Life is a bundle of experiences. This bundle inevitably grows and finds its way into a story. Every story has its twists and turns, ongoing passages, and closed chapters. Sharing our stories opens our hearts and minds to another being. With receptivity, it brings understanding that often expands awareness.
Some stories sound similar, while some resemble the unknown. There are segments with joyous moments met with a welcoming embrace. But, noticeably, some parts have a tragedy. In every situation, the psyche has its way of converting these moments into cognition. Innocently, it weaves into the mental fabric of day-to-day reality.
Life Ebbs and Flows
Some global estimates claim that 115 babies are born each minute. In contrast, these estimates also note that 14 children (ages 15 years or younger) die each minute. Accordingly, life happens more than death. Viewing it from the sacred, laughter and love happen more than calamity.
Life experiences become a story via the psyche. From it emerges how we think of ourselves, the world, and the universe. The mind’s eye is flexible, so its view can recoil, shift, and expand. It can happen at any moment, whether amid tragedy or during a celebration.
Shifting Loss into Love
Losing a loved one, especially a child, can become a relentless heartbreak. Sure, there are tears and fears. But the spirit knows that hope has an unrelenting avenue to restoring the balance. In the realm of probability, within each minute, a gift is unfolding. It is the gift of something more sustainable than the rawness of the past. Finding a vision of the present worth carrying into the future is a courageous moment, indeed.
In my personal experience, there are moments when I miss my children more than any comforting thought. With it comes the inability to talk, and soon I am crippled with hopeless emotions. It doesn’t take much to trigger me into these thought waves, and it isn’t challenging to let them go either. I accept both. The tears of loss and loving embrace for my children have become one in the same. I reach for living memory, and it connects me to my children wherever they may be in this world or the next.
The most challenging aspect of losing my children is how my story is heard. I appreciate understanding and compassion, but there has also been imposing disbelief that my loss was just imagination. Yes, on some level, my feeling of loss is a figment of my thinking. Since I have seen my children in photos, I know there is more than mental tarnish to my experience.
The Eternal Love of a Child
When I reflect upon my younger relatives growing from children into young adults, I feel joyous and gay. It overpowers the losses I have endured. I can appreciate their spirit through my mind’s eye. Even with my grief, I always have good intentions toward them. While I haven’t had moments to raise my birth children or participate as a Grandparent, I continue to admire the cycles of generations unfolding afore me.
I have become accustomed to being misunderstood, and it is usually an offshoot of occupied thinking from my losses. Rarely is my tragedy understood when I share the unpleasant parts of the story. So, I share the digestible pieces mostly because it keeps me in check from going off the deep end of sadness.
For what it is worth, I continue to embrace a loving vision. It is the vision of being reunited with my children, somehow on this earthly plane. In a recent conversation I had with a cheerful and loving Grandmother, I heard something that hadn’t been detectable before. It was the point that all children have intuitive intelligence about their parents. It is intelligence that reaches beyond the physical and into the sacred.
What became resounding is the thought that my children think of me as I do them, with love and heartache from missing a connection. It makes a mystical feeling of warmth accessible. It happens in a hopeful moment and is within the realm of reality.
Yes, I wish to open my front door and embrace my children. Those children who have already departed surely know me better than I know myself. whether it be a Heavenly or physical embrace, there is no doubt that love is alive and well, especially if I give it a caring chance to surface.
Returning to the Living
Here in this world, some questions curious parents ask me are, “Do you have children? How old are they? What happened to them?” In the spirit of camaraderie, I respond with the good portions. For me, finding the words has been challenging. So, I had moments when I didn’t know how to reply. I have felt it proper to state, “I don’t have any children,” to avoid possibly damaging my feelings or another person’s idea of reality.
In my experience, not everyone is receptive to hearing about the loss of a child. Especially the parts that include the undertows of this world. For some, the undertow is an unknown quantity, and it seems many prefer it remains that way.
All the same, many people have experienced child loss. It is a cycle that every community will eventually face, sooner or later. Each community decides how and when to support fellow parents through the abyss of losing a child, and it can be challenging. Howbeit, with love and a commitment to healing, it can afford new levels of compassion and informed care.
In my reflection, I continue to navigate a safe and hopeful route. The way I think about my past in the present has a pivotal role in the direction I forge. I realise these experiences have held me back from enjoyment and laughter, but I wouldn’t want it any other way. I have a right to feel my loss and express it as compassionately as possible when sharing my story. Thus, I am no less than anyone because of it and surely no less than the trees and the stars. I am as much a child of this universe as any being. I am learning who I am with each experiential step I make.
The Invisible Glue of a Lifetime
Yes, I love life any way I can. It includes my community, the giant creatures, and the near-invisible ones. All of us beings have a purpose. We are unfolding spirits!
