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A Lesson in Healing

Last night was the end of the Arts in Healing Class that this was the final project for. While I still have work to do on it, I am very proud of what I have done here.

For me this class was a way to begin a healing process that has been put off for so long due to prolonged exposure to more tragedy, more death.

The project was difficult at times and very time consuming but it never felt like work.

As my classmates presented their projects, I felt a peace and relief coming over each one of us. I was captured by some of the stories and my heart ached for some who are still experiencing pain and heartache.

We all bared our souls, and the class listened without judgement. We exposed ourselves in a place that was warm and loving and I think we all felt inspired by our stories.

The class was like a giant therapy class. Everyone was given a turn to share and we ended with an incredible presentation of a beautiful ceremony for healing and peace. It couldnt have ended any other way.

After the class everyone talked to each other and listened and one very sweet woman came up to me and said "I want to give you a hug, would that be ok?"

I am a hugger. I think hugging someone is one of the greatest ways to express comfort when there are no words. My husband and children disagree and find hugging awkward and uncomfortable. They are all unable to express most of their feelings and I think it is easier to hide when you are standing away from someone, not enveloped in their arms.

Thank you for your hug. I truly appreciated it.

After saying goodbye to KD and Marianne, I felt such a sense of peace as I walked to my car. I thought that I would feel that way because I would have Tuesday nights back again, but I was actually dissapointed that I wouldnt be there anymore.

No, the peace I felt was the beginning of a road of healing that I am going to finally allow myself.

If anyone is reading this and would like to include their stories or poems or anything you can leave a comment on any of the posts or you can email me at
mrsbeasley123@yahoo.com.

You all have made a difference in my life with your stories and I appreciate how much it took to do that.

It was a lesson in healing and I think this is one lesson we all deserve an A in.

Too little time

The story of the dragonfly has helped my sister in law get through some of the most painful moments of her life, even more painful than having hodgkins disease at 18.

My sister in law is the baby of 5, all the four above her boys. She is the baby and the only girl. We always wondered what kind of man she would marry. Who could ever fit in with the mix of brothers she had?

And then she met Jeff. He walked into the family like he had always been here. Just another one of the brothers. And yet just as easily an "outlaw" with the wives of the brothers. He treated my sister in law like a princess. He cooked and cleaned and when their son was born became the dad that all kids wish for.

He loved being a dad and he loved being a husband. He was up for anything. He fished, he drank, he was a good ol boy from Massachussetts. I know that doesnt make sense but just go with it.

They moved back to Long Island and bought a house near the rest of the family in the Hamptons. He built a chicken coop in the backyard and ordered baby chicks that he raised. He was your perfect neighbor always offering to lend a hand and making friends with everyone he ever met.

In September of 2004 he was in his work truck and someone ran a stop sign and hit him. He was hurt. He had ruptured 2 discs in his back and spent months getting steroid shots, going for physical therapy and taking drugs that never worked.

Finally the pain was just too much to bear. He saw a doctor who recommended surgery. He couldnt work, he couldnt move and he could not take the pain. And let me just add that this guy could cut off his own finger and then play an entire football game. He was not a wuss. He was a big, strong guy and the pain was killing him.

We picked up their son Ryeguy from their house on a Monday. Hubby said the pain in Jeffs face was unbearable and he was glad he was finally having surgery to fix it. They checked into the hospital on Tuesday morning and he had surgery at around 8am.

He was supposed to come home the same day. He came out of the surgery in such excrutiating pain it was unbearable. My sister in law came over and was crying and saying this isnt right. My mother who had had the same surgery just 20 years earlier said No I felt that awful too, It takes time.

Jeff wanted to stay in the hospital. The nurses wanted him to get up, walk around, drink a ginger ale, eat a jello, pee and then go home. Jeff couldnt get up. The doctor spoke to him on the phone and said you have to get up. Jeff said I cant, the pain is unbearable. The doctor said Fine stay in bed, get a blood clot and die and he hung up.

