death – Cynthia Hilston – Author & Blogger

Excerpt from Hannah’s Rainbow

“I would like it very much if you were all here with me,” Hannah said, wheezing. She coughed several times.

“Mom!” Abbi exclaimed, rushing to her side.

The coughing spell subsided, and Hannah shook her head, holding up a placating hand. “No, no, it’s nothing. Please don’t make a fuss. There’s nothing to be done. Just, please… be here with me. And call my siblings, please. They need to know. Harry would be devastated if he couldn’t come in time…”

“I’ll make the calls,” Abbi said, trying to occupy herself.

Brenda exchanged a look with Abbi and nodded, drawing up a chair next to Glen. Abbi left the room and made the calls she dreaded. Irma said she’d be on the first plane out, but Abbi thought, with a sinking heart, that she would be too late. Within the hour, Harry was at the door.

Abbi supposed she could have let Alan or Tom answer the door, but she was a bundle of nerves as she flitted about the house. When she opened the front door and saw the pain etched in every line of her uncle’s face, she couldn’t compose herself to speak. Harry entered and hugged his niece.

“Chin up, Abbi, child,” he said in his usual gentle manner he’d used with her since she had been small.

Abbi half-laughed, half-hiccupped. “I’m not a child anymore, Uncle Harry, but thanks.”

“Ah, you’re a child to me, old fart that I am. It’s okay to fall apart, to be like a child, especially right now. Where is she?”

“This way.” Abbi couldn’t help but smile. Her uncle always knew how to make her laugh.

Harry fell silent as he followed his niece to his sister’s side. He took Hannah’s hand in a similar manner as she’d held his all those years ago in the hospital after he had been in the accident.

“What’s this all about, then?” he asked. “I always imagined the roles reserved here, sis. What are you doing in this bed, hmmm?”

Hannah’s chuckle came as a rasp, then a cough, but her eyes shone with mirth.

Recovering, she said, “You never let up, do you, silly brother? I guess the good Lord has use of you yet here.”

“Can’t imagine for what.”

“There you go again, selling yourself short.”

“You think you know what’s best for me, eh? Leaving me ain’t it, Hannah-panna.”

“You never stop, do you?”

They exchanged their friendly banter for a little while longer before Hannah grew serious. “But don’t ever stop, Harry. Don’t ever stop making people laugh and smile. It’s what you do, who you are. You and that big heart of yours.”

Eyes shining with tears, Harry said, “There’s one person whose smile I haven’t seen in far too long. You tell Kathy when you see her – you tell her I’m coming for her soon.”

“I will. I promise.”

“Then it’s settled. Maybe you can leave after all. Don’t let an old bugger like me keep you.”

Harry hugged Hannah one last time and said his farewells to her children. After he left, Hannah’s eyes implored her youngest daughter, then her other children, to sit with her. Breathing was becoming increasingly difficult, so she didn’t waste her words. Each breath, each utterance, and each heartbeat were precious, now more than ever for Hannah.

Hannah’s eyes slipped shut, and her hands fell loose at her sides. To her children, she appeared to be sleeping with difficulty, as every breath was labored, rattling through her chest and out again.

LIKE WHAT YOU’VE READ? PLEASE SUBSCRIBE TO MY BLOG, WHERE I POST AN EXCERPT EVERY SATURDAY. ALSO KEEP UP-TO-DATE WITH MY WRITING PROJECTS!

My new novel, A Laughing Matter of Pain, is now available for pre-order here.My novel, Lorna versus Laura, is available for $4.99 here.

My novel, Hannah’s Rainbow: Every Color Beautiful, is available for $5.99 here.

Excerpt from Hannah’s Rainbow

Rain hit Haley’s bedroom window, tracking down the glass like the tears on her face. Her geometry homework sat unfinished in front of her as she lifted blurry eyes from the numbers and turned toward the wall separating her room from the bedroom next door. She heard Pastor Rife’s muffled voice reciting the familiar words of Psalm 23: “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for You are with me. Your rod and Your staff: they comfort me.”

She found no comfort in those words.

When the pastor’s voice stopped reciting the Psalm, he murmured a prayer. Hannah’s voice, if she even spoke, was too weak to be heard through the wall. Footsteps retreated down the hallway a moment later, and Haley listened for any sound, her breath caught in her throat.

Wiping away tears, she sniffled and stood, finding her resolve. She went to the bedroom door and pushed it slightly open. Down the hallway, the door to her parents’ bedroom was slightly ajar, and her dad’s voice travelled the short distance. She picked up snippets of the phone conversation, and curious, she walked quietly to the bedroom and listened.

