PBP Wk. 9: E is for Endings

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Madison and her mother, Natalie
RIP, Maddie

For some reason, the Pagan Blog Project site has not been updated with the topic ideas for this first week of the E's.   But Endings are something that is very Pagan-related.  Hell, that's not even accurate.  Endings relate to us all.  However, it is our attitudes about them that make the difference.

What endings am I talking about?  Death.  And this is a topic that weighs heavily on my heart today.  I follow Kallan Kennedy's blog The Secret Life of the American Working Witch.  For those who don't follow her, Ms. Kallan has been keeping people updated as to the health condition of a little girl named Madison, asking people to send her healing.  Madison fell ill quite suddenly a few days ago.  She basically went from being this feisty, vivacious 3-year-old to being lethargic and then unresponsive.  Maddie slipped into a coma and was in critical condition.  At one point she almost died, but that brave little girl clung to life as long as she could.

The doctors had treatments in mind for the cancer she was diagnosed with, but they had to do a brain scan on her first.  The brain scan revealed, tragically, that Maddie was "brain dead".  For those unfamiliar with the term, it basically means that there is no electrical activity in the brain that shows any life.  The body is still living but only because the machines are keeping it so.  Maddie was taken off of life support earlier today and released to the Summerlands.

I had been trying to keep up with the updates on Maddie, but life has been completely chaotic over the past couple of days.  I only found out about Maddie about an hour ago.  I'm sitting here in my college library as I write this and I'm not going to lie:  when I found out of Maddie's passing and read the words of her mother that Kallan had posted on her blog, I completely broke down.  All I could do was stare at the picture of that sweet littler girl and her mother, Natalie.  My heart is broken for Maddie's family in a way that I can't even put into words.  It's the sorrow that a mother feels for another mother for her loss.  I don't know how else to put it.  While I cannot fully comprehend the agony that Natalie must be feeling, it's all to easy to imagine how my heart would shatter if I were going through this with one of my own children.  But imagining and empathizing doesn't really come close, does it?   It's a muted, dull ache in comparison.


I don't know what religion Maddie's family affiliates themselves with (or if they do at all).  Quite frankly, I don't care.  It doesn't matter.  But it does come to mind that it can matter where other people are concerned as they seek to offer their condolences because it can affect how Maddie's family is treated as they begin their long journey through the grieving process.  And this is where my point about attitudes come in.

First of all, death is completely natural, people.  Everything dies.  As Pagans, we see death as being part of the cycle.  We are born, we live, we die, and at some point, we are reborn.  On and on it goes until we have learned the lessons that we're meant to.  To us, life really is a school.  One lifetime is a school year.  At the end of our school year, we get our "Summer vacation" in the Summerlands where we rest, rejuvenate, and prepare ourselves for our next "school year".  It's easy to talk of such things without putting any real emotional attachment to it.  We all know this, but it doesn't make it any easier when we have to say goodbye to someone, especially when it's a child so young.    When we are faced with death, we have to face something else that is completely natural too:  Grief.

I've seen people make efforts to comfort the grieving but end up making total assholes out of themselves. I hate to say it, but I've seen the most gaffes spoken by Christians.   If I were in Natalie's shoes, for instance, and someone were to say something to me to the effect of  "Those who believe in Jesus have no need to mourn because they know they'll see their loved one again someday."    Yes, I have seen people use that one or a variation of it.  It's appalling, really.   If I am mourning the loss of someone, I don't need to hear someone tell me that my feelings basically mean that I don't believe in God.  Particularly their God.   There is no comfort in that.   Plus, it just makes it sound as though Christians are the only ones who believe in an afterlife.

And the other crappy thing about being told such nonsense is that there might actually be some people who buy into that crap.  I've seen people who, when they're told that and made to believe that their grief is a sin because it shows a lack of faith in Jesus, they stuff their grief down and, instead, try to put on a happy face lest they be seen as a "bad Christian".

Please understand that I know that Christians aren't the only ones who pull garbage like that.  For the same reasons that I've seen Pagans tell other Pagans  "You're not really a Pagan if you don't do a ritual for every Sabbat and for every Full Moon, New Moon, etc.," I've seen some Pagans go all  "Well, every ending is a new beginning" in a very blase' sort of manner.  I don't know how else to put it.

