Dear Ned,
From that height you can see the whole picture, dream big and live large.
You are that sky spirit.
You no longer have the human trappings, the gravity, the deep sorrow, the constantly aching and unfulfilled need for levity, for forgetting. You are so lucky my brother! You just are!
I want to be with you or at least for now be like you. I want to soar through the clouds then after coming closer to Earth, hide in the trees to sing for the hurt humans.
When I go numb and can’t feel anything anymore, I listen for your song.
Love,
All of Us Down Here
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Let Me Explain
My brother Ned died in a plane crash over five years ago. He was almost 39, happily married, had a two year old son my nephew and was ecstatic about his new sea plane business. He bubbled over with excitement and contagious enthusiasm for his family and for the life that he had made.
His energy was the antidote to my cynical and depressive tendencies. Before we’d been sister and brother in a loving but sometimes distant sort of way, but shortly before his death, he was emerging as a genuinely positive influence in my life. I was just beginning to know him fully, not just for being my brother but for the beautiful man, husband, son and father he had become. I felt that he was beginning to understand and truly see me.
The pain of losing him personally was and is so excruciating, that it just makes sense that he is a presence in my life after his death.
Says writer Elizabeth DeVita=Raeburn, “…though the people we love cease to physically exist when they die, there is a sense of continued connection.”
Shortly after the accident, a friend’s mother who had lost her brother when she was a child gave me DeVita-Raeburn’s book, The Empty Room. DeVita-Raeburn’s pursuit of what it means to lose a sibling gave comfort to my broken and bewildered heart. Her words nourished my blog posts on Ned Snyder Lives which I set up the day he died. DaVita Raeburn also has a blog and she put a link to my blog on it!
My brother married a wonderful woman. They were together for ten years and she has kept his spirit alive so completely in raising their son, my nephew.
She practices Hinduism and although Ned didn’t, he was still given a Hindu prayer a couple months after he died. It was a breathtaking ceremony with a harmonium, singing, chanting and incense. A couple of Ned’s favorite snacks including peanut butter on toast and some cheese crackers were set out on a plate by the pool for his reincarnated form to consume.
The animals that flocked to the plate first were the birds.
Of course, since Ned was a pilot, it just makes sense that he is now a bird.
Blue Dream 