Hope and Healing

November 22nd is the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention's International Survivors of Suicide Loss Day.  We are hosting an event in Nashville, TN and here on St. Croix.  There is a lot of planning and a lot of things to do for it.  It is overwhelming at times.  Yesterday I was just about ready, no I did give up.  I hung my head in prayer and said Lord and Jared I need your help.  I am doing as you want and as you are guiding me, but I need some help.  I need a location for these events and I need donations to fund it.  Within minutes an email popped in that we can us Lipscomb University in Nashville and a few minutes later we had our first donation from a source I had not even thought of.  By the end of the afternoon I was thanking them both endlessly.  Here I am again this morning, stressed and asking them for direction and assistance.  I am taking a break from all the planning and frustration to just have some me time.
This event is about hope and healing for those who suffer from loss of a loved one.  I wonder if I had one hour with Jared what would I do?  Would I just hug him and never stop, would I cry?  Maybe I would just stare at his handsome face.  I don't know.  I do wish I had that opportunity to find out what I would do.
For me, and so many others, we are headed into the holidays without our loved one.  It SUCKS!  Jared loved the fall, back to school with friends, Halloween, Thanksgiving, My Birthday, Christmas, New Years....all of them.  He loved football season and supporting all the sports teams.  He loved just being with friends.  I feel him so strongly around me and I see it in Zoe when he is present.  He plays with her and she looks intently at something and I can't see him.  Just like babies, animals see spirits.  Why can't we as adults?
I hope that you will find an event near you and attend.  It is a day of awareness and maybe, just maybe, we can stop others from having this pain.  Wouldn't that be nice?