Divine Healing Transforming Pain into Personal Power: A guide to heal pain from child loss, suicide and other grief

By Vonne Solis

Realizing the potential you have to awaken to your power as an enlightened being is central to authentic healing. There is a significant distinction between superficially healing wounds and authentically healing. If you feel ready to surrender all pain and struggle, Divine Healing is a must read. Delivered as both a story and a practice, the author compassionately shares her journey to become whole after the suicide of her daughter in 2005. Though written in the context of the parental grief experience, Divine Healing is intended for anyone who desires authentic healing. Each chapter, a journey in itself, reminds us of the eternal truths that teach that all healing is possible, despite the origin of any pain. The lessons, while not confined to only one experience in pain, reach into the core root of all suffering and will guide anyone through any difficulty to find peace and joy.

Not only will you develop a richer understanding of suffering and healing, including viewing loss and grief differently, but by learning to work with the angels, you will reclaim your power as the authentic being you already are. You will learn to honor all of your hurtful experiences and trust in your ability to become whole on your own terms. Realizing you are the catalyst for your own powerful transformation, Divine Healing inspires you to courageously want more for your life, and teaches you how to continually manifest the life you were meant to find and enjoy through a realistic, heartfelt practice.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gatekeeper Press
• Release date: Nov 2, 2018
• ISBN: 9781642371970

Book preview

Endnotes

PART ONE

Divine Healing

Transforming Pain into Personal Power

Introduction

JANAYA DIED ON Tuesday, July 26, 2005. I don’t know what time. I don’t know how she spent her last moments. I don’t even know why she died, really. But right from the moment I learned of my twenty-two-year old daughter's suicide, I desperately wanted to feel comforted by another parent who had lost their child too. I longed to connect with anyone who had been through the same experience I was now going through. I wanted someone to hold me and hug me and tell me that everything would be okay again in this bizarre and frightening world of grief I had been thrown into. But there was no one; the help I wanted wasn’t easy to find. And, so began my journey on my own to find the healing I wanted for my heart in the darkest and most despairing of times.

Instantly upon hearing the news of Janaya’s passing, I was swept into another existence, where nothing mattered anymore. I was traumatized and unprepared to cope with the death of anyone, least of all my child. Like many people who find themselves suddenly bereaved, I entered a world where everything moved in slow motion; where people, places and things seemed vaguely familiar; but mostly, everything around me felt foreign and strange. It was as though a layer of gauze separated me from everyone else, and my efforts to reach others who had suffered as much as I was now suffering, seemed desperate and remote.

I recall vividly riding in our car home the night of my daughter’s death, driving through the streets of the city where only hours earlier my daughter had lived and now lay dead in a morgue. I remember the desperation I felt to escape the torment of the worst nightmare that had just begun. I couldn’t get the image out of my mind of the paramedics as they had arrived to collect my child’s body from her apartment. It was a hot summer evening. As I stared out the window of the car, I noticed people out in droves, though it was nearing midnight. With the sound of clanking metal fresh in my head of the gurney being wheeled to the front door of Janaya’s little home, I vacantly stared around me, at everything and nothing. Like a magnet pulling me in different directions, I noticed every young woman out walking, breathing; and was astounded at how fragile life really was. I was angry that these other young women were still alive, while I had just been robbed of one of the greatest loves of my life.

I watched girls giggling, hugging, clinging to each other as they chatted excitedly over drinks at the outdoor bistros or strolled arm in arm along the street. They all seemed so strange to me now, as if I'd never seen their kind before. I studied their clothes, bodies, how they moved; thinking about how I'd taken all that for granted in my daughter just hours earlier. Now, she lay on a cold metal gurney: a corpse. The world I had known had collapsed; instantly and without warning, leaving me stunned by the suddenness in which a life could be snatched away. All I felt was suffocating pain and total helplessness. I was lost in a very bleak and dark world, with nowhere to turn.

