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I dream of Brendan's New Garden

Dream of Brendan: March 6

I had another dream of Brendan. I'm not sure why I am having more thorough and awesome dreams about him, but here it is:


Brendan wants to show me his garden out front of his little gold house.  I see that he has all this land that's sloping down very far and then there is a canyon with a river running through it, very far down the mountain. It's like something I've seen in Switzerland. He says, "look at my garden---I'm planting seeds. I'm planting tons of seeds.  They are giving me lots of seeds to plant."

I see a cat sitting on the railing in front of the house. Could this be the Boy?  Then I'm aware of a black and white cat sitting on the porch....like the cat in the painting that Brendan painted while in a Cabrillo Art Class.

Brendan is to the left of the house planting seeds.  He comes back over to me and gives me a plant.  It includes the dirt and roots and he places it proudly in my hands.

He is digging the ground with a shovel?  and then planting seeds. He says, "I've got the the whole hillside to plant  and it can go on forever. I'm making a lot of progress."

For some reason I know that Brendan has more animals in his little gold house.

I look towards the porch. An ostrich comes out on the porch and runs towards Brendan.  My impression was that an ostrich is one of his friendly pets? 

This morning I looked up what dreaming of an ostrich means..........

 Ostrich stands for freedom and independence.

The only images I could find that looks similar to Brendan handing me the plant are these. The bottom plant has the roots included, which I saw in the dream. However, The leaves looked more like the top photo.





On Grief by Michelle Obama



“It hurts to live after someone has died. It just does. It can hurt to walk down a hallway or open the fridge. It hurts to put on a pair of socks, to brush your teeth. Food tastes like nothing. Colors go flat. Music hurts, and so do memories. You look at something you’d otherwise find beautiful—a purple sky at sunset or a playground full of kids—and it only somehow deepens the loss. Grief is so lonely this way.”

Michelle Obama, Becoming


 Saw this on the back of a car. Outside my grief therapist's office. 

I Will Love You...........


Photos of the Northern Lights in Norway 
always remind me of Brendan.






Some believed that the northern lights would wink back if you waved a white garment at them. The Sami people believed that the northern lights had supernatural power, and they used symbols from the lights on their shaman drums.



History
The northern lights have fascinated and captivated people through the ages, and they are mentioned in texts written by Aristotle, among others. Chinese texts from 2000 BC also describe what may be the northern lights. The earliest explanations and descriptions fuelled the myths and mystery surrounding the northern lights, and it was not until the 17th century that the phenomenon was studied in a more systematic and scientific manner. A connection was gradually discovered between the northern lights and magnetic disruptions, and that the sun's activity influenced the phenomenon.

In 1886, Norwegian physicist Kristian Birkeland formulated the first comprehensive theory on the northern lights based on these previous observations. Birkeland developed and underpinned his theory, and his work came to form the basis for modern research on the northern lights. This research still continues today, and it has given us new information about the sun, the Earth's atmosphere and near space. (Norway-Lights.com)



C.S Lewis On Grief



Shine On You Crazy Diamond.........


On Sunday, March 3, 2019 I was listening to jazz music on YouTube, this song randomly started playing. I haven't spent any time listening to Pink Floyd since you've died.  The long edition of the song reminded me so much of you and then I started to listen to the lyrics. I had to look the lyrics up and they described you so well....


Pink Floyd – Shine On You Crazy Diamond Lyrics
from album: Delicate Sound Of Thunder (1988)

Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun.

Shine on you crazy diamond.
Now there's a look in your eyes, like black holes in the sky.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
You were caught on the cross fire of childhood and stardom,
Blown on the steel breeze.
Come on you target for faraway laughter, come on you stranger,
You legend, you martyr, and shine!

You reached for the secret too soon, you cried for the moon.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Threatened by shadows at night, and exposed in the light.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Well you wore out your welcome with random precision,
Rode on the steel breeze.
Come on you raver, you seer of visions, come on you painter,
You piper, you prisoner, and shine!

