Young mother who died of cancer: I am here. I am around.

Melissa on the wall of grief

Melissa is a young old mother who died of cancer

I know not how to proceed with this particular moment for I feel as if I’m expected to say something profound. I don’t really feel I have much profound to say and yet I experience the love and the affection you feel for me, Jennifer, and it has given me this platform and this way to move forward.

What I sense and what I’m realizing now is that as I made the journey the idea of what I was in the Melissa life and what I am now is something so removed from what I believed and what I sensed when I was there as Melissa. This is hard to reconcile and it is, in part, why I feel like I don’t have so much to say. I don’t really know the context of bringing who I am now and what I know in to what it is to be Melissa. I recognize it was wondrous to be there and to be able to bring forward the souls onto this earth that I participated with was a wondrous gift. I can’t emphasize that enough. Yet I can’t go to where everyone is thinking of me - the energy that they are putting out that it was too soon. What a shame. These children will not know their mother. All of that seems absurd to me. I don’t know another way to put it. It seems absurd. How could they not know me? I am there. I am around. They will carry in their hearts who I was for them in the flesh. They will recognize me soon enough and be totally aware, totally grateful for who we all are together.

I cannot get into the rhythm of what is left in my wake. I cannot find the bridge to those who are suffering so that I have gone. I find that my whole idea of being me is perfectly wonderful. It is everything that I would want it to be. Yet, in this moment, I can’t share it with one soul who exists in the flesh – not one will fully celebrate with me for there are those tendrils of sorrow and grief that hold me back. I want so to be able to sense and feel and relate who I am so that others can find the joy, release the sorrow, and say, “Ah, she is well. She is wondrous. She is fine.” Yet, of course, the idea of what I left or what it was meant to be me in that identity stays and lingers so strong and with such intensity that is where everyone focuses. That’s what everything is all about.

Now I know that so many recognize that the battle was one that was hard and long and arduous and that I made choices along the way that probably made it longer and harder and more arduous than it needed to be. I recognize that and I know, too, that there is relief that comes at the end of such an illness. But it is not enough to forestall or replace the grief and the sorrow and the sense that I should still be there. Well how can I come forward as I really am when I don’t know how to get through to those who think I should really be me, the Melissa in that body?

That’s the message you can give for me, Jennifer. While many around me are not prepared to hear it the idea that there is someone who is Melissa - who hangs and hovers and brings the energy of light and love but cannot find her way into the hearts of those who most need her and want her - is the message I bring. That’s the message I bring to all of you. Keep yourselves aware of how much you hold off what is best and highest in grace for you. Recognize that someone leaving is not someone who is leaving. They are simply not in the form and not in the way that you once knew. This is no news. This is no wisdom. I said this was not profound. It simply is the way it is and me being able to bring it here in this forum, in this moment, perhaps has shed light for others to take to heart and bring to those they love here on this earth.