Author Archives: Mychael McNeeley

Jamie’s Joy: Healing Grief, Creating Legacy, Celebrating Life now available!

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Jamie’s Joy: Honoring Grief, Creating Legacy, Celebrating Life offers a raw, honest, and heartfelt account of the most agonizing, painful, and life-altering loss—that of a child. Ms. Bratton shares the intimate details of her process upon losing her precious son, Jamie. She shows us how our “grief illiterate” society makes an anguished experience even more painful through its lack of support for the bereaved and, perhaps worse, by making the bereavement process seem shameful and unhealthy. According to the author, the common belief that we need to “move on with our lives” and leave our lost loves in the past does not work. Ms. Bratton learned to rethink most of her past beliefs about God, people, and the nature of life to survive and heal with faith.

Jamie’s Joy offers candid ways the bereaved can shift their thoughts to adapt to the new reality of such a loss and eventually regain belief in the goodness of life. The mission of this book is to offer you Ms. Bratton’s stark and intriguing insights—not as a direction, but as something to consider if you are on your path of loss or have ever needed to help someone else who is. This book was created to provide you with resources and supportive guides to use, as needed.

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20 Years

Over the past 20 years
I’ve been blue
Drank a lot of beers
Shed a bucket of tears
Spent many days
Missing you.

Over the past 20 years
I’ve written 1200 poems
spent most of my time
Alone
Went through
Thought no
Threw away
800 poems
Spent time thinking
Things through
Thought about courage
And missed you.

Over the past 20 years
I got on a plane twice
to go across the U.S.
then back again
And that was way back when
That was 20 years ago.

Over the past 20 years
I’ve owned 7 different cars
All one at a time
Had lots of days to opine
7,305 of them
Stretched over time
All those days and days
A long foggy haze.

Over the past 20 years
2 decades
I’ve had 8 separate residences
The Padres have played
3,137 regular season games
The weather has gone hot to cold
The waves build then dip
the clouds float and whip
Mountains look lazily on
I stand in the rain
& nothing has been the same.

by Jamie’s Uncle April 24, 2022

© David McNeeley,2022

twenty years

pictures fade
memories blur
time pulses forward.

grief moves 
and changes
rises and falls.
love endures.

your presence 
weaves itself 
throughout this
long and fleeting life.

© Mychael McNeeley April 24, 2022
for Jamie Morgan (May 24, 1996- April 24, 2002)

Autumn’s Change~ a poem by Shari Maclean-Merten

The trees,
once dressed in
silky green,
change for
the cold.

Now donning
crispy auburn,
rust, crimson,
and gold.

Some have
shed all colors
standing naked
and bare.

Others still
hang on
needing more time
to prepare.

Caterpillars hibernate
some even
cocoon,
readying for the
winter months
approaching soon.

And all the while
in this
deep autumnal grief,
there’s profound beauty
in this
seasonal release.

With forest’s breath
shallow and slow,
life seems to
wilt away.

Take comfort
in this ebb and flow,
for nothing
stays the same.

As seasons pass,
all once-dying things
find new life in spring,
when all of life
emerges new
with buds and sprouts and wings.

Transformation masked as death
it’s really life anew.
Even for our
loved ones
the laws of physics hold true.

Memories of you,
once painful
and thorny to share,
now bring comfort
as I see you, feel you
everywhere.

Like you,
the leaves
and caterpillars,
certainly aren’t
gone.

They
like you,
have merely transformed
but, still,
they live on.


©2021 Shari McLean-Merten
shared with permission for
~Bill McLean (10/22/1941-11/16/2018)
~Julie McLean Schroeder (11/13/1963-7/6/2020)


25

May 24, 2021

Dear Jamie,

Today is your 25th birthday. Is that something to celebrate? Or is it time to grieve more since you have not been here for over 19 years?

Something that your mom and I have talked about is the way so many things are not simply “either/or,” but are instead “both/and.” This is one of those times for me. So yes, I am both (celebrating, appreciating, grateful, full of love) and (grieving, feeling loss, and a little mournful.)

Truthfully, though, my focus today has been leaning a little more toward that celebration side of things. I am so appreciating your presence in my life, both in that warm and affectionate body you had, but also in this bodiless form you have been in for so long.

A few things I am feeling grateful for today:

~ Sydney, your kindergarten girlfriend, who has become my close friend and “daughter-in-law,” and who stopped by this morning with vegan donuts and a beautiful handwritten note and laughter for the house and so much love and vibrance.

~a touching poem sent from my brother this morning.

~the love of my sweet wife, Debbie, and the laughter of my son, Liam- they brighten and add meaning to my life daily.

~contact from a few faraway friends today. I’m not sure if they would want or need name-mention here, but you know who you are. I love you and thank you.

~the incredible gifts of folks who helped when life was at its darkest. I’ve been thinking of Ken Druck, and the folks from The Compassionate Friends groups, and the Hospice folks who set up camps and classes for those in grief, and for Karl Anthony and Jean Lagorio, and Blair Tabor, and Julie Kyker, and for so many others who reached into our world of grief to offer so many things. There are too many to name here, from Adults of Unity friends to counselors to psychiatrists to ministers and musicians. I have been deeply blessed by a whole clan and crew of amazing humans surrounding me in my life.

~an absolutely beautiful day filled with love and abundance and great food and the Pacific Ocean.

~and last, but not least, upcoming bean, rice & guacamole burritos for dinner! I have eaten them in your honor for the past twenty of your birthdays. You did love a good bean burrito, and so do I!

This is really just a partial list. Thank you for all you taught me, all you continue to teach me, and all the love we continue to share, in whatever form we take. Happy Birthday, sweet, sweet son.

I love you forever, beautiful boy. i mo chroí go deo

© 2021 Mychael McNeeley