Nobody knows where you are, how near or how far.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Pile on many more layers and i'll be joining you there.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
And we'll bask in the shadow of yesterday's triumph,
And sail on the steel breeze.
Come on you boy child, you winner and loser,
Come on you miner for truth and delusion, and shine!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Some Possible Meanings of "Blown on the steel breeze"
Meaning of Steel Breeze



Songwriters: DAVE GILMOUR, RICHARD WRIGHT
Shine On You Crazy Diamond lyrics © BMG Rights Management

Brendan UCSC College Nine

 Brendan Leung. Ollie at UCSC. Photo by: Paul Wingert







The Book Passage above says: Within us and around us there is an invisible world, this is where each of us comes from...When you cross over from the invisible into this physical world, you bring with you a sense of belonging to the invisible that you can never lose or finally cancel. When you enter the world, you come to live on the threshold between the visible & the invisible. Because the invisible cannot be seen or glimpsed with the human eye, it belongs largely to the unknown. Still there are occasional moments when the invisible seems to become faintly perceptive....Now you belong fully neither to the visible nor the invisible. This is precisely what kindles and rekindles and rekindles all your longing and your hunger to belong. You are both artist and pilgrim of the threshold. ~~~~from Eternal echoes by John O'Donohue



Sent to me from Corinne:

"She always had that about her, that look of otherness, of eyes that see things much too far and of thoughts that wander off the edge of the world."

JoAnne Harris
The Girl With No Shadow

Article: Words Fall Short of Grief

Article: Drinking the Tears of the World: Grief As Deep Activism

Click the link for the full article:

Drinking the Tears of the World: Grief as Deep Activism    

Poem For Those Who Have Died: Judah Halevl 12th Century



For Those Who Have Died....

'Tis a fearful thing
To love
What death can touch.
To love, to hope, to dream,
And ah, to lose.
A thing for fools, this,
Love,
But a holy thing,
To love what death can touch.
For your life has lived in me;
Your laugh once lifted me;
Your word was a gift to me.
To remember this brings painful joy.
‘Tis a human thing, love, A holy thing,
To love
What death can touch.


Judah Halevl or
Emanuel of Rome - 12th Century

As Long As I.............

As long as I,
stay in the mindset of not trying to supress or ignore my grief,
and in the mindset of not considering the idea of "moving on"
                                                                                 Or "getting over".
                                                            But instead, moving forward.
As long as I,
am in the mindset of celebrating the life and love of my beloved regularly,
                     I can breathe deeper,
                     I feel the love more powerfully and the pain of loss is lighter. 

And although grief may still be there, the love I feel when I think of my beloved, 
confirms that:     
               ~They still exist 
               ~They did not die in vain
                  and
               ~Their life mattered.



A Mysterious Rose in the Lost & Found.....


At first I thought this mysterious lonely Rose to be an imitation. I touched it's petals and realized, "wow! it's real! what's a nice rose like you doing in a place like this?"   She was a very thirsty Rose when I found her. So I picked up a container, filled it with water and set on a bookshelf like so.As I started to tell people about the rose incident, all made comments about Brendan sending it to me.


Dream 2/12/19

I'm in the McHenry library and it looks like a military base.  I get word that Brendan was in a serious car accident and is permanently injured. It sounds like he has many broken bones and may not be able to move again. But in the dream he is alive. I keep calling him on his cell phone but he never answers. I keep texting him.  I know he is very far away. I keep calling the "hospital" where they say he is staying, but I'm not allowed to talk to him.  Throughout the dream I keep thinking of him, trying to visualize his injuries and what he may need and I want to go to him but I can't.  His folks talk to me about Brendan moving in with me because he will not have any place to go when he comes out of the hospital. He will be too handicapped to take care of himself. 

Dreams of Attempted Phone Calls to Brendan

I keep having dreams of Brendan the past couple of nights. In the dream I find myself driving from Mission Dr towards Davenport, Hwy 1. 

I realize he hasn't called me in months. I keep forgetting he's dead. I keep forgetting his phone number..... has to be dialed differently and on a different phone. I even use voice to text asking my phone to call Brendan. I get this sense that he is in school (college) pretty far away. He's very busy.

The phone that I use is old, damaged, the keys don't work properly. It looks broken. I get the sense that I have been trying to call him on and off for quite awhile.



Brendan visits tonight

Feb 9,
1 year since I've seen Brendan and also the last time I saw him.

Today I felt B around me a lot.  I was starting to doze off and I felt him approach me on the left. He touched my hair, leaned over and kissed me on the lips.  I said out loud...."Brendan, I miss you, I love you; I miss you, I love you; I miss you, I love you................" and on and on for 5 or so minutes.

As soon as I wrote this and clicked 'Publish' my bedroom door closed by itself.

Grief Is Love's Unwillingness To Give Up

"Grief is love’s unwillingness to give up. 

It's creating a space where you can love someone in their eternal absence."

What is grief in relation to love?


From the website: 'What's Your Grief?'


What is grief in relation to love? 

Quite often I think they’re the same thing.

When people think of love they often think of hearts, romance, and warm-fuzzies, but love is far more complicated.

Love is positive and amazing, yes, but it can also cause the worst kind of pain.

Perhaps the most painful kind of love is called grief, which happens when the object of a person’s love is taken away with no hope for return.

