Let the Angels Carry You

A Story of Faith and Hope Written by Camille McConnell

Last night I was looking for a file on my computer. I came across something else I haven’t seen in over five years. You know when you’re rushing and you don’t even give a file a name but Word titles it whatever the first line is? When I saw the title, my heart fell a little: “Oh sweet boy.” It was the song I had written to sing at my little boy’s funeral in June of 2018. The song I had started writing while sitting on the stairs after I woke up two days after he died. I was too fatigued to make it all the way down the stairs, so I just sat there while processing, and words and a melody started floating to my brain. They demanded attention.

So I started writing it all down in the Note app on my phone. When such a perfect creation is essentially sent from heaven and downloaded into your brain, you have to ask God, “Why did you send this?” His answer: “I want you to sing it at his funeral.” That’s what I was afraid of. Why did it seem like God was always asking hard things of me?

The morning of the funeral, I quickly transferred the lyrics from my phone to a computer so I could print out the words before running across the street to the church to practice. Wesley’s Song was beautiful and perfect. My grief journey ahead would be both beautiful and messy, as you could imagine any mother’s grief journey to be.

Running across that file took me back in time. It was like I was sitting across the table from that grieving mother, staring her in the face, while she waited for her page to print. I wanted to look her right in the eyes and tell her I was sorry, and tell her she is brave. I wanted her to know that while public displays of honoring her son are important, she would have the most precious experiences while she held him in her heart on the day-to-day, when nobody was watching.

My grief journey perhaps hasn’t been conventional. Sometimes I follow the beat of my own drum. It was hearing the platitudes of, “Well, at least you know you’ll get to be with your son again,” and “Aren’t you grateful for the Resurrection?” that brought my path into focus. I’m grateful for truths about forever families and the afterlife–of course I am–but I wasn’t content to put my relationship with my son on hold because the promise of continuing it later didn’t seem sufficient. Wasn’t there more?

Wesley died unexpectedly on Memorial Day. A bolt had gotten loose in his toddler bed and he had pulled it out and put it in his mouth at the beginning of naptime. He was almost four years old, past the phase where babies put everything into their mouths. To say the experience was a shock would be a huge understatement. Trauma unfolded as the paramedics raced over and a life flight helicopter transported him away from my arms and to the children’s hospital. When my husband and I caught up with him 40 minutes later, an apologetic doctor told us that he had “suffered an unrecoverable accident.”

I intuitively felt his spirit comforting me when the doctor escorted us into the emergency triage room where his still body lay. It didn’t make sense how I could be in the deepest grief of my life, yet also feel his sweet, loving concern in the same moment. My little buddy stayed close to me in those first few days. I could sense he was loyally by my side to comfort me while I was bereft. It caused me to question what kind of connection we could continue to have as we approached this new crossroads in our relationship. What kind of connection is possible between heaven and earth?

I started consuming books about near death experiences, reading them late into the night because I couldn’t sleep anyway. My understanding unfolded in three significant ways. First, our loved ones on the other side are very invested in what goes on in our lives and second, Jesus is more liberal with His love than I previously knew. The third consistent truth I read from dozens of stories is that our departed loved ones can travel at the speed of thought. They are very efficient and can handle several errands in a short amount of time. It is not difficult for them to visit us.

Something else I came to learn was that the same channel that connects me to my Father in Heaven’s and Savior’s love, that sends Their messages to my spirit, is the same channel that Wesley and I use to stay in touch. The Holy Spirit is the great connection between heaven and earth. The Spirit is like the system that tree roots have in a forest to share nutrients and communicate with each other. It nourishes and provides, if we pay attention, get quiet and still, and are willing to tap into it.

One of my favorite forms of therapy has been spending time in nature, especially while hiking. Shortly after Wesley died, hiking was my emotional lifeline. On particularly hard days, I felt strongly pulled to spend some quiet time in the mountains. My favorite trail was only 15 minutes away. I would take my dog and we would go together. While he would run ahead and explore, I would get very quiet and still. I would talk to God, thank Him for Jesus, and would also talk to my son, sometimes out loud and other times in my mind. There, away from all distractions, I would pour out my brokenhearted soul and commune with my Father, Brother and son, rejoicing in the spiritual communication that would come my way. Sometimes I just spent time in silence, collecting my thoughts and feelings. Other times, answers would flood in and I would walk with tears streaming down my face. Wes and I were in agreement. We were still making time for each other.

More songs have come into my mind from heaven like instant downloads. I’m starting to wonder, who are my co-writers? 

Now, more than five years later, I’m still working to stay connected to the Spirit and to my son on the other side. We maintain a beautiful relationship. While his spirit isn’t as constant as it was the first few days after he passed, we are still quite close. It takes effort for me to make time to be quiet and still, meditative, and prayerful.

Sometimes I know he is with me because he randomly pops into my mind, as if to say, “hello!” Other times, he sends signs in the form of hearts. Last year, I noticed a new crack in our floor tile, in the shape of a tiny heart. A day doesn’t go by when he doesn’t show me a heart in some form. On rare occasions, he shows up to hang out with me in my dreams while I’m asleep. More often, I talk to him in my mind. He gives me a subtle feeling he is around and I enjoy his company for a moment and see if he has anything he wants to share. Staying close to the Spirit keeps me close to him. It enhances my understanding of his mission to bless my family from the other side.

Grief journeys are hard. I am forever grateful for our connection, but I also want to be upfront. This experience has completely broken me, over and over. My life feels like a colorful, vibrant piece of pottery, thrown to the ground and shattered into a hundred tiny shards. In bending down to make sense of the mess and attempting to figure out where each piece goes so I can restore the pottery to its former shape, I realize I’m not alone. Out of the corner of my eye, my Savior is waiting. Will I invite him to kneel beside me to make sense of this mess? He gently indicates that I don’t need to restore my broken pottery to its former shape. Instead, He wants me to use the broken pieces to create something quite different, something I couldn’t envision on my own. His restoration process is showing me how to arrange the sharp shards into new, beautiful patterns that form a stunning mosaic. With each jagged piece, He supplies tools to smooth, set, and glue them into place. While we pick up the pieces together, I am slowly taking shape. I wonder what I will look like when I’m done.