A letter from a child to their grieving parents

This letter was posted on Grieving Mothers on facebook, and I wanted to share it here....I often wonder what Angel would say to us if given the chance.
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Mom, Dad, it’s me. I’m still here. I know it’s hard to believe sometimes or understand in the way I try to show you, but I’m still me.

I hear you talk to me several times a day. When you hear nothing back, or you say I don’t answer, that doesn’t mean I’m not right there next to you, smiling. I smile because I know things you won’t know until the day I reach my hands out to you and we’re together again in a more familiar way. In the meantime, I will keep trying to show you I’m okay and still around.

If a friend or relative calls to tell you they got a sign or had a dream of me, please know that I tried to reach you first but the line was busy, or full of pain. When you quiet your mind and learn to clear the clutter, I can get through better.

Tell my brother’s and sister’s to live for me, and do things to make me proud. If they don’t want to talk about me, it’s just that the pain is too much to bear so they bury it to survive. Let everyone in the family grieve in their own way.

Try to laugh again and get out of the house. When you can do that, it sends waves of love through my being. Let go of unwanted and useless feelings like guilt, anger and fear. I can’t break through those.

Here’s how I let you know I’m not dead; just different: I’m the butterfly that dances around you as you walk. I make rainbows appear even when there is no rain; I made that red dragonfly land on you as you thought of me. The hawk sat perched outside your kitchen window and then swooped down as you stood on the deck or in the car. I keep making my song come on and you know it’s me. I stand beside your bed and brush my hand against your face. I sent a text or phone message after I passed-yup, I’m amazing. I can do things you can’t wrap you’re brain around.

You saw my face in someone else-it’s called transfiguration. I was the old guy who smiled at you or the strange woman who asked you a poignant question. The woman in the mall called out to her son…it was my name. I saw you get the tattoo, and I can’t believe my sister got one too. Mom always hated tattoos…now she has one. Dad, you taught me so much. I didn’t get the chance to thank you so I’m doing it now.

It’s never too late to say I love you. Hug my siblings and do things that are out of character for you. Mom and Dad, my siblings think they lost me and you. The best gift you can give me is that you will promise to live for me and I will live through you…you will see me again one day, but until then, LIVE, LAUGH, and celebrate my memory.

We are so much more than this physical vehicle that drives us around for awhile. Lift your head up and run around the bases, sliding into home, into my arms. I’m not dead; I’m just different.--Maureen Hancock