To Die....To Live

I don't watch Oprah very often. Most of the stories are dull and uninteresting, typical of the average talk show. Every so often, she'll do a show that is really amazing; if it isn't amazing then it's at least compelling enough to keep me watching. Today's show was on heroes. I wasn't paying a whole lot of attention until the end when she was talking about her hero, Mattie Stepanek. Mattie was a little kid with some rare form of muscular dystrophy. It's so hard to see kids in wheelchairs, so those weren't the episodes I watched very often. I remember hearing that he had died at the age of 13--not quite making it to his fourteenth birthday. He really was a remarkable kid...far wiser than most people three or four times his age. Just watching him you could feel his intense energy and love for his fellow man. He wanted to be remembered as a poet and a peacemaker. Jimmy Carter and Oprah Winfrey were just a few of the thousands of people whose lives he touched and who spoke at his funeral. The local firemen in his area loved this kid...and he loved them as well. He was given a hero's funeral and his name has been put on the fallen voluntary fire fighter's memorial in his town. Pretty remarkable stuff for one so young... and yet, not so young. Undoubtedly the soul that briefly occupied that small, sickly body was ancient...it was in his eyes. Today Oprah had his mother on the show and she recounted his last days, his body was wracked in pain to the point that his fingernails fell off and he gasped for every breath he took. He would tell his mother how beautiful Heaven was and how he was ready to go; she couldn't help but beg him to stay with her. For two weeks the little guy lived...drifting in and out of consciousness and talking about how nice Heaven was. Finally his mom realized that she was hurting the one who meant the most to her and she finally said that he could go. A few hours later he died in her arms.
I will be the first to admit hearing her recount the death of Mattie made me cry. I don't know about anyone else, but somehow hearing about such things is comforting to me. Maybe it's because I really did most of my grieving for Kim alone. No one here ever met Kim. In fact, I know of only one person actively involved in the community who knew Kim....but she knew Him as the funny, brilliant manager of Orvis Hot Springs (she might actually make it up here in October!). Everyone has been kind and listened to me go on and on about Kim. I still grieve and I suppose I will until we meet again...and I know that we will. But I digress. When 9/11 happened, all of those people who lost their loved ones were people I looked to for their courage; I related to them. I love to see the segments on the kids who were born after 9/11 and the ones who remembered their parents. I still cry when I see all those people who still struggle and mourn, and yet, I also see how they continue to live and find love and joy in life. It's so hard to find joy after enduring the loss of someone...no matter how long you've known them or how they died. The pain never ceases, it just becomes possible to move it further back in your memory so you can go on with your life. My lonliness was the reason why I found the Grieving Leatherfolk Yahoo group. I have found many who feel as alone as I did...and I hope knowing that we aren't alone is of some comfort to others.
Kim was an amazing man. When we were first starting to talk, He told me that He would always be there for as long as I needed Him. I don't doubt that He did everything in His power to make His passing as easy on me and L. as possible. When L. called me and told me that she didn't think He had much longer to go, I didn't think I'd make it to California to say goodbye; but He waited. He was so relieved and happy to see me and have both of His girls with Him. He even stayed for the next day, but I knew He was ready to go; He had been ready to go the week before when I left for home. Sometimes you can see it in their eyes that they have let go and they're only waiting for the rest of us to accept that it is time. Grandpa was kind of the same way, only, I think that somehow Grandpa was more afraid of dying, even though Kim was forty years younger. It was an honor to be with Kim when He died. It was an amazing spiritual experience for me...one that I don't think I'll fully understand until it's my turn. Death is life... whether or not it leads to something else for the soul. It most certainly changes the direction of the lives of those who grieve. I am not the suicidal girl Kim found grasping for life on the internet, I am far better for what He taught me in the last ten months of His life. His death was my rebirth into a new and better life than what I had before I met Him.