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When I think of Angels I don’t "feel" the shiny haloes or the feathery wings of an angel playing a harp. I "feel" the spirit and I feel the sounds of laughter or the moisture of the tears. I feel the guidance and the inspiration and I feel love and I feel that I am loved.

This is the month of hearts and flowers and remembrances. A month where most of us will be reminded that there is an angel missing from our lives but an angel nonetheless, who is but a heartbeat away.

The love we held fast for those that died never ends, it just changes. I’ve written often about my feelings for my husband who in my heart has become my spiritual husband. I love him in a way that I have come to know with peace and acceptance of what he is now.

This issue of Online Spirit is dedicated to the widows and widowers or those who perhaps might have chosen not to marry or never had the chance to marry but were "married in spirit". For all of you who lost the second part of your heart, I pray that you will come to know that love is not lost but changed. It becomes the echoes of the heartbeat that was once the same beating of the heart. As the echo is heard how do you know just how far it goes before the sounds of a heartbeat stops? Or do they become the echoes that go on forevermore?

To love again, the transition from a past love to a new love because of all that we were, we become more because of what we had. Our love past will be our love future because of who we became and what we will become.

We look back and remember all that was and hope that all that will be, will carry the very best part of what we knew love to be. We learn to appreciate, to cherish, to love unconditionally and to love with a new heart and new beginnings. Our hearts were broken on the other side of that bridge, but we cross over the pain with acceptance and with understanding that hearts can once again be whole.

THE BRIDGE
Dedicated to all who have found new love
A Bridge is a transition, from one place to another.
A step over from the past to what lies ahead.

EXCERPTS FROM WHISPERING ANGELS
Dedicated to all who have lost loved ones

Right after my husband died, he sent us a sign that he made it to heaven. This is how I know that God indeed does take them home with Him to a place where peace and beauty exists. I need to keep telling myself that he is where he needs to be. I feel him, and I know he's guiding me in spirit because of his promise to me that his soul would never die and he told me I was part of his soul. Just as each of you are, for each of your loved ones. They are in a place so glorious and have a part of you with them just as a part of them is with you.

Close your eyes and ask them to let you feel their peace. Ask for a sign that will tell you they are with you. Listen to the quiet, and listen to your thoughts, for there is where you will know. The deep inner part of you where the spirit lives will tell you. They may already be trying to tell you and you don't realize it. There may be signs sent by them and you know they cannot have come from anyone else. A scent, something "found" to remind you of them, and most of all, the still inner voice of comfort, the "Whispering Angels".

I think of the "room" and all our "Whispering Angels" there, how very much like heaven it is. No faces, no sounds except for the clicking of the keyboard, like a heartbeat almost, where you can feel the feelings. It's a communication of the mind and the spirit and the love. This is how we "feel" them, no sound, no faces but feeling without touching. There is a peace that comes within you when you can believe this. It doesn't make the tears go away but it makes the tears, quiet tears that you can bear. The anguish lessens to an understanding that you will survive because you have a purpose and if nothing else, it is to keep their memories alive. It gives you the peace and that courage for you to go on and to do whatever it is you have to do.

So when I think of angels I think of grandparents bouncing a child on their knees. I think of the children we lost who are out of the pain that took them from this world, and I vision them laughing and happy. I envision parents still being parents but in a different form of parenting. I envision all our angels guiding us to find one another because together we give each other the strength and ncouragement to move ahead, to let go of the pain.

Letting go of the pain does not mean letting go of the love. Free your hearts of the memory of the pain and fill them instead with the memory of the love and then you will find that your love does not end, it only continues on with a spiritual love that is forevermore.

Capture the love in the spirit for which all of us at GROWW have found to be the most powerful means of healing from the pain.

With love to all,
Judy

We live our lives from day to day, building dreams, planning for our future, never considering that something will ever happen to shatter those dreams. That always happens to the "other guy". Then one day it isn't the other guy, it happens to us and the life we thought was so safe is suddenly shattered and fallen apart. All the pieces of our dreams have scattered. The struggle to rebuild our lives, to somehow fill the void of the "missing piece" that was taken from us...becomes like the jigsaw puzzle, trying to find a way to bring it all together again and to search for that one missing piece, but what is that missing piece if it's gone from us?

We find the disbelief that this could ever happen to us so overwhelming. We walk through a fog, disoriented, unable to focus on much of anything because we're living a nightmare that should belong to someone else, not us. We're almost numb from the pain because the denial that it happened hasn't sunk in yet.

All the different pieces of our grieving; shock, numbness, denial, depression, confusion, fear, anger, bitterness, guilt, regret, which comes first? We hear the questions "What are the stages of grieving?" There is no pattern when it comes to human emotions.....we are all different. We all react differently because each of us lived different lives, different losses, so who is to say which piece of the puzzle comes first or second or last? How can you tell someone how to grieve when you don't know how they lived? We may not experience all the different stages of grieving.

