Sally's World

I was walking into the gas station to pay for gas when I heard someone say that a plane had just crashed into one of the twin towers, "Don't be ridiculous" said someone else, so he held out his phone and showed a us a text. The guy behind the counter turned on the TV behind him and we stood and watched as we realised that the lives of millions of people would be changed forever. In the end, no-one moved, no-one payed, we just stood there watching the horror unfold, about twenty of us stood still in shock, even a little boy of about five, stood clinging silently to his mums hand.

The news and TV was nothing but that for weeks, like millions of others, I had nightmares over the footage, the people leaping out of windows put my heart in my mouth, the shock the loss, the dreaded reminder that life is so precious and can be over so quickly. To kiss your husband, wife, daughter, son, off to work and never see them again.

The feeling of being able to do nothing was overwhelming, even for those of us who were thousands of mile away, or didn't know anyone there, the world was united in grief for those who were lost, and those who were left behind. United in anger at the monsters capable of ending so many Innocent lives.

It really was the day the world stood still!

Wow, I know I'm late for me today...but had 24hr sickness bug from hell....I know I always gripe about needing to lose a few pounds....but this is not the way to do it...feeling a bit wobbly and sorry for myself...maybe thats why todays post not so upbeat..sorry...

I spoke to a friend of mine the other night, her husband has been made redundant and she is worried that they won’t be able to make the mortgage payments and will lose the house. I tried to offer words of comfort, but she said, ‘Sal, unless you’ve been there, you don’t get it.’ And I realised how true that was, when anything happens to us, the world suddenly divides into two halves.

When Aaron passed away, the world suddenly divided, there was mums who had lost sons…and those that hadn’t…all black and white, no in between.

And that is how it is for anyone I think, miscarriages, robbery, rape, losing your home, stress and grief makes us feel separated by the invisible line, and that is what makes it feel so lonely.

After losing my son Aaron I guess I had a need for answers, some sort of affirmation that it didn’t all end with our last breath. But even before that, I have always had a great interest in this type of information and have read dozens of books on the subjects of life after death and after death contact. They’ve ranged from feel good to scientific to wacky, with some truly imaginative theories offered for various experiences.

‘Love beyond life’ is a thoughtful piece of research for anyone wishing to explain a specific experience or just out of curiosity. I like the organisation of the work and the handling of the material. This book presents descriptions of the many experiences that people can have after the passing of a loved one. If you've lost a loved one and are wondering if that "weird" thing that happened to you means you've also lost your mind, you will be comforted to find that you are not only sane, but have lots of company in experiencing the Love Beyond Life of loved ones who have died. If you have not lost a loved one but are searching for answers; this book is also for you. It will make you examine what you already believe and explore new areas of thought.

Definitely worth a read.

I definitely got some piece of mind, I read ‘The Day I Died’ before this, and felt that there was some undeniable and beautiful experiences in that, but this book really depicted that feeling of love living beyond the physical.

Take care

sal xxxx

Tony Robbins

Something Dave and I did while we were away was to go to an Anthony Robbins seminar. It was brilliant, insightful and exhausting. And it allowed me to let go of some of the guilt I feel over losing Aaron, even though I didn’t know I was carrying it…if that makes any sense.

We went to our first Anthony Robbins seminar a few months after Aaron passed away. I was still at that angry stage of loss and grief when I wanted to punch out complete strangers for looking even slightly happy…because how could anyone be happy, did they not realise that Aaron was gone??? Going to the seminar, helped me let go of some of that anger, and I will be eternally grateful for that. Of course at the time, I didn’t realise there was too much more to it that anger, as that was all encompassing at the time!

I know that motivational speakers, life coaches e.t.c. are not everyone cup of tea, and I respect that. I also believe that whatever will help someone, give someone some peace of mind, some motivation, is a good thing. If I decided that to help with the grief, I wanted to spray myself pink and run around the block naked, there are those that would talk me out of it, laugh even. And those who would ask me what shade of pink I wanted and help me get an even coat as not to embarrass myself with a streaky paint job! I of course would be in the later category for any of my friends.

So while we were talking about life, what drives us, what makes us happy, sad e.t.c. I realised that I had some feelings of guilt about losing Aaron. I guess as a mum I felt that my main job was to keep my children safe. So I also felt like I’d failed because I didn’t do that. Of course any intelligent person knows that at some point in our lives, we will lose someone we love…but intelligence doesn’t come into the grieving process all that much!

