by Yvonne Mason

Forward

   In our lifetime, provided we live long enough, each of us will lose someone we love to death. We lose grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends, and even parents and siblings. Sometimes we even lose our children.  Sometimes we lose a pet that has become as much a part of our family as our human family. The pain of that loss is just as great.

   Everything from the trees, the grass, flowers and even animals make the circle of life. Everything is born to die. This fact does not make death easier, nor does it make it less painful. However, if we can come to terms with the fact that everything will die and we can find comfort in the fact that it is only a transition then it does not seem quite so scary.  

  This book is not meant to preach about death nor is it meant to sugar coat death. It is meant to give a person the ability to find their own level of acceptance. Hopefully it will give someone hope, and allow them to grieve but yet continue with their life while holding on to memories that never die.

  It is my hope that while reading Pennies from Heaven you the reader will find the solace that will help you heal. Someone once said that if you see a penny lying around pick it up. It has come from someone who has gone on – it is their way of letting you know they are okay, hence, the name of this book. I have found many pennies as I have walked my little Maltese; in fact I found three at one time.

   I enlisted the help of several friends who have lost loved ones including beloved pets to help the reader reach past the arms of grief to embrace the memories and to be able to move forward with their lives. Their stories are as unique as they are. While some are faith based many are not. The purpose of this book is to allow each person who reads it the ability to grieve in their own way, just like each of the storytellers have done. Each and every person has to find their own personal acceptance of death. It doesn’t matter if one believes in a higher being, what matters is that each person understands that as with life death comes to us all. If we do not accept that fact then we cannot continue to life we just exist.

   It is our hope that by the diversity of each of these stories that someone will find a way to grieve in their own way and to accept the fact that death is a part of living. 

Chapter One

Spending My Life Losing

People I love

   From the time I was a small child I have lost people I loved to death. I do not remember a time in my life when I was not going to a funeral. It was as much a part of my life as eating a meal.

 When I was three years old my great grandfather died. I was too young to remember.

 When I was ten years old my cousin was born stillborn. I remember clearly the reaction of the adults at that time.  When we got to Rome where my grandparents and aunts and uncles lived, we walked into my grandmother’s house and I saw the small casket. They had brought her home. When I looked into that casket the emotion was one of sadness. Not so much for the baby lying there, but for my Uncle and Aunt who were crushed. They had wanted this baby so badly and yet they were denied. What made it even sadder was the fact that my aunt was not allowed to attend the funeral. She was still in the hospital. I have always felt that this left an even bigger hole in her heart.

 Four years later in March of 1965 I lost a favorite great aunt. I was thirteen years old. It crushed me. I didn’t think I could hurt any worse until her husband died six months later in September of that same year.

 Death took a holiday for a few years and the next time I had to make a trip to Rome, Georgia for a death was in 1973 when my mother’s father died. He had a history of heart problems and had been on the backside of life for many years. It re-opened that hole in my heart.

   Two years later my dad’s father lay down to take a nap and never woke up. He had a heart attack in his sleep.

  During this time a friend of mine who I had grown very close to when both of our sons were in the hospital lost her husband on Interstate 285 in Atlanta as he was trying to pick up a car with a wrecker. It seemed like death kept coming in waves.  

  Shortly after that the great grandmother of my children on their father’s side died of cancer. Death had moved in to stay. I thought about giving it a room at the house. My best friend also lost her mother during this time.

  Things finally settled down for a few years until the 1980’s when Death reared its head again. I pulled into my mother’s driveway on March 6, 1987 to drop off my daughter before I went to work. My dad was still at home which was odd. When I turned off the car I knew something was wrong. It was terribly wrong. My mother’s mother, my Mema had died after several years of illness. That not only reopened the hole in my heart it shredded it.

  Four years later my other grand-mother died. It appeared that after her death things went back to “normal”.

Currently available in paperback and on kindle and audible soon to be

released as a hardback https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DMAXKQG