“I doubt she’ll live another twenty-four hours,” Alan said.

Dad thinks Grandma will be gone in a day? Haley thought, refusing to believe it.

“She was still walking around last night, that’s right,” her father continued. “To take such a turn for the worst overnight was unexpected.”

Haley refused to listen to another word. She withdrew from the doorway and retreated toward her room. When she reached the door, she made to push it open, but she hovered with indecision as her eyes fell upon the door to what was normally her brother’s room. Grandma Hannah had spent the night in Randy’s bedroom, the bed more comfortable than the pull-out one she usually occupied whenever she spent the night.

Biting her lower lip, Haley entered the darkened room. The shades were drawn shut on all three windows as the sound of rain continued to hit the glass. Hannah was lying on the bed, propped up by several pillows, and Haley couldn’t discern her grandma’s face until she was nearly upon her. She stopped at the bedside and tried to smile, but Haley’s heart wasn’t in it. More than anything, fear filled her. This figure lying here – this couldn’t be her beloved grandma!

Haley felt tears prickle again, and with a watery smile, she whispered, “Hi, Grandma.”

No rosy cheeks, no warm smile, no life in her eyes – Hannah stared back at Haley, so weakened and withered, and managed a faint, “Haley.”

LIKE WHAT YOU’VE READ? PLEASE SUBSCRIBE TO MY BLOG, WHERE I POST AN EXCERPT EVERY SATURDAY. ALSO KEEP UP-TO-DATE WITH MY WRITING PROJECTS!

My new novel, A Laughing Matter of Pain, is now available for pre-order here.My novel, Lorna versus Laura, is available for $4.99 here.

My novel, Hannah’s Rainbow: Every Color Beautiful, is available for $5.99 here.

Remembering Grandpa by Creating Him

We stood in the basement of my grandma’s old house, the place I visited every Sunday afternoon as a child. I was now an adult. While I knew she had passed away years ago, as had the man with me, the moment felt so real.

The security of his arms around me, the steady rise and fall of his chest, his breath warm in my ear as he whispered, “I know you never knew me, but I wanted to tell you I love you.”

He wasn’t much taller than me, if at all. His voice was kind, gentle…grandfatherly.

I woke in awe, a tear in my eye. I never knew my grandfather, yet he had spoken to me through a dream.

I have seen many pictures of my grandfather. He passed away four years before I was born. Being nearly 11 years older than my grandmother, he would have been well into his seventies by the time I came along. My grandparents were older than most in that generation, she at 28 and he at 39 when they married in 1942. My uncle was born in ‘46 and my mom in ‘49, so my grandfather was 46 when my mom came into this world. With my grandparents being older, especially my grandfather, I don’t suppose chances were favorable that even if he had lived longer, I would have remembered him much or known him long… But I digress. It’s a sad reality, but true, and I cannot undo the past.

So, that dream held and holds significance for me, seeing as my grandfather was just a man I knew from pictures and from my grandma and mom’s memories of him. He was among the tallest in his extended family. All of the Grundmans were short, so at 5 feet 9 inches, he was a veritable giant! His mother passed away from breast cancer shortly before my grandparents married, and his father was never in his life. His parents divorced when he was a baby because his father was an alcoholic. His mother remarried a man named Samuel Winhold when my grandfather was seven. Samuel must have passed away some 20 years later, as he no longer showed up in pictures.

grandpawithparents — My grandfather, his step-father, and his mother (Amelia) in 1923

My grandfather was Howard Grundman. That’s a good, strong German name, isn’t it? In fact, my mother’s side of the family is completely German, although they have been living in the United States (on both sides) since the 1880s. What’s funny is that when growing up, I often referred to my grandfather as “Howard” when talking about him with my mom or grandma. We visited my grandma every Sunday afternoon for many years, and one of the things we often did was get out all the old pictures and look at them at her dining room table. I had an interest in my heritage from an early age, asking my parents and grandmas to tell me the names of their direct ancestors, so I could write them down. I had a family tree going back to my great-great-grandparents when I was eight, and since then, I have done extensive genealogy research, but that is another topic.

