Helping Parent Heal
I had been looking forward to Christine Salter’s visit to the Helping Parents Heal meeting for several weeks. That morning, as we have been taught to do in order to connect with our children, I looked at the picture of Anthony on my wall and said, “Please come and see me today, Son.”
When I got to the meeting I was in such a good serene place. I looked around and said to myself, “I’m not getting a message today and that’s ok. I see so many parents whose hearts are breaking. I hope they hear from their children.” So, when Christine looked directly at me and said, “I’m coming to you,” I was literally stunned.
She told me she had a young man, 18 to 20 years old with dark wavy hair. That’s my son Anthony. I could actually feel him behind me. She asked, “Did he hang on you?” OMG!!! Yes, yes, yes, all the time. What a wonderful memory, I had forgotten. I could feel the weight of his arms around my neck. She asked me if he wore hats and liked skateboards? He didn’t wear hats until just before he died when he tried to become a ‘skateboarder.’ He was not very good at it. I told Christine that I had just thrown his skateboard away the day before. I found it in the oleanders upside down covered in dirt. I held it out and just stared at it for a very long time. It was like finding an emotional bomb. I looked at the sky and said aloud, “I guess I’ll throw it away, Son.”
I took it to the garbage can and looked at its presence there for a few minutes. I just stared at the muddy, ownerless skateboard. Christine saying ‘skateboard’ to me was such an amazingly powerful message that he DOES watch me like he watches TV, which is what Susanne Wilson had said to me months before.
She asked if I had another child? She said I had one boy on each side of me and they said they were making a sandwich. My other son, Michael, died in the year 2000. He was twelve years old and died of pneumonia. I used to lie in bed when they were little with one of them on each side of me and tell them I was a Mommy sandwich.
Christine knew that Michael was Anthony’s older brother. I was amazed by the accuracy of her Gift.
Christine asked me if I had to turn Anthony ‘off’? She said she saw him in a hospital bed. Yes. Yes I did. In fact I have been obsessed with it since Lamar Odom came out of his coma and wondered why Anthony couldn’t come out of this state. Did I turn him off too soon? Christine told me he wanted me to know that he wasn’t in his body. He was already gone. I couldn’t have done anything to save him. Anthony knows I have been pretty rough on myself about this.
Christine told me my boys were telling her that I was having a hard time finding a reason to live without them. There can be nothing more true. She said they want me to just keep putting one foot in front of the other right now even though it’s so difficult. She told me they would help me.
There is absolutely no way to describe what it’s like as parents to sit in the meetings hoping for a message from our children. Only we know such longing and desperation. To have been one of the few blessed by Christine and her Gift was like being with them again. Thank you, Christine, and thank you Elizabeth!
Article from April issue of our Helping Parents Heal Newsletter!