What Works for Me

I have been thinking about my recent Perfect Moment Monday post about being “that someone.” I felt the need to follow up and in some ways clarify what I believe about ideas and concepts like that.

First, I thank you for your comments both here and on the Facebook. I am glad that some of you appreciated reading about this way of looking at challenging times and difficult decisions we sometimes have to make in our lives.

That said, theologically speaking, I do not believe that there are a finite number of tragedies that get handed out to people, by God or some higher power, and that if I experience one (such as the death of my daughter Molly) that another person will not have to lose a child or suffer in some other way as a result.

However, what I do appreciate about being able to think of suffering from that perspective is how it makes me feel. It helps me to find some peace, comfort and meaning in some of trials that I have faced in life, even though I realize that in reality my suffering likely did not truly keep another human being from experiencing pain and/loss in their life.

So what’s the point then, right?! Why believe in things like this, especially if they may not be real explanations for “why bad things happen to good people?” I think that is a very good and a debatable question.

My answer is that during difficult and uncertain times in our lives we often need to do “what works for us.” What works for me, may not be the same thing that works for you or anyone else, but I believe doing what works for each of us (within reason) can help us to work through our grief and heal.

Sometime over the past few years, since Molly died, I was talking with a loved one. Though we both have strong faiths and usually see eye-to-eye theologically with our Christian/Catholic faith, there are times when our visions are not always the same. In this instance I was sharing about how I believe that I can talk to and communicate with Molly in Heaven and that I do so on a regular basis.

My loved one seemed surprised and a bit confused, maybe even concerned, when I said this. She asked me to clarify if I really believed that my baby (who was born and died prematurely just shy of 30 weeks gestation, with a rare and severe combination of congenital heart defects, who never learned to walk, talk or do anything else that most babies who grow into toddlers and then school age children do) was able to communicate with me, let alone even understand what I might be trying to get across to her in the afterlife through my thoughts and prayers.

I thought this was a fair and very reasonable question for my loved one to ask. I also know that she was not trying to be disrespectful, hurt my feelings or insinuate that I was a bit crazy (okay, maybe just a little).

What I told my loved one is the same as my reasoning for liking the concept of being “that someone,” it works for me. I realize that Molly may not truly be capable of communicating with me from Heaven in the ways I like to imagine she can and does. I don’t know if the soul of a baby (or anyone for that matter) ages in the afterlife after they die. However, it gives me peace and comfort to allow myself to believe that my “brave little soul” does understand and is able to communicate in some way with her mommy from the other side, it works for me.

So yes, I appreciate that what works for me, may not work for you, or others, but I think that is okay. I believe that we all need to do what works for us, what helps us to find peace, comfort and meaning in the suffering that we experience in life. Whether that comes through “believing” we can talk to and/or receive signs from our dead babies (such as “Pennies from Heaven”), or other loved ones that have gone before us, or thinking that by being “that someone” we are sparing another human being from some level of pain and suffering, we do what works for us.

Thank you for reading and for pondering these concepts and ideas with me. On this day I hope and pray that you are doing what works for you to get through the challenges and difficult or uncertain times you might be experiencing in your lives. I wish that you are able to find peace, comfort and meaning in doing so, as I have been able to through doing what works for me.