Page 13 - 2016 Autumn-Winter Issue

I can almost hear you say to me, thank you, Grandma, for keeping
your promise to be my voice.

On the first birthday after you passed, I celebrated for you You are my forever, Luke; my forever hero who I will stand
and was your voice by honoring the children, doctors and up for and be a voice for the rest of my life. I will love you
nurses at your hospital by bringing balloons and flowers forever. Whenever I am lonely for you, I cuddle up in your
and desserts for the staff. This is now a yearly tradition and blanket and I can almost feel you cuddled in it with me.
when I leave, I go quietly to spend some time with you at
your cemetery plot. I talk and you listen. I Today I am grateful for an amazing
can almost hear you say to me, thank you, grandparent support group I have
Grandma, for keeping your promise to be found where I can share the real me
my voice. and people don’t try to tell me “it is
time to move on.” It will never be time
I am not finished being your voice, Luke. to move on because you did exist, and
This is something I will continue to do as you still live in my heart. You see, I
long as I am able. Cancer took you from saw you take that first breath.
us physically but it didn’t take away my
memories or my love for you. My faith Susan Jensen, known as “Grandma Sue” to
sustained me during some of the darkest Luke and the community, lives in Springfield,
moments that one could ever imagine and MA with her husband Peter. She is the mom
I am grateful for that. Without that today, of three and a grandmother of five. She spends
I honestly don’t know where I would be. her days running her own daycare for the past
23 years.

Photo by Shari Schoener of Grandma Sue © makam1969/Fotolia.com
Jenson with grandson, Luke

How I Found Hope ...

After the death of my son Kelly, I thought I would not survive. The
only thing that gave me hope was that small inkling that he was near,
that on some level he had survived death...I started speaking his name
in the present tense. Our child dies a second time when no one speaks
their name.

Mitch Carmody, Kelly’s dad

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