Michaela's thoughts as she left FSU

As Michaela prepared to leave school in Tallahassee and start over at UCF in Orlando, she seemed to be very happy.  She seemed very focused and satisfied with her choices and her options.  Once she came home and started working on those art projects she mentions in this note, I could see a definite change in her.  A maturing.  A focus. 

 

This is probably the last of her Facebook Notes that I will share in its entirety.  I put these here for her family and friends who may not have been on Facebook when she was alive.  I don't trust Facebook to maintain them.  I feel very blessed that I got them back after they were missing for so long.

 

 

 

Things I'll miss:

1. FSU campus. The big trees and brick buildings and the community I feel here.
2. Being able to hop in my car and drive anywhere in Tallahassee I feel like without a huge hassle or traffic.
3. Erin.
4. Amelia
5. Kellum Hall, I've been here for 3 years, it's home. You know?
6. My R.A. buddies.
7. Lake Ella
8. Green everywhere. Grass, trees, flowers, parks.
9. Free Starbucks.
10. Sarah's apartment.

Things I'm looking foreward to:
1. Summer
2. Me and my Mom's photo project
3. My own bathroom.
4. My own kitchen.
5. Better winter weather.
6. Beach close by.
7. Close to home.
8. A bigger city.
9. New friends.
10. More responsibility.
11. Better income.
12. Decorating my own space, bathroom and kitchen.
13. Time to do art over the summer.
14. Discovering new favorites in a new place.
15.just....New.

I'm really excited for my future right now. Sometimes I have my doubts. I doubt my ability, my choices, my personality, my potential. But, who doesn't? Then other times I am completely confident that everything is perfect right now and will be in my near future. Doubtful or not, I'm entirely ready. It is time to go; move on from this wonderful place before I reach the point of hating it.

:-)

Content.

Organ Donation

No Greater Love

As I struggled for my life
My Days becoming few
You reached out to help me
My best friend, I never knew

Each day had become a burden
While I clung to my only hope
My family suffered with me
My back against the ropes

God had a plan for me
A plan for you my friend
Our paths would only cross in time
As our lives came near the end

The Father needed you in heaven
The angels a helping hand
That is why you were chosen
Only you, in all the land

My God, my God, your family cried
As you were taken from this Earth
There was a price that had to be paid
But oh, what angelic worth

You showed your love to others
Before they even knew
Your love is a living testimony
I am alive because of you

Your love for me, my love for you
I wish it could be known
So few on this terrestrial ball
Will know this love you have shown

That someone would give their life to another
There is no greater love
How can I ever repay this debt
As you soar with the angels above

So as I wake each morning
I thank the Lord for you
I’ve been blessed by a family and their angel
My best friend I never knew

Jonathan Lequear

Transplant Recipient (16 years), Teacher, and Friend

The subject of organ donation has come up a lot lately in random conversations; so that tells me it is time to blog about it.  It seems that there is a lot of mystery surrounding the idea of organ donation and even some misinformation about how it works.  I am no expert; I'm sure every situation is different, but I thought I would share my personal experience with organ donation, just as a point of reference... I am not a medical expert and my memory could certainly be faulty.

I have always believed in organ donation.  Whereever my soul is going next, it certainly doesn't need my liver, heart, pancreas, skin, bones....well, pretty much any of it.  I love the bumper sticker I saw the other day that said "Donate your organs; Heaven knows you won't need them".  My daughter, and in fact our whole family, also believe organ donation is the right thing, so that made the decision pretty easy for us.  Given the strict guidelines for harvesting organs, it seems amazing to me that matches ever get made and successful transplants happen...but they do!

One of the biggest misconceptions seems to be about the funeral after organ donation.  A lot of people think you can't show the body, but that isn't true.  No matter how much is donated, if you want the body to be shown at the funeral, they will make sure it is presentable for that purpose.  I think I even told people that  the reason we didn't show Michaela at the funeral was because of her organ donation.  I'm not sure why I said that, because it isn't true.  We made the decision to not have her body at the memorial long before the organ donation was even an issue.  We made it for personal reasons.  I can't say now if it was a good decision or a bad one, but it is the one we made.