Anger is a stage of grieving, but is it the same anger for each of us? Some of the anger is displaced anger. Anger towards the one who died and "abandoned" you. But is that anger real? No one wants to die, so how can we be angry at them for dying? There is anger towards the cause of the death or the person causing the death and that is justified anger. There is anger and jealousy that we struggle with because of people we see living their lives without our pain. How can they laugh when we're dying inside? How can they dare mention their spouses or children when ours are gone? Don't they know they are supposed to crawl into that pit of despair with us and know how we feel? Don't they know how cruel and cutting their remarks are when they tell us to "move on, get over it"? We feel so frustrated and guilty because we never felt these emotions of jealousy and anger before, and it's hard to not feel the bitterness. Sometimes to escape all this, we go into a depression and hide from all the emotions that are so tormenting to face. It's easier to just crawl into that hole and stay there then to face the world without them. But is that fair to the rest of your family and friends who also lost that person? Is it fair for them to lose you too? Is it fair for them to come to resent the dying person because their death took a part of you from them?

Letting ourselves become lost in the grief and losing that part of us that loved is a big piece of what was shattered in our lives and what is so hard to put back together. To learn that our pain is because of the love we felt and to let that love die with despair is not fair to anyone. Not you, not your family and friends and not the one who died. Instead of letting the love die with them, let the love keep you going. Let the love give you hope that one day all the pain and anger and despair will diminish with time.

Have you ever looked out the window of an airplane and seen scattered clusters of clouds below? As I looked down, I saw pieces of clouds, all different shapes and sizes, like pieces to a puzzle. But just below each cloud were the shadows of the clouds. I remember thinking, "I know those clouds are so high in the sky, but look at how they appear to be touching, as though spirits separated through death were so far apart, yet seemingly to be touching". Two parts of the same soul, separated but not separate. And I thought, "that one missing piece of the puzzle that we search for may never complete the puzzle as we want it to be completed, because that one missing piece has to be acceptance".

To accept that there is nothing we can do to bring them back to this world, but we accept that they will always be a part of us in separate worlds but always touching our spirits and our hearts and our memories of the love we have for them. For the love does not die when they die, it is eternal love in a different form, separate but always touching our lives. So when all the different pieces of the puzzle, the stages of grief, no matter what form they take, it all comes together finally when we know there is always going to be one missing piece but in place of it comes peace. Acceptance will bring you to that peace when you know finally in your heart that letting go of the pain is not letting go of the love and the memories. Only then will the shattered pieces of our lives come together.

How do we get to that peaceful acceptance? I think we have to go through the pain because of the earthly love we had for them.......when do you feel that peace? When we learn to love them in the spiritual form.....in a new and different way. Maybe that's the answer... I love Bill deeply, in a spiritual love for him, because he's not here to hold me and make love to me and to laugh at my feet or to turn every joke into an italian joke or the pride of remembering him holding our first son for the first time, or our first grandchild. My love for him is changing to memories of all that, of who he was and what he has become today...... God's Angel, watching over us with a spiritual love, as he promised he would. I don't know if that's the answer for everyone,

I write this for my husband Bill who would have been 57 years old today. In loving memory of William Edward Divers, Sr. born January 7th, 1941, whose Birthday to Heaven was September 4th, 1992. I lift my eyes to heaven and wish you a Happy Birthday Bill..... and I thank God for what you have brought to my life and for the courage and wisdom you taught me when you were dying and told me to always, "count your blessings". My greatest blessing was your encouragement to always follow my dream.

GROWW is my dream and the greatest part of that is to give each of you the hope that one day your lives will be filled with the peace of acceptance that there is nothing you can't do if your dreams are based on love and faith.

All of us at GROWW wish each of you, for the upcoming New Year, a very peaceful time of acceptance of knowing that one day you will come to that quiet place of understanding that you have not lost them completely. That like those clouds, separated but not separate, their lives will always touch yours by the love that was theirs then, and the love that will always be.

A gift of love is a treasure given, not always gifts we see. Gifts are felt with heartfelt words and gifts that are given free. Where nothing in return is asked, where reason is not questioned, The gift of giving from the heart and no conditions mentioned.
The gift of sharing the pain and joy, the laughter and the tears, To listen to the hopes of all and also to the fears. The gift of understanding and being understood, the gift of listening and being heard as only listening should, For listening and not hearing does not a bit of good.
Not gifts of "things" but of yourself, a gift that cannot be bought. These are gifts that are within and gifts that cannot be taught. For gifts of love are gifts not earned but given with the heart and gifts that never stop giving even when apart. For spirits bond with gifts of love and distance not divide.... Gifts are gifts that come from what is felt inside.
These are gifts of love and these are gifts that GROWW.