Getting back to my grandfather, or Howard, I feel the need to make the distinction of personalizing him. He will be Grandpa going forward, as it has been in my head and in my writing that I have remembered him in a roundabout way.

grandparentswedding — My grandparents on March 21, 1942

I was fortunate to know my grandma, Emma Grundman, until I was 15, when she passed away. I was close to her, as we saw her weekly. When she died, a void opened in my heart that I spent years (and still do) trying to fill. How can you replace a loved one? You can’t, of course, but you can help them live on by remembering them, by sharing stories, writing down memories, looking at pictures. I am a writer, and writing a story based on my late grandma’s life was inside me. I didn’t know it until 11 year later, when at age 26, I woke with a fictional character’s name on my lips: Hannah Rechthart. Hannah would become my grandma in the story, and her husband would be Edward (Howard).

I wrote a couple of chapters and then a couple more over the next few years, but nothing came of that story until March 2015. I was tired of waiting: waiting for inspiration to strike, waiting to achieve my dream of writing the story and maybe even publishing it. So, I sat down with the intention of writing for at least fifteen minutes a day. That’s it, I told myself, 15 minutes. And do it every day.

I stuck to that, and in the process, the fictional name of Edward Grunner became a character who seemed to breathe and walk off the page. He shared a lot in common with my grandpa: being raised mostly by his mother, being an only child, working in accounting, marrying later in life, being drafted during World War II but only serving for three months, and in love with his dear wife. Edward was an admirable man in many ways. He was kind, patient, and supportive. He was a hard worker and went to church with his family every Sunday. But doubts of being a good father figure plagued him because of his own lack of a good fatherly role model. He questioned his ability to be the type of dad his children needed, especially where his son was concerned.

grundmanfamily — The Grundman family in the early 1950s

For the first time, the ache of not actually knowing Grandpa hit me. I looked at the old pictures of him with my grandma and their kids as if for the first time. I wondered what he sounded like. What was his laugh like? There’s a picture of my grandparents sitting on the couch laughing, and the sound almost escapes. It’s like a phantom room right next door, but I just can’t enter.

What was his favorite food? Did he enjoy Grandma’s pork chops as much as the rest of the family? Did he play that old Monopoly set from the 1930s that Grandma had, the one where I only wanted to play the banker because I didn’t want to lose? Did he sit in the pew and listen to his wife play the organ in church like Edward did in my story? What did he think of his in-laws? Were his grandparents really as stern as they looked in their pictures?

grandparentshappy — My grandparents laughing in 1956

So many questions and only my imagination to answer them!

I mourned Grandpa as if he had just died in 2015 instead of 40 years earlier. For me, by making him alive in my story, I felt that loss penetrate me in a way I never had before. I remember setting an extra place at the table at times when I was a child and we’d be at my grandma’s. It was for my grandpa. Now I have set a place in my heart for him.

I remember him in this way. It’s all I’ve really got.

Like what you’ve read? Please subscribe to my blog, where I post excerpts of my stories on Saturdays, poetry on Tuesdays, and the occasional blog on Fridays. Also keep up-to-date with my writing.

The book I refer to in this post, Hannah’s Rainbow: Every Color Beautiful, is available for $5.99 here.

My other book, Lorna versus Laura, is available for $4.99 here.

Also, don’t forget my next book, A Laughing Matter of Pain, is now available for pre-order here.

Excerpt from Hannah’s Rainbow (Chapter 41)

While the first year without Edward was the most difficult, Hannah found strength she didn’t know she had. There were times when she thought everything was fine, and then something would trigger a memory of Edward – a song on the radio, a line from a book, a phrase someone said. Then Hannah was pulled back into grief.

She supposed she would spend the rest of her life susceptible to such turns of emotion. According to Harry, he had similar experiences since losing Kathy. He joined Hannah at the cemetery some Sundays, and when the weather was nice, they slowly walked the well-trod path from Kathy’s grave to Edward’s grave to their parents’ grave and finally to Amy’s grave.

“You know, this may sound morbid, but I’m finding the cemetery oddly comforting,” Hannah said on a July day, a year after Edward’s passing. “There’s a certain beauty about this place. I wouldn’t have believed it before, but coming here has been vital for me.”

“I’m glad you suggested I join you,” Harry replied. The wind gently played with his silver hair, messing it in the manner he’d often worn it when he was much younger. Behind thick glasses, his blue eyes crinkled as he smiled. “You know you must’ve been very convincing to get me to come here this often, sis, seeing as I avoided this place like the plague for years.”

Hannah joined in the laughter. “Anything to get you to listen to me, Harry. You know I’ve always known what’s best for you.”

Harry sobered. “There’s more truth to that than you realize.”

Hannah reached for his hand and gave it a squeeze. “Hey, you old geezer, you forget that you first came to my aid.”

“Who you calling old, Hannah-panna?”

“Don’t you remember how you related to me when I was angry about Amy dating? For the first time, I felt like someone understood me, Harry.”