This is how it went for me.  Very, very late one night, after it was apparent to me that Michaela wasn't going to live, when it was just me, the nurse and Michaela, I asked the nurse a few questions.  I asked about a Do Not Resusitate order first.  To clarify that, a DNR simply states that if the  person goes into cardiac arrest or stops breathing, no effort should be made to revive them; it doesn't mean to stop care.    Then I asked about organ donation and what it would mean for her ability to donate organs if we put a DNR in place.   What I found out was that you don't want a DNR in place to donate organs.  And that it is a very touchy subject to talk about organ donation when the patient is still legally alive...yet from my experience, that is the best and perhaps the only appropriate time to do it.  By the time the nurse and I finished this conversation, we were both sloppy crying messes.  She promised to send the organ donation person to me the next day.

I had not yet, at that point, discussed organ donation with anyone else in the family, except perhaps my husband.  Her father had just arrived and needed time to assimilate the situation and I needed answers before I could make my personal decision; for although it was a family decision to do it, if I had decided no, then it wouldn't have been considered.  The next morning her father and I talked; he also realized that she was no longer using that body and that we should pray for a peaceful end, so it was a relief that we were both of the same opinion regarding sustaining her body's life artificially. We were also of the same opinion on organ donation as her brother, the other most important person in the decision-making circle. 

When the organ donation representative came to discuss it with us, he was very professional and informative.  The first time he spoke to us, it was just my husband and I; her father and brother were out of the hospital.  He answered our questions and gave us information that we didn't even know we had questions about.  There are different types of donars.  The most common ones you hear about are organ donars, but there is also bone and tissue donation and it is a separate issue completely.  Bone and tissue donation is not as appealing to some families because of the destruction to the body or perhaps because those donations do not necessarily save lives but only improve quality of life for the recipient.  We were assured that her face and upper torso would be left in condition for a traditional funeral.  We weren't really interested in a traditional funeral...Michaela wasn't a traditional girl.  I knew what I wanted to do, but I didn't want to pass on the information and risk a mistake, so I asked him to come back when her father and brother were there. 

Organ donation can only happen after the body is officially declared dead.  The concept of 'brain dead' doesn't really exist the way a lot of people think it does.  You can't declare someone 'brain dead' and then harvest their organs.  The body has to die.  It has to quit functioning by either the heart stopping or breathing stopping.  Ideally, for organ donation, breathing stops, but the body is kept viable for donation through a respirator.  In Michaela's case, although there was no upper brain activity, her heart was beating and she was breathing on her own.  She was intubated (on a respirator), and that made a lot of people think that she wasn't able to breath on her own, but that often isn't the case.  The tube simply helps with breathing and is in place in case of further problems.  In her case, they were giving her 10 breaths per minute on the respirator, just enough to sustain life, but she was breathing between 23 and 25 breaths most of the time...easily enough to sustain life on her own. 

The second time the organ donation representative came, we all went in to talk with him.  He again was professional and informative.  What a horrible, horrible job that must be, to talk to families beset with tragedy day after day.  I asked him about this and he said he gets through it by thinking about the families on the other end.  When he was done talking to us and understood our wishes he left.  We had decided to donate everything except her eyes.  For her own personal reasons, she didn't want her eyes donated and we respected that wish.  She said the idea of someone else walking around with her eyes weirded her out and in hindsight, I can understand that...I would feel very strange looking into her eyes in another face.  Anyway, her vision was terrible, so nothing was lost there.

After he left, we discussed the logistics of everything else.  We didn't know when she might die or even if she would.  At this point, she was on a respirator, but not a feeding tube.  If she lived much longer, we would have to put her on a feeding tube to sustain the body or make a decision to take her off the respirator and not put her on a feeding tube--in essence, to starve her to death.  I'm sure that all of the readers are aware of the Terri Schiavo case in Florida where the poor woman was kept on a feed tube in a vegetative state for years and years. 



The Road to Organ Donation-
-the blunt truth of it

 Anyway, that is the blunt truth of it...if you pull the plug on the respirator and the body continues to breath, either you feed them or you don't, but death by starvation, under heavy sedation, is what it comes down to, often.  I find this appalling.  We have more compassion for our pets.  I guess the thought process is that if it is God's will, she will sit up and ask for a cheeseburger, therefore it is not murder.  Of course, under that heavy sedation, asking for a cheeseburger might be difficult...anyway that is a personal issue that upsets me.

After we were done discussing the logistics of what would happen when the time came, we held hands and prayed for a peaceful passing and relief from the pain of having to make any difficult decisions.  I've already written about her death, so I'll just say here that when we came out, she was gone.  The respirator read a straight 10 breaths a minute and the nurse was getting a doctor to do the test that would allow them to declare her legally dead.  From an organ donation standpoint, this is where things become different from other deaths.