I know, I know… using logic, I understand that things were totally out of my control, Aarons condition was nothing I could have done anything about, and I kept on telling myself I did all I could, and I know in my heart that I did, we all did, we kept Aaron fighting as long as he could, I know this in my mind…again, logic, intelligence…of no use to us here!!!

The reality is, is that Aaron still passed away and deep down, I think I should have been able to do something about that.

I know that anyone I know and love, anyone who knows Aaron will be reading this and may be a little surprised. And for that reason, I considered what I was going to write. But the best thing I can do, the most honest thing, the thing that may be able to help anyone else coping with loss, is to just tell it as it is, to put my feeling out there and let you make of them what you will.

For a long time I felt like I had failed Aaron, Dave, the kids in some way by not keeping Aaron safe..here, and in coping with that I began to control everything else in my life, Dave and the kids mainly, but also the housework, the amount of work I did, the writing, the company, the charity. I had to over achieve in every way to satisfy to myself that I wasn’t a failure. I failed in one thing, the most important thing, so I could allow myself another failure, no matter how small. It was a mixture of fear of losing everyone and the need to be in charge, to make myself indispensible, to make sure I was the most important and significant thing…that was my own way of insuring I kept everyone close and safe.

The insomnia, the two hours a night, were in some way a self punishment for me. It was me feeling like I didn’t deserve to get lots of lovely sleep. After all, if I failed Aaron, why would I be sleeping soundly at night? It is really amazing what our subconscious mind talks our body into isn’t it. That’s another reason I never spent time on myself, never allowed myself to relax and just do something for me.

Of course in doing this, not only was it hard to keep up for everyone around me, it wasn’t helping. In fact in acting so possessively, being so shattered, I was shutting off a part of myself to everyone. In my quest not to feel the loss, not to ever have to feel the loss again, I was shutting of the fun, spontaneous part of me that makes me the ‘kick arse’ mum and wife/friend/sister/daughter that I am. (Modest…who me???)

Someone called Alex at the seminar (a grief councillor), gave me the best analogy, it helped me more than I can say and helped me get things into perspective.

I’m going to share it, and if it helps one person in some small way, it will be worth it.

Alex drew me three glass jars, all the same size…each jar depicting my life.
He drew a big red balloon in the first one, completely filling the jar. The red balloon depicted all that is Aaron, his love, his life, the grief…all mixed up together, as it inevitably is. My life as it is now!
In the second jar, he drew a smaller balloon, depicting time passing, the balloon getting smaller.
In the third jar a tiny balloon in the bottom of the jar.
This was exactly what I was afraid off. I had somehow got mixed up, that in feeling the pain and grief less acutely, I was letting all the good stuff go too, that everything about Aaron would diminish.
Then Alex drew me three red balloons in a row, all the same size, all depicting Aaron and all that is Aaron.
Then he drew a jar so the first balloon filled it. My life as it is now!
The second jar was bigger, the third bigger still.
The jars were now depicting MY life and the life of all of us being bigger and richer and more.
Our love and feelings for Aaron and the loss didn’t have to diminish; of course that’s why the balloons were all the same size. Our lives just had to grow around them.

This simple analogy allowed me to foresee a different and better future.

This seems over simple, but it does explain how I feel. I am so terrified that by letting go of the grief, I let go of it all. But I don’t need to, I need to understand that to feel the grief means that I must have loved and been loved fully and undeniably. We all need to know that Aaron and everything that goes with him, the love, the laughter, the adventures, and yes, the grief, stays, it always will, I don’t have to set myself goals of the pain easing, instead I need to embrace life, love, adventures and in doing that, the grief wont be so all consuming.

But I also don’t feel like I have to work to a timescale, live by a set of rules that tell me how to go on with life. Really I just need to let life go on around me, embrace it, and allow myself to feel whatever I need. Feeling grief is what makes us human, if we didn’t care, we didn’t love, we wouldn’t grieve. So I for one am glad I can grieve, because it is the measure of my love.

I have no idea if this makes sense to anyone, if it will help anyone. But it has helped me, Dave and the kids. I guess its how we associate with grief. I will miss Aaron every single day for the rest of my life, but, I will not allow that grief to diminish Aaron’s memory. Aaron would not want me to be miserable, to turn our lives into a military run exercise, rather than the adventure we used to treat it as.

