The Keeper

def: a person who manages or looks after something or someone.

Sports def: A player assigned to protect the goal in various sports.

One of Jared's coaches told me that he was placed in the most important position for all the team.  This position was not only to block the ball from entering but it was to observe, digest, and act as a "coach" from the field.  This position needed to be able to reassure the team he would stop any ball that had gotten past them, or in other words "he had their back".  This position was to coach and cheer on his team and motivate as this position had a better observation of the game then even the coach.  

I watched Jared closely in his position he had been given after that talk.  Being the over protective mother I was, I was concerned that was a lot of weight just put on his shoulders.  I saw him take that weight and grow stronger from it.  He learned to do exactly what the coach needed him to do and to also communicate with the coach for the coach to make better decisions.  

This week has been one hell of a week for me.  Downs, Ups, drowning, flying, exhaustion and completely helpless.  These are just a few of the emotions from this week.  

I began to think yesterday afternoon as I felt Jared's presence very strong, about the true meaning of a Keeper.  I remembered what that coach had told me.  I remembered watching Jared become a strong Keeper, both physically and mentally.  I also thought about this:  Jared is still the Keeper.  He is keeping his team going to stop "block" suicide (stop the ball).  He is putting each of us in our position on the field and putting a support system in the stands.  He is putting people at the gate collecting money to insure the team can continue to play on a level field with good lighting, and a successful outcome.  He has put the coaches in place that cheer on the team members.  He has more team members than ever before signing up to join his team.  We have a great defense!  I also thought, just as the best of the best teams out there, once in a while a ball will get past all of us.  No matter how strong our defense was/is.  So, I can scream for a minute but then, just like Jared, I have to get my head back in the game.  

Our Keepers across the US and around the world are growing in numbers, our defenses are getting stronger.  Our cheers are getting louder.  Our name is getting known.  Our mission is being heard.  Our "goals" are adding up.  

I hear often from those who knew Jared that he is proud of me and the work I am doing.  I think he is most proud of holding his team together.  See my gift to Jared pales in comparison to that he gives me each day.  He made wonderful, strong willed, determined, driven friends and he gifted them all to me.  Without them, I couldn't continue nor would I have ever started.  

I wish Jared would have taken his hurt from losing his father and done what Kelsey and I have done with ours.  He would have had all the same supporters.  

I look forward to heaven.  I really do.  I can be with Jared again and watch he and his team "God's Giants" or "Heavenly Havoc" playing some awesome soccer.  I am sure that it is the greatest place, it has to be with all the beautiful Angels that live there with God.  

Wise Words From Grandma

When I was in early elementary school my grandfather had a stroke which left him incapable of taking care of himself.  This was devastating to him as he had been an active farmer all his life.  My uncle was well known in our community and had much rental property in our small town.  My uncle lived on the corner of our block and our house was beside it.  My uncle had recently purchased a property on the other side of his which backed up to the back side of our property.  The family chose to move my grandparents in to that location to allow us to all assist in taking care of my grandfather.  In our family putting someone in a nursing home was just not what we did.  In fact it was always my grandparents who took in the elderly in the family to care for them.
My grandfather needed assistance with everything and my grandmother had always been the sickly one.  So we were only a phone call and a holler out the window away.  It was hard on Gramp to allow any of us to help him out and see him the way we all must in order to take care of him.  We had to assist in every way.
My grandparents were kind people, yet like most seniors they developed a very sharp tongue.  It became sharper each year and the filter we all carry began to disappear.  Looking back on it this is probably why my grandmother shared some things with me when she did.
Throughout my years living at home I would clean my grandparents home each week and earn money for camps and other things.  I would also help my grandmother with balancing check books and she tried her best to teach me how to cook.  That seemed to come naturally to her and not to me.  She also taught me that you don't have to have all the fancy gadgets to do things.  I learned to iron with her metal iron she heated up on the stove and a towel on the kitchen table as a board.  Let me tell you she ironed EVERYTHING including the sheets and pillow cases.  Laundry was hung out on the line to dry with every opportunity with the underwear located in the middle line and outer wear, towels, and sheets on the outside lines.  Underwear went up last and came down first.  I wonder what they would think these days when girls wear them as clothes.  LOL
One day I remember cleaning and a family member came over that we all kept a close eye on for multiple reasons.  I asked grandma why she even allowed him in.  She responded that you can't choose your family but you can choose the ones you claim.  I was taken back by that answer.  But I think of that often.
I also think that works in reverse.  While we may not be family by blood, we can choose who we connect with as family.
Grandma also told me many other things that were wise.  First, use your fine silver often or it will tarnish.  She said even if it is just eating bologna sandwiches and beans.  Use your good china and silver.  Now was she planting a seed to nurture?  Because unlike my grandmother with an amazing green thumb, I on the other hand have little luck.  But maybe she was also explaining to me that just because something or someone seems to be extremely valuable, they are not if they just sit and are never valued for their purpose.
She also said never go to bed mad or you will wake up mad.  She was right.  Tried that once and learned my lesson.  Not again.
She also taught me how to focus on the things needed to be done first while putting the others on the back burner and pulling them up one at a time.  I do that often.  As example.....Today I must grocery shop to eat tonight, tomorrow I have a radio interview for our event on Saturday so in the morning I will prepare for that, Friday finish last minute items for Saturday and get rest, Saturday morning set up and event, Sunday or Saturday afternoon send thank yous out, Sunday rest, Monday my birthday and Rich has planned a great evening out with friends, Tuesday....rest, Wednesday prepare for Thanksgiving as much as possible, Thanksgiving make all the side dishes to Rich's smoked turkey.  Friday Jump Up, Saturday and Sunday - rest.  Then the following week begin promotion for Giving Tuesday.  Then focus on the Red Out Nights coming up and helping the new Keepers Clubs get everything organized for them.
Grandma taught me a lot.  Much I didn't even recognize until years after she was gone.

