I'm dreaming of a white Christmas

From the time Alysia was born to about the second year I worked in retail, I always prayed for a white Christmas.  Before retail had ruined me for Christmas, I wanted so badly the quintessential Norman Rockwell Christmas.  I wanted the scene to be like Thomas Kinkade's Christmas paintings with snow covered trees, skaters on a pond, warm glowing light streaming from the windows of a cottage in the middle of a quaint town setting.  For weeks I would obsessively check the weather network to see what the forecast was going to be for the week of Christmas.  I would get so mad if it was rain or fog and would get excited if I saw snowflakes.  I recall maybe 2 or 3 Christmases with snow in the past 20 years.  Maybe there were more while I worked in retail but by that point I hated Christmas so much I probably didn't notice.

The few weeks leading up to Christmas this year were horrible.  The anticipation of spending Christmas without Alysia caused me so much sadness, plus there was so much other drama, on top of the grieving process, it was so hard to cope.  I cried often at home, broke down at work a few times and had panic attacks in stores when trying to shop for Christmas.

One day I was at Superstore on Tuesday (student discount day) trying to get supplies for baking.  It was crowded with students and regular shoppers, the baking supplies were wiped out, and Christmas music was blaring.  I was feeling tears building up behind my eyes and that sensation started a panic attack and anger, so I left without most of what I needed and hopped on my bike to go home.  I was so angry and sad I didn't care if I got hit by a car on my bike.  I rode past three "sketchy" looking young men on Brunswick street and thought to myself I didn't care if one of them would jump me and kill me.  I just didn't care.  I wanted Christmas and the drama and the grieving to disappear.  As I rode past these guys, the middle one lifted an arm in my direction and...waved and said "Merry Christmas!" to me.  I said "to you too!" and I laughed at myself and I was angry and I was sad all at the same time.

I assumed these guys were bad and maybe they were any other time but this guy meant his Christmas greeting.  It wasn't sarcastic, it was genuine. The other two guys looked at him confused then looked at me with indifference.  It seemed out of character for him, if the other two guys body language told me right.  I laughed at myself for being so bitter, I laughed at God for pointing out how bitter I was.  I wondered if God touched this guy's heart to do this. I said to God "OK OK I got it." I walked in the door of the apartment and cried on Katie's shoulder for over an hour.

Christmas eve Katie, my mother and I went to Alysia's gravesite to put a wreath for her. It was freezing up there and we were standing in snow so I felt rushed to leave.  I felt horrible that I couldn't truly connect with my grief of Alysia not being with us for Christmas because I was constantly pulled in directions that weren't going towards her. Family drama and the general busy-ness of Christmas kept me away from her.

Christmas day we opened our gifts and then I started to get Christmas dinner ready...again no time for grieving, things needed to get done.  During Christmas dinner I sat  at one point while strained conversation was going on around me and looked out the window onto Brunswick St.  The curtains to our huge windows were open and I wondered when the poor people of the neighborhood walked by, would they feel sad and angry because they weren't sitting around a table of good food and family like what it looked like we were doing in our place.  From the outside, our little gathering would seem so "Norman Rockwell" like.  The Victorian windows, the beautiful tree with the pretty lights would look so "Thomas Kinkade" like.  They wouldn't know about us having lost our daughter-granddaughter, they wouldn't know about the drama. It goes to show how outer appearances are deceiving.

I then thought how I hadn't had time to really feel the absence of my daughter, my beautiful Alysia.  I started to get sad while gazing out the window and then I saw snow flakes coming down so gently, so beautifully.  I felt I was being embraced by Alysia, by God.  I felt like Alysia was giving me a gift of snow I wanted so badly for years upon years. For 5 seconds I was with Alysia and God in a complete state of peace and joy and then I was pulled back to the dinner table.

Today I wrote Alysia a nice long letter in my journal.  I was finally able to connect with her for longer than 5 seconds at a time.  Oddly enough I didn't find myself crying but found myself wishing her a beautiful day and found myself feeling strength and determination to get through the New Year. Things are changing around me and in me. I am a different person now. I have my bitter moments but I refuse to be a bitter character in general. In order to do this I need to weed out some of the negative influences in my life, this is my new year resolution. 

It is sad that Alysia's facebook only has 2 Christmas greetings, one from me and one from Katie.  I know people have been busy.  I've been busy.  It's sad though that this happens. Her dad is not on facebook anymore and Josh was away so I know they couldn't post on her wall. Part of my New Year's resolution to weed out negative things is to not do a Christmas like this next year.  Next year I will be going away, either to Ontario with Katie if we can afford it or just going away somewhere quiet...just Katie and I and Alysia's spirit.

