Consider this, you touched me, you moved me, you helped me go beyond.

Today I’m sharing my thoughts on the passing of a loved one. Death leaves an indescribable heartache and awakens forgotten memories.

One Christmas, after I turned six, my Aunt Kate gave me a beautiful moose and a children’s book about meditation. I brought the book to my first grade teacher, Mrs. Blakesly, with hopes she would use it with our class. Mrs. Blakesly used the book everyday. We would turn out the lights, lay on the floor, and relax as she read from the book. I remember the words from the beginning of the book so well…

“I want you to see above your head a beautiful beautiful star. This star is filled with lovely white light. I want you to bring the white light from that star right down through your body until you can feel it in every part of your body, and your heart is filled with love for all humanity and for all creatures great and small. ….Your guardian angel is waiting for you to wrap a golden cloak of protection around you and take you to the Worry Tree. Put anything that worries you on the tree, and then your guardian will open the gate and take you inside your garden.”

Starbright: Meditations for Children

Looking for signs of a loved one

Aunt Kate told me that my guardian angel was my Grandma Mary who had passed away before I started first grade. She taught me to look for her in nature – a rainbow, a butterfly, a small animal who seems to be staring at me for a little longer than normal.

She said she was all around me and that even though she was not physically present, she was here in spirit. Whenever I felt scared, sad, or alone, I had to just look around for a sign of her, then imagine she was wrapping me in a golden cloak of protection, and taking me to the Worry Tree. I wish I could remember when I stopped visualizing these ideas.

A few years later, my Aunt Kate told my sister something just as profound after a family member passed away.

Aunt Kate told a 6 year old Lizzie to not feel fear and to wrap herself in a beautiful violet light when she needed protection. Just like my cloak, the violet light would embrace her during the times she felt scared or alone.

My amazing, intuitive, incredible Aunt Kate suddenly passed away last Thursday morning in the arms of my Uncle Greg. When my Mom called to tell me the news, I was standing in the hallway at school. My heart broke into a million pieces thinking that the woman who taught me everything about being one with the Earth was now gone from our Earth.

Just like that.

My Thoughts on the Passing of a Loved One

I have been imagining my Grandma Mary appearing with the golden cloak and whisking me away to the Worry Tree. I’ve been praying for that star filled with white light to fill my heart with love for all humanity – but it has been difficult.

I’m looking for Aunt Kate everywhere – looking for a sign that she is okay – but nothing. No rainbows, no butterflies, no whispers in the wind. I went through all of our emails looking for something that would give me a hint on how to find her, and then I found it. Almost one year ago to the day she passed, she said something…

In some weird crazy way – a way that I believe my Aunt would say is utterly significant – she wrote these words for us to reread after she passed away.

The words are a way of her telling us that she has gone beyond feeling loved, moved, and touched. Perhaps she felt that golden cloak of protection, and saw her own guardian angels appear- her sister Maureen, her mother Mary, and her father John – to take her away to someplace special.  

I will continue to look for Aunt Kate around me  – in the rain that glistens on the sunflowers she loved so much. I’ll look for her in the sun that shines on an animal in nature, and in the snow, which I know made her heart feel full.  I can only hope and pray that she is waiting for me in my garden where we may someday meet again.

“I want you to see above your head a beautiful, beautiful star. This star
is filled with lovely white light. I want you to bring the white light
from that star right down through your body until you can feel it in
every part of your body, and your heart is filled with love for all
humanity and for all creatures great and small. Your guardian angel is waiting for you to wrap a golden cloak of protection
around you and take you to the Worry Tree. Put anything that worries
you on the tree, and then your guardian will open the gate and take you
inside the garden. Your garden is filled with glorious flowers, the
grass and the trees are an emerald green, and the sky a deep blue with
little white clouds.“

Starbright: Meditations for Children

Purchase Starbright: Meditations for Children here.