As my early grief set in, I knew that my suffering was not going to go away anytime soon or without help. I knew that my life and the lives of my family could easily become consumed by pain, all of us succumbing to a miserable future or worse as a result of our tragedy. There was no guidebook to help us through the confusion and despair we all felt. I also knew that however I decided to live the rest of my life I could not go on trapped by the gripping fear that was overwhelming me. I desperately wanted my old life back; one that had been centered on providing love and support to my husband and two children. Now, I was consumed by an emotional torment so debilitating that I didn’t know how to begin to climb my way out of the deep, dark pit I had fallen into. Janaya’s death had ended all certainty of a happy future.

Not until I turned to the world of angels to help me heal did I begin to feel any hope that my life could go on without my beautiful daughter by my side. This then, is a story about how after losing almost everything after the sudden and tragic death of Janaya, I found the courage and inspiration to go on with the help from angels. They led me to discover the wisdom in suffering and the healing that is possible when we choose to transform our lives.

Divine Healing is a practice unlike traditional grief recovery therapy. In fact, it is a therapy to help anyone recover from emotional pain, no matter where the hurt originates. By practice, I mean a therapy that is solely based on your willingness to incorporate the wisdom and tools presented in this book into your daily life to help you heal. The wisdom does not come from me; it comes from the Divine. The messages reach the core root of all suffering in order to effect authentic healing rapidly and fully. Healing is a commitment everyone must make to themselves, and is based wholly on igniting the power within that when released, lets us shine as compassionate, forgiving, loving and enlightened beings. The five principles, of which the practice of Divine Healing is centered on, provide information and the tools to help anyone heal by attaining the peace we all long to have.

I wrote Divine Healing to uplift and inspire every reader to find the courage to face each new day with true inner joy and peace. And while there may be some surprises around some of life’s corners that may challenge you to stay in a place of joy and peace, the information and tools in this book will teach you to not only welcome all change, but also how to create life transformations with excitement and adventure, trusting you are right where you need to be every single moment. You’ll gain confidence in your ability to make choices for your life that feel right all of the time, not just some of the time, and learn how to attract opportunities in perfect unison with your overall life design.

Manifesting the life of your dreams is all about knowing how to set realistic goals based on heartfelt desires that remain central to your intent to holistically heal. Holistic healing is all about developing a true appreciation for the major lessons you have masterfully created to help you spiritually grow, some of which no doubt will come to you through suffering. Suffering can be useful. By connecting deeply to the more universal lessons of forgiveness, compassion, acceptance, trust and love, it is my hope that you come away from reading this book with an awareness of the incredible power you hold within to transform not only yourself, but also the world, by putting into practice the divine wisdoms the angels have given to us.

Divine Healing is founded on angelic wisdom that guides us all to gain a deeper understanding of pain and loss. Many people believe in angels and even credit them with saving their life or moving them to transform in extraordinary ways. Grieving individuals often refer to their spirit loved ones as angels, and many young children who have touched our hearts in death, have frequently been described as having lived as angels on earth. More and more, angels are being talked about openly and recognized for their role in our lives that goes far beyond religious or cultural symbolism.

Angels do exist. They are divine beings that reside in their own dimension with its own hierarchical order. In the lowest realm, angels are assigned to us as guardians throughout our lifetime. Guardian angels nudge us to act in ways that keep us on track as we move towards our life purpose. Though they cannot interfere in the choices we make, our guardian angels want us to awaken to a more meaningful life; the one we came here to enjoy. To help us do this, they send us messages when we ask for help that guide us to opportunities and action. We receive this guidance through dreams, feelings, thoughts, signs and symbols; some that are repeatedly sent to us. We recognize angelic messages most often through gut instinct or flashes of inspiration.

Guardian angels may intervene in our lives to protect us from danger or even save us from death if it is not our time to die. People who claim they have been saved by angels have correctly perceived an instance of divine intervention at work in their life, often which causes them to change profoundly. If you ever are lucky enough to feel touched by angelic intervention, you will never forget the experience. When these experiences occur but are not understood, they most often are thought of as close calls or miracles. Many of us have had at least one close call, and some of us have experienced what could be called a true miracle.