What people don't know or don't think about is the logistics involved in getting the organs and the recipients together at the same place at the same time quickly enough to make everything work.  What this means to the grieving family is more waiting.  After they removed the respirator long enough to determine that she wouldn't breath on her own, they reinserted it and we began a vigil of waiting.  There were no more miracles to pray for.  There was no more chance that she might live.  It can take 24-72 hours to put together a series of donations for one donar.  They have to take blood and tissue samples and match them with potential recipients and find the recipients and get them to the hospital and prepped for surgery. 

In the meantime, more and more must be done to keep the body of the donar viable to donate.  Michaela's care went from one IV to several.  She was given all sorts of things to keep her stable, because her body was done working...it was ready to shut down, but we weren't letting it.  I remember that her bed had to be made to periodically roll from side to side and to shake....I don't remember why, although I remember asking and being told.  It was important to me that she continue to have someone with her until she was taken away.  I tried to press on people that there was no difference now than before; she had been 'gone' with no brain activity before, the only real difference was a legal one.  She died when her brain smashed into her own skull on impact at the site of the collision.  God granted her wish to be an organ donar...that is all there was to it.  Most people understood what I wanted and stayed there; some accepted the loss and prepared in their own way for her to be gone.  My friends and hers didn't change a thing, we just kept up our vigil.

It took longer than we thought even; although I can't tell you how long it was.  More than 24 hours.  But we knew there was a definite end in sight.  It wasn't endless and it wasn't meaningless.  It was time with purpose.  It was time for people to say goodbye and for other people, strangers to us--living out their own nightmare, to prepare to start a new life. 

The Hair---also the last picture I ever took of her

Someone, one of my friends, had sought out the Locks of Love people at my request.  I wanted to donate her beautiful hair, but not until the last minute.  My mom had requested to be allowed to cut off her hair as her final gesture of love.  So we all waited together for that time.  When the time came, it was the middle of the night.  Literally right about midnight.  I'm sure my memory is hazy here; it was a terrible time for me.  What I remember is six women.  Me, my mom, my chosen sister (Karen), my daughter, and two nurses with a really bad pair of scissors.  Who would think that in a hospital they wouldn't have a pair of sharp scissors?  It turned into quite a comical scene as Michaela had a pony tail almost two inches thick and my tiny little mother had to saw through it with dull scissors--two nurses holding her head still. 

I know there were other people in the hospital that night.  I don't know where they were.  Perhaps they were in the room with us.  I simply don't know.  I know that her father and his wife were someplace where they could see the helicopters coming and going taking her away bit by bit to bring new life and joy to others.  I know where my husband was after they took her, but not where he was during those minutes (probably right beside me).  I just remember the women and the thought of how much stronger women are than men in the real world.  

There are multiple organ donation organizations, so I'm sure things are handled slightly differently, but the basics are probably the same.  There is after-donation support for donar families.  I haven't taken advantage of any of these, so I can't speak to their value.  But most importantly there is THE LETTER.  The letter that tells you who the recipients are and what was able to be donated.  I would never have thought that letter would be important to me, but it was.  In fact, I was waiting for it; checking the mail regularly.  The letter doesn't tell you the name of the recipient, only a paragraph about their life.  Their age, their relationships, perhaps their occupation.  It also told us that much of what we had wanted to donate, Michaela wasn't able to do.  Her tissue couldn't be used for unstated reasons, but we think perhaps because of living in Europe, since we can't donate blood.  Her heart and left lung had sustained damage in the accident, but her heart valves were used.  Her kidneys, pancreas, liver, and right lung were all successfully donated.



A photo doesn't do justice to the talent  of this woman

 There is also the possibility of communication with the recipients through the donation organization, and later without the intervention if both parties choose.  What a great gift.  Of Michaela's recipients, only one has contacted us.  That was a miracle in itself.  She told us her story and sent us a beautiful stitchery that she had made with her own hands while she waited and while she recovered.  I know she carries a picture of my daughter with her everywhere she goes.  I hope to meet her one day soon.  But it isn't an intrusive relationship...I know she is thankful and grateful and doing well, and that makes me happy.  That is all I need to know.  I hope someday to hear from the other recipients, but I know it is a hard thing to do and don't expect it.  I don't think less of them for not doing it; how hard it must be for most people to find the words.  The lung recipient who is my facebook friend, was gifted with the ability to say thank you from her heart and for everyone else too.




