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Imagining Jamie at 30 by Elene Bratton

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My life is that of a double task~ living my daily life while always wishing Jamie was in it, not the spirit of the innocent boy but all the iterations over the past 24 years, and who that would have made him today at 30-year-old Jamie. At 30 years old, I could imagine you all grown up. Your hair is short. You still have the same smile and the beautiful hug, but you’re a family man now. You have two kids, a wife, a dog. You run a corporation or a business? You finished college. You got your MBA. You are making a lot of money. I can imagine you a surfer, all you do is surf, smoke pot, hang out with chicks and dudes but don’t ever want to get married or have kids, just love the easy life of a beach bum. I can imagine you, Jamie, being a very devout Buddhist living in a monastery, practicing, being in the present moment and stopping every 15 minutes when the bell rings. You are so centered, and say that Buddha teaches best about always being in the present moment and loving everybody. You live simply and try to make a very light footprint on the earth. I imagine you, Jamie, living in my basement, unable to work, because of some mental health or physical health problem that you developed in your early teens that you have not been able to overcome. You try to keep up your spirit, but you get down a lot. You play a lot of video games have a full world inside the internet. All these versions of you in some multiverse can be true. But in my universe, you left your body at five years and 11 months, even though today is your birthday anniversary, I didn’t get to see years six through 30 of you in your body no matter how much time passed. That still hurts. That still feels like I was cheated and that you were cheated and that we were cheated, and that the universe is not fair. I know it was a car crash, maybe preventable, but certainly not on purpose. I know that none of these scenarios are in this universe where I have to live. I know that in this version of life your body left 24 years and one month ago and I know that through Jamie’s Joy, I have been able to celebrate who you were and who you are now and share your spirit with the world- the spirit of love, joy, peace and connection live on in Jamie’s Joy, live on in the sunflower and the butterflies seen and dimes found. It lives on through your book, a street named Jamie’s Way, it lives on through the events, it lives on and on. It lives on through all those that come in contact with you through an activity or the website or a picture that they have on their mantle. For them it is a beautiful tribute, they sense your spirit and you live on. But what doesn’t live on is you being alive as a living being here in my life, and all that would bring with it. No matter what circumstance, what universe might have shown up, I would have wanted to live that time with you. And while I know it was an accidental car crash that took you away from me, the only way that I can stay close to you now is by crying and writing and honoring and remembering my beautiful boy that I had for ONLY five years and 11 months, which was not and will never be long enough. AND I would have still wanted those Five years and eleven months, even if I knew it means pain for the rest of my days, which has now been twenty four years and one month. I miss you son, I wanna “jale tu palo.” Te amount para siempre. I love you and I miss you everyday Jamie, and I will always love you and miss you until we meet again~ Mama

©Elene Bratton, 2026

Anny by Elene Bratton

 Anny, I went to your funeral today. A funeral of a person I don’t even know. A 28-year-old passed away just a few days before she would be 29. My son would have been 28 this year, but he passed away a month before sixth birthday. You guys might have known each other had he been allowed to grow up. If you had known each other, would he have influenced you not to have died a few days before your 29th birthday? Sounds like you had a beautiful life. And a lot of great influences. I know your dad and your grandma on your dad’s side. But I knew very few people at your service. I didn’t want to hear that God had plans for you, and this is all as it was supposed to be. Nobody’s supposed to die a few days before their 29th birthday, no one’s supposed to die with a 9-year-old who’s counting on them. No one’s supposed to die from fentanyl overdose or a car crash or childhood disease.

No one’s supposed to sit in a funeral for their baby girl.

It’s just not right. Nothing will ever make it right.

 A son growing up without his mother. My dad growing up growing old without his daughter and uncle’s cousins, friends. Left to find and carry on your legacy. All of us left with huge holes in our hearts. That can ever be filled. It’s like trying to fill the Grand Canyon with an eye dropper.  

But and still the only way to honor you is to carry on, maybe in that carrying on we’ll find solace, we’ll find ❤️ We’ll find reason to carry on.

© Elene Bratton 2024

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)


A New Connection: Selah Carefarm, Sedona, Arizona

I recently watched the series “The Me You Can’t See.” It is a wonderful documentary exploring mental illness and healing from the perspectives of people from various backgrounds and places around the world.

I was happy to learn, through the series, about a place just outside Sedona Arizona, Selah Carefarm, where grieving parents can go to, among other things, spend time with rescued animals. The benefit is for both the humans and the non-humans, as many of the other animals there also have been in traumatic situations prior to arriving at Selah.

After completing the documentary, I reached out to the director and founder, Joanne Cacciatore, who appeared in the series. I really didn’t even know whether I would hear back from her, but was pleasantly surprised when she wrote right back. As it turns out, we have quite a bit in common. Like me, Joanne lost her child, Cheyenne, suddenly and at a very young age, and has also developed a deeper connection with other animals from within a place of grief. I was reminded of an interview I did, “I Don’t Eat My Friends” with Vegan Danielle, which relates to my own connections with other animals born from grief and love and my relationship with Jamie.

I hope to visit Selah in the future. It seems like a magical and healing place. I will also be adding a link in our Grief Support section. Thank you to Joanne and all the staff at Selah Carefarm for your tremendous support and compassion for all animals, human and other, for your expansive circle of care, for seeing a need and for filling that need. I am inspired and touched by what you do.

© 2021 Mychael McNeeley

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