Oh dolly, I use oil paints , I have only started now as long ago when I was in my teens I used to go to an aunt's place who used to paint and she would teach me when she had some time. There was one of 3 birds which when Micks was a baby and I used to feed him his cereal, I would hold the spoon to one of the bird's mouth and tell him, Ok, this is for mummy bird, this is for baby bird and then would get the spoon to his mouth and he would open his mouth to gulp the cereal...my beautiful beautiful baby...attaching one pic of Shreyas when he was just a few months old...hurts even to just look at the pic :(

Adorable baby!!!!!!

Vasanthi - what a precious baby pic. And I love your paintings and am so glad you have found that outlet. I used to paint watercolors (and oil long ago in college). Now I need a class to go to. I just can't motivate myself at home alone. But It is like gardening, You can just get lost for awhile in art.

Micks was adorable! He must be very proud of his mama and her painting, inspired, I suspect by him. You have a real talent, my friend.

Anne, do you mind if I repost the post you wrote on Monday on another grief forum...I understand if you want to keep it here though...

Vasanthi, thank you for sharing your artwork...it is beautiful...

Wishing everyone a peaceful day...another day without my sons, sigh...

Wishing everyone a peaceful day and days to come... Connie , I too didnt have a clue as to how to start as on my birthday Craig got me a painting set and said ,"ok, start painting..." as I had once mentioned that I liked painting. I asked him how can I just star? so we went to the art gallery near here and as luck would have it they wre to start painting classes in oils. I warned them that I am an absolute novice and she said Oh that doesn't...  matter at all..they were just waiting for the 4th student to start the class and there I was:) That was a couple of months ago and now that I at least know how to hold the brush, i paint just for my own pleasure and of course I feel nice if people like it.... love you all xoxoxox

Dear LR I don't mind if you share my Mondays post. Peace be with all of you.

I was always the one who saw the sun through any storm, now I'm just lost in the storm. 

A friend just sent me this, it is so beautiful! I just sent one for Kyra it is free, it has to be done before Sunday night.

http://lanternfloatinghawaii.com/page/collective_lantern

Leaving for NY now and back on Monday evening... love you all .. take care all of you

Lynn - thank you for sharing this. I did one for Daniel. It is Beautiful.

I am having such a hard time this week with all the graduations, etc. just such a hard time

I am wishing everyone a peaceful weekend and offer thanks to all our veterans.

Vasanthi have a safe and good trip.

Teresa D - I am lost in that storm with you

Today my good friend is coming to spend the day.  I'm really looking forward to it. Tomorrow her daughter is treating us to a day out. And Monday taking a relaxing boat ride.  I already cried today so I'm hoping I can keep the tears at bay while she is here. 

I was suppose to go to a viewing the other day but the closer the time came the more I couldn't do it.  The thought of seeing a coffin and someone in that coffin started to overwhelm me.  I felt so selfish and horrible but I was afraid what happened last time I attempted to attend one would happen again. I broke down at the door and couldn't breathe. 

How do I start to overcome some of this?  How do we deal with these things.  Just like everyone is still pressuring me to get married.  Problem is the minute I start to think about what that looks like I can't get pass the fact Michael's not going to be there.  Then I break down and that's as far as I can get with that thought.

I attempted to do the floating latern but I guess I missed the deadline. 

PEACE TO ALL!

The gal that I jumped in the cold channel for has passed away. I didn't know her, but for some odd reason I feel really bad for her family. She fought so hard, and for so long. Her life and death brought a entire community together for the fight against cancer. Today she was buried. I didn't go, but I watched from my window. Sometimes I just can't bring myself to go to funerals. I know attending let's God know I have respect for life, but I'm pretty sure He already knows what's in my heart. Every time something tragic happens in our small community I realize more, and more that I am not alone. I get so tired of tragedy, and death. Some days I yearn for something good. I'm tired of all the terrible, bad stuff on the news. I just want life to be more Happy. I pray for everyone to have more good days than bad. Peace and Love to all!

Dolly that was Brandon letting you know he is watching over you.