There are a lot of decisions I question about how we handled the memorial celebration and her remains, but there is no question in my mind that when we donated her organs we did the most important thing right.  And we did what she wanted.

Depression is a Luxury

Has anyone else noticed that the richer our country gets, the more depressed it gets? 

I'll start with my normal disclaimer...there are people who are depressed for clinical reasons and/or for situational reasons.  This blog doesn't apply to them.  But what about the rest of the country?  Depression in all of its manifestations (suicide, cutting, drugs, alchohol) is epidemic in the United States.  We are the saddest rich people in the world!

I have a theory.  Of course I have a theory, or why would I bother writing about it?  My theory is that we have forgotten basic human needs and are trying to replace them with 'stuff'.  Instead of a cup of tea with the neighbor, now it is an email or a text.  Wait, neighbor?  Who is your neighbor?  Do you know?  I don't.  I have friends.  I am lucky to be blessed with lots of very good friends, perhaps that is why I am not depressed.  But still, I drive right past my best friend's house on my way home from work every day without stopping in, even if I'm going home to an empty house and all my chores are done.  Ironically, often the first thing I do when I get home is email her.  How does that make any sense at all?

But this isn't just my normal rant about electronics replacing human contact, this is about how we are failing our children and ourselves and turning our country into a bunch of pill popping hypochondriacs with 'issues.'  Our children get loads of birthday and Christmas gifts, but often little of our time and attention.  We send them off to their rooms, equiped with TV, computer,  video games and smart phones, but don't spend time talking to them, teaching them critical thinking skills. 

They get so much so soon that they don't learn the excitement of anticipation; instant gratification is the norm.  They get so much with so little effort that they don't learn how much more they would enjoy and appreciate something they actually earned and bought for themselves.  We are so busy preserving their childhood and protecting them from the big scary world that they don't learn the skills to function in that world on their own.  We hover over them, answering their every question, requiring them to do nothing, doing their homework for them, all the while teaching them to expect others to do for them, so they don't have to do it themselves.   We offer them no challenges and no labor; therefore their leisure is meaningless.  There is no uptime to offset the downtime; there is just time. 

We forget that a basic human need is to live a productive and useful life.  People need to be needed.  They need to be industrious.  They need to be useful.  People need a purpose.  I believe this is a major cause of depression.  We have so stressed the value of leisure time and rest, that we have become a lazy culture.  We spend so much time mindlessly in front the of the TV or computer 'resting' that we forget that we haven't done anything to be resting from.  We are resting from resting.  We are tired from inactivity.  An object at rest tends to stay at rest...a basic law of physics.

Our jobs as adults are often sedentary and/or unfulfilling.   We can't see the point in what we are doing.  We do not see a contribution to society from what we do day to day.  We fill out forms, answer phones and check boxes without thinking about what we are contributing to, who we might be helping, how we make a difference in the world.  Some jobs simply don't.  We are just passing the hours putting money into someone else's pockets.  It is no wonder people are depressed.  But most jobs have the potential to be at least a little fulfilling; if you could just see past the day to day, put a smile on your face and actually try to help that person on the phone or your coworker in the next cubicle how much richer might your day be? 

I don't care if you are a cashier at a grocery store or a CEO, you can make a difference to the people around you.  You can pass the time drolly scanning one item after another, or you can look your customer in the eye and smile, make small talk, get to know them a little--you'd be surprised how much faster your workday might go.  Sure, some jobs have built in satisfaction...I would guess that nurses and teachers and firefighters have a far lower percentile of depression even though the pay is crap.  But most jobs have the potential to satisfy if you bother to look for it; if the job didn't have purpose it most likely wouldn't exist, but if it just isn't there, move on...  at least try to improve your situation.

As a culture, we have put value on inactivity.  It is a sign of success or at least power.  If you have time to be lazy, you are powerful.  It doesn't seem to matter if you are collecting welfare or being supported by your spouse while you laze around getting lazier, and fatter, and more and more depressed.  The point seems to be in doing as little as possible.  I actually hear people brag about this.  Employed people bragging about how they do nothing at work.  Unemployed people trying to work the system to stay unemployed and draw a paycheck.  Unworking mothers not marrying the fathers of their children so they can stay on foodstamps.  Conversely, I hear other people bragging about how very busy they are; how they don't have time to help with this or that, or even to catch their breath; yet in the next sentence they are talking about the TV show they watched last night.

