An excerpt taken from page 133 of my book entitled I Know You’re Hurting available for purchase at http://www.kenmatthies.com
“I think it’s probably about this time too (October - three months after her death) that I finally work up enough guts to start pulling the boxes of Leila’s personal effects that she’d left behind out of their storage places around the house and out in the shed. I carry them all into our office downstairs and stack them close to my desk.
I can’t even open them yet. It’s just too hard to think about what I’ll find inside that I know will rip me wide open and leave me bleeding all over the floor. They stay that way all winter. And for the next summer I’m gone too. I still can’t bear facing it, so all I do is look at them all the time.
It’s probably about the second fall after she’s gone that I finally screw up enough courage to start opening boxes. Turns out I was right all along about how it’d make me feel. Memory upon memory pours out of these boxes to feed my twitching hands, short-circuiting heart, and spastic breath as I go through and start trying to sort it all out.
I find special cards I’d sent her. I find the original Valentine’s poem I wrote for her, the one you read yourself earlier on (in the book). I find her two birth certificates – the original that says ‘father unknown’ on it – and the second one we went to get together after her mom agreed to the changes: the one that does have my name on it as her dad! Woohee! That one hurt bad, but felt good too! You know what I mean.
I find a four-leaf clover that Leila had found once that had made her feel so happy, and that my wife had laminated for her. I find all kinds of stones she collected, and I find one of her collections of feathers. I find books on just about every subject. I find so much stuff that all had a meaning and had been precious to her in some way.
And then I find the bleached shoulder blade of a moose that she’d discovered on one of her bush walks. This is a very special find, I know, because Leila told me she intended to paint some Native designs on it; I think kind of as a personal celebration of her own Native Iroquois and Cree bloodlines running through her veins along with the other mingled blood from Scottish and German heritage.
This gets me thinking about who might best be able to honor that desire for her; and I know I’m asking for some Spirit help when I’m asking the question. And the name I’m given is George Poulin, a cousin of ours who’s an excellent and known Native artist in his own right. What clinches the deal for me is that I know he and Leila have spent some serious talking time together about her artwork and painting.
So I take it to him and explain the situation, and ask if he’d be willing to do the honor work on her behalf as a memorial piece for myself. He agrees, and my heart feels good for having done this.”
For more ‘Stories of the Grieving Process after a Child Dies’ visit http://www.kenmatthies.com to buy the book and receive a Free Bonus series of 10 audios entitled The Stages of Grief Healing.
With Love and Understanding,
Ken Matthies
HeartSpun Posts from the Crucible of Experience
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