Besides our guardian angels, there are archangels that assist us in specific areas of our life when we ask for their help. They oversee the guardian angels and their presence, while seemingly more remote, is powerful enough to help anyone, anywhere, instantly. The archangels work alongside our guardian angels and for them all, there is no greater reward than to see us live free of all suffering and hardship. When you trust that angels are real and invite them to assist you with your everyday affairs, all of your life experiences will be delightful, rewarding and absolutely joyous.

Working with angels in grief is no different than working with them in your everyday affairs. The angels can and will help you heal and acquire a deeper understanding of your loss experience and suffering. They will show you how to transform pain into a powerful tool for change, so that you can become holistically healed, balanced and loving once more. This book shares with you wisdom and guidance based entirely on my communication with angels throughout my deepest suffering, and offers you the tools to learn about loss, pain and healing in a more enlightened way.

When I began to work with the angels to find relief from the intense emotional pain I was suffering after losing my child, I knew I would find true healing through angelic intervention, because in the world of the Divine, there is no suffering. There is only perfection and an order to all things. The angels have guided me to understand the role of pain in my life and to develop a richer view of my personal loss. This book shares with you all I have learned that has helped me heal, and provides a step-by-step practice to help you heal from whatever suffering you are experiencing too.

One of the most important lessons the angels have taught me is that grief reflects our incessant longing to be physically close to a loved one who has died, and is rooted firmly in our belief in separation that comes from the ego. While it is true that separating from anyone we love can be difficult if not horrendous, and the death of a loved one makes loss feel so final, in reality it is not. Throughout this book, you’ll learn more about the illusion of separation and the realm where your loved one now resides, and how to develop a beautiful and fulfilling relationship with them.

The angels have given me the strength to accept my loss and create the life that I want, and am now living. Daily, they help me intend and achieve the goals, big or small, that are necessary to move me forward in my journey to heal holistically. They have taught me to feel forgiveness for all that I cannot change, and helped me begin once again to fill my heart with a love I thought long gone. The angels have patiently taught me to trust in myself, so that I can move with ease in a world that seemed so foreign and harsh after Janaya died. They have guided me to find happiness amidst my great sorrow and to feel authentic gratitude for the lessons that have come to me in my suffering. The angels can help you achieve all this and more too, once you decide to heal from your pain and choose to consciously live a peaceful and rewarding life.

By working with the angels and opening yourself to a deeper understanding of suffering and the pain of separation you are feeling for a loved one or lost hopes and dreams, know that your experience in life will dramatically transform as you put your faith in the Divine and allow them to help you heal in ways that you may believe impossible right now. The angels understand your pain and want to bring you the comfort that nothing else can. Their presence and guidance will constantly reassure you that a safe, happy and productive future can be yours. While I know how difficult it is to trust any kind of a future when you are suffering, I assure you that working with the angels will change your life the moment you decide to change.

When I first started working with angels a few months before Janaya died, more from experimenting with the idea than anything else, it wasn’t until I received their intervention in specific ways that I became a true believer in angelic power. Turning to the Divine for help with the various problems and challenges I was facing, proved to me beyond doubt, that angels really existed, even though I knew nothing else about them at the time. In the early months of my grief, I turned to the angels as a constant source of guidance for my daily survival and relief from pain when I couldn’t find help anywhere else.

While angels won’t make your pain magically disappear, because this is not their role to do so, they will guide you to find deeper meaning in your hurtful experiences and transform your life in suffering to one that is filled with joy and optimum health in a faster and more authentic way than any other therapy I know. This is not to say that healing from trauma and debilitating loss doesn’t take time and that other therapies aren’t useful as a supplemental resource. Healing does take time and it can take a combination of intervention therapies to get you on the road to total wellness. However, the angels will bring you an understanding of your pain experience at the depth of its core that traditional therapies often miss, where you will explore and discover the meaning and purpose behind your suffering in a much more thoughtful and introspective way. While this practice is designed to work in tandem with other therapy practices of your choosing, it is essential to understand that no healing therapy will ultimately work until you know what needs to be healed and choose to heal.

