My Journey

There are moments in life that change everything

July 25, 2013 began as an ordinary morning. I was in my kitchen—emptying the dishwasher, brewing a single cup of coffee—when I heard my phone ringing in the other room. I almost didn’t make it in time to answer.

The call—the one that buckled my knees—came in at 7:35 a.m. My youngest son, my sweet, beautiful, precious son Michael, was gone—killed instantly in an auto accident.

There is no preparing for a moment like that. No framework to hold it. No way to soften the impact. I heard sounds coming from me, from the depths, that I had never heard before and never want to hear again. Life split into before and after.

In the days that followed, I found myself inside a chasm of grief I didn’t know existed. There was no place to put it. No way around it—only the experience of it, raw, immediate, and all-consuming.

And yet… I also noticed something else.

Right alongside the grief and pain stood joy and love. I could feel them both—so much love being poured upon me, so much joy in remembering Michael. I called it my strange elixir—standing in the middle of joy and sorrow, seeing that the depth of my pain was matched equally by the depth of love.

In those early days—within the first two to three weeks—I also began receiving what I can only describe as clear, simple guidance. Pearls would drop into my mind quietly, almost as if being given to me. I wrote the words down in my journal as they came, not fully understanding them at the time, but knowing they mattered.

They became anchors—a way to move through something that felt impossible. I came to think of them as treasures given to me in the middle of grief.

I call them…

Treasured Observations

• Feel what I am feeling—fully. Open to all of it.
• Joy and pain balance each other perfectly, if I am open to see and feel it.
• Numbness is a safe resting place—not a destination.
• Hugging and being hugged are essential to my healing.
• The salt of my tears mixes beautifully with the sweetness of laughter—savor each moment.
• Regrets, blaming, anger, shoulda’s, coulda’s, what if’s, wish Ida’s are all signs for dead end roads filled with land mines—do not enter.
• If I notice myself already on one of those roads, turn around immediately and grab a happy memory to hold on to and pull myself back.
• Say “yes” to helping hands. Let them feed, cook, clean, sort, and hug.
• Life marches on—I get to choose the cadence that I can handle.
• Revisiting the pain only brings on more of it.
• Capture the stories while they are fresh.
• The only right way to grieve is the one that feels most right to me.
• Give myself as long as I need. Listen to my heart.
• Choose which thoughts I want to spend time with. Healing thoughts lift my spirit.
• Stay in my heart space, listen to its wisdom. Let it guide all of my decisions.
• Some words carry more comfort than others.
• Watch for signs from my loved one—listen, feel, sense—serendipitous coincidences, alignment and perfection of timing—and especially hummingbirds.
• Sleep when I can. Time loses its grip and calendars are of little interest.
• It’s okay to cry and it’s okay to laugh—all at the same time.
• Focus on the beauty in front of you, and not on what’s missing or on wishing things were different.
• Forgive everyone everything.

Demanding a Blessing

Somewhere along the way, I made a decision. If this was what life was placing before me—this unbearable, heart-shattering loss—then I was going to meet it fully. Not avoid it, not numb it, not bury myself alongside my son. I was going to work with it. I was going to wrestle with it until it blessed me.

I began to ask a question that would shape everything that followed: Where is the gift in this? What did this come to teach me? Not in some distant, abstract way—but here and now, right in the middle of it. I demanded that it show me, and I paid attention. I observed my thoughts.

There were moments—early on—when I noticed something unexpected: a day when I didn’t cry, a moment of ease, even a flicker of joy. And I caught myself wondering—was something wrong with me? Was I grieving too fast? If I was feeling joy, did that mean I didn’t love my son enough? Should I pull myself back into the sorrow to match what I believed grief was supposed to look like?

I had been given plenty of messages about what grief should be—that there would always be a hole in my heart, that I would never be whole again, that a piece of me was forever missing. I understood these words were often offered with care—an attempt to relate or comfort—but something in me knew that was not my truth.

And so, quietly and firmly, I chose not to take them in. Not true for me. Instead, I stayed with what I was actually experiencing.