Blue balls of light

I realized I haven't written in my blog for a couple of weeks now...honestly it's because I just haven't been feeling myself with Christmas creeping up.  This weekend we are setting up the tree and stuff and I know this will be hard.  It's something I have to do though.  I have to face this Christmas season head on.  I will update my blog about this I'm sure.

I wanted to write about something completely spiritual though today because well...I guess I am being guided to do this.  Who out there believe in angels?  I would love to hear comments about this.  Who out there believe in the archangels?

I have always been attracted to the other realm.  I believe in angels, archangels, faeries, demons and other beings that live in other planes.  I believe we have the ability to cross over these realms with our souls.  The dream scape is a portal as well as during meditation or in states of being where we are relaxed or even scared.  I take my dreams very seriously, some dreams are just regurgitation from the brain but some are our souls connecting to the spiritual realm.  I've had a few dreams of Alysia and there have been messages in those dreams but unfortunately more often than not my dreams have simply been regurgitation dreams since she passed away.  Chaotic nonsense dreams... which even those have a meaning considering my brain is trying to process so much.

I consider myself spiritual, intuitive, empathic, connected to the other realm of beings, connected to the big picture, the universe, God.  My mind and heart are open to these things.  When Alysia first passed away, I saw her in so many ways, she was in crows, in ravens, in a butterfly, a lady bug, a caterpillar, in the sudden wind gust, in my dreams and then she disappeared...gone.  My heart ached and ached for her, I rarely received signs of her but then suddenly I am surrounded by blue balls of light, most of the time, everywhere...  At work, in the shower, at night, in the day.  The day after Alysia passed away, I was looking at her dad, Tomi as we were getting in his car and hovering right in front of his heart was a huge blue ball of light.  At the time I thought it was Alysia but now I wonder if it wasn't his mom.

I believe just after Alysia passed away she could play in the realm of this world and she did.  She came to us in signs through nature because she knew all of us left behind loved nature as she did (animals in particular for her) and knew we would connect to that. But now, she has backed off connecting to us this way in order for us to heal, to accept our loss.

I believe the energy of the departed soul "purifies" as it sheds it's earthly limitations (experiences, emotions, thoughts, etc) and enters into a state of pure love and light.  I believe these blue balls of light are her, Carol and my father. 

I've read that blue lights signify the presence of angels and the particularly strong and big blue ones are the Archangel Michael. I believe there are different levels of love and light in other realms as life is constantly evolving which would explain why some angels carry more love and light capacity than others. Oddly enough Archangel Michael has been mentioned a lot to me recently particularly through Alysia's friend who has a strong attachment to the archangel Michael and who also did a reading for me with Archangel cards.

I had an interesting experience the other day...but first I must tell of something that happened a month or so ago...I was at work at the circulation desk and across from me at the reference desk was a girl seated in a chair asking the reference staff a long question.  This girl looked exactly like Alysia from the side, same hair color, hair style, build, height (which is unusual since Alysia barely hit 5').  I couldn't help stare at her.  It was embarrassing.  I was worried she would look over at me and see me staring at her.  When she finally left I saw her face-on and she didn't look as much like Alysia and that relieved me somehow.  However that whole experience upset me for the rest of the day.

Last week I was going up to the third floor of the library and a girl was coming out. She saw me coming up the stairs and decided to wait and hold the door for me, even though I was at the bottom of the flight of stairs! I thought to myself how unusually polite that was and when I got to the top I said thank you to her. She just looked at me and smirked and went her merry way.  It wasn't until I passed her, seeing her profile, did I realize that it was the girl that I was staring at a month or so ago at the reference desk.  I knew right then that somehow Alysia in her current state (angel) whispered in that girl's mind..."just hold open the door for this lady, just wait for her" and the fact that the girl didn't say "you're welcome" but just smirked, convinced me it she was under Alysia's influence because Alysia is infamous for her little smirk.  At the time it floored me, it made me so happy.  That girl probably left thinking "wtf? why did I hold the door sooo long for her?"

Alysia is an angel now, Alysia is in those blue lights I see.  I have an entourage of angels both "ordinary" ones like Alysia and Carol and my father and the extraordinary ones like Archangel Michael.  I've read things like blue lights are a sign of deteriorating vision (mine has stabilized over the past couple of years) and some have said they are due to trauma to the eye (never happened and have had my eyes checked by a specialist recently due to a brown blob in my vision, specialist said "nothing wrong with your eyes").  So you know what? I'm going with my heart and believing those blue lights are from the angelic world.