I did not want to live after Janaya died. The angels guided me to find my purpose, which helped me find a reason to live. You can find meaning for your life too, but how quickly you awaken to the special purpose you have chosen in this incarnation, and how effectively you heal from all of your pain, depends entirely on your willingness to change and evolve. I chose to create a life after loss by giving myself over to the Divine that would forever guide me to live as humbly, graciously and truthfully as possible, despite my grief. I inspire you to do the same. However, I also realize that asking anyone suffering to believe there is a way out of the darkness, especially when they feel isolated and alone, is one of the most difficult things to ask. When we are consumed by pain, our thoughts and emotions are anchored to all things negative. We are prone to self-destruction and hurting others. We feel afraid, different from everyone else and vulnerable. In this state, it is difficult to attract all of the good we are worthy of receiving and deserve to have.

Positive things in life, including healthy relationships, opportunities, wonderful situations, exciting adventures and material wealth, all come from high vibrating energy that you must be consciously aligned with if you want to continuously attract success and abundance in all forms. It is essential that you express as an energy being centered in peace, joy, love, kindness, forgiveness and compassion if you want to experience a comfortable, balanced life free of worry, fear, anger and pain. By remaining aware of your power as an energy being that is responsible for creating all of your experiences, both negative and positive, you can begin to consciously develop healthy, constructive behaviors and life patterns that will ensure you continuously manifest into form all of your desires, including healing, to enjoy optimal living the rest of your life. The road to peace and joy will be yours to enjoy the moment you begin to center your thoughts and emotions in high vibrating energy that is driven by passion and purpose, even if your purpose for today is simply to get better. Anyone in pain who thinks they cannot transform their energy to consistently function in this way is wrong. You can and will be amazed by the results of powerful change the moment you allow the Divine into your life.

While healing and being able to consciously attract abundance in all areas of your life will happen through a process of self-exploration and transformation over time, the practice of Divine Healing will guide you to discover the many choices before you that can assist you to transform quickly and effectively as you feel ready to change. The more you work with the principles of Divine Healing and absorb the wisdom embedded within each one, the more empowered you will become as your energy vibration naturally begins to shift.

We are beings of energy that are constantly sending and receiving information to and from the universe through thought. Every thought and emotion you have corresponds directly to energy of the exact same vibration and frequency. Positive thoughts attract high energy forms that produce emotions centered on healing. Painful thoughts attract low energy forms, from which only illness and dysfunction can materialize. The more negative your thoughts, the lower and weaker will be your overall state of functioning. The more positive your thoughts, simply put, the healthier you are. You can only attract long-term positive experiences that manifest from high vibrating energy, by expressing healthy emotions and thoughts all of the time.

Your thoughts and emotions influence all of your experiences. In the external world this includes your environments, relationships, love, money, job satisfaction. In short, your overall contentment with life. You present yourself to the world in a very specific way based entirely on the energy vibration you transmit through your thoughts and emotions. The way you feel influences how you function in the world. What you feel greatly influences what you think. You are either attracting very painful experiences to yourself, or very positive ones. You may experience both for a time, but one type of experience, negative or positive, will dominate over the other in the long run.

Divine Healing guides you to do the following: 1) Improve your life or transform it altogether by teaching you how to transcend all painful thoughts and feelings holding you back from enjoying every success you deserve. 2) Accept and honor your life in suffering. 3) Forgive yourself and others their role in your painful experiences. 4) Explore the deeper meaning of your suffering and discern important life lessons to start manifesting the life that you truly want. 5) Claim your rightful place on this planet as the shining, authentic, joyous being you chose and were meant to be to fulfill a very special purpose and service here on earth. When you align with all these, you will happily accept becoming your own best guarantee of the present and future you want, living a life filled with peace, happiness and love.