Every time I hear another young person has lost their life I cry.  I feel the pain and grief that those parents feel.  I too would give anything to trade places with Michael, but I have come to know God doesn't negotiate.

My fiancé says I have been talking in my sleep lately, something I never did before.  He says it sounds like I am having a conversation with someone.  I have no memory of a dream or a conversation.  I wonder if God is letting me talk to Michael. 

Adrianne, I am so sorry you are in so much physical pain.  I can't understand your pain, but I know how the physical pain can deplete us even more of our energy.  I keep you and all here in my prayers.  May you soon be feeling better.

Dolly thanks for sharing that! I believe in my heart that that hawk was a sign from Brandon! I also have noticed as time goes by how much closer I have become to nature. Not just in sight, but also in spirit. They also come much closer to me without fear. I came face to face with a raccoon hiding in our barn. I could hear her babies, and curiosity got the best of me so I had to look. Right there behind a piece of plywood was a mama coon and her babies. We looked each other in the eyes, and I was mesmerized by her beautiful eyes, than it dawned on me that she could've scratched out my eyes, but I wasn't afraid, and she didn't even try to attack me. Very bizarre because mama coons are very protective of their young. Each time I have a positive experience with nature I feel the love of my boys.

Tuesday I leave to go to see the neurologist. Been having terrible migraine's and much pain in my spine. I hope they can figure it out for me. I also got my pathology reports back, and it seems I have precancerous cells in the small intestine. Funny when I wanted to die I couldn't. Now I want to live, and I'm going to have to fight for it! Oh well that's life.

Adrianne I sure hope the Dr's can help you. It's bad enough with carrying grief, and than to have to deal with physical pain too can be overload. You are in my prayers.

On top of all that is happening in my life, I also have to serve on a federal jury this week. We were going through old paper work to find a deed to our rental house and I found an old picture of my Lil Del. Big smile, and the brightest, sparkling blue eyes you ever did see. He was the sweetest little boy. Full of love and wildness. I miss them both so much, but I know in my heart that I will see them again. I don't know what the future will bring for me, but one thing I do know. I know in my soul that there's nothing I can't handle. At least for now.

Teresa I sure hope that you were talking to Michael in your sleep! It's possible!

I think I will start singing again, but not for large audiences, but to spread my message of love to those who could use some comfort, and happy thoughts. Who knows, maybe I will again be able to write songs once more. You all hang in there. My heart is with all of you. I hope you all hear the strength, and courage I hear every time you share your thoughts, and experiences here on this site. I hear all of you making great strides on this journey. We will always fall down, but we will also get back up with each other's help, and comfort. Much Peace and Love to each and every one of you!

hi my name is kim, I just lost my beautiful son in nov, he was with me in our van, his heart stopped, I died to that day,  I go see him everyday, my heart is so broken, I want so bad to be with him. I only have the one child, even though he is 41 now hes always going to be my baby. I cant stop crying morning noon and night. and I feel so alone, friends don't call anymore and I feel my sisters are not here for me either. how does life go on with everyone and mu life is over.  I pray every night to go with him, im so tired anymore. I asked him to send me bunnies and everyday there on our front lawn, but I stopped dreaming7 months ago and I need him to come to me so bad, I need to know hes ok and with my mom. no one knows the pain im in, no one understands the heart break I feel. I just want so bad to go with him, the pain is so unbearable.to never hear my shawns voice or see his beautiful smile, what I would give to even here him yell at me one more time. how can I ever heal without the love of my life? 

My music is all on paper, and some on CD. I'm not very tech savvy. However I can share lyrics.

Dear Kim I'm so sad to have to welcome you to a group no one wants to belong too. We are here. We know what your going through. I have learned that my sons started coming to me when the time was right. Time is different for everyone. We are all like snowflakes. We have a common denominator but we are all so unique. Personally I lean on faith. Been down every wrong road there is on this journey. When faith became my last resort, I was finally capable of some peace. Your journey  has just begun. Read posts here from all of the different folks who have walked in your shoes. Every story is different, and we each have our own way of coping. Learning to cope comes with time, and support. Most of us have had problems with friends, and family dealing with this tragedy. When you come here you never feel alone. Some of us have been walking this journey for a while, and some are in the middle, and some are as raw as you. One thing we all have in common is our love for our children, and the pain of death. Some days I can cope, and some days not so much. The days that are tough I just do my best to go with the flow. The big  sore of losing a child never goes away, but it does scab over in time. The wound opens up on occasion, but that's the reality of this journey. You are not alone.