The nurses said Jeff must have been a vicodan addict because the pain killers werent working. Jeff said I never took the vicodan because it never worked for me. She said yeah sure, you're a drug addict and we arent giving you anything else. He was slowly dying and being tortured the whole time.

Wednesday comes and he is not feeling any better and they tell him he has to go home the insurance wont pay and he still cannot walk. So my sister in law calls the doctor from my house and finds out the doctor who did the surgery is on vacation and his brother is on call. He will be fine the doctor says. He needs to get up. He cant says my sister in law. He has no choice says dr. killer.

So my sister in law returns to the hospital to find that they have packed Jeffs bags and checked him out of the hospital. She can barely make it to the car with him and calls ahead for her cousin to meet her at home so they can get him out of the car.

They live an hour away from the hospital. I tell her we will keep Ryeguy so she can get Jeff settled and we will bring him home later or tomorrow. She half argues but thank god finally agrees.

On the way home Jeff feels sick, he wants to throw up, he cant breathe. She figures it is the anesthesia and he just needs to get home and rest in his own bed.

They are not in the door for more than 2 minutes and he collapses in the front hallway. They call 911 who is there immediately and they take him away in an ambulance.

But he is already gone. A blood clot, lots of blood clots to the lungs and brain. Blood clots that had been building since the surgery. Blood clots that took away a father who wanted to be there for little league, for school events. A husband who wanted to take care of his princess, and give her more little children to love.

Hubby got a call while I was shopping at BJs that Jeff had collapsed. He got in the car and headed to the hospital. He got another call in the car that he had passed. Kaka his sister asked him to please go in and say goodbye for her. He did. And then he called me.

Hey whats up I say? Um Jeff passed away a little while ago. No Hubby No I collapse to the wall. I have Ryeguy in the tub and it takes every ounce of strength I have to keep it together for him. But somehow I look into the face of that beautiful boy and I say no honey everything is fine, because I just want him to have one more peaceful night of sleep before his life is turned upside down.

Was it preventable? The judges and lawyers said no. I say maybe. Maybe if the hospital has paid attention to a man who was crying out in pain. Maybe there was nothing that could be done but the last moments of his life did not have to be in such torment and despair. All that was needed was a little compassion, a little understanding.

I get angry when I think about what my sister in law has lost. I am angry that there was no one to blame except for the guy that hit him in the car. I am angry that there is a 7 year old child without a father because no one would listen.

My sister in law just got a dragonfly tattoo to remind her that maybe Jeff is in a better place. Maybe we are all just the waterbugs and someday we will all be together flying gracefully through the sky with our beautiful wings.

We never know how long we have or what our lifetime is. Jeffs was only 35 years but he made an impact that will last a lot longer than that.

Every time I see a dragonfly I know it is Jeff. Watching over my family and my sister in law, making sure that someday we will be together again. And we will make up for lost time. We miss you Jeff.

The Poems

When Professor Kronenberg visited our class and shared some poems with us I knew immediately that I wanted to write as part of my Arts in Healing final project. When she asked us to write two poems about ourself, one from the "I" perspective and another from the "she" perspective I had no trouble writing but I cried through both.

My sister in law had just passed away just 6 days before and my family and I had spend the whole weekend at the wake and funeral.

Although the poems were supposed to be about us the only words I could find where ones to describe the intense pain I felt at her loss.

The poems are below and I am still working on her story.

Her name was Stacie and she was only 27 years old. She died of a rare form of cancer called Osteosarcoma and Chondrasarcoma. Please visit the link I have provided of a cancer blog that discusses this terrible disease.

Poem #1

My heart aches

My heart races

It is raw

and the pain is all I feel now

The butterflies in my stomach land and take off again

Tiny bumps break out up and down my arms.

My hair stands on end.

I've been here before.

Too many times.