To look at a black cloud and know that behind it, is the sun and a rainbow will appear.....not to just see the black cloud... that is hope. To look at the night sky and not just dread the night alone, but to see the stars and know that each one shining is placed there for our Angels.......that is faith. To look at what has happened in our lives and not to see it as a punishment or that it is the end of our happiness forever, but to see that we can't change the past but we can live for the future with peace in our hearts ......that is growth. To look at all of us who have met because of our pain and not to see it as a group of grievers, but to see it as new friends with a strong bond of support.......that is love and that is the greatest gift of all.
Gifts come in many forms, not always a package wrapped with a pretty bow, but gifts of love, gifts of sharing, gifts of understanding, can be more beautiful than the most beautifully wrapped present.
The gift of giving hope to someone who feels there is none is prevalent in our room. Hope brings riches to the poor, health to the sick, and freedom to the tormented. "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen". Faith is expressed freely in our room without fear of judgement. What one person may believe, another may scoff at but the right to express your feelings is important. It is the way to work through your grief. There is often a "debate" on the reality of faith, the existence of hope but the hearing of the words brings a question to mind that just maybe, there is a reason to hope, just maybe there is something to this word "faith".
Many strongly express that how if it were not for their faith they would have no hope of getting through their pain. In the hearing of the words, maybe a seed will be planted and that seed of hope is nurtured by the love and caring of everyone in the room so that one day even those who are most doubtful will receive that gift of hope and belief, that because of what was once evidence unseen is now seen through the words written from the heart.
The gift of growth........"How high does the sycamore grow? If you cut it down, you'll never know".

I hear so many tell me they want to give up because there is nothing left in their lives. I think back over the past three years and how many thousands of people I've talked to who also believed that there was nothing left to live for.

No one knows what the future holds but if you give up, how will you ever know how far you can go in life, how strong you can become or how full your life can be. If you "cut down the tree", you will never know and you will never grow.
I remember the man who lit the two candles on the first anniversary of his wife's death. We talked for hours and the red candle for hope, and the white candle for mourning burned. At the stroke of midnight...... he said the white candle was out. His mourning was over. The red candle was still burning and his hope was there. His growth was from a moment of grief to the realization of hope.
And another, "I feel like a ship without a rudder". I told him "No, you are wrong, you are a ship with a rudder that's headed in another direction". This man wrote the most beautiful stories of his pain and his journey that was to be and will be read by so many who will be inspired by his determination not to let "that ship drift aimlessly".
A young man was going to school to become a physical therapist but because his dad was stricken with cancer, he changed his profession to nursing so that he could better help families who faced what he faced. This young man was responsible for bringing a woman who was clinically dead for over 40 minutes, back to life with no sign of brain damage. The newspapers reported it as a true miracle. He saw a tear in her eye and knew he could not give up on her. This young man was my son and a perfect example of how he grew because of a tragedy in his life.
The most treasured gift of all, love. Strangers on the internet coming together because of the greatest tragedy of their lives. The give love and support, understanding and compassion to people they have never seen, never heard, yet the feelings are so strong because they see their own pain in the words of others and the spirit of giving comes alive in an instant. The presence of all that is good is shared because of all that was bad. The love that each of us hold for those we lost does not die, it only intensifies and grows as we share that love by sharing the stories and sharing the memories.
For those who look for answers on how to get through this, remember the gifts given so freely, the gift of hope, the gift of faith and the gift of love. Those of us associated with GROWW chose this name and our logo with great meaning behind it. It is our gift to you and we give it freely and with love, and with prayer that together, we will GROWW.

One of the most often used expressions concerning grieving is "I'm back to square one". It's like a "hopscotch" of emotions going from one to the other. The "roller coaster ride" of ups and downs.

Very often we hear, "I thought I was doing so well. I thought I was past that". We do move ahead little by little, one step at a time. There will be one day you don't cry, then two, then maybe a week or a month. But then comes the thought or the memory of the wedding you attend, or the birth of a grandchild, or just seeing a happy couple, and Wham! You're back to square one. It hits us like a ton of bricks and the pain is felt all over again.

What we are doing is "revisiting Square One". We go back there because something triggers the pain we felt at the beginning and we forget what steps have been taken to get to square two, square three and all the steps taken to get to where you are now. It's like walking on broken glass. If you stand still, the pain intensifies, but if you walk through it and make it outside the path of the broken glass, you'll find that your feet are strengthened. Walking back over that glass, the memory of the pain is there but walking over it again isn't quite as painful as the first steps. Why do cultures walk over shattered glass or burning coals? Think of the reason, the lesson it teaches. Perhaps to teach that there is pain in this life and it's something we all must go through but in going through it, we become stronger.

