Trailing Clouds of Glory

A few days ago, my dear friend and neighbor messaged me. She said, 'Have you ever been to a medium?' I messaged back, 'No, but my neice went for another reason and Mike came through. ' My niece was very surprised because she hadn't intended to talk about Mike. But the medium sensed his presence and described him. From the description she knew it was Mike. He told her several things. But the thing that sticks in my mind is. 'Im sorry I hurt everyone. But I was hurting too'
Once Martha could see that I was comfortable with the idea of a medium, she told me she and Sabrina had gone to a very respected medium and Mike came through. They had a hard time deciding whether to tell me about it. But Mike would give them no peace until they did. We went to lunch, Martha and I and her daughter Sabrina. The things she told me convinced me that it was Mike. One of the things he said was that he didn't intentionally commit suicide with alcohol. He said he just couldn't stop himself from drinking' I know this seems like a subtle point. But it was important to Mike to tell me this. When I describe Mike's death, I have been calling it suicide by alcohol. But what he says is that he just couldn't stop drinking. No matter how you look at it, it is a tragedy.
Our conversation turned to how it is on the other side. It reminded me of a poem by Wordsworth.

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,	60
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come	65
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy! Intimations of Immortality from Recollections  of Early Childhood By William Wordsworth

                                

http://www.bartleby.com/101/536.html/

It only stands to reason that if we come from glory, we return to glory.  I take comfort in that. It is probably why I was never afraid of death as I faced cancer. I have always known that death is just shedding of the body, to return to our expanded self, back through the clouds of glory.

Conversation with Mike

I was feeling sad today, thinking about Michael. I went to the Wild Animal Park. It is a place where we can talk. As I sat  by our pond, I called his spirit in to chat. He comes to me at that place in a magical way. I used my iPhone to dictate the conversation.

Mike's spirit at the Wild Animal Park.

Here is the conversation we had as we walked around the park:
Conversation with Mike  as I struggled with the why

Mke: 

It is what it is. 

You can't change the past so stop trying

You can only change your self. 

I'm going to help you. 

Me: 

Mike, I want peace

You have peace 

You can help me find it. 

Mike:

Trust the  process

There isn't a point when you get there. 

It's a process

In fact you never get there

It's the expectation of getting past the pain that hurts.

Learn to live with it

 In the end it will all make sense

Me: I don't want the pain to stop completely. Because I don't want you to go. Even if it hurts

Mike:

I have been coming back to enjoy the family. 

Did you see Oliver smiling at me? That was me he was looking at over your shoulder. 

Mom, I have slipped the bonds of earth like a snake from its skin. All that was not me is no longer holding me back.

Instead of fighting against the pain allow it to flow through. It is a sweet sorrow, isnt it Mom?

Me: 

Yes it is Mike. Because it makes me feel closer to you.

New to this blog?

If you would like to look back to earlier entries look at the right of the page to select where you want to go. On the bottom right you will find links back to earlier entries. The entries describing Mike's death start in May of 2011.
You might also be interested in my newer blog, Traveling to Myself in which I tell more of my story. After Mike died I developed Lymphoma a kind of cancer. This blog describes my journey through the world of cancer and out the other side.

Letting go

Katie said something to me yesterday that really hit home. She said I am trying to continue the dysfunctional relationship I had with Mike for 42 years
Even though it is over. Of course it is hard to stop habits of thinking that have been in place for so long. Steve taught me that you cant really make these imbedded thought patterns go away without a prefrontal lobotomy. But you can create a stronger picture to replace the old one. What stronger picture do I need than the thought of Katie giving birth to my grandson? So I'm going to work that picture up in my mind. I'm here in San Francisco for Katie's shower. It will be easy to stay in this moment as I sleep in the nursery surround by baby things. This is the picture I will take home with me. What a gift!

