“Yesterday I received in the mail a letter from my uncle (my dad’s brother). It was in a cardboard express mail envelope. I pulled the tab on the envelope and peeked inside to find a handful of yellow legal pad papers. Eighteen pages.
“He wrote of all the memories of my father from childhood, some memories from adulthood and told me about his very last visit with my father.
“Eighteen pages of memories, wisdom, and advice.
“This is one of the best gifts I have ever received in my life. So meaningful.”
~Wendy
Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My Friend
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Now that you come to the end of a life…that same life which gave you life…the memory is buried deep in your heart and dwells deep in your soul. A new relationship will continue with that parent – not a physical relationship but one where the parent lives on in your heart. You will continue to remember them…think of them…and love them…for the rest of your life until you meet again.
Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My Friend
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We really never know exactly when our last goodbye will come with anyone.
And when our parents become elderly and frail we may get an alert and have a sense of what’s coming…but we still never know for sure. Before a parent is gone, we understand intellectually that they will die some day. But understanding and anticipating does not prepare us for the grief we feel when as an adult we lose a parent.
When my father died last year there was almost an unspoken expectation that it would not hit me head on because I am an adult — an adult is expected to accept death as a part of life, to handle all sudden losses in an appropriate “adult manner” and not get too stressed out over it all. But really, what does that mean?
Could I be sad but not too sad…and for how long?
Was I expected to be grateful he didn’t die when I was a child—so I didn’t need to mourn him? He’d had a long life so was I supposed to simply celebrate that fact and move on?
Grief is the reflection of the connection that has been lost. And that loss didn’t diminish just because I was an adult or because my father lived a long life.
The loss happens in a moment…but its aftermath lasts a lifetime.
I had lost the man who had been my father for more than 45 years. And although I had my own full life…yes, I still felt emptiness now that this man no longer walked the earth with me.
People around me see me as a mature, capable adult – and I am. That, however, did not decrease the pain of my loss. One day I woke up feeling a strange sensation in my stomach. It was not hunger, but rather, it was emptiness. I realized I felt cut off, as if I was a flower that had been snipped away from its roots—as if I was floating with no ground or foundation…rootless and disconnected.
I was also hit with something I had not thought about before—I am the youngest member of my family of origin and quite likely the last in line to die. Until this moment I had never considered my father was all that stood between me and losing all my family members one day…and being left alone (yes, of course I’d still have my husband and children…and my children’s children, eventually—but that’s not what I’m referring to) without a direct historical connection.
My father was the last in his family to die and I recall the sadness he felt as one member slipped away and then another, until he was the last one left (the death of his last sibling the year before his own death, really hit my father hard).
Now (perhaps because I have a birthday approaching in a few days) I can clearly see the age of my siblings and realize they will slowly start slipping away too. (Of course my siblings and I have lots of time together and it’s not that I’m dwelling on all this…it’s just an observation…something I hadn’t really thought about before.)
After our parents die, we take another look at them…and us.
We realize, perhaps for the first time, all they did for us as children.
For some of us, when we become parents, we appreciate the challenges our own parents must have gone through. We gain a new perspective on their lives. We see their flaws and imperfections.
We see life in a different way.
Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My Friend
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Death is nothing at all.
I have only slipped away to the next room.
I am I and you are you.
Whatever we were to each other,
That, we still are.
Call me by my old familiar name.
Speak to me in the easy way
which you always used.
Put no difference into your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.
Laugh as we always laughed
at the little jokes we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me. Pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word
that it always was.
Let it be spoken without effect.
Without the trace of a shadow on it.
Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same that it ever was.
There is absolute unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind
because I am out of sight?
I am but waiting for you.
For an interval.
Somewhere. Very near.
Just around the corner.
All is well.
~Henry Scott Holland (1847-1918)
Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My Friend
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Years go by,
Memories stay,
As near and dear as yesterday.
Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My Friend
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TV Shows and Clips about the Death of Cindy James
It has been exactly a year since my father’s death…but it hardly feels that long ago…and yet, it feels like such a long time!
A contradiction, I know!
Life is different now.
With Dad’s passing is the realization that we cannot bring the old days back when we were all together (such wonderful remembrances of fun and crazy times at family reunions); I have such a yearning for those days of togetherness…but loving thoughts and memories will live with my family forever.
Dad’s memory is as dear today as in the hour he passed away (and oh how blessed it was to share that time with my sister!).
There is certainly the sadness of his absence…yet there is a gratitude for what was (the good AND the bad—for all of it made us who we are today).
A page in our family book of memories is silently turned today.
Life is…well, its simply different now!
Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My Friend
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Heaven’s gate swung gently open,
The Master called softly, “Come,”
And you, dear one, took the Master’s hand,
And your work on earth was done.
We’ll never cease to miss you,
And shed many silent tears,
Because we cannot share with you
Our hopes, our joys, our fears.
But one day, in God’s garden,
When the Master calls us to come.
You’ll be at the gates with open arms
And say to us, “Welcome Home!”
Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My Friend
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Down a road that’s calm and peaceful,
Guided by God’s loving hand,
He has gone upon a journey
To a distant, brighter land.
And although our hearts are heavy
With sorrow we still bear,
It helps to bring us comfort,
Knowing he is happy there.
Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My Friend
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With all the sadness and trauma going on in the world at the moment, it is worth reflecting on the death of a very important person, which almost went unnoticed last week. Larry LaPrise, the man who wrote “The Hokey Pokey”, died peacefully at age 93. The most traumatic part for his family was getting him into the coffin. They put his left leg in. And then the trouble started.
Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My Friend
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The happiest of people don’t necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the most of everything that comes along their way.
Happiness lies for those who cry, those who hurt, those who have searched and those who have tried, for only they can appreciate the importance of people who have touched their lives.
Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My Friend
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