My point, people, is if you know someone who is having to go through the grieving process, PLEASE don't stunt it for them.  I know that people mean well, but please try to hear what you're saying.  I know I haven't given very good examples, but I hope that they were good enough to at least provoke thought as to how one deals with those who mourn.   I know that we all wish that we could take the pain away from those we love who grieve their loss.  I know we all want to try to find that one thing to say that could convey our feelings and our longing to comfort the bereaved.  But sometimes, the best thing we can do is to give them our love, give them a hug (if they are ok with it), and just be there for them in any way we can without smothering and overwhelming them.   And DO keep them in your prayers and send them loving, healing, and peaceful energy.   Many of us know from experience that the pain never fully goes away, it just becomes easier to live with over a gradual course of time.


I know that this wasn't an overly eloquent post.  I don't really care.  My thoughts, even in their clumsiness, lie with Madison's family.


If any of you who are reading this would like to make a donation to help Maddie's family pay for her hospital costs, please go to this website:  Miracle for Madison   I daresay that they could also definitely use help for the funeral costs.

A Moment of Silence

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I was on my last 10-minute break at work last Friday when I saw the news on one of the TVs concerning the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary.  I didn't even want to clock back in when my break was up.  It seemed really stupid, to me, to concern myself with my job when all I wanted to do was keep glued to the news even as I sat there fighting back tears.

CNN news coverage of the shooting

20 children dead.  My heart shattered for all the victims and their families, but my mind has kept thrumming on the children.  See, my children are in the same grade and age range as the children who died and even the mere thought of something like this happening to them is enough to have me on my knees, so I can only imagine the agony of their parents as they found out that their child was one of many who wouldn't be going home.  I can't even fully imagine and I'll admit that I don't even want to.  I'm an empathetic person by nature, so it doesn't take much for me to start picturing myself in other people's shoes, but this is one path that scares the ever-living shit out of me.

Sure enough, just as President Obama had said, I got home from work and hugged my babies tightly.  We never think that it could happen to us, but the horrifying fact is that it could.  It's not something we should really dwell on lest we find ourselves unable to even let our children out of our sight long enough to obtain their education, but still.  It makes it hard.  So very, very hard.

And this year, to my memory, has been especially hard where such things are concerned.  There was the murder of Trayvon Martin (Details of Trayvon Martin's murder on Wikipedia complete with reference links), the theater shooting in Aurora earlier this year (Aurora Theater Shooting), the disappearance and horrific murder of Jessica Ridgeway (Jessica Ridgeway's body found), not to mention a slew of other kidnappings and murders that sprung up after Jessica's disappearance and murder, and now this?  So many lives lost, especially of our precious babies and all during things that should be normal, everyday things that one shouldn't have to fear the appearance of some psycho armed with a gun and/or explosives.

What does anyone really do with this?  It makes it more nerve-wracking to go to an early showing of a movie that has high national attention (20-year-old suspect in "Twilight: Breaking Dawn 2" shooting plot) or to even send our children to school.  Even before what happened to Jessica, I couldn't ever fathom letting my children walk to school by themselves.  Nuh uh.  Not happening.  Even before the Sandy Hook massacre, I was still paranoid when dropping them off at school.

I had to have a talk with my son, Aspen, because one morning last week when I dropped him and his siblings off at school, I was starting to drive off and I happened to look back toward the door to the cafeteria where they have breakfast only to see Aspen hiding outside of the door against the wall and basically watching for me to drive off.

Um....excuse me??

Mind you, I NEVER drive off until I see them go in the door, but given where my car was when I first dropped them off, I could only see them go into the entry way and not fully through the door.  So when I saw him do that, I gave him a stern talk about it.  This isn't the first time he or Rain have tried to sneak off after I've dropped them off.  Last year Aspen and Rain were going to an elementary school in Oklahoma and, same thing there:  I wouldn't drive off until I saw them go into the building.  Well, I about had to get into it with their teachers because one morning after I saw them go into the building before I drove off to head to work, I ended up getting a call from Rain's teacher who tried barking up my backside saying that I can't leave until my kids go into the building.  She explained to me that both Rain and Aspen had decided to sneak off to play (which made me go !!!!!!!!!!!!!O.O!!!!!!!!!!!!!) but thankfully, they hadn't left the school grounds.