Brother and sister exchanged knowing smiles.

“I have a feeling my two younger grandsons are going to cause as much trouble as you and Erik did when you were boys. Randy’s only seven months old and is determined to crawl. He’s getting into things, and I have to keep my eye on the little stinker around the outlets.”

“Ah, grandkids. They keep us young, don’t you think?”

“I often forget my age, but keeping up with them is another thing entirely. What I’d give to wake up just one morning without a stiff neck or back, and if it isn’t that, it’s my legs.”

“You sound like that one old biddy friend of yours you’re always complaining about. What’s her name, Gertie? The one from church who goes on and on about what’s ailing her.”

“Yes, that’s Gertie all right, but don’t you even start, Harry.”

The siblings walked on in perfect companionship to the pond and fed the geese, whiling away another lazy afternoon.

Like what you’ve read? Please subscribe to my blog, where I post an excerpt every Saturday.

My novel, Lorna versus Laura, is available for $4.99 here.

My novel, Hannah’s Rainbow: Every Color Beautiful, is available for $5.99 here.

Excerpt from Hannah’s Rainbow (Chapter 40)

After Tim pulled away, Erik, Lily, and Harry joined Hannah. She was sad that Irma wasn’t able to make it, but she understood that her sister had her hands full with caring for Ross. Lily and Erik embraced Hannah before saying they needed to return home. As Hannah watched her oldest brother go, Harry lingered by her side, his presence comforting and steady.

Fresh tears filled her eyes as her brother pulled her to him. “Oh, Harry.” She sobbed into his shirt while he rubbed circles into her upper back, and when Hannah finally withdrew, she looked up into his wise eyes.

“I won’t lie to you and say the pain ever goes away,” he said softly, “but in time, you’ll find peace. There isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t think of Kathy.”

“And here I thought no one understood, that I was so alone,” Hannah said, half-laughing, half-crying. “How could I have been so selfish to have forgotten? You’ve always been there for me, and I-”

“Shh,” Harry murmured. “Grieve in your own way, in your own time, Hannah. There are no rules for this sort of thing. No one can tell you how to feel, what to say or do. And you forget that I wasn’t always there…”

Hannah shook her head. “That was a lifetime ago, Harry. We were all so young.”

“Sometimes, sis, when I’m low and feeling especially sorry for myself, I still go there. Besides you, Kathy was my rock. Without her, the temptation to have a drink is stronger, but when I think of how it would break her heart, I know she’s alive inside me, and I hold back. Edward will still be your strength and comfort when you don’t even know it.”

Hannah nodded. “Thank you, Harry. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Harry looked like he was about to speak, but he only hugged her and smiled, turning as he went to join his own family. Hannah gazed at the fresh grave one last time.

“Goodbye, Eddy,” she whispered. “We’ll see each other again in Heaven, my love.”

She somehow found the resolve to walk away. She knew Edward wasn’t really in that grave, so as she ambled across the freshly mown grass to join her family, she looked up at the heavens. The sun brushed her cheeks and lips like a feather-light kiss.

Hannah returned often to Edward’s grave. She brought fresh daisies every Sunday after church. Sometimes her family joined her, but she was usually alone. She took to keeping a folding chair in her trunk, and whether rain or sun, she’d sit with Edward for a little while and speak to him. She sometimes read from her book of Psalms, but other times, she’d just sit quietly, listening. Closing her eyes, she didn’t have to think hard to imagine him in the rustling of the leaves, in the birdsong, or in the breeze that embraced her. These days became Hannah’s path to healing.

Like what you’ve read? Please subscribe to my blog, where I post an excerpt every Saturday.

My novel, Lorna versus Laura, is available for $4.99 here.

My novel, Hannah’s Rainbow: Every Color Beautiful, is available for $5.99 here.

Facing Loss and Embracing New Possibilities

Loss. It’s a word we don’t want to hear, let alone experience. Yet we all experience it. We all know loss, not just of it. Some of us have known it on a first name basis for too many years. If we’re lucky, some of us know it only as an acquaintance for brief periods throughout life.

When I say “loss,” what comes to mind? Losing a loved one to death? Divorce or a tough breakup? Loss of a job, a friendship, a dream? Or maybe just all the socks that lost their mates in the laundry? Sorry, I had to throw a random joke in. This is a tough subject matter.

Chances are, if you’re lived long enough like me, you know loss intimately enough to define it, to know the emptiness it leaves in its wake, to know healing is hard, to know that moving forward after a great loss can seem insurmountable in the moment of grieving.