We teach our children from a very young age to value leisure above labor.  To glory in a handout instead of a success. To want everything right now instead of savoring anticipation.   Long gone are piggy banks to save up for that special something.  Now it is, 'give it to me now and I will pay you back later (maybe)'.  As parents we feel pressured to give in to this...after all, we don't want our children to suffer or be castouts, we are held hostage by 'all the other kids' ... we are preserving their childhood at the risk of their future happiness and overall satisfaction with life.  Their ability to simply enjoy being alive and productive.   We teach them entitlement. We take away thier right to feel important.

I have often thought about the mothers of past generations.  Generations of families that so frequently lost children too young.  I have wondered how those mothers kept going, often losing multiple children to illness or accidents.  I wondered how they carried on day to day without simply falling apart.  I do not believe for one minute that they loved their children any less than we love ours today. 

What I do believe is that they didn't have the luxury of falling apart; of taking time to grieve; of being depressed about it for long.  No matter what bad thing happened in their lives, they still had purpose.  They still had to do their part to keep the family fed, the farm working, the house clean.  There weren't electric stoves and toasters and vaccum cleaners.  There wasn't sliced bread from the grocery store.  Everything took time and by the time they could sit down to read or rest at the end of the day, they had earned their leisure. The grieving were allowed to show outward manifestations of their grief, such as wearing black, but they weren't given the option to stop living. 

In the past it was only rich women who had fainting spells and were of a delicate nature.  The poor and the minorities didn't have that luxury any more than they had the luxury of wallowing in their grief.  They had purpose--their purpose was survival and the survival of their families.   No government was going to give them handouts.  Living on charity was shameful.   I'm sure it is the same in undeveloped countries still today.


In the United States today, everyone is given the luxury of depression.  Is this progress?

Michaela's introductory speech

I miss my child every day.   That isn't the hardest part of her dying.  The hardest part is missing the part of myself that went with her.

Excerpts from a speech Michaela gave in 2007

Hey, I'm Michaela. Not MiCHaela, not Michelle, not Michella, not Mitchell, Not Michael a, not Michaeluh, not chaela and I am a product of my beliefs. ....

I'm probably one of the most chill people you'll ever come across, until you're one of my good friends. I'm all about people doing whatever they want as long as its not hurting anyone but them. So hey, drugs, drinking, smoking cutting, bulimia, anorexia, suicide.... go for it. But as soon as it puts others in danger, it's not okay. If you're drinking and then get behind the wheel of a car I'm pissed. You're street racing your buddy down Tennessee, that's not cool. If you're going to be a dumbass, try to keep it to yourself. If you want to hurt yourself, by all means, do it, but as soon as you start beating your kid or your wife, or your boyfriend, or your dog, you've become a monster.

That's how I feel about strangers and acquaintances...like I said; I'm chill until you get close to me. Then I'll be your best friend and your worst enemy. You do drugs, drink underage, cut, don't eat...keep it away from me, and expect me to give you shit about it but know that I love you to death. I take care of people I love. It's taxing. I tend to feel what people are feeling. My empathy and my compassion manifest itself physically and it's absolutely exhausting.

And I'm a big fan of 2nd, 3rd, 17th chances.  I'm forgiving. Very. But I'm not forgiving because it's what I've been taught or what I believe in, I just am, and I can't really figure out why because I've been f***ed over a good few times. ....

I'm about the simple pleasures in life. I'm about living your life and letting others live theirs.
I'm about a pair of jeans that hugs your ass just right, not has the most expensive name on them.
I'm about finding my own way to make an impact. I'm about loving with everything I have in me.
I'm about looking past the front our world puts up and finding beauty where others won't dare to look.
I'm about searching my soul to set my priorities in the right order.
I'm all about innocent fun.
I'm about strong opinions and good conversation.
I'm about breaking the mold and being open about it.
I'm about being confident enough to let go of boundaries and outside static.
I'm about talking about differences not trying to change them.

I'm about life.

I'm about the good stuff.

Where are you?