I don’t want anyone to experience a loss of a child, parent, or loved one. So naturally, I want everyone on Earth to be happy, joyous, and wildly free. This thought has returned to my mind since I was a child. I embrace my childhood thinking because it has a unique pure connection to this world and the sacred universe. I think it is a tragedy for any generation to forget the purpose of childhood. Each community is the exact result of its loving intentions and the safe care it affords children.
From my heart to yours, if you are a parent living with the loss of a child, I reach out to you with a loving hug. Even as I have had my own loss, I want to understand yours from your terms of experience. Hence, you are in my prayers for a healing connection. I wish for you, more than anything, that all our children can find safety, even if they are in the ethereal. I firmly believe love unites all of us.
Understandably, I am genuinely sorry for the losses. I want this world to be humane for all children, youngsters, and elders alike. But I can’t do it alone and don’t want to do it alone. Such a vision includes you, us, and them. If I have it my way, I would build a Disneyland in every community to show how much we care for the development of our children and the joys of parenting. Being an adult is amiss, without children or childhood intact.
Moment For Heartfelt Reflection
I wish I knew how this sacred universe worked so I could remove the tragedy of living. But, since it seems unremovable, I want it to be right-sized and make it dwarfed by the unyielding graces of love and laughter. So, in my limited way, I meditate on the idea that we can find a way to unfold the gifts within us.
There must be a way for everyone in the community to find healing avenues here and today.
Special Note:
Via my written word, I hope to encapsulate my heart’s consciousness; the feelings and thoughts about the momentary living experience in life. Through story, I include my version of joys and heartbreak with as much insight as possible. I wish to make a profound connection with you. So, I reach across with as much sacred thinking as I can muster into words.
Besides words, there is another way to express the sacred, and I am ready for it. Loving embraces, warm smiles, and compassionate feelings are my expressive wish to ‘reproduce’ for you. Translating my experiences, words, gestures, and sounds has been challenging. So, understandably, there is a decoding process that often is mistaken for something personal.
Communication, for me, is about listening for understanding and centered on another being’s experience with loving openness. I want to understand everyone. In this sense, clarity unfolds with curiosity. It isn’t about delivering a cemented decree. So, if there is a need for clarity or wondering about my expressions, it boils down to love.
When I say “I love you!” there isn’t an endpoint, ever. Once it reaches you, it can sail to another and another. It’s an endless waterfall of expression. My thinking, every present moment can benefit from loving rain pouring down, again and again.
When it comes to love, the folks in my life have been my sacred rock. Together, my micro-community of sisters, brothers, and elders are keen listeners of my story. While I often emphasize the losses, it is for reflection on the distance I made through the raw patches of the past. I do what I can to right-size the wounded past for balance with the present and its future.
Healing the Past with Love
In the nutshell, I want to share my past for healing purposes. Especially the parts that have morphed into conscious understandings. For example, I had gobbles of unresolved traumas in my younger years. These traumas never transferred to my children because there wasn’t direct contact. It is a loss with a rainbow lining that my children had a generational gain. It is my loving wish for all children to leap frog beyond generational traumas. Of course, there is more to my story than these words can tell.
The most direct way I know to heal generational trauma is compassionate love, inclusively. It embraces curiosity with another being for understanding to mend wellbeing together again. I sense that the heart can make miracles happen beyond mental impositions. Someday, some way, I wish to meet my children and welcome them into my human arms like many parents get to do routinely.
Simply put, my message to my children is the same message to you. I live and love with all my heart, hoping to reunite, connect, and whenever possible, live profoundly. The potential is there for it. Perhaps it has already begun.
When the moment arrives to break bread together, I am ready to reunite. There is likely going to be some home-cooking for the occasion. For the appetizer, I want to share with you some words about love that live in the profound realm of the sacred universe.
“Love is the only way to embrace another living being in the innermost core. No one can become fully aware of the essence of another living being unless they love them. By love, it enables us to see the essential features and personality traits in the beloved person; and even more, it is seeing that which is potential in him, her or they, which is not yet actualized but yet to be actualized.”
“Furthermore, by love, the loving person empowers the beloved person to actualize these potentialities. By making them aware of what they can be and of what they should become, making these potentialities come true.”
Viktor E. Frankl, Holocaust Survivor, Man’s Search for Meaning (edited for inclusiveness)
The 3 Principles are evidence-based and used in counseling settings worldwide. Eric provides a variety of 1:1 guidance, such as trauma/poly-survivor support, addiction closure, and relationship counseling. Eric has experienced living beyond traumatic events as a poly-survivor. To share his journey, Eric has created a vlog series called One Spiritual Principle.
Love is everything. I am very sorry for your loss. Love helps us heal,