So I learned a lot, whether I wanted to or not. I feel like I and move forward in a different way now, allowing to love and to be loved, allowing the children to grow and let out their own personalities. We are planning our next adventure, and I know Aaron would be very proud; in fact I can almost hearing laughing in my head now (but not in a hearing voices, need to be committed way, I hastily add).

I also have been sleeping six, even seven hours some nights…incredible. I’ll be taking the piss next and having a lay in! and Dave tells me off every time I moan about there really being less hours in the day “poor, poor you,” he whines back at me, “fancy getting some sleep, its terrible.” to which I kindly reply “naff off.” but he has a point.

Well, for anyone who ever has the chance, Anthony Robbins is an experience and a half. It’s not for everyone, but it certainly helped us. So if you want to know more, just ask, I’d be happy to point you in the right direction, even recommend some of his books. He doesn’t sell himself as some mystical guru. He’s just an ordinary guy who has seen a lot, learned a lot and has found some great ways of making people achieve their potential. We’ll be going back and taking as many people with us as we can.

Better go, it must be nap time!!!

Take care

Sal xxxx

After Aaron passed away, I found myself sitting for hours at a time going over and over everything in my head; I was trying to remember every moment of his life in the tiniest detail. People thought I was sitting grieving, staring into space, maybe just thinking about the loss, or maybe just crying, letting the tears fall, and sometimes that was the case. But really, I was trying to recall it all, I wanted it all committed to memory so solidly, because I was terrified I was going to forget something, I couldn’t bear to forget the tiniest thing about Aaron and our precious time together.

The more people that came round, the more we spoke about Aaron, and it was then that we realised that not everyone knew everything about Aaron, everyone knew Aaron at different stages of his life, so some people never knew he could walk up until he was seven, some never knew that he was born with a cleft palate, and had to have a tracheotomy to breathe after they repaired it.

So I decided, to write it all down. At first it was just for me, it was therapeutic, it gave me something tangible to hold on to and to do, it’s not like I was sleeping anyway, no matter what the doctor gave me, I couldn’t bear to close my eyes. Maybe because I knew that in that second I woke up, I was going to be oblivious, and then it would hit me like a ton of bricks all over again. So when everyone else was getting their fitful nights sleep, I sat at the computer and wrote, and wrote and wrote…and once it was down on paper, I could stop obsessing about that particular event because it was tangibly on paper.

But the more I wrote, the more I realised how inspirational Aaron is. We all know that, of course, we lived with him; I doubt I will ever meet a stronger or more determined person as long as I live. But I realised that he had so many lessons to teach others too. So it naturally progressed into a book.

I surprised even myself when I remembered everything in so much detail. And one thing I am so grateful for is that we had such a close and intense relationship. Aaron and I were inseparable, and how many mums can say they have that much quality time with their 12/13/14 year old, I know Jordan and Robyn are more independent, they hardly need me at all…but Aaron needed me, and even if at times that was hard, and exhausting, I am so glad now I can’t tell you. It means that we got to cram in far more love and quality time than most mothers and sons do.

The book is not all doom and gloom, honestly, nothing written about Aaron could be. There are some bits that are hard to get through, there are some bits that will undoubtedly make you cry, but you will laugh as much as you cry, I promise. Aaron was a character; he lived life to the max every day, and embodied the meaning of the word love. When you looked at Aaron, you saw the love shine out of him, in his eyes there was just total acceptance, and he was happy just to be with you. A true angel on earth and it’s not just me as his mum that has said that, it has been said by hundreds of people. And anyone who ever got a hug from him with never forget it, mainly because his hugs were like across between the Heimlich manoeuvre and a half nelson…but he meant them, you certainly knew he meant it as the oxygen flow was cut off and your eyeballs started to bulge.

God I miss those hugs the most. I would probably give everything I own for just one more of Aarons hugs. And I would cling on to him and cherish it, because this time I would know it would be the last one. I wonder sometimes if I didn’t cling on enough in that last hug I gave Aaron before he passed away, how was I to know it would be the last one? If I’d of known that I would have clung on and never let go.

I know Aaron book has helped lots of people, many families are gaining hope and strength form Aaron and his amazing character. The book is real and honest and it answers the questions that no-one dared ask me at the time, and since to some extent.

Trojan created a short book trailer yesterday, so if you think this is something for you, then you can find it on www.sallyannestephenson.com, Barnes & Noble or on Amazon.

I hope you enjoy it, I hope Aaron’s strength shines through to you.

Take care

Sal xxx