Hi All,
I have not written in a while.
As usual, I have been thinking. It’s such an immense time in my life… how to process all the change that has occurred.
We are approaching the first year anniversary of loosing our dear, wonderful daughter, Anne. She passed away on October 9th from an unknown heart condition… one that I wonder if we could have affected had we known… just one of the questions I have asked myself besides all the others… like Why? But as anyone who has experienced trauma in your life, that’s often an illusive, if not impossible question to answer.
As many of you know, we have started The Anne Saxelby Legacy Fund in Anne’s honor. This has been a positive way to honor her and also let her children know she is continuing to bring positive energy to the world… I know that although they are 9, 8 and 3 they get it. And, it is important to provide a positive in the light of all the dark that occurs when you loose someone you love.
Our journey, Bill’s and mine this past year, has been one we never could have anticipated or envisioned. Who ever envisions that one of their seemingly healthy children will pre-ceed them in death? That was never a thought in any place in my mind… now, I can come up with lots of other crazy things… but never that.
I do not wish this journey on anyone, even people I dislike… it’s not for the weak.
And, that brings me the the MORE part I added in my title.
I have not always accepted that life is for the large part, out of our personal control. It’s about acting and choosing, being the primarily positive person I am, I thought that working hard, doing good works, thinking of others, living a life of character, or trying to, would make a difference in how my life looked. And, in a lot of ways it has, but /and I have learned and now understand that much of life is out of our immediate control.
Embracing that, has actually been freeing, and aided by some crazy things that happened to Bill and I as we were in the earliest stages of grief. The day after Anne’s services, our car was stolen from in front of our apartment in Brooklyn, and it is not an area where you would anticipate or be concerned that would happen.
Three weeks later, it was found just as the Insurance company was writing us a check… it had been a home for someone… someone had been living in our vehicle. Although I am glad someone found some relief from what must be a tenuous situation for them, we were not interested in owning this vehicle any longer.
We owned another vehicle, so we thought given the current situations in our life, we would just wait and see what might be needed.
Bill and I chose to relocate to Brooklyn, to be closer to the kids, and to be able to have a permanent spot. A place we knew would be good for us, and for our family to be near.
We closed our home in Chicago, and moved to Brooklyn. In the process we had our car shipped to us…. the remaining one… and the day we moved into Brooklyn we got the call that there had been an “incident” with the transport of our vehicle, and could we please call them.
It seems the transport driver had not measured the height of the carrier with our SUV on it, and sheared the top of it off as he went under a bridge in Chicago…
What to do? Bill and I actually just started laughing… no one could make up these stories, and the craziness of it all was the clear moment when I gave up the thought of trying to truly control anything.
Cars, they can be replaced… people can’t. The ability to have these experiences while we were desperately working on holding ourselves together actually helped! I think the absurdity of the whole situation gave us the chance to take a break from our daily grief.
As anyone knows, when you loose someone you love deeply, grief is an individual journey. What is so interesting is that is has to be that way.
I am actually grateful that we had the crazy car diversions during the first months of Anne’s passing… I often wonder if she had a hand in it… to help us…
I never thought the impossible loss of a child would be something our family would have to carry… and carry it you do… each of us… all of us.
If you have people in your life who have this burden to carry, please be kind. Know that there is no time line on grief… there is no getting over, there is Love, and the ability to carry that for your person however that works for you in the continuation of your life journey.
If you’re lucky enough to have people in your life that you love deeply, honor them and tell them you love them every day.
That gives me solace, as Anne knew she was loved… every day.
Thanks for reading,
Pam