I went to the cemetery today. I put flowers on my sons graves, and an American flag on my son Bens grave. I cried, told them how much I loved, and missed them. I kissed both of their headstones, sat in my van till the tears dried, and left for home. It's very painful for me to go to the cemetery. I know in my heart they are not there, but seeing their names engraved in stone hurts. May the Peace, and Love that passes all understanding be with all of you today!

or plant a penny with your hydrangea if you want it to be blue. A penny from heaven.

My dear Kim, I am so so sorry for your loss. I have also lost my son and only child 18 months ago next Saturday. I can't add much but to say that we are here for you and unbearable as its seems right now, you will survive with some love and understanding. And hopefully you can find that here. Love to everyone

Well tomorrow I leave for the big city! Dr appts, and Federal jury duty. Know that you are all loved. Hang in there! You will all be in my thoughts and prayers. Peace, and Love to all.

I want to thank everyone that sent me a letter,  I cryed reading them all.  its so very special to know  people do care and understand what im going through.  and im so very sorry for your loses to.  the pain is so unbearable, hard to thing it will fade a little in time.  to lose the love of my life has changed me, I just don't care about anything anymore.  thank you so very much for letting me know im not alone, you truly are special people to care about someone you don't know. right now im pretty mad at god, but im so very glad I have found you to help me,   thank you   kim

5 years ago.... tears rained from heaven as I left my baby at Milwaukee Children's Hospital.... to become an organ donor hero.....  Yes 5 years later... I remember.... and I cry.... and I still miss him.....PEACE  for all of us who only have "Photographs and Memories" left  to remember them......

Grace - what a beautiful boy. I love his smile and those blue eyes! I hope it is of some comfort to know that as an organ donor, he has helped others live on. We weren't able to make organ donations from my son because of it took so long for the coroner to get to the scene. You are very brave and I know your son is always with you and so proud of you.

Kim,

Please do not feel alone. Love to you and wish you peace and strength for the difficult days ahead.

I have kept coming here the past few days and as I was away, I could use the phone but always find it better to sit with the computer and message you all. New York was nice but needless to say missed Shreyas so so so much. There will never be a time when I will feel the glowing feeling of contentment I think.

Went to the WTC on Memorial day and also had you all in my heart.. we who deeply grieve and who have had such monumental losses that I just feel that even if we are barely functional we are heroic :(

Dolly read your message here wondering how I was.. felt deeply touched that you thought of me. 

btw Saturday evening had a huge row in the hotel with my husband and literally felt like ending it all.... in fact I told him, " lissen why dont you just fling me out of the window?" I think he was stressed with the city and somehow felt that I kept looking to him for everything and wasnt taking initiative...sighhhhhhh sighhhhhh sighhhhhhhhh... what f!@!#$@#$@#@! initiative will I ever feel like taking? and yet everytime I cant keep reminding people that heyyyyy I lost my only son so do you mind and can you be kind? how long will people listen anyway? well Sunday and Monday were fine and often felt I was back in Mumbai. Groton is a very quiet wooded area and I was missing the city life..well just love and hugsss to you all xoxoxox

Grace..... sweet sweet baby ...what a beautiful boy.... hugsssss

Thank You everyone... he was so sweet..... He had Autism... was sometimes a challenge..... My life as well as our whole family revolved around him .... I fought for him at school and was and still remain a strong advocate for the disabled....   I always worried about me leaving him (dying before him) and who would take care and love him like a mother..... but I never meant for him to die at 14..... I can't believe I have continued to breathe for these past 5 years...... I really do miss him....but for those of you "Fresh" to this new life... there will always be a line of the "Before you lost them and After they were gone" ...but you will have a life with some happiness too..... You will always miss and love them... you will still cry...but you will be still breathing 5 years later...... even if right now you don't want to be....