Grief is love.

Grief is love and the confusion caused by not knowing how to love someone who is gone. Grief is love’s frustration, bitterness, anger, and resentment at death’s destruction.

Grief is love realizing, if it wants to thrive, it has to be creative and find new ways to connect and be fulfilled.

Grief is love’s unwillingness to give up. It’s stretching bonds and redefining limits in order to create a space where you can love someone in their eternal absence.

I know you may not believe me, because right now grief seems like a nightmare. I’ll admit that some days I don’t believe myself, but then one of our readers says something tender or shares a loving memory or does something supportive for a fellow reader and I’m reminded that underneath it all, grief is love.

Some of you reading this may be feeling alienated, isolated, sad, and alone. We want to remind you, though, that underneath the stress, frustration, anger, disappointment, despair, guilt, loneliness, and sorrow – quite often there is love.

1 Year Later----Remember Brendan Lai-Wing Leung



Sequence of Events from the date of the accident to the date of our final goodbyes to Brendan Lai-Wing Leung. 1 Year ago.




Monday, Feb 5, 2018 at 7:01 PM. The accident. B is airlifted to Santa Clara Community Hospital. The dreaded phone call. Racing to the hospital. At 10:00pm, Neurosurgeon tells us B won’t survive his injuries. Brendan is on life support. B’s Uncle and I stay with him overnight in the hospital.


Tuesday, Feb 6, 2018. The morning after the accident. Brendan is on life support. B’s family (Corinne, Al, Bridget) arrive from Massachusetts. Doctors/Surgeons confirm that Brendan will not survive his injuries. They give us updates throughout the day. We all gather around Brendan; spending the day talking to him, holding his hands, taking photos of his tattoos, giving him our love and reading messages from B’s friends and family around the country & parts of the world.
Wed. Feb 7, 2018 We continue to gather around Brendan. Friends begin to visit to say goodbye. Doctors inform us that Brendan is declared dead 11:05am

Thurs. Feb 8, 2018
We continue to sit with Brendan as organ donor organizations make plans with Brendan's family.

Friday, Feb 9, 2018 We know it’s our final day with Brendan. Donor recipients are confirmed. At 5:00pm it’s time to officially say our final excruciating goodbyes to B. My last memory of Brendan~~~Bandages finally removed and Looking like a sleeping Prince.
Within the next 24 hours Brendan saves the lives of  3 Northern California Women with his organs and countless future others.


One Year That You've Been Gone?

How Is It Possible
that I can still miss you so much Brendan?
It's already been a year.
And yet it doesn't feel like more than a few weeks.
It doesn't feel like you are even gone.
It's as if you are somewhere around, not very far away at all.

It's as if in just a day or two I'll be seeing you again.
When you were still here on earth I longed to see you
when we were apart even for a day.
Our usual Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays nights and briefly Sunday afternoons.

And now that I look at the calendar and the calendar says that you left us at just about a year,
I realize,
You haven't been gone a year....
You haven't been gone from my life a year...
I live you every single day.
I must be visiting you during my sleep.
You must be in the dreams that I can't remember when I'm awake.

I only realize it When I think about you being gone one year
You are not gone from me
Am I gone for you?
I hope I am fully in your life still Brendan
I can't "measure" where "you" are anymore.
So I'm trying to learn how to measure where you are, using different tools

I'm getting clues, I'm researching, studying in order to find out where you are staying while I'm on the earth plane waiting to join you---- where I hope you---are waiting for me

Wait for me Brendan,
wait for me,  please wait for me!
Please continue to visit me during my dreams and in your dreams.
Let's not forget each other.
Please don't forget about me.
I won't forget about you.

I Will Love You Until The Moment I Pass From This Existence


All I am, and all that I was ever meant to be, In harmony. Shining true and smiling back at all who wait to cross There is no loss

The Wall
by Kansas



I'm woven in a fantasy,
I can't believe the things I see
The path that I have chosen now has led me to a wall
And with each passing day I feel a little more like something dear was lost

It rises now before me,
A dark and silent barrier between,
All I am, and all that I would ever want to be
It's just a travesty,
Towering, marking off the boundaries my spirit would erase

To pass beyond is what I seek,
I fear that I may be too weak
And those are few who've seen it through to glimpse the other side,
The promised land is waiting like a maiden that is soon to be a bride

The moment is a masterpiece,
The weight of indecision's in the air
Standing there,
The symbol and the sum of all that's me
It's just a travesty,
Towering, blocking out the light and blinding me
I want to see

Gold and diamonds cast a spell,
It's not for me, I know it well
The riches that I seek are waiting on the other side
There's more than I can measure in the treasures of the love that I can find

And though it's always been with me,
I must tear down the wall and let it be
All I am, and all that I was ever meant to be,
In harmony
Shining true and smiling back at all who wait to cross
There is no loss

"I Had My Own Notion Of Grief" by Gwen Flowers


You Cannot See Through, You Will Not See Me, So You Must Have Faith

ASCENSION

And if I go,
while you're still here...
Know that I live on,
vibrating to a different measure
--behind a thin veil you cannot see through.
You will not see me,
so you must have faith.
I wait for the time when we can soar together again,
--both aware of each other.
Until then, live your life to its fullest.
And when you need me,
Just whisper my name in your heart,
...I will be there.

