Bereaved – Signs from my Daughter

Blindsided

My daughter’s diagnosis of breast cancer came out of the blue. Jasmine, my younger daughter, died fifteen months later. She was 39. Nothing prepares you for the death of a child. My heart broke and my body hurt with the pain of grief.

It was the Irish chaplain in Jasmine’s hospice who gave me permission to grieve. “Let it rip,” he advised. “This pain is love. Allow the grief to unfold in whatever way it wants to. There is a healthy pain associated with grieving that will dissolve in time. However, when grief is held back and not expressed, the emotions stay locked in the body and can cause physical and emotional illness. So, allow yourself to feel everything.”

Feeling the feelings

Instinctively, I began writing letters to Jasmine. Discharging my feelings onto the page helped to ease my sense of anguish.

Grief is unpredictable and you never know when it might be triggered. Every emotion under the sun emerged – despair, deep sorrow, anger and rage. I felt a failure as a mother, that I had somehow let her down and not kept her safe.

Light in my life

I will never forget the morning when, four months after Jasmine died, I felt her presence around me. The natural light in the room became much brighter and I even felt a light brush across my cheek. I could hardly believe it!

At first, I dismissed the notion that this could have been Jasmine, but when I felt her presence a second time, I realised that it really was her. Tears poured down my face. ‘You’ve come back. You’ve come back. Oh, thank you,” I said out loud.

These signs continued for nearly eighteen months. Twice, a painting of hers dropped mysteriously off the wall. At other times the lamp in my sitting room would flicker – it was always when I was sad. Another time the heavy brass lamp hanging from the ceiling began swaying. My grandson, who was staying with me said grinning, ‘that’s Auntie Jasmine isn’t it?’

Sometimes I would smell her fragrance, in the hallway, and even once when I was on a bus.

After the signs

There was more grief when Jasmine’s signs stopped. It was a terrible jolt. ‘Please don’t leave me, Jasmine!’ And then over the next days I sensed that Jasmine was trying to tell me that I don’t need her signs any more; that she has not left, that she is always present here in my heart. I talk to her every day as there is always something to share with her.

Life has changed. I no longer take it for granted. Each day counts. I want to make a difference, even if it is simply smiling at a stranger at the bus stop. The grief has changed and a soft, tender sadness has taken its place. I laugh more. I cry more. My heart is wide open.