Those of us in Grief Recovery are walking through this together. We don't have to do this alone now that we found there are so many of us going through the same thing. We walk together over this shattered glass and remind each other that we will get through it, and hold each other up when we "revisit square one" and tell each other, "No, you are NOT back to square one, you are just remembering and feeling what it was back there. Focus on the steps already taken, not the first step and focus on the step you are taking at this very moment. Don't focus too far ahead on the steps that we are yet to take because you'll slip on the one you are on right at this moment.

"When does the pain stop?" The memory of it never does I don't think, but the pain stops as we go further in our life, one step at a time. The pain we feel now is the pain of trying to understand who we are now and where we are going. The rebuilding of our lives without them is hard, moving ahead is hard, and re-visiting the memories is hard. It stops when you can "see" that for everything there is a purpose. It stops with faith, because with faith you can believe that while they are taken from us they are never truly gone. It stops when the anger stops. It stops when we can believe there is a reason and the struggle to understand "why" becomes a quiet faith that we will never "know" why, but to accept that we cannot change what happened, we can only change what will happen because of it. It stops when we can forgive ourselves for not being able to prevent this from happening. We have no control over their deaths, but we have control over how we accept their death and find ways to learn to live with the knowledge that we must go on with our lives for their sake.... And for ours. And for the sake of others who we meet who face what we have faced. All of us brought together because of the pain to learn to accept, to understand, to reach out to others and to accept from others all the love and support that is given in our room.

Each of us moves forward at our own pace. No one can tell us how fast or how slow to walk or which steps to take, but we can be there for each other to reach out a hand as we take those hopscotch steps and hold on to each other when we fall back for the moment. So when you revisit square one, remember that's where you WERE, not where you are now.

Our Angel with the "hopscotch" reflects the stages of grief we each go through: the shock, the denial, the guilt, the anger and finally the acceptance.

Love and pain are the most powerful emotions we experience and grief is pain because of the love. It affects our spirit and our health and can consume our every thought.

Understanding the pain and facing it and know that you need to "work through the pain because hiding or suppressing it does no good. It is a demanding emotion that will surface regardless of how hard we try to run from it. Don't be afraid to let the tears flow. If there were not love there would be no pain and our tears bring healing and cleansing.

We each need our own time to work through our grief and our hopscotch of emotions. The support groups are important because it gives us an avenue to share the emotions of pain and sorrow while learning that each of us have to work through these emotions in our own way, our own time frame. We jump from one square to the other and may have to go back to square one more often than others. We learn that it's okay to take the time you need and that they are steps that only you can take because your pattern of that hopscotch may be a different direction than others.

Understanding that there are different stages in your grieving; shock, numbness, denial, depression, confusion, fear, anger, bitterness, guilt, regret, acceptance, hope, but knowing that the "squares" may be different than others or may take longer to pass over is okay.

The approaching holidays are difficult for all of us. For all of you who visit Grief Recovery or one or more of our Branches, share your fears and your pain with those who have taken further steps than you have and gain strength and hope from the many who have learned from "having been there". Listen to the many whom can tell you how the fellowship of the rooms has brought them to a place where they don't fear revisiting square one as they once did. They know that remembering the pain is a memory of the love and that letting go of the pain is not letting go of the love.

Grief is described very often as "the wind taken out of our sails". We can drift aimlessly without purpose or we can grab hold of the wind and move in new directions and find purpose for what has happened. We cannot control our past but we can control our future by taking new directions to somehow give purpose to their deaths. To honor their memories by building a legacy in their honor for who they were, for all they left behind and for all those we meet, by giving back what we have learned along the way.

Almost five years ago I saw what was the "embryo" of what could become the most successful means of support for millions who will face what we have faced. What better means of reaching out to everyone through this marvel of online chatrooms. Here was a way to reach everyone who owned a computer. The vision has now become a reality and we are here to share this with each and every one of you.

This website is for you Bill Divers, who I will love eternally and for as long as I live, will give your death a purpose so your sons and your grandchildren will know that you did not die in vain, because for you, I have fought to build this vision to give new direction to my life when the wind went out of my sails the day you died.

For all those who have died and for all of us who remain behind to keep their memories alive, GROWW dedicates this website with our Landscape Memorial so that we can share our lost dreams and our new hopes with one another because of the bond of loss and understanding we have found in Grief Recovery.

We invite each of you to share your memories of your loved ones with submittals to our newsletters, our message boards, our Landscape Memorial and your own personal memorial pages that can be linked to this website. Please visit this site often and together we shall GROWW, as "Our Angels among us teach us how to live, show us how to give and guide us with a light of love".

With Love to All,
Judy Divers