We Let You Go
Into the darkness and warmth of the earth
We lay you down.
Into the sadness and smiles of our memories
We lay you down.
Into the cycle of living and dying and rising again
We lay you down.
May you rest in peace, in fulfillment, in loving.
May you run straight home in God’s embrace.
Into the freedom of wind and sunshine
We let you go.
Into the dance of the stars and the planets
We let you go.
Into the wind’s breath and the hands of the star maker
We let you go.
We love you, we miss you, we want you to be happy.
Go safely, go dancing, go running home.
~Author unknown.
Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My Friend
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TV Shows and Clips about the Death of Cindy James
Death ends a life, it doesn’t end a relationship!
Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My Friend
Read an excerpt now
TV Shows and Clips about the Death of Cindy James
I have in my hands two boxes,
Which God gave me to hold.
He said, “Put all your sorrows in the black box,
And all your joys in the gold.”
I heeded His words, and in the two boxes,
Both my joys and sorrows I stored,
But though the gold became heavier each day,
The black was as light as before.
With curiosity, I opened the black,
I wanted to find out why,
And I saw, in the base of the box, a hole,
Which my sorrows had fallen out by.
I showed the hole to God, and mused,
“I wonder where my sorrows could be!”
He smiled a gentle smile and said,
“My child, they’re all here with me.”
I asked God, why He gave me the boxes,
Why the gold and the black with the hole?
“My child, the gold is for you to count your blessings,
The black is for you to let go.”
Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My Friend
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TV Shows and Clips about the Death of Cindy James
She can deal with stress and carry heavy burdens. She smiles when she feels like screaming, and she sings when she feels like crying. She cries when she’s happy and laughs when she’s afraid. Her love is unconditional. There’s only one thing wrong with her. She forgets what she’s worth!
(Pass this to every beautiful woman you know. Remind her that she’s unique…and that you love her.)
Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My Friend
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TV Shows and Clips about the Death of Cindy James
As far as deaths go, it was a good death. She died with a loved one with her, showing her affection and love.
(I had always been concerned she would die alone…that I wouldn’t make it to her on time…or that she would die in her sleep, or from a stroke during the day…and I would find out afterwards.)
I let her know that she was loved and cherished in the final moments of her death.
It was the same with Dad. He knew he was loved…and forgiven.
Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My Friend
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TV Shows and Clips about the Death of Cindy James
Terminally ill patients have a common desire: to be treated as live human beings until the moment they die.
Sometimes they ask, “Am I dying?” as a way of gauging your feelings.
Instead of attempting to play God with a yes or no answer, reflect the question back: “I don’t know. How are you feeling?”
One full-time mother says she was relieved to learn that the origin of ‘good-bye’ is “God be with you.” “It made talking to my dying father about what he meant to me seem like less of a heavy final exchange and more like an ongoing kind of blessing,” she says.
It’s hard to say good-bye—but you don’t have to ‘say’ anything.
Just show up.
Be there.
46-year-old Susan says she felt awkward while listening to the eloquent words of comfort her siblings were giving their dying mother. “Everything I thought of saying either sounded like a lame echo of theirs or like a cliché that Mom would know wasn’t really me. So instead I just sat next to her and held her hand for hours,” she says. “From the way she gripped it back, even in her weak state, I know it meant a lot to her.”
Foot rubs, stroking an arm or shoulder, kisses, smiles, and gazing into someone’s eyes all communicate compassion, love, and gratitude for a shared lifetime. With or without accompanying conversation, your presence and your touch rank among the most eloquent, regret-free ways there are of saying good-bye.
Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My Friend
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TV Shows and Clips about the Death of Cindy James
I’m thinking a good death is one in which a person dies on his or her own terms, relatively free from pain, in a supported and dignified setting, with affairs in order.
The tenets in The Four Things That Matter Most, by Ira Byock, a medical doctor who professes the need for a dying person to express and hear four thoughts at the end of life, are:
“I love you.”
“Thank you.”
“I forgive you.”
“Forgive me.”
Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My Friend
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TV Shows and Clips about the Death of Cindy James
She visits people who are dying–in their homes, in hospitals, in nursing homes.
And if you were to ask her, “What do people who are sick and dying talk about?”
She, without hesitation or uncertainty, would tell you, “Mostly, they talk about their families: about their mothers and fathers, their sons and daughters.”
“They talk about the love they felt, and the love they gave. Often they talk about love they did not receive, or the love they did not know how to offer, the love they withheld, or maybe never felt for the ones they should have loved unconditionally.”
“They talk about how they learned what love is, and what it is not. And sometimes, when they are actively dying, fluid gurgling in their throats, they reach their hands out to things I cannot see and they call out to their parents: Mama, Daddy, Mother.”
People talk about their families because that is how we talk about the meaning of our lives. That is how we talk about the big spiritual questions of human existence.