I know in time

the pain will ease, the butterflies will fly away for good

and all I will have left

is the memories of you

And the rainbow you once brought to my life.

Poem #2

She seems so strong
yet so soft
Rigid, Unwavering
Yet soothing and comfortng
She wants more
yet settles for less
She hides her aching
She thinks
Yet tears fall without thought
She hopes for better
but knows better
She always comes through
then cries alone
she is certain every time
it will be different now
Yet there is more pain, more death, more suffering
She wants time to pass
so healing can begin
She wants time to stand still
so no one else can pass
She wants to go back
And see you again
if only for one more smile
that you always brought her way.

Healing lesson #3
I do not pretend to know everything about life. And I do not understand why our loved ones seem to be taken so soon but I do know we have one life to share and every day that we do not use it to do something to heal another person or ourselves is just a wasted opportunity for growth.

There's just too much that time cannot erase

My brother in law George was in a snowboarding accident January 6th, 2004.

He suffered a permanent Traumatic Brain Injury.

He has returned to life with my sister as a husband, father and employee.

But he will never be the same.

This song reminds me of him and I miss him everyday.

I spent a month in Reno one day

I spent a month in Reno one day. This is a joke I told often as I sat in the ICU waiting room of Washoe Medical Center in Nevada. It never got any funnier, yet I felt compelled to repeat it as new people were introduced into our circle of despair.
In reality, I spent a month in that ICU waiting room. It is extremely accurate in its name, “waiting room”. There isn’t much else to do there. Unless of course they called it the “hoping room”, in that case it would describe the life of the people, waiting and hoping, that was all we did.
As the days went on we made friends with the other “waiters”, all with the same dull expression on their face. We would glance in the direction of the new members of our exclusive club, what are you in for? Car accident, you? Snowboarding accident. Oh. We all jumped when the heavy white door would swing open. We all cringed when we watched a family being called into the conference room. The news was never good. Good news was shared immediately in the waiting and hoping room. Bad news was saved and sheltered until the words could be spoken behind closed doors. Away from the hopers who already were holding on by a thread. No… we could not hear bad news in the waiting and hoping room. It just couldn’t be done.
Marilyn’s mom and aunt knitted all day long, in between visits into the circle of pain and suffering that went on behind the big white door. Only two people at a time were allowed to pass through that door to the place where the smiles were painted on while tears of pain and suffering dripped down your face. Most came out through that door sobbing like a child who just lost their puppy. Uncontrollable, heart-wrenching sobs that became as common place as exchanging smiles or handshakes when you meet someone.
Some only had two people waiting for them in that room. We were 3000 miles from our home on Long Island but we had the most people there, about 10. When the doctor said, “Tell anyone that wants to see him to come now”, we took that to heart. Streams of friends and family raced to JFK airport to make the 5-hour trip to Reno in the dead of winter. They left their jobs and their families to see him one more time. Or so that is what we thought.
Comas are hard to predict. The longer you are in the coma the less chance you have of coming out of it. The initial diagnosis was the worst it could possibly be. The lowest score on the Glasgow Coma Scale you could get was a three. That was what George was, a three. A three meant he did not open his eyes, did not make any sounds and had no movement even in response to pain. A three meant he might never see his unborn child. Just 6 months along, my sister sat with pain for two, not just herself. A three meant my children would lose their favorite uncle, the one who babysat more times than my sister and made ice cream waffle sundaes for breakfast. A three meant I would lose the brother I had always wanted and had found just 7 years before when he married my sister.
Nan’s family was called into the conference room many times. We held our breath for them, the husband and the two children in their 20’s, who eventually were forced to make the most devastating decision a family can make, when to pull the plug, when to give up and walk away from the waiting and hoping room. I desperately wanted to leave that room, but only with my brother in law, certainly not alone with that decision weighing heavily on my shoulders.
Jose’s family got good news frequently as they waited. There were a lot of them, his parents, his younger siblings, and his girlfriend who waited and hoped and filled the waiting room with bags of junk food, which included every fast food chain in Reno. He would live, but riding that motorcycle was definitely going to be impossible after the loss of that leg. It was good news that all he lost was his leg. We worried with them for his life and head injury. Yes, life could go on as an amputee. It was something we celebrated with snacks from the cafeteria.
The waiting and hoping room was closed for two hours during the day and from 10pm-8am at night. This forced us all to leave. If not for these rules we may have stayed forever. We had lunch from 12pm-1pm every day and dinner from 6pm-7pm. Life was so structured, so regulated. We began our mornings with coffee and a banana. A bit of a advice, don’t ever enter into a crisis situation with a pregnant woman. All I wanted was to indulge my pain and sorrow in ice cream, candy and fattening buttery delicacies. She ordered us fruit from room service. You cannot drown your sorrows in fruit. We ate at the hospital for lunch, soup and salad bar every day- broccoli cheddar soup and salad with ranch dressing, every single day, for a month. Dinner was our big excursion out of the hospital, especially after we were in Reno for ten days and moved from Harrah’s Casino in the high rollers room to the calmer confines of the hospital apartments. We were closer there, just in case.
We very rarely left that building but when we did those dinners out were filled with deep emotion. We never knew what we would find when we got back. Of course we all had our cell phones glued to us but with a crisis they tend to take care of the crisis first and then call later.
I had to leave for a week in the middle of the crisis. I had a conference in Florida that I could not miss. I tried to get out of it but I couldn’t and I agonized over this for every second leading up to my departure until I could get back to my position in that waiting room. I got the call when I was sitting in a movie in Florida that I had forced myself to go to for some peace from my overactive imagination.
“He opened his eyes”, my mother screamed into the phone. She had flown in and taken my place among the other waiters and hopers when I had to leave. “What does this mean?” I yelled back as I exited the painful screening of Cheaper by the Dozen. “Well, not much” my mother responded disappointingly “but I just feel like its something, right?”
It was something. He progressed from there, albeit very slowly. Time stood still for us that month in Reno. Life somehow had gone on around us but the lives of our fellow ICU friends and the others who waited and hoped never changed. It was hard to go back to our lives before. George was never going to be the same and neither were we. We felt scarred somehow with deep wounds that would soften but never heal completely. We felt unsure and we felt ill prepared for the future. The future that included words like Traumatic Brain Injury, memory loss, cognitive difficulties and lifetime care.
Waiting and hoping is what we did like it was our job. And it was, for the month I spent in Reno one day.

