Can You Feel Me?: A story of love, grief, death and our purpose here and how to stay connected to our loved ones.

By Nicole Leigh

Can You Feel Me is the inspirational and hopeful journey of a USMC Gold Star Mother who, in the space of a year, has suddenly lost both her husband and her son. Travel along with the author as she strives to find meaning and answers to life's important questions: What is our purpose? What is death? Why did t

• Language: English
• Publisher: Palmetto Publishing
• Release date: Oct 19, 2020
• ISBN: 9781649901354

Nicole Leigh

At the age of forty-one, Nicole Leigh experienced the unexpected loss of her husband. Less than a year later, she also suffered the tragic loss of her son, a U.S. Marine. No one seemed to have any answers to help her deal with the profound heartache of these terrible losses so close together. Nicole was forced to come to terms with and understand death, grief, and life on her own. Mother of three and USMC Gold Star Mother, Nicole Leigh has worked as a nurse for sixteen years. She is currently a hospice nurse.

Book preview

PART 1

March 20, 2018

T

he early morning light pierced through my bedroom window just like every other morning since moving to California. Every day I woke up here I felt like I was in a foreign land. Later realizing it wasn't the place that felt foreign it was how lost I was within that the feeling emerged from. This day; this day was to be different than every other day. Trying to rub the last of the sleep from my eyes I slumber to the bathroom and continue my usual morning out the back door to sit on the steps to facetime my youngest daughter Haleigh just as I did every morning. This was our norm because our life was not the norm. We relied on each other to get through the day.

I walk outside like I was saying and sit down on my back steps, opened my facetime and made the call. As Haleigh answers I finally adjust my eyes and rub the very last of the sand and restless sleep away. I look around the world before me and that was when I knew something amazing was happening that morning and that it was not the usual morning.

Colors are brighter, so much brighter that I am unable to fully understand what is before me as I see layers and layers of color and dimensions of color. This when the first knowing occurred. Well the first time I was aware.

I look at my daughter through the phone and not in any way understanding my reality I say more to myself than her, I'm going to paint and I am going to be good at it. Haleigh replies what your walls with as much sarcasm that one could use in three words. Not missing a beat I say, no you asshole; pictures, I'm going to paint pictures and I am going to be good at it. Responding with such conviction her only response was ok, geez go buy some paint. Her initial response wasn't unexpected. I could not draw a stick figure and had no artistic ability. When you have children you figure out things about yourself; one thing I had figured out was that I could not paint and was not an artist.

This knowing was such a deep feeling and was not my thought and I knew this. I did not know any of this day. I did not recognize the words or thoughts or feelings I was experiencing. It came out of my mouth without my understanding our thinking about it. I go about my day as usual and can't shake the knowing that I was going to be an artist and be good at it. I end up buying art supplies and follow my knowing. When I sit down to paint I start layering colors on the canvas and there is a nice little sunset that appears and I get a bit giddy because it is looking alright. And I started feeling alright.

You see I hadn't felt alright in a long time. I hadn't felt alright since 10-3-2016. I actually was not alright. We'll get into that.

As I sit on my couch and continue to paint I feel myself being guided and at some point am aware that I am not in charge of the brush anymore. My beautiful sunset that had caused the giddiness previously was now a looming tornado with a silo and corn on one side and a palm tree on the opposite. Corn/silo=Iowa, palm tree= California and the canvas reveals some kind of talent that I know I did not have before. I sit back and shake my head and think whoa is this happening.

Just as the thought is in my mind I feel my couch lift/elevate=levitate and drop back down and it leaves my body and mind shook. I know what I am experiencing is real yet I cannot totally comprehend it. Did I really just wake up on the day I had planned to take my life and have spontaneous artistic ability and feel my couch levitate, lol. Real is not real anymore. Real is not real ever again.

Let's go back to 10-3-2016 when I stopped being alright. I wake up this morning and smile and tap into my hope for the first time in a long time. Hopeful and positive as I have always tried to maintain this energy even when life tries to take it away. Yet my optimism has a veil of grief covering it. I had lost my husband less than a year prior to a heart attack. A husband that was 43 years old. I didn't know grief or what to do with it so this veil was over me like a blanket always.

I get myself together for the day and something seems off somehow and yet I cannot place it as every day seems off still after my husband's death. Haleigh and I are going to look at a house to rent as I just sold my home I shared with my husband as I cannot financially maintain on my own. We are temporarily at my mother's home.

The house is going to be perfect for us and I have a little bit of my optimism shine through the blanket of grief that is always there. A teeny tiny bit of hope is pushing its way through. We return to my mother's house and I am content for the first time in a long time. I found a home for my family that day and just maybe things were going to work out. Throughout the past year I have been attacked through the courts by my husband's ex-wife and family. I was emotionally exhausted and it felt good to see some light again.

I was going to be ok. We were going to be ok. My three children and I were going to be ok. You already know about Haleigh, she is 17, my daughter Madison is 20 and my son Jarek is 22. Madison is living in Washington close to my family and Jarek is active duty in the UNITED STATES MARINE CORP and is stationed in North Carolina. I am excited to tell the other two about the day; first I am going to take a nap though. I am a nurse and work night shift in a local nursing home. The