Finding Peace In A Spiritual Connection

As I travel this road of healing, I have come across many people who travel this same route.  Some appear to have an easier time navigating it than others.  We all wish there were a Rand McNally that could guide us, but it just isn't there.    Some have encountered road closures, potholes, detours, and at times U-turns.  We all have different vehicles that transport us through grief.  While some appear to be on a locomotive running wide open, I feel to be on a snail.

I have learned through my connections I have made with other Angel parents that some cling to their religion, while others to hope, and yet others, well they are struggling every moment.  Grief makes us question our beliefs.  For me grief made me remember and it confirmed my beliefs.  It also opened a door to another universe.  For me it opened the door to communications with my son through signs and spiritual messages.

From a very young age Jared and I loved birds.  When we would leave early in the morning to head to daycare and work, he asked one day, what are the birds saying?  Thinking on my toes I responded, Good Morning Jared.  So from that moment on for several years, he would greet chirping birds with, Good Morning birds.  The two weeks following his death a bird sat outside my window day and night and chirped.  Of course, in those first couple of days it didn't register with me.  However, as I laid in bed awake most of the night, I realized this bird is chirping, at night, continuously.  I stepped out the bedroom door onto the balcony about 2am one morning and there he sat in the tree.  He wasn't afraid of me and didn't even try to fly away.  He just chirped and chirped.  I remember looking at him so intently and this is Jared talking to me like he always did when he would come home from school.  He is telling me all about heaven and what he is seeing and who he has met and what it is like.  If I could only speak bird!

As days passed other signs began to happen.  Birds and egrets would land in the yard near me.  As I went swimming, fish gathered around me.  I felt like I was in the movie Evan Almighty, the way animals were following me.  Even my husband began to look at me in a puzzled look trying to believe what he was seeing with his own eyes.  At one point while swimming, he said it was just a coincidence, had to be, right?  So we moved, and the fish followed us.  From that day on, I began really paying attention.  My little social butterfly on earth was in heaven being his social butterfly self.  I felt as though it was one of those elementary school moments of, hey are you Jared's Mom?  Several more of those happened in the months following his death.

I am just over a year into my grief journey and I consistently have three birds that are near me day and night.  It has now become something my friends look for when I am around.  In May, I spent the month in Nashville and several friends paid close attention and were amazed and have now told their friends about my connection with Jared through birds.

I also have a great connection through spirit with him.  I feel extremely blessed to have this.  I hear him talking to me.  He plays practical jokes on me through things you would do as a child and through technology.  I laugh at these things because I know it is to help me know he is close by.  I feel blessed because I believe God has work for us to do and yet Jared still makes sure he is with me.  I questioned that one night and got the response that you don't sleep in heaven so he can get a lot of work done while I am sleeping so he can be near me.

I recently had a friend of the family reach out to me from Holland.  He was crying and needed to share with me something.  He asked me not to think he was crazy, and I promised I would not.  He said he was at a train station and was getting ready to step in front of a train when Jared grabbed him and told him not to do it.  He asked me if I believed him and I told him I most certainly did.  He said Jared told him great things were in his future he just had to make it and it would all be ok.  He asked me what that meant.  I told him I had no idea but if that is what Jared said we both better listen.  He said Jared sat with him and talked to him for several minutes and he just couldn't believe what he had just experienced.  He asked me why Jared would do that.  I replied, it is simple he cares for you as a friend.  He was puzzled because Jared had only spent a week with him on a vacation we had taken where we met him and yet Jared was watching out for him.  I told him, this should prove we make bigger impacts on people than we realize.  Just a couple weeks ago I got another frantic message from our friend.  This time it was to tell me that his best friend, a female, had returned from a long trip to another country and found that she loved him as more than just friends.  He was so excited to share this news.  He said he shared his story of Jared with her and she shared some spiritual encounters with him as well.  Not sure if that was Jared but I bet he had a hand in talking with her.

Sometimes I feel so very alone, even when there are people around.  I have come to find great comfort in this connection God has granted me with Jared in his Afterlife.  Until I am reunited with him I will continue to watch for his signs.

As I get ready to post this look what appears out my window....

3 egrets