Riana's Gift: The Manual for Healing from the Death of a Child or Any Other Traumatic Loss … as Though It Never Happened

By Dirk van der Merwe

In November 2005, author Dirk van der Merwe received the call every parent dreads above all others. His daughter, Riana, was dead at thirty-seven. In the shocked silence that followed, both Dirk and his late wife, Elsie, underwent an unusual experience. Some would call it paranormala phenomena that is physical but cant be proven scientifically. It was a sensation so overwhelming thatnotwithstanding the intense shock, pain, and confusionit filled them with an indescribable peace and acceptance. This reaction was the exact opposite to their experience thirty-five years prior when their second baby was stillborn.

The fact that Elsie experienced the same unaccountable at peace and complete acceptance sensation propelled Dirk into an exhaustive study of bereavement and natural law. Rianas Gift is the result of that investigation. It dissects and rejects all standard recommendations for dealing with death and traumatic loss. It dismisses the idea that the grief and pain of bereavement in all its forms is a life sentence that must be endured and suppressed one day at a time. It is unique in providing guidelines that allow you to live on, joyfully celebrating the spirit of the person you love without anguish or guilt, as though the pain and trauma of the loss never happened while the fond memories of the individual blissfully remain.
This is guaranteed by that same natural law that leaves a new mother joyously exuberant, forgetting the recent agony of childbirth.

Rianas Gift offers a hands-on manual to healing from loss and trauma with special focus on parental bereavement based on natural law.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press AU
• Release date: May 22, 2017
• ISBN: 9781504307864

Dirk van der Merwe

Dirk van der Merwe, a twice bereaved father and self-healed alcoholic, works as a counselor.

Book preview

Riana’s GIFT

The Manual for Healing from the Death

of a Child or Any Other Traumatic Loss

… As Though It Never Happened.

The voice of Nature loudly cries,

And many a message from the skies,

That something in us never dies.

Robert Burns Sketch - New Year’s Day (1790)

Dirk Van der Merwe

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Copyright © 2017 Dirk can der Merwe.

Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Balboa Press

A Division of Hay House

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.balboapress.com.au

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-5043-0785-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-0786-4 (e)

Balboa Press rev. date: 07/27/2017

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE

CHAPTER 1:      THE START OF THE QUEST

CHAPTER 2:      THE UNNATURAL ACCEPTANCE PROCESS: THE FRUITLESS WAY

CHAPTER 3:      THE NATURAL HEALING PROCESS: THE ALTERNATIVE THAT SHATTERS ILLUSIONS BUT DELIVERS SOLUTIONS

CHAPTER 4:      BEEN THERE; AND HAVE THE SOUVENIR TEASPOON TO SHOW FOR IT

CHAPTER 5:      WHY YOU SHOULD FOLLOW THE NATURAL HEALING PROCESS

CHAPTER 6:      HOW TO RECEIVE THE GIFT

CHAPTER 7:      THEY ARE ALIVE AND WANT TO COMMUNICATE WITH US

CHAPTER 8:      CAUTION: MEDIUMS

CHAPTER 9:      CAUTION: RELIGION

CHAPTER 10:    A HEALING AFFIRMATION FOR WHO WE REALLY ARE

CHAPTER 11:    TALK IT OUT, THEN COMMIT TO CARRYING ON

CHAPTER 12:    GETTING RID OF GUILT

CHAPTER 13:    REIKI: HEALING FOR A DAMAGED SOUL

CHAPTER 14:    LAUGHTER: STILL THE BEST MEDICINE

CHAPTER 15:    BEGIN A BREATHING-EXERCISE PROGRAMME…TODAY

CHAPTER 16:    THE GIFT - JOURNEY’S END

ADVERTORIAL

PREFACE

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

Arthur Schopenhauer 1788-1860

ON 7 NOVEMBER 2005, my late wife, Elsie, and I received the call all parents fear more than they dread their own inevitable death. Riana, our firstborn, had just died. About three months earlier, Riana - a healthy, happy, successful insurance broker and mother of two daughters then aged nine and eleven - had turned thirty-seven.

The first drafts of RIANA’S GIFT focused almost exclusively on an amazing materialisation or a manifestation that Elsie and I both experienced. It could well have been called paranormal, yet it’s the undeniable truth. It happened within seconds of receiving that awful, life-changing phone call. In fact, we were still standing at the phone, completely at a loss as to what to do next, when it happened.

It’s difficult to explain a sensation or feeling. The closest I can get is: when on a warm day with no windows or doors open to cause a chilly draught, you, without any thought or action on your own part, get goose bumps. Now add to that, an eerie sensation tingling up your spine to the base of your neck where it feels as though the hairs are rising. This spooky experience is so common we even have an expression for it: Someone has just walked over my grave. The sensation was something of that nature, and it happened to both Elsie and me – so it couldn’t have been just her or my imagination. We physically felt that a substance, composition unknown, loosened itself from around our solar plexuses and then fell out of us. The falling-out sensation was over almost as soon as it’d started. And with it, notwithstanding the intense shock, confusion and pain we were experiencing, both of us were enveloped in a deep sense of peace and acceptance.