Thinking about Mike

It was a privilege to be Mikes mother. To be witness to his life, his struggles his triumphs, his tragedy his pain. Through it all we loved each other and told each other so again and again. I like to think that even when he felt most alone, he could think about my love for him and be comforted. When he died and I wept over his body, I think he stayed to watch and to reassure himself that I never for one minute stopped loving him.
And now he watches over me with love and tenderness.
Mike was the bravest man I know. His life was filled with pain, both physical and psychological. He soldiered on longing to leave this life. But not wanting to cause me the pain of him dying. In between the pain and sadness and loneliness he managed to piece together a life that was a gift to those who knew him. His friends at work truly loved him. They loved his wry sense of humor, his musical talents and his genuine iinterest in their lives. When he died they came to tell me that. Even near the end when he could barely drag himself to work in his dying body, his friends didn't see it. They saw the public Michael that hid his pain so well that others enjoyed his company. When he left work in the middle of the night after hangin)g out with his friends, he stopped at the store for a bottle of vodka to keep his demons at bay. But his friends say they never saw him drink.. He once said that the worst thing in the world was to come home to a empty room every night.
He loved the mountains and the deserts. Some of his happiest times were when he was out by himself in the wilderness. We gave him that by taking him there when he was growing up
I'm proud of my son. It took a lot of courage to do what he did. He suffered terribly as his body was dying. But somehow he thought that this kind of suicide would be easier for me to bear. In a way it was. He gave us time to adjust to the fact that he was dying.. We got to spend his last days with him saying our good byes. There was a day when his mind was still relatively clear when i sat on his bed for the longest time and we just looked into each others eyes no words were necessary My heart aches for him. But I don't want him to come back. He is where he belongs. I love him so much that I will let him go.
I have decided to allow and acknowledge my inner conflict over Mike's life and his death. I was trying toss those feelings away thinking it wasn't healthy for me to think about him and feel the pain of his loss. But now I think is is unhealthy to try to push all my feelings away. So I say, in this moment I am feeling the pain of loosing my son and the pain of the life he lived. And that's ok.
And I know that In this life and the next, I will never walk alone.

Another message from Mike

Today I received a phone call from my niece, Abbey. She reminded me of something I told her a long time ago that was a comfort to her when she was in a bad place. 

She told me she had been very depressed from April to June and had a lot of stomach pain. Since mainstream medicine wasn't helping she decided to try alternative medicine such as Reiki, acupuncture and other things. (As an aside, Mike was sinking into deep depression in April. He had a lot of stomach pain as his liver deteriorated. And he died in June. Abbey has been told that she is very sensitive to other people's pain, as am I. Her pain and depression started to ease up in June. Mike died on June 4.)

About a week ago she went to a psychic for help. She selected carefully and found one with a good reputation. In the course of the meeting he asked her about someone who had passed suddenly. She knew he was talking about Mike. He went on to tell her things that only we and Mike could know. He told her Mike wanted to 'come through' Keep in mind that Abbey had not told him anything about Mike or even that he existed since she was interested in information for herself.

Since this was such a remarkable session she created an mp3 of the part pertaining to Mike.

Im going to try to upload it here. If you are a close friend of Mike's or family, Im sure you will recognize Mike.

Let me reemphasize that I did not seek connection with Mike through a psychic. My niece did but not about Mike. Thats why this has validity for me. Im trying to figure out how to make this so you can listen to it online. As it stands now you will have to download it to hear it. It is about 6 MB and lasts about 5 minutes. You can take this or leave it alone. It isn't for everyone. Im sure you will self select.

Here is the link:

Message from Mike
 The beginning is self explanatory. Mike talks about his mental anguish and how he tried to cover it. But we all knew. He apologized for the pain he has caused us. But he wants the family to know that he is ok.
Then the psychic told her that there is a name coming through starting with D or a DA. He said it was in his circle of friends. One of his good friends was Dorrian. But he also kept saying Dan or Danny. If you look at the top of this blog you can see I used the name, Danielmyson for the blog. I did this because Mike was still alive when I started it and I wanted to protect his identity.
'He's a smart alec' 'He didn't believe in this when he was alive' Thats true. He often ridiculed me if I told him anything that he thought was 'airy fairy'.
The psychic asked if they found him on the ground. I told Abbey that when he was in the skilled nursing facility he was confused and trying to get out of bed. I was the only one with him. I tried to keep him in bed. But he is so much bigger than me. He struggled up and made his way to the bathroom. I followed him in and pulled the nurses call button. Just as the nurse arrived, Mike started to crumple to the floor. I eased him down and ended up sitting there with him on my lap, cradling him like my baby. It was one of the sweetest moments I remember of that awful time. The throat thing refers to the last several days of his life when he was unconscious and breathing the 'death rattle' It sounds a lot like snoring. But it isn't. Its really an awful sound, especially when you know it is the sound of dying. It was so loud and so troubling that we couldn't stay in the room with him. We sat outside the door and listened and waited for the end to come. It didn't come for several days. His throat must have been very sore. At the end he had become quiet. Frank was with him in the room when he die. Im grateful that he didnt die alone.
He asks who david or davis is. He did have a friend named david. But I don't think he had seen him for years. 
He mentioned a birthday. It was My birthday on September 16 and Mike's birthday was September 4
You can take this or leave it alone. I hope that it helps some of you. I think it has helped me. But Im really exhausted after this day. 