While Divine Healing has been written in the context of my specific experience in grief, it is intended to give anyone suffering emotional pain who desires to heal, the tools for powerful transformation, centered on inner peace. As energy beings, we are like magnets: the thoughts we transmit are always looking for a response from the universe. Every thought, whether formed from high (positive) or low (negative) energy, looks for a corresponding signal through the brain’s neurons, bringing us more of what we already are thinking and have. If you are consciously ready to invite healing into your life, this book is a must read to help you become aware of the process taking place in your body in pain so that you can fully understand what is required from you to start the transformation process. By confronting your pain at the deepest level, which Divine Healing pushes you to do, you will break past all blocks tying you to struggle and more suffering and free yourself to enjoy all of the experiences that you do want.

When you choose to no longer suffer, it is in the moment you become willing to heal that your energy begins to transform. You start to send and receive energy created from a higher vibration pattern that causes you in time, to consistently think healthier thoughts and feel stronger emotionally. You will begin to see hope for your future and get excited about prospects and opportunities that you couldn’t see or weren’t there before. You may even reconnect to an old passion or find a new one. The important point to remember is that all healing starts first, with a change in the way you think. Divine Healing takes you on a journey to discover your pain, but it also brings you through to the other side, where you can once again enjoy a peaceful and prosperous life.

Healing for most people takes a lifetime. It occurs as you gently surrender all control of your suffering to the Divine. By staying open to changes throughout your healing process, your life will dramatically improve and you will find relief from all pain. The angels want you to heal; trust in the divine process. Their purpose in guiding me to write this book was to share with you a different path to pain recovery that through my own experience is proof that anyone can choose to end all struggle. You only need to be willing to think differently about your hurtful experience. The angels are here to help you connect to your innate power as a spiritual being; a power that is essential to activate if you want to live with a trusting heart once again. This means not only trusting in others, but trusting yourself. I can attest to the peace I now enjoy that I attained solely living by the principles offered in this book. As a bonus, through my flexibility to think more expansively, I also gained a wonderful relationship with my beloved Janaya after her death, much of which is documented throughout this book.

I have long felt that sharing our stories is one way we can all feel less alone in our suffering and take comfort from each other’s experiences without judgment or shame. However, I have also long felt that we need more than just stories to help us recover from deep-seated pain. Pertaining specifically to loss, there are books available that teach about the recovery of grief and those that share stories about other people’s pain in loss. While helpful and certainly comforting, Divine Healing is different in that it inspires you to live with your grief without embarrassment, guilt, shame, anger, fear or the cultural pressure to recover, while still creating and enjoying a productive life centered on healing.

After losing what I consider to be the greatest gift of all, my child, I could not accept a life filled with the tormenting emotional pain that I struggled with after Janaya died. Her death robbed me of my ability to love and feel the joy in my heart that had been central to my life. I turned to the angels to heal from my pain, not to forget my loss or grief. In doing so, I now offer you the inspiration and tools that helped me find hope, peace and love amidst my sorrow.

Part One addresses a specific area of grief in each of the twelve chapters that I struggled with, but that are common to many people suffering. While not every subject matter may be relevant to your own experience, I am keenly aware that many of us suffer the same pain and face many of the same struggles trying to conquer life’s daily challenges after loss, great despair, lost dreams, tragedy and sorrow. Therefore, it is my hope that you will find in my story the feeling of inclusiveness as you journey to triumph over your own pain, summoning the courage it takes to travel the road of healing that with every page you turn and angelic wisdom you uncover, you find light-filled and inspiring.