We don’t live our lives in our heads, in theology and theories. We live our lives in our families: the families we are born into, the families we create and the families we make through the people we choose as friends. This is where we create our lives, this is where we find meaning and this is where our purpose becomes clear.
Family is where we first experience love and where we first give it. It’s probably the first place we’ve been hurt by someone we love, and hopefully the place we learn that love can overcome even the most painful rejection.
This crucible of love is where we start to ask those big spiritual questions, and ultimately where they end.
I have seen such expressions of love: A husband gently washing his wife’s face with a cool washcloth, cupping the back of her bald head in his hand to get to the nape of her neck, because she is too weak to lift it from the pillow; A daughter spooning pudding into the mouth of her mother, a woman who has not recognized her for years; A wife arranging the pillow under the head of her husband’s no-longer-breathing body as she helps the undertaker lift him onto the waiting stretcher.
We don’t learn the meaning of our lives by discussing it. It’s not to be found in books or lecture halls or even churches or synagogues or mosques. It’s discovered through these actions of love.
If God is love, and we believe that to be true, then we learn about God when we learn about love. The first, and usually the last, classroom of love is the family.
I am amazed at the strength of the human soul. People who did not know love in their families know that they should have been loved. They somehow know what was missing, and what they deserved as children and adults.
When the love is imperfect, or a family is destructive, something else can be learned: forgiveness. The spiritual work of being human is learning how to love and how to forgive.
We don’t have to use words of theology to talk about God; people who are close to death almost never do. We should learn from those who are dying that the best way to teach our children about God is by loving each other wholly and forgiving each other fully – just as each of us longs to be loved and forgiven by our mothers and fathers, sons and daughters.
Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My Friend
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TV Shows and Clips about the Death of Cindy James
Many years ago, when I worked as a volunteer at a hospital, I got to know a little girl named Liz who was suffering from a rare & serious disease. Her only chance of recovery appeared to be a blood transfusion from her 5-year-old brother, who had miraculously survived the same disease and had developed the antibodies needed to combat the illness.
The doctor explained the situation to her little brother, and asked the little boy if he would be willing to give his blood to his sister. I saw him hesitate for only a moment before taking a deep breath and saying, “Yes I’ll do it if it will save her.” As the transfusion progressed, he lay in bed next to his sister and smiled, as we all did, seeing the color returning to her cheek. Then his face grew pale and his smile faded. He looked up at the doctor and asked with a trembling voice, “Will I start to die right away?”
Being young, the little boy had misunderstood the doctor; he thought he was going to have to give his sister all of his blood in order to save her.
~Author Unknown
Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My Friend
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TV Shows and Clips about the Death of Cindy James
One woman shared with me how tough it had been for her to get rid of her parents’ belongings after they died. The process, because it included seeing, touching and smelling their possessions, dredged up countless memories…and feelings. When she re-framed it as redistributing her parents’ love, it made the job so much easier.
For another woman, sorting through her father’s things, there were smiles mixed in with the tears. Tucked within pages of his favorite books, included in the paid bills, and even stashed in jacket pockets, he had left notes for his daughter. She found messages such as “I love you more than a father could ever hope to love a child,” and “I’m very proud of you.” She also found lovely poems and the scribbled words to the lullaby he had sung to her as a baby. And, folded in the envelope with his will was a faded photograph taken during World War II. It was of a smiling handsome RAF captain in dress uniform balancing her, then as a toddler, on his shoulders. The notes from her father were both heartwarming and heart wrenching, but she cherishes the remembrances and gifts he left for her all the same.
Another woman came up with a clever way to keep all 200 of her father’s ties—by creating heart-shaped wall hangings from them: “I cherish them because they’re a way to honor both parents, since my mom always picked my dad’s ties. “So it became a way to keep something that’s a part of both of them and give it new life.”
Another adult child pared down her parents’ stuff while they were living… not waiting until they died.
Some people get stuck and say, “We can’t let go of Mom’s [or Dad’s] things. Removing them would make us feel like we’re getting rid of her [or him].”
Remember, there’s no rush. And having an understanding friend or partner helping you, can make the task so much easier. Reward yourself for small accomplishments…maybe go for a walk…or? …
Ideally, the clearing-out process is a healing time for siblings to go through and reminisce. Holding on to particular items that have special meaning or value is a good way to honor a loved one’s memory.
When my Mom died, my siblings and I gave some of her furniture and clothing to the facility where she lived. We also gave items to charity and kept some things for ourselves for sentimental reasons.
Her easy chair, the one that I ‘slept’ in (that was right beside her bed) while I maintained a vigil during her last days, now sits in my family room. Sometimes I just sit in it…and calmness comes over me as I recall listening to the transient relaxation tape that played during Mom’s final days and hours. Even while sitting in it and watching TV or reading, I have to smile…because I feel Mom’s love.
Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My Friend
Read an excerpt now
TV Shows and Clips about the Death of Cindy James