Reminded

I've been grieving this week for a family who lost their son, grandson and nephew.  A precious boy who was of this earth a short 20 months and whose life was taken 'much too soon' as they say.

And this entire week I've been feeling a knot in my stomach.  Much too soon.  His poor family.  His poor mommy and daddy.  There's nothing I can do for them.  I prayed and prayed and prayed for a resolution in my heart and up until last night I was still feeling like God and I needed to sit down for a long chat together.  I just couldn't shake the knot and I knew there was something I was missing in order to move the energy and find peace.

I suppose it was that God decided to visit while I was delivering my son's newspaper route before sunrise this morning.  I've come to enjoy that hour in the morning when only the birds are awake and the sound of their singing is all you can hear.  As I was walking and thinking and remembering.  I was considering grief and wondering if it really ever ends or if you just get used to living with it lurking inside of you.  I was thinking about my own losses and how the loss of this little boy has opened up the scabby wounds I've been putting bandaids on for all these years hoping they would just heal and go away.

Then it hit me.  The sudden remembrance of something I've known for a long time but couldn't seem to access (maybe those scabby wounds were preventing it).  I remembered what someone shared with me many, many years ago about her own beliefs surrounding death.  She told me her belief was that Souls come here to learn and experience new things.  They are only here until they have learned what they came to learn and do what they came to do and then they exit this life.  The younger the person who has passed on, the less time it has taken them to achieve what they came to achieve.

This mornings remembrance opened the flood gates and I found myself delivering the last of the newspapers in tears.  It felt a little like a great burden had been lifted from my shoulders and the knot in my stomach was instantly gone.  I remember that this belief made so much sense to me when it was shared at the time and it helped me in the moments when my own grief seemed too much to bear.  The knowing of it doesn't take away the grief or the sadness of losing someone special and precious of course.  It can however soothe the sense of responsibility or guilt or regret.  Many things that come with loss.

As I walked back home this morning I sent up congratulations to the brave Soul who came, learned and left.  This made me cry even more but in a different way; with a sense of relief.