The story begins with my shocking spiral into grief after the death of Janaya and the trauma I experienced from her suicide. I describe the roller coaster emotions and physical suffering I endured that in general, represents what anyone suffering trauma goes through. I recount the crumbling of my life’s foundation and the impact of secondary losses. My painful and awkwardly changing relationships with family and friends. Lack of support. Living with post-traumatic stress (the symptoms that often go undiagnosed in grievers). Marital problems including the loss of intimacy. Grieving children and the struggles they face that are often ignored or remain misdiagnosed or undiagnosed. The unpredictable life changes after loss that force many people to learn new skills and adapt to new circumstances to meet changing and challenging needs. The difficulties in letting go of the past. The fear and pain of rebuilding the future after loss and trauma. A guide to working with the angels. Finally, a discussion on the afterlife that guides you to create a heartwarming relationship with your spirit loved ones.

Part Two provides information, tools and techniques (including meditations also available online at www.vonnesolis.com) specific to the practice of Divine Healing that is rooted in five core principles. End of chapter exercises help you explore your experience in suffering more fully so that you can immediately begin to create and sustain the best possible support for yourself throughout your healing journey. You will learn how to work with several of the archangels and receive specific techniques that will help you find relief from your pain. The practice guides you to recover from pain in your own way and time so that healing feels natural and gentle. It helps you incorporate into your life the grief you have experienced from former painful experiences in a way that is sacred and respectful and encourages you to live more openly as an authentic human being.

You can recover from all pain, but the choice to heal is yours. Divine Healing requires that you journey within and go through pain, not around it, in order to heal. It brings you to a deeper understanding of your suffering and a way to find peace in your heart through forgiveness, understanding, acceptance, compassion and love. For those drawn to this book not yet touched by loss, but with a genuine desire to support others in their healing journey, it is my hope that you take from my story the compassion and empathy that is important for all of us to understand in order to develop a greater awareness of the human experience in general.

The less afraid we become as a culture to talk about loss, pain and suffering, the sooner we can begin a healthy and respectful dialogue on the profound lessons we can all take from each other’s experiences in pain, focusing our attention on the holistic healing we all so richly deserve. In this way, not only will we heal as individuals, but as a global community of enlightened human beings.

Chapter 1

Welcome to Grief

ONE OF THE FIRST THINGS I learned after the death of Janaya was that grief not dealt with completely or ignored altogether, wreaks havoc in people’s lives. Grief when confronted, also creates chaos, but eventually can become successfully integrated into part of the overall life experience. As you allow the experience of grief to flow through you, rather than be a continual force to contend with, you open yourself up much more quickly to healing. Grief that is experienced in its fullness connects you to the deepest part of you that when thoroughly explored, allows your authenticity to emerge. As your authenticity begins to emerge in all its many layers, you will begin to recognize the changes you want for your life and feel inspired to reintegrate into the world a wholly functioning human being.

Creatively shaping a positive and productive life after horrendous suffering is no easy feat. It is important that as a griever, you find the strength and courage to explore your deepest pain in order to learn the lessons you came to this planet to learn. When you are able to examine your body in pain and all of the experiences that brought you to suffering, you will acquire over time, a thorough understanding of the real you, which will help you journey forward in a genuinely peaceful way. Because there is usually major upheaval and unpredictable changes that accompany grief, and many of these that feel virtually unmanageable, learning how to respond to and nurture your changing emotional, physical, mental and spiritual needs is critical to successful healing.

I joined a support group for bereaved parents three weeks after Janaya died to help me cope with the trauma I was suffering. The moment I became bereaved, I knew I would need a support system around me and I wanted this help from other bereaved parents. Walking into my first meeting exactly twenty-one days after Janaya’s suicide was the second most difficult moment I have ever faced. As I solemnly filled out my nametag, I knew I was taking out a lifelong membership in a group they say has the highest membership dues, which was one I would have preferred not to qualify for. I was officially a bereaved parent; a distinction that would separate me from the majority of people for the rest of my life.

