Passing It Along - My Son's Message

In yesterday’s post I wrote about the slew of new daytime talk shows and gave a slight nod to the Katie Couric show.
The title of the October 8th show was “To Heaven and Back".
 Her guests included Dr. Mary Neal, “a woman who spent 15 minutes underwater and lost consciousness", an eleven year old boy, Colton Burpo, who shared his near-death experience, Akiane Kramarik, an art prodigy, who "began to have visions of being in heaven and meeting God" and Theresa Caputo, aka, The Long Island Medium.

Katie started off the show by holding up a copy of the October 8th issue of Newsweek. The cover story was "Heaven is Real". This article was written by Dr. Eben Alexander, a neurosurgeon who tells of a journey to the afterlife when he was in a coma.
 Reader's comments on the Couric show's website and on The Daily Beast dot com, which excerpted the Newsweek article, ranged from blissful acceptance to ridiculing skepticism.
On the skepticism scale, with one being mildly skeptic and ten being ridiculing, I would rate myself to be an eight, leaving some room for "anything is possible, I guess".
Two of the guests on the Couric show had an effect on me.
 The first being Theresa Captuo.
 My opinion, regarding the Long Island Medium, is total, all in skeptic. But as I watched her work the crowd, I completely understood why members of the audience were hooked in. With tears in his eyes, a man in the Couric audience, described his mother's last few moments. Caputo assured the man that his mother was right there and wanted him to know that she was okay.
 I too, found myself wishing it were real. I wandered off and wondered what messages my mother or my son might have for me.

The second guest who had an effect on me, or at least lowered my skepticism rating somewhat, was the art prodigy Akiane Kramarik.
Her truly amazing skill, at the very very young age of 4, (she is now around 18) was for me, mind blowing.  I had a passing thought that maybe there was something to this divine intervention theory after all.  I even rewound the DVR to show Ross the remarkable works of this young woman.
As I began to write about this, today, I decided to look for a link to her works.  I came across this article  claiming that the whole thing was a hoax perpetrated by her parents.
Apparently, according to the article no one has ever actually seen her paint a piece from start to finish.  And as she stated on the Couric show, she has not been able to paint recently because the visions no longer come to her.
That's when that niggling, gnawing, nasty little skepticism eyebrow of mine was again again raised.

 When my mother was in the last stages of her illness, she would constantly ask me if she were dying. I would try to brush off her question with words like, "Oh, Ma, we are all dying." I asked, though, that if she went before me, to please come back and tell me what it is like, to die. My mom died on November 24, 2009. Still waiting, mom.
It is so hard for me to accept that my son found a better place to be. He fought so hard to live, to stay here. I am positive he did not want to leave his son, his wife, his family. A few days before he passed away, he promised me that "we still have more time".
Just as I am sure that the majority of people want to know that their departed loved ones are okay, I also know that most people are comforted by the promise of seeing their loved ones again in some form of an after-life.
Scientists say that energy is indestructible and therefore infinite.
So, perhaps, just maybe, the after-life is in the life we give to our children. Perhaps each and all of our experiences, kindnesses, hurts, love, and yes, sometimes even hate become the energies that we pass on to our students, those young ones whom we all encounter during our lifetimes.
 Before she died, my mom told me that my grandmother was in the room, "right over there, in that corner", she said.
I also have had strong experiences of the "presence" of the energies of my grandmother, my parents and my son.
And perhaps, just maybe, when my son promised that we "still have more time", he was revealing a greater message to me.
Funny thing is, until I meandered around this topic and put it to "paper" I hadn't thought about it that way.  And funny, that, if I can believe in that, then it logically follows that my son became the teacher, and I the student.

I have created a page for Anna's Diary.  It can be found under the Tab titled Anna's Diary.

I have posted all of the entries to date there, starting with January 1, 1929.

 Here is today's entry from Anna's diary:
Friday, October 11, 1929
Baby much better today.  Kept him indoors all day.  Went to bed with him early as no one here.  Jean at school and Ted to meeting.

How Many Talk Shows Does It Talk To Replace One Oprah

Apparently,  it seems as though a respectable amount of time has passed since Ophra has moved onto the "Next Chapter".  I say this because I have noticed that afternoon TV programming is now being inundated with "new" talk sows.
Of course when Oprah was queen of daytime talk, she had her share of those who tried, unsuccessfully, to dethrone her. Her only real competition was Ellen Degeneres.
Oprha spawned a few protégés, with the caveat that their shows would absolutely not air at the same time that her's did.  At least I am fairly certain that she must have made that stipulation.

Currently, in addition to Rachel Ray, Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz, three of Oprah's OWN, and old standbys such as "Live with Kelly and (new co-host) Michael Strahan, the View and the View's clear ripoff "The Talk",  we now also have "Katie"(Couric), Jeff Probst, Riki Lake, Steve Harvey, Trisha Goddard, and Wendy Williams.  Sorry if I have left anyone out.
I was a big fan of Oprah's.  I have to admit I haven't watched her new network.  I can never find it and the programming is sketchy, to say the least.  Besides none of the shows on OWN are "Oprah".
I decided to give two of the newbies a try.
At first I thought Jeff Probst's show was unique.  The format was a little different.   The show seemed to be a spontaneous studio audience participation show.   During the show, Jeff would pose a question.  Like, uh, for instance "how many of you here have ever blah blah blah?"  Hands would go up and Jeff would run into the audience with a mike.  Okay, it took me about three shows before I realized that the whole thing was scripted. The audience members who seemingly were picked at random were in fact picked prior to the taping of the show.  The whole bit of Jeff running into the audience with a microphone was clearly an illusion as it soon became obvious to me that the "random" audience member had already been fitted with their own mike.
The "Katie" Couric show seems to be more of the caliber of Oprah.  That is more like Oprha before she started to go over the top with car give-a-ways.   Katie is much more low key.  The studio audience sits very close to the stage and Katie is within a hand shake away from the front row.  She has interviewed some interesting guests.  The shows are varied in tone,  ranging from light hearted to heart breaking.    One of her shows took place right in her apartment, with the studio audience as her guests.  I found that to be entertaining.
Recently a topic on one of Katie's shows was "What Happens When We Die?"  This particular subject and the way it was treated on the show fascinated and touched me.  So much so, that it deserves its own post.
So, I DVR "The View, "The Talk", Dr. Phil, Jeff Probst, and Katie.  In the evening, instead of watching the local news, which by the way is filled with fires, murders, and traffic jams,  I will skim through the DVR'd shows to see what the topic of the day is.  I usually wind up pressing delete, delete, delete, without even watching a single one.  I definitely would much rather watch a "Law and Order" marathon any day.

I have created a page for Anna's Diary.  It can be found under the Tab titled Anna's Diary.

I have posted all of the entries to date there, starting with January 1, 1929.

Here are the last few days of Anna's diary:

Tues. October 8, 1929

Still feel ill but not as bad.  Took a ride with Junior.  Went to Bambs and bought a bird for him.  He just loves it and doesn't leave him a lone a minute.

Wed. October 9, 1929

Went to 360 for lunch.  Left Junior there and went with Mary to visit Christine.  Home for supper.  Jewel and Rick came.  Played bridge.  Bed early.

Thurs. October 10, 1929

Junior not well.  Temperature, upset stomach and pains.  Dr. came and prescribed.  Up until 1 a.m. to give powders every 20 minutes.  Then slept together.