I was in a Bible study once where the question was asked: What do you think the saddest word in the English language is?

My answer? Hopelessness.

Whoever wrote that study agreed with me. Now maybe you have another word, but I’d suspect that hopelessness would be in your top ten most depressing words. Hopelessness and loss are often intertwined like a tight braid, held in place by an elastic of grief, anger, sadness, and denial.

Then where is acceptance, which can lead to hope?

My earliest memories of loss aren’t deep: a goldfish being flushed down the toilet, our outdoor pet bunny escaping and running away, attending wakes and funerals of people I didn’t really know.

For me, the loss of my innocence at an early age, something precious ripped from me, was the type of loss that affected me the most at the time. When I was eight years old, two boys in my neighborhood, barely older than me, sexually molested me. They had access to pornography. It wasn’t sex, but it was bad enough. I knew enough to know that “stuff down there” could cause pregnancy and AIDS, which had just come out as the latest big disease scare. For months, I thought I was going to die of AIDS and prayed several times a day to God: “Please don’t let me have AIDS.” Luckily, I told my parents what happened, and they went to the police. I stayed away from those boys, but it never went to court. No one was held accountable. Maybe worse than thinking I had AIDS was that it seemed like everyone at school knew my secret. Those boys told other kids. I remember feeling dirty and violated for years after the incident as I walked the halls, sometimes being asked, “Were you raped?” As a child, I couldn’t pinpoint terms like “dirty” and “violated” to describe the uncomfortable feeling of a slimy snake creeping inside me when people stared and asked rude questions, but I know now that was what I was feeling.

But I survived because of the kids who were my friends and because of my family. I had parents who loved me. I had a few good friends who stuck by my side, and as the years passed, the news of it died. Understanding more about “stuff down there,” I knew I wouldn’t die of AIDS. I stayed away from those boys as much as possible.

My next experience with a huge loss came when I was 15 and lost both of my grandmas within two weeks of each other. My dad’s mom had been battling cancer for over a year, and she lived in Kentucky, so I rarely saw her and wasn’t that close to her. While my dad and brother attended her funeral, my mom and I stayed home to be with her mom, who was in the hospital. We received the news no one wants to hear–the cancer had metastasized to her lungs (from a sarcoma on her leg the previous year), and there was nothing to be done. Even chemo would only give her a small chance. She was already 81 years old and didn’t want to go through that. Despite being given two to six months, she passed a mere two weeks later. She was at our house, so she died surrounded by family and didn’t suffer for long.

I had always known my life with my dear grandma. We visited her every Sunday after church. She had that warm voice that greeted us and those rosy cheeks and that beautiful smile. She always had candy in her purse and cookies on top of her fridge. She had her quirks from living through the Great Depression of watering down her shampoo, of saving a hundred plastic bags, and of using the smallest amount of batter left to make a quarter-sized pancake an eighth inch thick. She burned her pizza that tasted like cardboard, but her pork chops were marvelous. She spent every Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter with us. She went on numerous vacations with my family. She was special.

So how could I, at 15, understand what it meant to face life without one of the most important people? While she was still in the hospital, I wrote a letter to her, where I told her brave she was, how much I loved and admired her, and asked her to send me a sign upon reaching Heaven. She passed on a dreary early April day. The rain continued until the day of her funeral four days later. After we came home from an emotionally draining day, my mom called me to look out the window with her. Stretched across the clearing sky was a beautiful rainbow! I knew this was her sign to me! Just as soon as my mom and I saw Grandma’s rainbow, it faded. I had no doubts. I found comfort in that rainbow. Even though I would miss her dearly, time had helped heal the immediate stabbing loss. A scar remains on my heart, but my grandma and her rainbow would go on to create something miraculous.

I wrote her life story in a fictionalized account and published it a year ago. She has been my inspiration to write more books, to embrace what I call my heart’s song, my raison d’etre. Not only died my grandma give me hope and the possibility to write, but my daughter is named after her. Emma was a surprise child, not planned but welcomed and blessed!

Out of loss came immense possibility that became reality.

As the years went on, I would know the loss of a relationship with a boy who I once was in love with, but I would then meet the wonderful man who would become my husband and the father to my children, who I’ve been married to for 14 years.

We enjoyed several years of marriage where it was just the two of us. We got to know each other more intimately. We travelled to Italy, Hawaii, the Caribbean. We focused on our careers. We got a house together and made it our own.

The next step seemed obvious: children. I was in my late twenties. Everyone around me seemed to be getting pregnant, so I knew I was at that life stage when it was time. My husband, Erik, and I were ready…as ready as we could be.