Though some people were surprised to see me at a meeting so soon after my loss, I was desperate from the moment I learned of Janaya’s death to have other bereaved parents around me, whose presence I felt could guide me through the chaos and reassure me that everything would be okay again. Trying to find help initially proved difficult. My sister, who stayed with us for two weeks after Janaya’s death, made phone calls on my behalf to the two major grief support groups in our area to try to find someone to meet with me. Her first few attempts proved unsuccessful. It was summer. People were away on holidays. There were no meetings scheduled. I felt desperate and alone, and finding support that would include my thirteen-year old son was next to impossible. There simply was no group available for young teen survivors of suicide. Even for adults, the specific support group to which my husband and I had been directed by the funeral home was closed for the summer. I was becoming increasingly anxious to communicate with any bereaved parent at this point and beginning to think that we may well have to cope with our struggle alone. I didn’t want to be part of this new and painful world of the bereaved, but like it or not I was smack in the middle of grief with nowhere to run or hide.

Eventually, my sister was able to arrange a meeting for my husband and me with a woman who had lost her son to suicide several years earlier. While this meeting to some degree felt comforting and helped me feel less alone in my grief, I left feeling overwhelmed by the absence of any real counseling services and no sound guidance as to how to cope with the struggles before me. I appreciated this woman taking the time to meet with us and recognized her concern for what we were going through, but I just could not see any hope for recovery from my loss of any sort. She looked miserable herself.

I scoured bookstores and visited the local library to find as many books as I could on loss of a child, suicide and grief in general. I borrowed books from the support group. I joined online chat groups and talked with other bereaved parents, but of everything I read and everyone I talked to, nothing and no one offered any magic formula to help me ease the tormenting pain I was in. I felt very alone and more frightened than I had ever been before in my life.

I decided early on I was not going to get stuck in the suicide aspect of Janaya’s death. I had lost a child, period. And though suicide comes with its own set of cultural taboos, it seemed clear when I was around other grieving parents that we were all experiencing the same pain from losing our children. Yet, I admit to feeling different from them at times and vulnerable to judgment. For those who had lost a child to illness or an accident, the torment on their faces from their grief made me question the choice my child had made to die and whether in fact, I even had the right to be sitting in the same support group with these parents. I felt guilty. I’d had a perfectly physically healthy daughter. Despite this, I was determined not to let the cause of Janaya’s death isolate me in my grief, especially from other bereaved parents, despite this fleeting feeling that my bereavement was somehow not quite as valid as theirs.

I turned mostly to books initially for comfort, devouring stories written by other bereaved parents (mostly fathers) and felt a little bit less alone. Everyone was saying the same thing in their grief and it was obvious we all shared the same feelings of rage, shock, sorrow, confusion, loneliness and depression; all familiar companions to me by now. But it surprised me that no matter how much time had passed since their child had died, the pain was still so raw. I could feel it through every word on every page. I began to have even less hope for a bright future and I was running out of books. Finding that one golden key that could unlock the secret to happiness seemed a lost cause. It seemed nobody had the answers that could guide me to recover from my pain, and any book on grief that did focus on recovery, was written by an author who had no experience with child loss. I resigned myself to a grim life and started to think more about death, my own actually.

As my grief began to intensify, I began to understand why many grievers talked about feeling crazy and helpless as their inner and outer worlds were ripped apart. My own sorrow had instantly robbed me of who I was and drastically altered the direction my life was taking. Despite my resolve to take something positive from my painful experience by trying to find small joys throughout my day that could cheer me just a little, the pain was just too great a burden for me to bear alone. My will to fight to go on was waning. I felt weak and vulnerable and did not want to cope with any more of life’s daily struggles. I’d had enough. The future ahead seemed long without my Janaya by my side.

Within weeks of the death, I was exhausted, restless and suffering insomnia. My thoughts blurred one into the other, mostly with images of how I'd imagined Janaya’s death had been. Haunting visions played over and over in my head, which drove me crazy and prevented me from focusing on anything else. I was struggling to make sense of Janaya’s last moments, her actual passing, wondering what it must have been like for her, picturing her lifeless body, the cremation. I was terrified.

