...after Adam died, I questioned myself repeatedly, many of those same unanswerable questions...is he okay? Where is he now? Is he in Heaven? Why him? Why us? Why me??? I talked...stayed connected, I prayed...I began to read everything I could to stay away from becoming depressed...I threw anger at God sometimes...wondering why me, who did absolutely everything I was raised to do as right---and still, my beautiful son was taken away from me and in such a unthinkable manner...I'd look back on my career...the things I had learned, being a nurse...and then being a hospice nurse...I thought back really hard and remembered my first hospice client, he was a minister...retired.... and I was afraid...not that I ever conveyed that to him, but inside myself, I was fearful of not being able to say the "right" things to this man of God...He knew he was dying, and he being a minister...well that didn't make it any easier for him...I knew he didn't want to die...in his life he still had many reasons to live on, although his body---aging with cancer was telling a different story...our hospice nurse-patient relationship wasn't an instant bloom...but I learned how to listen to him, I let him express his anger , I saw how it upset him not to have control of things he once was an ace at...he had a lot to say still---and I was a good listener. Our relationship solidified when he recalled meeting his hero Elizabeth Kubler-Ross...He met her years ago...and it was a moving experience for him...enlightening as he put it...she was the pioneer of grief, put many broken hearts back together by allowing people to view grief as normal...it was a common thread for he and I...and her writings gave him some peace...today I fell upon a mother's story, a story of loss and her writing to Elizabeth----her words profound...telling the grieving mother that out of her pain---if she chooses--comes a great amount of compassion, increased understanding and wisdom and love for others who are also in pain...it is her choice whether out of her tragedy comes a Blessing or a curse, compassion or bitterness...also concluding that "I want you to know that research in death and life after death has revealed beyond a Shadow of a doubt that those who make the transition are more alive, more surrounded with unconditional love and beauty you can ever conceive...they are not really dead...they have just preceded us in the journey all of us are going to take....they are with their guardian angels...They are with family members who preceded them in death and are unable to miss you as you miss them since they are unable to feel any negative feelings....the only thing that stays with them is the knowledge of the love and care that they have learned in their physical life....Believing that Adam is happy and at Peace, that he feels no pain, and knowing that Adam is aware of the love and care we have always had for him...has diminished the need for all of those questions and anger....I still feel the emptiness----I really miss him....But he knows I loved him...my love mattered....