I then proceeded to tell her, coldly and matter-of-factly, that I NEVER drive off until I see them go into the building and that once they are in the building, they are THEIR responsibility and what the hell were they doing that they didn't notice two Kindergartners heading off AWAY from where they should have been going (the cafeteria was pretty much right inside from the main entry door).

Now, mind you, I know that there's only so many teachers and a crap-ton of kids to keep track of, but this was not the first nor the last time I had to butt heads with those people over matters that were their responsibility nor was that the first nor last instance where their actions (or the lack thereof) had caused me a heart attack because they'd not know where my kids were.

And, of course, I still had stern talks with Aspen and Rain about wandering off and not going where they were supposed to.

The long and short of it is that it is a great and heavy thing for many of us to entrust our children to the care of teachers and a principal and there are still times where, even as they do their best, unforeseen factors come into play.  It might be inclement weather, a school bus accident, or a psycho with a gun comes into our schools and opens fire on our children and those who try to keep them safe.

When things like the Sandy Hook massacre happen, it's so easy to write off the perpetrator as someone who is supremely evil.  I'll even admit that I had that frame of mind.  Honestly, I haven't exactly switched from it.  It's hard for me to, honestly.  Even the thought of someone doing that to any of my children and I automatically see red and seethe.  If something like this, Goddess forbid, were to happen to my children, I cannot promise that I wouldn't be totally overcome with hatred toward the person who did it.

However, my good friend Stephanie Fox, author of The Coexist Cafe blog, wrote a very good and thoughtful piece on how perhaps we, as a general population, jump too quick on the hate bandwagon without really taking the time to consider just what might be behind what makes that person snap.  It has been proven that many occurrences like this can be linked back to mental illness or brain damage.

The Coexist Cafe: "Mass Murders and Mental Illness" by Stephanie Fox

She pointed me to her post when a discussion about this was going about on her Facebook and it reminded me of another instance where mental illness/brain damage could be linked to a murder/suicide.

Do y'all remember the pro wrestler Chris Benoit?  I watched a documentary a couple years ago that discussed as to whether or not brain damage was responsible for what happened.

See, Chris Benoit's father, Mike Benoit, had described his son as being a total family man who adored his wife and son.  He described him as even being a very gentle, considerate man but towards the end, he'd begun deteriorating in a rather alarming way. He became overly obsessed with things of a religious nature.  When police had come upon the murder scene, they'd reported to have even found Bibles all over the place and it was later found that in his last days, Benoit had become particularly obsessed with the prophet Elijah.

Read the full story -- Chris Benoit's Murder/Suicide: Was Brain Damage to Blame?

All in all, when we hear about such unspeakable tragedies, it is so easy to forget the humanity of the perpetrator.  It really is, and I don't think any of us are exempt from it.  But, perhaps for the sake of our own humanity, we should try harder and not give in so easily to the hate.  It's perfectly logical, of course, to be angry.  Perhaps it's even understandable that so many of us are relieved when people like the Sandy Hook Elementary shooter take their own lives.   Yet, for not only our sake but also the sake of our future generations, we would do better to work through our feelings about such tragedies and still try to remember that there is a story we haven't heard about the people who do these evil things.

Perhaps it is truly a case, like Chris Benoit, that if they had been in their right mind they would have never done such things.  I suppose the step that comes after such a difficult thought is one that's even more difficult: forgiveness.  Not forgiveness because this person has necessarily done anything toward us, but forgiveness because of the heartbreak we experience for the real victims as well as the fear it causes at the thought that something similar could happen to our own children.  Perhaps we must also find it in ourselves to forgive these people because otherwise we very well might find ourselves trapped in such fear.

Not everyone who commits a heinous crime such as these is defected by a mental illness, true.  But at the very least, we should learn to withhold judgment until we know and even then, what good does our judgment do?  It doesn't help any of us to heal and it does nothing in mourning and remembering those who have been taken.

So, take a moment and spend it in silence to remember not only the victims of the Sandy Hook massacre.  Light a candle and spend a few moments to remember all the victims of violent crimes and tragedies.  They should never be forgotten.