Of all of the things I had taken for granted and that brought me such pleasure in my life, especially those that centered on my family and domestic life, nothing felt pleasurable anymore. I lost all interest in baking, cooking, going for bike rides, walking my little dog, swimming in the pool, going out as we often had. My life in fact, had come to a screeching halt. There was no laughter anymore, no fun. No matter how much I wanted to resume a normal routine for the sake of my son, I simply could not. I was frozen in time, in a moment really.

I spent most of my time indoors. I paced the house, feeling trapped and explosive, very much like I imagined a caged lioness might feel searching for a cub that has been taken from her. The need to find Janaya, to know she was alright, consumed my every thought. I was depressed and believed I would never again be able to provide for my surviving child emotionally or physically, the way I once had. I couldn’t trust myself to make decisions. I feared for my family’s future and the ability of my husband to successfully run his business and manage our finances. I was afraid we would remain socially isolated in our grief and if word of Janaya’s suicide got out, ostracized in our neighborhood. I withdrew into the confines of my inner world, to a place where no one could reach me.

While the survivor in me recognized the importance of setting small goals each day to keep me moving forward; such as getting up, making my bed, showering, feeding the fish, I wrestled continuously with thoughts of dying. Living didn’t make sense to me anymore. I was simply going through the motions of feeling alive. In fact, I felt invisible and disoriented in my inner world. I could no longer tell the difference between order and chaos because everything was chaotic and every decision too hard to make, so I stopped trying. This included deciding what to eat, where to go, what to do. Summer crawled into fall. As some of the shock of my daughter’s death wore off, I became intensely aware of just how many more seasons I would have to face, living in such agony.

I had been a student of metaphysics for nearly twenty-five years and understood to some degree the importance of living with an appreciation for all things. Deep down, I believed in divine order, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to reconcile my spiritual beliefs with suffering. The foundation on which I had built my adult life had been shaken to its core. With every leaf that blew to the ground as fall slowly crept in, my will to live slipped further and further away.

In a desperate attempt to find something to hold onto, I disciplined myself to practice yoga at home, which forced me to at least move my body and focus my attention for a short period each day. I also joined an online prayer board and searched for support groups on the Internet that would allow me to share my pain with others and vent when I needed to. I was worried I would forget Janaya’s sweet and gentle voice, the sound of her laughter, her softness. Each day I received prayers or exchanged e-mails with other bereaved parents and felt their comfort, but physically I was starting to show signs of emotional distress. My chest was hurting. I had shortness of breath; a symptom that would last nearly two years and then return with a vengeance whenever I experienced additional stress in my life. My heart actually ached and felt as though it was breaking into smaller and smaller pieces the more time passed. My stomach hurt and my head pounded. I was consumed by suffering so great that only intensified whenever I stared at photos of Janaya, reminded over and over again of how it all ended.

As I began to communicate more with other bereaved moms, I discovered that while our circumstances were different, we all shared the same pain. Yet, none of us knew how to find answers to help us survive the profound grief we were in from losing our children. One day an e-mail found its way to my inbox advertising an online course that could teach people how to work with angels. I was familiar with the instructor and the many books she had written, so without a second thought, I signed up for the course that would set me on a path that would ultimately change my life. Up to that point I didn’t know much about angels. A few months before Janaya died, my sister encouraged me to buy a book on angels and a deck of cards for fun. As I became more familiar with doing readings, I was intrigued by the accuracy of the cards and convinced that angels had to be real. They could help anyone find answers to questions. When Janaya died, it was only natural I turned to them for help to try to understand my loss and grief through the answers they could provide that I couldn’t find elsewhere.

Studying daily with the angels became a discipline for me and one that gave me great comfort. For an hour each morning, I tucked myself away in my bedroom to meditate and practice communicating with them. Soon, I began to notice small improvements in some areas of my life. As my trust increased in the power of angels to help me heal from my pain, I began to understand more the lessons of my suffering. Through angelic guidance, my negative and