Thursday, April 20, 2017 Beginning A New Kind of Relationship

The past couple of days many events have happened in our lives that make us think that Irene is around influencing things for our good.  What I want to write about though is some of my experience so I can look at it at a later date.

About a year before Irene passed she went through a very serious medical problem with her breathing and at that time the doctors told us she wasn't going to make it.  During that entire time I was fighting back a tidal wave of panic and grief and whenever I was alone I would completely lose it and crumple up and sob and cry out and beg God to not let her die.  I also remember back about two and a half years when we first met the oncologist and the first thing she said was that we should consider hospice at that time.  She took Irene out for an X-ray and I was in the office by myself and a wave of panic and great sorrow rushed through me.  The rest of the day I was fighting back tears at the thought of losing her.

I write that in order to make sure anyone who may read this knows that the very idea of Irene dying was enough to break my heart any time I thought about it.  I recorded her telling me she loved me so I could play it back and watch it if anything ever happened.  When she actually passed, though, I felt  a presence I can only describe as a hand on my heart that was protecting me.  I had expected to perhaps even die of a broken heart when we realized how bad it was this time, but that pain didn't come then.  Perhaps I was in shock.  I don't know. 

But throughout these last events, from the time she had to go into the hospital on Saturday the 8th, even after Sunday night when she went downhill fast, I never felt that overwhelming sense of loss or grief – it was amazing. The most sorrow I felt was when I read that note I found.  I could feel Irene protecting me – like she had her hand on my heart the whole time. Yes, I would feel pain, but it was completely different from before – I knew she was there, I knew she was with me. It seemed to me that she was with all of us, guiding, comforting and protecting us.

At some point I became aware of a sensation unlike any I have ever experienced – at first I sort of recoiled from it because it was so overwhelming I thought it was grief and pain, but that wasn’t it. When I recoiled it vanished. I started processing what I had actually experienced; it was like something had touched me because it it originated on my face.  I wondered if Irene was touching me or communicating something to me in some way.

When the sensation came again I didn't recoil and this incredible sensation crept over me from the side of the couch she used to sit on beside me.  It was a physical and emotional/psychological experience that was again unlike anything I've ever experienced.  I let it wash through me and it brought tears to my eyes.  It made my heart beat fast and made me breathe in big gulps. It just filled me with an indescribable, positive emotion/sensation.

Of course, I talk to Irene all the time and can feel her presence most of time. I’m working out our new relationship like we had talked about before she passed.  I set her coffee out and I leave the channel on one of her favorite channels when I work or sleep.  Every so often some words pop in my head as if she said them and they make me laugh out loud.  I find time to talk at great length to her to brainstorm about how to handle this new form of relationship.  I’m really quite excited about it even if some others might think I’m crazy.

When I was out running various errands that I had to run (unbelievable how much one must do when someone passes, along with having to work and carry on normal functions), I would feel her with me. I would easily envision her sitting beside me, walking beside me, doing cute, funny things to make me laugh or warm my heart. I imagine anyone seeing me would have thought I was a little nuts, busting out laughing at times or saying "I love you so much" to my invisible wife, chuckling intimately or nodding.

I can feel a couple of different ways she makes her presence near me known – a sense of love and relief and calm flow over me that is unmistakable, and recently images of her will pop in my head whereas before I had a hard time imagining her with me.  These are two different experiences – when I imagine her, and when these images of her being with me pop in my head. Imagining or envisioning her requires effort on my part, while the image-popping just happens and carries a really nice sensation of love and of her being there with me. Mostly she pops in my head wearing a blue overall shorts outfit she used to wear when we first met, or the black dress with a floral print that was her favorite for a long time, and she usually looks like she did wearing the black dress. Sometimes she pops in my head younger than that, sitting crosslegged on the couch, with shorter hair like when we first met.

I have some ideas about developing this relationship going forward.  I was thinking last night, wondering if over time we lose connection to people that have passed because we don’t really interact with them, we don’t validate their presence and we succumb to the notion that we must “move on” with our lives, that it is more “healthy” for us not to “live in the past”.  Also, perhaps it is just too painful and too hard for many people, who do still have lives to live, to try to maintain a relationship especially when there is family around and co-workers who might have a difficult time dealing with someone carrying on a relationship with the departed.

I am quite blessed in the fact that I don't face such behavioral or lifestyle limitations.  I can act in concert with my beliefs - that there is in fact an afterlife or spiritual dimension and that those there can and do interact with us and our lives - in fact, the love they have for us is why they wish to stay with us for the duration of our lives.  We are in their heart and soul. My family knows about our beliefs and many of them share those beliefs.  I work from home and so do not spend most of my day in an environment that would require I act as if Irene is not with me.

So, why not have a relationship with her? Why not acknowledge and talk with her and other family here? Why not validate their presence and what they do?  Why not do all I can to better interact with more clarity and connection, instead of trying to "move on"? Why not move forward with them and in a new kind of relationship?