"Ascension"
Copyright ©1987, Colleen Corah Hitchcock

Payson's Tribute Skateboard Bench For Derby Park: Construction Process









Big Sur/Santa Lucia Mountains: New Camaldoli Hermitage---Prayers for Brendan & Sending Some Ashes in the Wind










New Camaldoli Hermitage is a rural Camaldolese Benedictine hermitage in the Santa Lucia Mountains of Big Sur, California, in the United States.


from Thich Nhat Hahn About His Mother's Death


“The day my mother died I wrote in my journal, "A serious misfortune of my life has arrived." I suffered for more than one year after the passing away of my mother. But one night, in the highlands of Vietnam, I was sleeping in the hut in my hermitage. I dreamed of my mother. I saw myself sitting with her, and we were having a wonderful talk. She looked young and beautiful, her hair flowing down. It was so pleasant to sit there and talk to her as if she had never died. When I woke up it was about two in the morning, and I felt very strongly that I had never lost my mother. The impression that my mother was still with me was very clear. I understood then that the idea of having lost my mother was just an idea. It was obvious in that moment that my mother is always alive in me.

I opened the door and went outside. The entire hillside was bathed in moonlight. It was a hill covered with tea plants, and my hut was set behind the temple halfway up. Walking slowly in the moonlight through the rows of tea plants, I noticed my mother was still with me. She was the moonlight caressing me as she had done so often, very tender, very sweet... wonderful! Each time my feet touched the earth I knew my mother was there with me. I knew this body was not mine but a living continuation of my mother and my father and my grandparents and great-grandparents. Of all my ancestors. Those feet that I saw as "my" feet were actually "our" feet. Together my mother and I were leaving footprints in the damp soil.

From that moment on, the idea that I had lost my mother no longer existed. All I had to do was look at the palm of my hand, feel the breeze on my face or the earth under my feet to remember that my mother is always with me, available at any time.”


― Thích Nhất Hạnh, No Death, No Fear

The Day After Your Birthday...

I miss you. Like you just died yesterday. I still miss you. 

11 Months....I Still Miss You Because Each Day You're Still Gone


There Is A Time....

“There is a time in life when you expect the world to be always full of new things. And then comes a day when you realize that is not how it will be at all. You see that life will become a thing made of holes. Absences. Losses. Things that were there and are no longer. And you realize, too, that you have to grow around and between the gaps.”
― Helen Macdonald

Coming Up On 11 Months That You've Been Gone....more on grief


Losing You Has Shaken My World To The Core

I've been trying to make meaning of my life this year Brendan.
Losing you has shaken my world to the core.
I have so many gifts and so much gratitude.
However, when you left, a piece of my heart went with you.
It's okay, you can keep that piece.
Wherever you are, will you carry it with you always?
And at some time in the future; either near or far,
When my time has come to face the great beyond
(as you have before me)
I will look for you;
And with that piece of my heart,
You will be able to identify me.


My Festive Offering

I've been trying to make meaning of my life this year Brendan.
Losing you has shaken my world to the core.
I have so many gifts and so much gratitude.
However, when you left, a piece of my heart went with you. 
It's okay, you can keep that piece.
Wherever you are, will you carry it with you always?
And at some time in the future; either near or far,
when my time has come to face the great beyond
--as you have before me--
I will look for you;
and with that piece of my heart,
you will be able to identify me.



My Festive Offering

What have I learned from life?

We visit this life,
This world,
This human self, but briefly.

Around me I see
People digging holes,
Getting entangled in unnecessary
stuff,
Believing it's the only thing that is
real.
The webs we spin
Are only traps for ourselves.

But we must eat, we must love,
We must try,
To blend and merge
To give and to be,
To thrill in this human form,
While we can.
To be awed by the life around us
And the people we meet
And dance with.

I am so grateful knowing this,
I dissolve in humility,
As I sit,
And so am edgeless;
Emergent and enduring;
Formless and complete.

Namaste!

author unknown
(My brother Wade sent this beautiful gift of words to me)