Little did I know how hard our journey to conceive would become. Every month would come and go the same: hope that this would be the month we got lucky, only to flee with more tears and heartache at an empty womb. This trend would continue for the next two and a half years. My husband and I went through testing. They could find nothing wrong. We tried artificial insemination three times…nothing. We were told fertility drugs would only increase the chances slightly, so we held off. As 2008 drew to a close, we were on the verge of trying in vitro. Drained beyond panic and exhaustion at this point, I suggested we held off for six months and just tried to relax and enjoy life again. We had put so much pressure on ourselves to conceive that I was just done. With it being Christmas, my favorite time of year, I didn’t want to deny myself drinking some wine and the general fun of the festivities.

That Christmas was great. Pictures from the time show a true smile on my face, surrounded by coworkers, friends, and family. I stopped thinking so much about conceiving.

The New Year came. I was late. Of course, there had been a few months when I had been tricked before by this very thing. Why did early pregnancy symptoms have to mirror the ones I got when it was that time of the month? I knew the stabbing pain of loss from too many months of not conceiving, and I didn’t want to be tricked again. Why get my hopes up?

But I couldn’t wait. It was now five days past. In the bathroom at work, I took a pregnancy test. When two lines appeared instead of one, I thought for sure this was a dream. You can imagine my elation! Finally!

All those months of loss died upon receiving this amazing news. My pregnancy would continue as healthy, and I gave birth to a 7 pound boy right on his due date of September 10, 2009. Luke was a miracle baby, a baby so many friends and family, and my husband and I, had been praying for for years.

As Luke grew, we knew we wanted to grow our family more. The stresses of trying to conceive were no longer a problem because we knew we could do it. Luke was now a toddler, a happy kid who was walking and beginning to talk. A younger brother or sister would be great for him. As we wanted our kids close in age (2-3 years apart), we decided the time was ripe. On New Year’s Eve of 2010, I had a hunch I was pregnant and took a test. It was positive! The exciting thing was that this second baby would be due the same date as Luke’s birthday! We attended a friend’s party that evening, and I declined the wine. The other girls gave me knowing looks, two of whom were pregnant. We all squealed quietly.

On January 12, 2011, I miscarried. Sure, it was early…only six weeks in, but the loss of my baby hit me like a train. Loss of life is tragic, no matter how old. A mother carries her child in her for the first nine months. She and the child are literally a part of each other during that time. I think I cried more that day than I ever had. My prayers to save the child went unfulfilled. I was devastated. How could I possibly move on from this?

One thing I knew: I didn’t want to keep my loss to myself. Having a miscarriage is understandably a very private thing for many people, but suffering alone is daunting. I shared my experience with those around me, mostly other women from church and my friends. What did I immediately notice? How common miscarriages were. How many people related and understood what I’d been through. If it weren’t for these brave, strong women supporting me through this tough time, I wouldn’t have been able to heal. Of course, a woman never can forget her lost child, but with the support of friends and the passage of time, healing can occur.

My doctor encouraged me to try to have another baby after allowing my body (and mind) to heal for a month. Would you believe I got pregnant that first month? After the hardship of trying to conceive with our first child, there was no pressure. I had another healthy boy that November: Josh.

As my boys grew, life seemed to fall into a comfortable routine. I continued to stay home with Luke and Josh. The boys played together and were both generally happy kids. As Luke got older, however, we noticed that he wasn’t developing socially and verbally like other kids his age. We had already enrolled him in speech therapy soon after turning two, as he didn’t have many words. Seeing little progress over several months with therapy and Help Me Grow intervening in our home, it was suggested that I take him to a developmental pediatrician.

Luke wasn’t even three years old when we got the diagnosis: moderate autism with a speech delay. My husband and I sat there as the developmental pediatrician, a speech therapist, and a psychiatrist gave us the news. We were inundated with information in the form of tons of papers of what we should be doing as far as intervention, plans to move forward, what the diagnosis meant, and so much more that I couldn’t process it all.

I went home, determined to be proactive. I enrolled Luke in occupational therapy (OT) for his fine motor delays. Help Me Grow got us set up with the preschool in our city, and he would be receiving services there. We would continue private speech. I read through the information and tried to arm myself with knowledge, hoping that early intervention would make a difference. My son was still so young, after all. He had time to catch up with his peers.

Luke made progress, but it was slow. He, to this day, speaks in single words or short phrases to express his wants and needs. We paid a lady to come into our home to potty train him over a weekend, and it was successful…only to have that work undone a couple of years later when he regressed with no understandable reason why. We haven’t been able to completely get back to where we were with toileting.