A thought that comforts

I finally had a thought that comforts me. Each time I heard about an accident anywhere near where Mike lived, I had a small stab of fear that it was Mike. I also worried when I heard about a man that had gone crazy and done bad things. Mike had periods of instability when he might have been the one. I had a quick thought of Mike whenever I heard of someone who got a DUI or a hit and run. None of these things ever happened to Mike. But the potential was there. When the young man who was mentally unstable shot those people in Arizona I thought of Mike. When it happened Mike was not in a good place. He even emailed me a picture of the young man standing with his arm around his mother and you could see that they loved each other. Obviously this was taken when he was not in the throws of mental illness. It was very troubling to me. It was like Mike was taunting me with that picture. The message I got was, 'I love you Mom. But I might do something crazy' Sometimes Mike was not a very nice person. I think he was trying to alienate us so he could carry out his plan to drink himself to death. He succeeded.
Im free of that now. And Mike is at peace. That comforts me. He freed me from my
fears. He knew what he was doing. And in doing so, he found his peace as well.
But oh my goodness, it hurts. When I look back on his life I can see his pain and his mental instability. But I was not able to help him.
My anguish and my anger are that he had this mental illness in the first place. My frustration is that there was treatment for it. He was under treatment for 2 years and I saw my real son.  But he stopped taking his medication and the crazy Mike came back.
But at least I no longer have to fear for his safety or the safety of others. It is a small comfort. But its something.

Synopsis

I have joined an online group called 'Parents of Suicide'. I felt a need to connect with people who have lost a child to suicide. They have been asking me to tell Mike's story. It is hard to do. Since they are visiting this blog, Im going to give a brief synopsis here. When Im ready I will fill in more details.
Mike was 42 years old when he died of Alcoholic liver failure. He chose to kill himself with alcohol. It was a long tedious process spanning several years. At first alcohol numbed him. But when his liver started to fail he realized that it could be his ticket out of his sad and scary life.
He and I both have bipolar disorder. His was a much more severe form. His mood swings went from deep depression to a sense of anxiety and heightened fears. He sometimes got to the intoxicating high that bipolars often experience. But most of the time it was what my therapist called a 'mixed state'. During those times he was extremely anxious and restless and felt that demons were haunting him.

Mike tried to get those demons out of his head through art. He left 100's of drawings with intricate patterns and very often a demonic face. He told me that drawing these faces was the only way to get them out of his head.
So it didn't come as a surprise to me when I was told the Mike was getting hospice care and would die soon.
Naturally there is much more to this story. I will try to write more soon.

Buried at Sea

Today I got a very unexpected phone call. I was sitting in my car waiting for the light to change. I answered it and it was the cremation service that had taken Mike. The lady told me very simply that Mike had been buried at sea. I burst into tears. I managed to pull the car into a parking lot. I cried for an hour. My grief was as raw as the moment Mike died. I could feel the tangle of his thick curley hair in my hand, just as I felt it when I wept over his dead body.
This has thrown me into a tailspin. I realized that all the feelings I have been stuffing these last four months are just below the surface waiting to come out. I have decided I need some grief counseling. I am in Sacramento. I got on the internet and found some help. I will see a counselor tomorrow. I also signed up for an online support group.  I wish I didn't have to do this. But I just can't seem to make my way through the maze of memories and pain.

Talking to Michael

Michael,
When will I heal from your pain? Whenever my mind is idle, like when Im driving or sitting in my room I think about your life. I feel the deep deep despair you felt for so very long. Dad and I tried to be there for you in every way we could possibly think of. But we couldn't take away your dark dark moods, your loneliness. We couldn't bridge that gap to you, honey, no matter how hard we tried. You left your body. You left your pain behind for me to feel. Sometimes I'm in anguish over your life. This horrible demon that haunted you was so cruel and heartless. You stayed with us as long as you could stand it. But you had to go. I understand that. What I don't understand is why you were cursed with this illness. If I could only find a way to look at your life and be at peace, maybe I could move forward.
Im trying so hard to move forward, Mike. For you, for Katie, for Dad, for the Baby and for the family who loves me and wants me to feel ok.
I don't know what else to do. Please help me, Mike. You are the only one who can.
Love,
Mom