Then, exactly three months after her departure, both of us received what we call, Riana’s GIFT, and that changed the nature of the manuscript I had started writing. Although neither Elsie nor I’d ever heard of an experience similar to the falling-out sensation (and later on, the GIFT), it had healed us so completely from the pain and that hollow feeling in the chest that bereavement brings. It felt as though Riana’s physical death had never happened.

The falling-out experience/sensation, the explanation of the word GIFT, as well as the natural laws underlying the phenomena and how they can be duplicated to provide the same complete healing for whoever desires it, all are explained in the main text. Nevertheless, because the GIFT is such an unusual concept, bear this in mind. The most important reason for going from one place to another is to see what’s in between. - Norton Juster, author of The Phantom Tollbooth.

Remember that time the filling fell out of your molar tooth on the side you favour for chewing? The excruciating ache not only affected your tooth and mouth but also threw your whole way of life into turmoil! You couldn’t chew the way you were accustomed to and any food, such as tough meat, raw carrots, etc. that required some serious chewing suddenly became an agonising experience. Drinks taken to soothe your nerves and dispel the stress of the day caused you to scream in pain, and strung your nerves so tightly that they came within a hairsbreadth of snapping when the hot or cold liquid made contact with the exposed nerve. You couldn’t sleep for the pain and were more exhausted in the morning than you had been when you retired at night. Your every effort to lessen the pain aggravated it. You tried stuffing the tip of your tongue into the exposed hollow in the hope of relieving the agony, but this only aggravated it. Pressing on the uncovered nerve only sent another tormenting jolt of hurt through your frame. But, oh blessing of blessings, after the dentist had imparted his gift – talent and skill - by filling the cavity and restoring the tooth to wholeness, the pain wasn’t just better or more bearable, it was gone! And the cavity wasn’t merely repaired, it was as though the loss of the filling, and the painful hollow it left and the life-upsetting pain and suffering it’d caused had never been. A gift can’t get any better than that, can it?

If you can relate to that metaphor, you are in for a life-altering, healing treat. For now, forget about the GIFT and the falling-out experience. Instead, read on with hope and anticipation.

As expected, I turned to books and websites dedicated to parental bereavement to learn more about our intriguing experience, but I came up with a blank. No explanation, not even a passing reference. I thought I might be getting somewhere as I read about stigmata but that was not what we had experienced. Stigmata is the term - mostly used by Catholics - describing the appearance on the body of inexplicable marks, lesions, or sensations of pain corresponding to the presumed location of the crucifixion wounds of Jesus of Nazareth.

But I did learn something that expanded the initial objective and broadened the target group for RIANA’S GIFT. Virtually every one of the many books I read and the numerous websites I visited had a clearly defined religious bias – unashamedly implying that getting closer to God is the mystical answer, making those who’ve suffered the loss of a child, whole again.

It would appear that since mankind first realised that there was something bigger, better, more powerful and awe-inspiring than ourselves, something that controlled the seasons, the climate, the order of night and day etc., that this has been called God, and God is blamed or praised for whatever happens. In this context, getting closer to God is a synonym for committing yourself to religious dogma and ritual. Those who’ve followed this route will confirm that becoming religious might give the event some gratifying esoteric meaning – even if only a feeling of being chosen for martyrdom to serve a higher calling in God’s service. But, as Elsie and I’d already discovered in January 1970, when our second baby, Elsietjie, was stillborn after being carried to term, the idea that martyrdom could provide any solace is plain rubbish. And, even if it did, the pain and traumatic memories remain. Martyrdom and higher callings do not make the bereaved feel as though their nightmarish ordeal had never happened. In fact, such illusions prolong the grieving time. This, Elsie and I had learned first-hand.

The books I read were often written by professional counsellors who didn’t have the slightest idea about how it feels to lose a child to death. This makes their offerings, however well intentioned, artificial. A book by a retired mortician was the last one on the subject of parental bereavement that I ever read. Although the author had, in all probability, arranged the burial or cremation of thousands of children, he didn’t know the feeling of burying or cremating a child of his own. He was like a teetotaller trying to explain to a habitual drinker suffering from a hangover that she or he should live with it because the party of the night before was the will of God. This was just another disappointing cul-de-sac that heaped more frustration on my already overburdened soul.

At this point I decided to write down an account of my feelings, experiences and thoughts. Receiving the GIFT a little later led to extensive rewriting of RIANA’S GIFT. As the book started to take shape I found that an inner wisdom was directing me. This was totally opposed to what I had been taught to believe about death and the purpose of life.

Without my seeking, people and books began to confirm my radically alternative thoughts and insights. It was similar in effect to what Benazir Bhutto, Prime Minister of Pakistan, said of her chosen career, shortly before she was assassinated: I didn’t choose my career. It chose me.

It didn’t take me long to realise that I wasn’t discovering new wisdom or having unique insight based on intellectual ability at all. I was merely being reminded, and graciously so, of ancient, eternal wisdom that’s innate in all of us. We’ve only forgotten it because of the system in which we Westerners are raised. A system characterised by egotism and arrogance that ignores, What has been will be again; what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 1:9) We, with all our so-called modern enlightenment and contemporary technological advancement, aren’t nearly as clever and ingenious as we vaingloriously believe we are. All our inventions, smart gadgetry and mindboggling insights into the working of the universe are based on original eternal natural laws. In general we use the word original incorrectly. We present or understand