thought one of my two cats had just jumped on the bed and reached behind me to see which one it was. There was nothing there. A few seconds later it was gone.
The scientist and atheist in me wants to shrug it off and say that it was nothing more than an emotionally and physically drained person imagining things. The devastated little girl in me who lost her Daddy at far, far too young an age desperately believes that it was Daddy saying good-bye.
It's been sixteen months since my Dad died and I still can't get over his death. I hope he knew how much I love him. I think I will probably wonder about what happened that night for the rest of my life.
I can't help but feel lucky that I haven't had either of my parents pass away, though I have had a family member die.
My cousin (who we were very close to) had a stroke in the womb. Throughout his life he steadily became worse, his mental and physical self slowly disintigrating before our eyes.
Eventually he couldn't walk, or talk coherently, and his last year was in a wheelchair.
Then he died, aged 13, from another stroke.
I miss him so much.
My cousin (who we were very close to) had a stroke in the womb. Throughout his life he steadily became worse, his mental and physical self slowly disintigrating before our eyes.
Eventually he couldn't walk, or talk coherently, and his last year was in a wheelchair.
Then he died, aged 13, from another stroke.
I miss him so much.
I am happy and sad for you. Sad because you too have experienced the pain of losing a loved one. Happy because, you being atheist or not, he said goodbye with a loving moment. Maybe there isn't an afterlife or a heaven or any of the many things that people comfort themselves with and believe in. And maybe there is.
Maybe your father and my father really did say goodbye.
I believe in God. However, I prefer to think with reason and not emotions. So it was very difficult to believe my dream was any more than that. And I'm still not convinced it was anything more than that. My husband is extremely loving and he was drowning in a sea of tears. Maybe he told me what he thought would comfort me. But here's the thing: Before my husband told me his story, I was already comforted. The emotions of love for daddy were unburdened by loss. I truly had settled all the doubts, regrets, the 'why couldn't I say goodbye', and all the rest of it. I've got peace from his death now. And all from an episode that might not be real. If my brain dreamed this up, I can live with that. Because the emotions are real regardless of anything else. I still grieve occassionally at special times but that's just missing him.
If you can take comfort from what happened, then let it do so. Your father knew you loved him. He came back for a moment to comfort you. Don't let that go to waste in intellectual debate. It's not wrong to hold on to a moment in time that helps you through a very painful time. Real or not! And maybe, just maybe, he was really there.
Peace to you, neithskye.
Maybe your father and my father really did say goodbye.
I believe in God. However, I prefer to think with reason and not emotions. So it was very difficult to believe my dream was any more than that. And I'm still not convinced it was anything more than that. My husband is extremely loving and he was drowning in a sea of tears. Maybe he told me what he thought would comfort me. But here's the thing: Before my husband told me his story, I was already comforted. The emotions of love for daddy were unburdened by loss. I truly had settled all the doubts, regrets, the 'why couldn't I say goodbye', and all the rest of it. I've got peace from his death now. And all from an episode that might not be real. If my brain dreamed this up, I can live with that. Because the emotions are real regardless of anything else. I still grieve occassionally at special times but that's just missing him.
If you can take comfort from what happened, then let it do so. Your father knew you loved him. He came back for a moment to comfort you. Don't let that go to waste in intellectual debate. It's not wrong to hold on to a moment in time that helps you through a very painful time. Real or not! And maybe, just maybe, he was really there.
Peace to you, neithskye.
I can't say I have ever had any death that has really gone into me. That is probably because I didn't know any of them very well, and I am kind of an insensitive fellow to everyone else on the inside. My Brother's Art Teacher had a similiar experience with her deceased husband. I do remember the last days of my grandfather's life, however. He was grabbing a beer that wasn't there, enjoying it as much as a "real" beer. He was an alcoholic, averaging a quart of booze a day from the age of 30.
