It went OK, we decided upon one third of the old copay, and we worked through the 3 deaths as best we could. It was not until I got home that I realized something that I had not seen when I was in therapy with her working on the deaths.
When my grandmother on my father's side died, she being my favorite grandparent, and the one that died first, I did not know anything about eternal life or Heaven. In fact, I was not yet even aware of how someone's death would affect me, as no one I had ever known before had ever died.
Anyway, today, now, I realized that back then, when someone died, to me, it was THE END. I believed I would never get the chance to see that person again. I would never hear their voice again or hug them again or anything. It, to my way of thinking, was over and done with. A book closed, never to be re-opened.
I had been denied any kind of religious education when I was a child or a teen. My parents had had an out of outs with a certain church and had forsaken all churches except the Unitarian Church, which did not teach any kind of religious education. So I knew nothing of the Bible, nothing of Heaven, (except the occasional St. Peter joke) which made little sense to me, without the Bible to back it up.
So that feeling of hopelessness and finality has been sitting upon these 3 deaths for me these last 3 weeks. Not concerning my learnings and teachings to this date, but the feeling that I had when my beloved grandmother passed away way back then in my teen aged years. And I guess, the death of my grandmother has never really been resolved in my mind because of this.
I need to update my feelings about her death, in order to deal with these 3 recent deaths that have occurred in my life. I KNOW these 3 folks AND MY GRANDMOTHER are all in Heaven. At least, I believe they are. I HOPE they are! (Only God knows for sure). Anyway, I hope to see all of them in Heaven, when I get there. However, because of my upbringing. Because of my past. I sometimes doubt what I believe these days. There are nagging feelings. Old things that I learned in other religions nag at me and tell me that there is no Heaven, there is no life after death.... and it is hard for me to deal with these 3 deaths, when these nagging doubts keep tugging at my consciousness and trying to remind me of what I used to believe, and of what I was taught way back then that I am trying to refuse to believe now, so that I can be at peace with what Jesus teaches. And be at peace with what the Bible as a whole teaches.
It is so hard. I have been through so many different religious teachings throughout my entire 60 some odd years of learning.... and 3 deaths in 3 weeks or so have not made it any bit easier!