Maybe eternal life is when people still love you and remember you   5 years.... or 50 years after you are gone....   we all worry we will forget them...but we never will.....

thank you so much vasanthi, my heart is so broken, I to am thinking of ending it all. I want so bad to be with my son ( shawn)my only child. without him I feel nothing. my husband is so worried about me, but I just can feel any more. to go on without him is unbearable, being on here I see others who are in deep pain to, who understand what im going through. I pray every night god takes me to my baby. I think together we  MIGHT get through this a little, thank you everyone for being here for me and I hope I can give back to you to. my eyes are so swollen everyday, and everyday is so hard to go on, but im trying, dear god its so hard.  I sleep with his clothes, I wear his coats , I wear his watch and rings, I smell him everyday in them. again thank you everyone for being a friend

grace, your son is so beautiful. and always will be, thank you for careing, my very very best to you ,  I know your pain, remember hes always with you

This is my daughter. She was 38 and died suddenly of an accidental overdose on prescription drugs. She was in a program and was at a motel with her 4 year old and another mother with her children. It was close to midnight. She fell asleep and no one could get her to wake up. The EMT's could not resuscitate her so they called her death on April 13. She has four children who are everywhere. One is in a group home, two others are with family, and the eldest is 18 and living with cousins. My daughter stopped paying for her life insurance so I had to raise the money to bury her. It was so hard. The coroner's office would not release her to me because they found out she was still married to her estranged husband of two years. They located him. He died in November 2013, just five months before my daughter. She was a widow and did not know it. I am happy she never knew because she truly loved him and I don't know how she could have reacted to his death. It has been tough trying to understand why this happened even though I can guess. She was attacked when she was pregnant and the baby died. That was ten years ago. From that point on she was on heavy medications. It doesn't get any easier as the weeks roll by. I guess I feel there is unfinished business waiting for the coroner's report and her headstone to be set. I miss her random texts and most of all hearing on my voicemail "Mommy it's me."  

PS...I lost my first daughter when she was 11 months old. That was in 1974. I have lost both of my daughters...I have my twin boys who are 27.

 I feel so lost.  I don't know what to say anymore.  I want to be able to offer words of encouragement to new comers but I can't find the words. 

I'm not sure but I think I was stuck between disbelief and reality now I think I'm moving more towards this is REALITY!

Carebear's Mom your daughter is so pretty.  I cried when I read "Mommy it's me"  funny how we miss the small things so much.  I miss Michael resting his arm on my head and cracking jokes about me being short.

Kim I am so sorry I haven't had much to say to support you. I'm just a little lost right now.  But please know I read everyone's post.  I want so much to stop new people from coming to this place.  I don't want anyone to feel this horrible pain. 

Kim you are valuable to me.  Crying is okay. I have been crying everyday since September 14, 2012.

Theresa, thank you and im so very sorry for your loss. its been so hard, and empty. my life means nothing anymore. shawn is my life and always will be, in a few days his stone will be on, I want it there but at the same time im so afraid, I don't want to know its final, I feel the stone will make me see that. I want to dream again and see him, talk to him and dear god I want so bad to hear MOM again one more time. how will we ever go on, I don't understand,

I love this illustration Dolly and the song. Of course it made me cry. I just feel adrift in a big ocean like that. It just makes me horrified all over again everytime I think, he's not coming back. ever. Not the way I want him to.

Dolly that is soooo sweet.

Kim just know we all share the grief that you feel.  I know how it feels like even though your breathing you feel like you died the day Shawn left. You wonder how you will ever be able to pull it together and function again. 

I now realize my world is different now.  Like this site. I can't go a day without checking in for that support.  Even when I seem missing I'm here peaking in and reading. 

I haven't found my way through this storm and even though I have days when I think I'll never find my way people like Anne give me hope that one day I will be able to smile for real again. 

