In June of last year, my youngest son was hard at work one beautiful sunny morning when without warning he took one step forward, out of this life and into the next. Determined by the experts to be heatstroke, he left behind two beautiful children and a loving wife, who along with my husband, his siblings and myself, have chosen to remember the gift of his presence in our lives with thankfulness and celebration rather than with grief.

That first night, after his body was found, I lay in bed and spoke to him, telling him how much I loved him and that I understood his decision to leave this life — though, really, I did not — and letting him know how grateful I was that of all the potential mothers in the world, he had chosen to be born to me.

The next morning, another brief conversation ensued before I moved my feet from bed to floor to begin another day. And soon such night and morning conversations became my habit, a time I began to look to as sacred, a moment of private communing before ending or starting each day.

Each of these conversations, I must add, was one sided. I simply put into words the feelings of my heart and spoke them into the silence of my solitude. But then one morning, as I awoke and remembered once again that the son who had been so physically human to me such a short time before could no longer be touched, or held or hugged, I began to cry. “Oh, Baby Boy,” I spoke aloud into the dark and quiet room, “I miss you so.”

And then as clearly as could possibly be, I heard his voice respond. “I don’t know why,” he said, his tone as dry as dust but lined with mirth. “You talk to me now more than you ever did.”

And still, though nearly a year has passed since that morning I laugh each time I remember those blunt words. I laugh because at the time I thought it was funny and true, and I still do. But I laugh even more because it was to me all the delicously wonderful proof I needed that my son had not left me, but was with me still.

A poem called “Death Is Nothing At All” was sent to me not long after his death. It has become a favorite, and I thought it might become the same for you.

Death is nothing at all,
I have only slipped away into the next room.
Whatever we were to each, that we are still.
Call me by my old familiar name.
Speak to me in the easy way
which you always used to.

Laugh as we always laughed
at the little jokes we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me. Pray for me.
Let my name be the household word
it always was.
Let it be spoken without effort.
Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same as it ever was;
there is absolutely unbroken continuity.

Why should I be out of your mind
because I am out of your sight?
I am but waiting for you, for an interval,
somewhere very near just around the corner…
All is well. Nothing is past, nothing is lost.

One brief moment and all will be as it was before,
only better, infinitely happier
and forever we will be one together.
How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!

Henry Scott Holland 1847-1918

I wish you thoughts of love and peace and knowing all is well each time your mind brings Barbara’s presence back to you as it most surely will. And I wish, too, that you might find the laughter and the joy that comes in knowing we are never away from those we love for we are, now and forever, all One.

May you be blessed as I have been blessed by you.

Kate Nowak

12″I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. 15All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.

when the spirit of truth comes, the whisper in your heart.
love Doug