The Day the Mountain Screamed.. an original poem

The day the mountain screamed
it was a Tuesday
I think about 8 at night
I heard the gasp
I saw their face
I knew nothing would ever be right
they tried to hide it
they tried to smile
but they left on the next flight

there were wires
there were beeps
the room seemed to stay still
the time went fast
the time went slow
the hours were tough to fill
I prayed for strength
I prayed for him
God please…. its me Jill

he had the face of a rock star
a smile that melts hearts
he made us laugh, he fed us ice cream
I thought we would never be apart
But we don’t know where we are going
We don’t know what life has planned
Now he’s just there in our dreams
that day the mountain screamed

life went on
the years have flown by
the time spent together has been lost
he looks the same
but all is gone
Why did we try, what has been the cost
I am not the same
How could I be
the warmth we once had is just frost

what has happened to this man
a father to be
now he’s like a little boy
I want to scream
This is not fair
my family has lost its joy
we’ve pieced it together
we’ve held each others hand
we’ve cried oh how we’ve cried oh boy

he had the face of a rock star
a smile that melts hearts
he made us laugh, he fed us ice cream
I thought we would never be apart
But we don’t know where we are going
We don’t know what life has planned
Now he’s just there in our dreams
that day the mountain screamed

Oh yeah we don’t know where we are going
we just don’t know what is our life’s plan
He is there in our dreams, so many dreams
the day, oh that day the mountain screamed