We will NEVER stop being moms and we will NEVER stop loving our kids.  And while other moms might now understand us (we don't want them to) we understand us.

thank you Theresa, I know you all understand my pain. joining this group and talking to people that are going through what im going through makes me know im not alone in my suffering. im so very sorry everyone is going through this to. to see how all of you reach out to me is beyond anything I could ask for right now. I too peak in a few times a day just to read what others are saying.  yes I have planted a garden in shawns name, a butterfly bush and a beautiful angel and a rose bush that suddenly was on my front lawn, I know my shawn sent it to me, so we replanted it in the garden. the support in here is unreal. people really do care and share there losses to. I wish I could hug everyone aqnd help them in a small way, but I know the pain im in I cant help them when I cant help myself. ev ery night I pray I die and every morning I wake up, upset that im still here. I thank you all from the bottom of my broken heart for being here when I so badly need it. I hope we all can see a light behind all this darkness,

I am coming up on the twenty month mark of my son Jesse, passing. I cannot believe still that this is my reality. We still live in the area where he grew up so everything is a memory for me...driving down the road, going to the store, or a stop a park....it is overwhelming me.

I have found that nature is not healing for me. This is because my son loved being outdoors and being close to nature. I have been spending more time with my parents who live in an urban area just so I won't keep triggering panic and anxiety attacks.

For some, I know being close the last location their loved one was works, for me I have found it is the opposite...so many reminders that he is not  here....too many days I want to go screaming and jump off the edge of a cliff..

This all just makes me mad, because of this being my second child loss and the way he died, he was on the way to his doctor's appointment that I encouraged...like three days before his death I told him, "Make sure to go to the doctor"...I am so angry...

Now forever live with that being in the back of my mind, no matter what, it will never be erased until I die...I tried to serve God and so did my son, I do not understand my fate here...and I too pray for a short life. Everyday.

dear L R   im so very sorry. I know your pain. it is unbearable. knowing we are not alone helps, everyone here does care, they know what we are feeling. everyday I pray to die to be with my only child my son shawn. hes the love of my life. he left me at the doctors office in the parking lot after getting meds. I died that day to. I feel so very alone without him,  but here I can get it out. I cry all day and night. I feel no one understands , but here they do. I feel god is making me suffer, why I do not know, but I do know my son is still here with me everyday.  I know your children are still with you, take care   kim

I wish there was a way to reassure all of you that this is not Gods will, and it is not God making us suffer. I thought that too for a very long time, but since my second son died I have been learning a lot about God, his will, and who is really causing all of this suffering. It is not God. It is Satan. Who else would cause the ultimate pain, and use it to keep us from God? Something to think about. Once I realized the truth about who was really to blame for my broken heart, I also began to feel God's comfort, and love. God loved me enough to wait for me to learn the truth, and come back to him. Peace, and Love to all.

Anne I agree with you, the devil does his work as well. 

LR, I'm right there with you.    I ask myself why didn't I hear something in his voice but at the same time I thank God for that last phone call.  I will forever remember every word and cherish that call. 

My daughter yesterday brought me the photo disk from his service.  I haven't seen it since that day.  It was hard but I had to watch it.  Starting with his newborn picture and ending with him as an adult.  I cried, cried and cried some more.  But then I noticed that in 95% of the pictures he was smiling.  That was the Michael everybody knew. 

God is holding up one side and Michael is holding up the other side.  When I'm hitting bottom the hardest I ask Michael to hold my hand.  In my heart I know he is doing just that.

It is hard to understand any of this in the context of faith...there were many experiences prior to my son's leaving, a kind of "knowing" something was going to occur...what I thought about God has dramatically shifted since, He is a being outside of time and death and life are in His hand, but this does not change the impact of grief on me...and the wondering, did I do something? All I know is that I miss my son and my heart is shattered...

Dolly, those signs our loved one continues...thanks for sharing..

to my wonderfull son    SHAWN  , my heart is so broken, my tears would fill an ocean, I would give up everything to be with you now. 40 years were not enough time, when you left me I died to. you will always be my special angel, my beautiful son I miss you more than words can say. I know you will never leave me, and I pray im with you soon, help me through this baby,  love you forever   mom

last night I was out side around 10.30 and I tooked up at the biggest star like every night I named it shawn, and I said please shawn give me a sign you are here with me now,  suddenly a firefly flew bye me and my husband, I know he sent it to me, hes with me always, I love and miss him so bad.