How to take a sudden trip so it won't upset you and others

Taking off unexpectedly

Carol Forsloff---I'd like to take a little time here and tell you about John Sullivan, whom many of you don't know but I think you would like. His story is a good one and likely can help many of you take an unexpected trip that might help when travel like it can be troublesome, as we find many things these days with world events and our personal situations. 

John left yesterday morning on a trip, and the way he did it was a surprise to his friends. But even more special were the gifts he left behind for many of us.

Premonitions, near death experiences reflect man's common bonds for life

Near death vision in art

Recently a young boy recanted his story about what he had said were near-death visions and therefore made erroneous claims, causing the book written about those visions called The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven to be recalled.  But are there universal themes in death and dying that we should learn that might aid us in knowing how to live together peacefully?

The question people ponder, but experts say many reject because of fear, is when they'll die. But many people have premonitions, and some say the costs of health care might be reduced by knowing more about the process of death.  In fact experts tell us there are universal features in the process of dying that transcend both religion and culture.

Talk to your children about death

[caption id="attachment_6243" align="alignright" width="288"] Christian cross - a symbol use as a marker and memorial of those who died[/caption]

Carol Forsloff — Grandma died, and the funeral is Saturday.  How do you explain death and dying to a child?

During the time when American was a rural society, with many families living in close proximity to one another, folks were close enough to each other to share in the process of helping the dying, working with family members who needed assistance in the grieving process, and generally sharing the responsibilities of preparing the body for its final disposition.

We have all seen those old movies of the child at Granny's casket, that child putting a hand in to touch the body at the encouragement of some family member. We have also seen those same movies use the scene to underline the trauma someone can experience when death and dying are handled in ways that children might not understand.

So it's important to prepare a child for death and dying. And when is the right time?  The answer is as it is for many things, as the child is able to understand. That understanding, however, can at least be fostered very early in a child's life.

Children see nature, outside where animals and plants live and where there are many opportunities to visit living things. That life is part of the understanding that children need to have when it comes to dealing with death.

One of the barriers in talking to children about death is the fear adults have of the process and in dealing with the topic themselves.

So the process is early for the child and regularly for an adult, something that needs to be revisited perhaps many times during one's lifetime.

Many people speak of a life hereafter, of the continuation of life in some form, a heaven, the recreation of a soul, the gathering of loved ones in some heavenly kingdom on earth or in heaven. The visions of life after death are numerous, often individualized according to one's life experiences. Yet that full comprehension, knowing and conversation is often not part of what happens in daily life, but only when someone dies. That is too late to begin the process of helping young people learn about death.

As we face our own mortality, the first step in helping our children, we need to examine our fears and prejudices and at the same time reflect on what we already know about the process of dying. What we know is that life is continuous in some way. Plants live, offer seeds to the ground that regenerate and repopulate. The bones of animals become one with the soil. Then there is the pattern of how one life form interacts with one another, and how interdependent those life forms can be.

The process of dying continues to be a point of controversy among those who relate it in terms of their religion and those who explain it in terms of science.  And how people deal with dying varies according to one's culture.  Yet there is a consistency in all cultures that remains.  That consistency is the lack of preparation of the living to understand the process of dying.

Some who have actually watched people die have narrated the experience. And those who are scientists and have made observations of the dying process tell us certain things occur, with various body systems shutting down, not simultaneously, but in a certain order, with the ability to hear and feel among the last of those systems before the end of breath. So one can hold the loved one and speak to him or her, and the child may offer consolation and at the same time learn about death, so long as proper preparation and explanation is given and a level of maturity and understanding achieved. Grandma hears what people say almost until she draws her last breath.

Watching how these life forms are in our world is something simple, yet complex, but that allows the understanding of life on many levels. For the child it is seeing the flowers live, fold their petals, die, some reborn in the same pot, or seemingly reborn, seeds that have dropped on the ground, and the observation of new life developing. So as we speak of how babies are in their mothers' wombs, so it is with all living things, a life within that is a mystery in many ways, and a life that may come, in some form, after a person dies.  For when we explain the joy of new life to a young child, that new baby that has arrived in the family home, and those questions are posed about how babies are made, is a good time to talk about the continuity of life itself.  That continuity is at both ends, life's beginning and its end, both with the understanding there is some form of experience that occurs before birth and a process of dying as well.

For even doctors and other scientists agree that death is a process, and that process is something science is understanding in relative little bits for the vast information still yet to know. But there is a process and the preparation for it should be as thoughtfully considered as the preparation for that new baby. In that way the child sees the wholeness of life, is comforted in some way by it.

Granny isn't just asleep. Her life becomes part of something else, somewhere else, as part of the process of life that goes on. That truth is something for all of us to hold, as we face our own mortality and explain it to our children.

The more the dying are kept distant from the living the less the family understands about the process of dying and the lonelier it becomes. By acknowledging that process early enough, and preparing children, we begin to know how we feel, how our children feel and help the dying become part of the community of all of us, so that they continue to teach us about life as we prepare for our own death and those of our children.

Symbols of near-death experience: Have you seen the Light?