While usually a happy kid, Luke has been prone to meltdowns, especially when overloaded due to sensory processing issues. Loud noises, crowded rooms, hunger, cold, heat, tiredness, and more can trigger a meltdown. When he was smaller, it was easy enough to pick him up and put him in his room until he calmed down.

As he’s grown, his meltdowns have gotten harder to control and more violent. He kicks, hits, pulls hair, throws thing, and pulls pictures off walls. We’ve had to remove the lamps and anything breakable from his bedroom. He is on a medication to help with the meltdowns, and while they are less frequent, they can happen without provocation. His mood can change like someone has flipped a switch. As his mother, it breaks my heart to see him like this, to know he cannot express himself like he wants to.

My biggest struggle is facing the loss of the son who I thought I would have. I will be honest. I hate autism most days. Look what it does to my son. As moms, we have these too-perfect dreams of what our kids are going to be like. Sure, we expect them to have some struggles and quirks, but a diagnosis like autism… Who expects that? I often rant and rail at God at the unfairness of it all. I have cried bitter, angry, dejected tears in the middle of the night or locked away in my closet because–let’s be honest–it’s not fair. Even yelling at God is prayer, however. Any communication with God is prayer. Knowing that helps. God can handle my anger.

Soon after the diagnosis, after a few weeks of trying to hold it together and be proactive, depression grabbed hold of me and pulled me down. I took out my anger and hurt on those closest to me. Sadly, from time to time, I have turned to this dark place because sometimes I just cannot take it. I feel unqualified, underprepared, unable to raise a special needs child. Did God really think I could handle this?

I have been through plenty of times of loss in my life, but those losses have either resolved themselves or have found a way of healing. This time, this loss is ongoing. There’s no end in sight. This is lifelong.

So what do I do? How do I choose to face this epic loss and embrace a new possibility? Hard truth: I embrace the loss of my picture-perfect dream and truly embrace the boy who is my son. Because he is my son. He is a person worthy of love and deserving of understanding. No diagnosis changes a mother’s love for her child.

If it weren’t for Luke’s autism, I would not have met many other precious people in my life. I have cried with other moms “who get it.” I have hugged and been their source of encouragement, and they have returned the favor. Other people have been strong for me when I couldn’t be. My parents, my church, my friends…they are the true heroes here, not me.

And God. I cannot understand why Luke has autism, but I believe God works good from the bad. My heart and mind have been opened by raising a special needs child. I believe I am more compassionate and understanding of others who have various diagnoses. I believe we all will go through some sort of diagnosis at some point in life. It’s all part of living. God holds us and sustains us through, often by using other people in our lives to carry us when we cannot walk.

Whatever loss you’re facing in your life, I ask you to take some time to try to see a new possibility in it. Every experience is a chance to grow, to learn something, to continue in hope.

That is a much better place to be than alone and suffering in your loss. Loss is just as much a part of life as gain. I believe there is much to be gained in loss–hope for tomorrow.

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“As long as we can love each other, and remember the feeling of love we had, we can die without ever really going away. All the love you created is still there. All the memories are still there. You live on – in the hearts of everyone you have touched and nurtured while you were here.” -Tuesdays with Morrie

My great aunt Alma and my grandma, Emma, circa 1931

Today, I am going to share something very special to me, something close to my heart. Below is the true story that inspired my first novel, Hannah’s Rainbow:

When I was fifteen years old, my grandmother was terminally ill. Months earlier, she had had a sarcoma removed from her leg and had undergone radiation therapy. She was given a clean bill of health in February of that year (1995). Shortly thereafter, she went to the hospital because she had fluid in her lungs, and when they did a scan, they found a spot: the cancer had metastasized to her lungs in a matter of months. Although given two to six months to live, her time on Earth would be much shorter than that.

The day she was released from the hospital and placed under Hospice care, I wrote a letter to her, telling her all that she meant to me, how much I loved her, and how much I would miss her. I expressed my heartfelt admiration of her courage to face what lay ahead. And I asked her to send me a sign once she reached Heaven, not because I was afraid she wouldn’t go there, but because I needed the comfort.

Two weeks later, she came to our house. It was the week before Easter, and she was to spend the time with us, and her sister from California was to come in as well. On the night she arrived, she was still walking and talking. Although thin and weak, she was still herself for the most part. I remember her eating an orange in the family room as I talked to my best friend on the phone.