I want to see a picture of you in my mind's eye when I talk to you... I want to visualize you where you are right now and I want picture your surroundings, your clothes, your hair, your smile....I want to know I can make the connection between what you are saying and how you look where you are.



a really old picture

 When I was growing up, we had a telephone that hung on the wall.  It had an actual dial and was a party line.  For those under 40 or not from a rural place, a party line isn't where parties are planned, it is a group of families who all share one phone line.  Very strange to remember now, in a time where almost every person has their own phone line.  If you picked up the phone and another person was speaking, you were supposed to hang up and wait your turn.  The phone rang differently in each house and if it wasn't your ring, you weren't supposed to pick up.  If it was an emergency, it was ok to speak to the people using the phone line and ask them to please hang up, so you could make an important call.  All calls cost money, it wasn't cheap, so nobody stayed on the line much anyway.  You only called loved ones and you knew where they were when you called them.  You can bet all of those ettiquette rules were followed religiously (ha!). 



my brother.  isn't he adorable?

 I remember getting our own phone line.  It was a big deal.  There was no caller ID back then and no answering machines for a long time, so when your phone rang, you rushed to answer it!  Back then, when you called somebody, the first thing you asked was 'what are you doing?'.  Nobody thought that was rude.  It was just a way of asking if it was a good time to call (usually).  Eventually somebody (probably Miss Manners) realized that it was pretty rude to start a conversation that way.  After all, if the person was doing something private, they would be left in the uncomfortable  position  of having to make something up.  Or even worse, if they said 'nothing', then they could reasonably be roped into doing a favor for the caller!  So that eventually transitioned to 'can you talk now?' or something similar, at least for polite people.  (I'm not sure I ever made that transition.) 

Things stayed like that for a very long time.  The only changes being the decrease in long distance charges over time, answering machines, and caller ID.  Finally the cell phone came out and became affordable.  My generation embraced the cell phone early.  The conversation starter then became 'where are you?'.  Another rude, but logical question to ask.   My parent's generation didn't embrace the cell phone quite so quickly.  They were often embarassed to catch someone on their cell phone.  They didn't ask where the reciever was, because they assumed the person was at home.  When they were told the person wasn't at home, it was often followed with an apology for bothering them when they weren't home, that they didn't mean to call the cell phone, and they quickly disconnected allegedly out of fear of using all the minutes or bothering the person. 

Now of course, almost everyone has a cell phone.  Everything from the simple phone to the smart phone.  My parent's generation still hasn't quite got the hang of it, but they don't get embarrassed by reaching someone who isn't at home any more.  Now they are the ones likely to ask where you are when they call you.  But the younger generations have moved on from that too.  Now that cell phones are a business necessity as well, it is no longer ok to ask where you are.  It doesn't matter any longer where you are, at least on a business call.  The company pays the phone bill to ensure you are available 24/7.  And the personal call has gone back to a simple 'what are you doing', 'are you busy', or even perhaps 'where are you' but only if it is pertinent to the call...i.e. 'I'm waiting for you' or 'can you pick something up for me on your way'. 

But the phone call for my generation and younger is almost gone.  Now we text.  We pass information without having to have a conversation or dealing with any niceties at all.  We insert an emoticon and that is good enough.  I find telephone conversations extremely awkward and stilted most of the time anymore.  At least with anyone I am not very, very comfortable with.  Comfortable enough to ask, 'where are you?'

I was pondering the significance of this the other night when I couldn't sleep.  This is what I came up with: 

When you talk on the phone to someone you know, you have to make a picture in your mind.  If you don't know them, you make a picture you can live with in your imagination (although time can prove our imaginations wildly inaccurate).   If you can't make that picture, you are slightly disconcerted. 

If it is someone you know well, it is even more disconcerting and invokes a feeling of loneliness.  When I talk to my husband on the phone when he is at work, I can picture him at his desk.  Recently they renovated their office, but that didn't bother me because I still had a mental picture.  When I visited his office, I immediately, without effort, revised the picture.  It is a natural function that our mind does without thinking.  I wonder if this is why my parent's generation was slow to embrace the cell phone and also, maybe, why my children's generation eschews phone calls in favor of texts.  Maybe talking to someone when you can't picture where they are, is too uncomfortable.

I remember when I was in the military and had long deployments away from the family.  It was so important to get those pictures taken and sent home, so they could have a mental picture.  We didn't really think of it that way, but that is how it was.  We instinctively knew  it was important.  It took away that uncomfortable feeling of the unknown. 



Created By Alecia Clark

 I wonder how much less lonely the grieving would be if the departed could send back a picture?  Just one snapshop of themselves in eternity. 

If when I talked to Michaela, I could create that mental image of where she is and how she is sitting, what she is wearing....how much less lonely might I be?