[caption id="attachment_14904" align="alignleft" width="300"] Near death[/caption]

Carol Forsloff - People reflect on the meaning of symbols in the progression of death, especially as they age, if they are interested in the spiritual aspects of life or if they have had a near-death experience.    Many traditions speak of the visions in traveling toward the Light, interpreted as the soul's journey after the soul has left the body.

The song The Water is Wide has its origins as a Scottish ballad written in the 1600's.   In its original form it focused on the passion and longing of lovers;  but over the centuries it has been performed in many venues, by many singers, each of whom has often presented a different lyrical version of this well-known and beloved song.  With the song there are symbols used to facilitate one's contemplation of life's transitions, in human love and experiences and that movement towards death discussed in literature.  It is the symbolism that often aids in bringing others to an understanding of the death experience.  These symbols can be pictures of past memories of a person's life or the artistic renderings of the light streaming from the heavens as the person moves within in the passage to the Creator.

Have you seen the light?  If you are, you are part of a large number of people who say they have had a near-death experience.  Many people speak of going through a tunnel, seeing a light they move towards and hearing the message in some form that says "It's not your time yet."  The Gallup organization found that 13 million Americans have reported to have had a near-death experience.  The phenomenon is also studied by scientists and theologians, many of whom agree there are convergent details across the centuries that man has exchanged about death that seem to render a pattern.  That pattern is continued in story form, in music and in art as a way to express the meaning of death and the religious belief that there is life after the soul leaves the body.

Symbolism, scientists remind us,  helps to transmit emotion, with death a most provocative issue in most of our lives.  Without it would there be more trust there is a God or less?  While many Christian people focus on the cross or the shadowy figure of a man they believe to be Jesus, for others occult symbols have replaced some of  the Christian symbols.  So as religious beliefs diverge in some of the specifics of life and death, it is the symbolism which continues to promote that eternal belief, that something magical, especially mystical, occurs during the process of dying and that helps retain folks' faith in the hereafter.

Death and dying memories we all share: who knows where the time goes?

[caption id="attachment_7911" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="The light goes out, the memories linger"][/caption]

NATCHITOCHES, LA - Carol Forsloff- Pearl Crayton died in Natchitoches not long ago.  Pat McKee, with Alzheimer's disease, left for a nursing home.  Folks transition everywhere,  as we wonder when they do,  "Who knows where the time goes?"






Pearl Crayton was one of the South's best writers and like many people of talent not known as well in Natchitoches, Louisiana as she was in other places for her stories, poetry, essays and compilations of strong literary worth.  Pat was a teacher everyone knew.  They transitioned like people treasured in their lives in towns across the world, then barely remembered as days grow into years.

Pearl's literary collections may one day be a part of some fine library in Natchitoches, where they certainly belong, even as they
sit on shelves of connoisseurs of good prose.

I had seen Pearl not long before she died, walking down a side street in Natchitoches on the edge of the Historic District.  Her walk was slower than before.  I noticed that and promised myself I would see her tomorrow.

Tomorrow came and went and came and went again, but Pearl wasn't in those days that passed.  And I now face the death of one of Louisiana's most genuine representations of the South and one of my good friends.

Pearl Crayton was one of those writers who bloomed early, whose stories were part of compilations of authors from the south.  She taught writer's workshops at Melrose Plantation, wrote for newspapers in California and raised her brood of children virtually by herself.  Pearl was born in the bosom of Louisiana; her family formed its history from slavery to
the present times.  She died in the heart of the place she was born, in a whisper I did not hear.

I heard the whisper of Pat McKee over time, months before she left Natchitoches.  She taught at the local high school.  Everyone knew her in town.  A quiet woman, caring for her family and the children of others as they grew, Pat was always
helping others.   As Alzheimer's disease takes memory bit by bit, and relationships fade as it does, I barely saw her.  She lives in a nursing home now where life ends bit by bit.  As her face once revealed her smile so loving and so fine, I wonder once again, that same refrain about the passing of time.

Who knows where the time goes?  I thought of Pearl and Pat  on Sunday remembering Pearl's last reminder.
"Carol, you need to go to church."  Because for Pearl, then in her 70's, church was central to her life.  She didn't understand the Quaker way where people often worship in their homes.  The stories from her pen had long since passed, her mind and body growing fragile by the day.  For Pat, church meant each Sunday, integrated with her life.  It was the piece of love for God unspoken but reflected in her style.

Who knows where the time goes?  I thought of Pearl and Pat,  as I wondered about tomorrow and what that day might bring.  Who would I see and think to myself "I'll visit," but the time moves on too fast to catch the things important, lasting, good we need remember now, today, in moments we can treasure.

Those things we value, like Pearl Crayton and Pat McKee, lost forever to a world where writers  and women of gentle
affection, bloom and fade, then pass away and become forgotten as the time goes on. 

There's an eternal lesson in the song written bySandy Denny, who died at the age of 31, and sung by Eva Cassidy, who
died at 33, telling us how time moves on so fast it sometimes leaves the things we love to memories even as our own time dwindles down.

Someone died in my town; someone died in yours.  And someone left my town and yours in ways that bring a hurt that lingers on and on.

I will remember someone  tomorrow.  Perhaps you will as well.  That's because when the time goes it isn't something we can find again.