The next morning, she never got out of bed. The day was gloomy and overcast with thick clouds of early April showers. We thought it might just be the weather or the fact that she had been transported the night before. I overheard my dad speaking to his brother on the phone that morning, saying he didn’t think she would live more than 24 hours. In denial, I refused to believe such nonsense. All I had ever known was a life that had my grandma as part of it; to imagine otherwise was unthinkable!

The pastor from her church came that afternoon to visit, and while doing math homework in my bedroom, adjacent to the room she was in, I heard his voice through the walls, uttering the twenty-third Psalm: “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for You are with me. Your rod and Your staff: they comfort me.”

She was asleep most of the day, and the couple of times I approached the darkened room where she lay so still on the bed, I think I was afraid. At the time, I didn’t understand why I was feeling that way, but I think now it was because I couldn’t reconcile the figure I saw in that bed with the figure I knew of her warm smile, cheery eyes, and rosy cheeks.

Some relatives came to visit in the mid-afternoon, and she seemed to brighten some, even laugh at a few jokes. My family was originally planning on attending a concert at the high school that evening, but due to my grandma’s condition, my parents remained home with her, and my brother and I attended by ourselves.

A couple of hours later when we returned home, it was dark and still raining slightly. We parked on the street because there were a couple of other cars in our driveway, and I felt my heart skip a beat as I rushed up the driveway and into the house, not wanting to believe the worst. The first sight that greeted me was my mom walking toward me, her face lined with tears, and she was shaking her head. I knew without having to ask. To this day, over 20 years later, the events of that entire day as are clear as if they happened yesterday.

Standing in the kitchen were my uncle, my dad, and the pastor. We held hands and formed a circle as the pastor said a prayer. I left the kitchen to go to the spot where Grandma had been, but she was already gone from the bed. I saw the men from the funeral home carrying her out, covered in a sheet.

She was truly gone. That night, I dreamt that my mom died, too. While my parents were away the next day taking care of everything, I was at home in the company of my best friend, and it continued to rain. I found it in me to laugh some, finding a pair of checkered pants that was so hideously out of style, but my grandma wore them, anyway. I pulled them over my own clothes and just laughed, mostly because my best friend could always make me laugh. We were visited by a cousin and her husband, who had brought over dinner, and the four of us laughed some more. There was something therapeutic in this, although it was also a brief escape from the reality of the situation.

The wake was two days later, followed the next day by the funeral. It rained in all the days between my grandma never leaving the bed and on the day of the funeral. My letter to my grandma was read at her funeral by the pastor. The Lord’s Prayer was sang by the co-pastors, a husband and wife team. My grandma’s favorite hymn, “The Lost Chord,” was played. As the family followed the casket down the aisle, I was a sobbing mess, and my brother, who was walking alongside me, put his arm around me. I remember briefly trying not to laugh, as we had this weird thing about never touching each other as teenagers, so hugs were forbidden.

Much of the graveside service was a blur, but we stood under a tent as the rain continued. A dinner was served, and then it was over. We were on our way home. That evening, the rain finally stopped. I was in my room when I heard my mom exclaim, “Cyndi, come here!”

I ran into the front window and looked outside. Stretched across the sky was a rainbow! I smiled and knew this was my grandma’s sign to me! There was no doubting that, and to explain this away as mere coincidence is an insult to her, her memory, and to our Lord of miracles. My mom and I turned away for just a moment, and when I looked back, it was gone. To catch such a brief moment in time when that rainbow appeared was not coincidence in the least. Only my mom and I saw that rainbow; it was meant for us.

My grandparents, Howard and Emma Grundman, circa 1942

I had the idea for the story back in October 2006. I woke in the middle of the night with the name “Hannah Rechthart” on my mind. “Hannah” means ”favor” or “grace.” “Rechthart” means “right heart.” I started writing down character names and researching. Many details from early in Hannah’s life were taken from an autobiography my grandma wrote in high school and another she and her younger sister, Ida (whom Irma is based on), wrote later in life about growing up, called “The Billhardts of Fuller Avenue.” I also spoke extensively with my mom and had my own memories to work with for Hannah’s later years.

I composed four chapters between October 2006 and January 2009. Then I had my first child and my second, and the story sat for years, until I started writing in earnest in March 2015. It may have taken a decade to finally sit down and write it all out, but only by God’s grace and my grandma’s legacy was that inspiration possible.

It’s been over twenty years since my grandma passed away, but in writing this story, I hope I was able to convey with the love I’ve always had for her that she was a wonderful person.

May you see many rainbows in your life, wherever you go.

The Letter I Wrote to Grandma:

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