Healing Tears

A Touched By Life True Story
By Diane W. Newell

Healing Tears tells how after many years I was helped to overcome my grief over the death of our daughter Linda from leukemia through prayer as I received prayer ministry with the laying on of hands.

There were so many signs Linda was dying but I did not understand them until just before she died. Linda was moving restlessly back and forth between her hospital bed and my lap. She tried to eat but couldn't keep any of her food down. She felt so cold that several layers of blankets did not warm her. She had started to bleed internally.

As the day wore on the doctor ordered a shot of morphine for her and Linda fell asleep, then she suddenly began struggling to breathe. Immediately, a group of doctors and nurses rushed into the room. I could no longer deny the truth. Linda was dying.

As I stood by her side, holding her hand, I felt her spirit leave her body and knew instantly she had died. Immediately, I let go of her hand, turned away, walked to the foot of her bed and stood there beside Harold. From there we watched the doctors record the time of her death and then were led to a small room where we could be alone.

I couldn't bear to see Linda or touch her after she died. I didn't want to go to the funeral home to view her body or have a public viewing. A woman from the funeral home who dressed Linda's body approached me at the church just before the funeral. She described how good Linda looked in her pink organza dress and how she had curled her long blond hair on top of her head. She said she thought I would like to know. Perhaps she found it odd that I hadn't wanted to see how Linda looked. At the time I just wanted to remember Linda the way she was when she was still alive.

I think a childhood funeral experience might have influenced the way I responded to Linda's death. I was nine years old when my grandmother, Alice Collins, died. As I recall my mother ushered me through a room filled with flowers over to Nana's casket and told me to kiss her goodbye. As I felt my lips touch her cold stiff face it frightened me. I began to cry and could not stop crying. I was seated with my Great-aunt Mattie during the funeral; she kept trying to calm me down, but I could not get control over myself. I continued to cry in the car on the ride to the cemetery and through the entire graveside ceremony. I didn't like feeling so out of control and I knew it disturbed Aunt Mattie, who couldn't comfort me. As I grew up I learned to stop my tears before they started.

I cried only twice after Linda died: once in Harold's arms immediately after she died and once again as we lay in our bed that evening. By the next day I was able to stop the flow of tears for good. I shed no tears as I received condolences and no tears during her funeral. I had no trouble putting on a brave front.

Inside, however, I was dying. I didn't know how to cope with my pain. The only way I could keep going was to avoid thinking about it. After Linda's funeral I quickly put away all of her belongings and focused my attention on Cary and Kimberly, our other children. We put down Kimberly's crib and moved her into Linda's bed. I tried to hide from my painful awareness of Linda's empty chair at the table and the empty spot in the kitchen where she liked to sit and watch me cook. When she came up in conversation I detached emotionally, talking about her as if she were someone else's child, not the daughter I'd been so close with and who had brought so much joy to my life.

It took five years before I began to get in touch with my grief and start to process it. As Harold and I met with a small Bible Study and Prayer group at our home I shared my story with the group. Gradually some of my feelings and memories began to surface. During one meeting as we prayed in our circle some quiet tears began streaming down my cheeks. Praise God weeping during prayer was acceptable to the other group members. When I realized they were not distressed at my tears I was encouraged to let them flow freely. I felt even safer weeping after I noticed some others also weep from time to time.

I hadn't done much praying since Linda died, because I was so angry God had not cured her. My attitude was, "Why should I pray? God's not going to answer anyway." I knew Linda did benefit from prayer, but I wanted more; I wanted her alive and well. In the group as we began praying for God's Holy Spirit to be with us, heal us and lead us I began to pray wholeheartedly once again.

The emotional release I experienced as I wept did free me some, but there was more to come. By 1988 Harold and I were attending an Episcopal Church in which the gifts of the Holy Spirit were accepted and in which the rector seemed to flow with the spiritual gift of revelation some people call words of knowledge. It was in that church where I received a deeper healing.

One Sunday morning just before moving into the Eucharistic Prayers the rector was calling out certain conditions which he believed the Holy Spirit was telling him could be healed that morning. I heard him say something about there being a person among us in whom it seemed something had died. Upon hearing that description I began to weep. I didn't know if he meant me or not, but the words sure resonated in my heart. I responded by going forward to receive prayer ministry with the laying on of hands from the prayer team.

As I told my story to the prayer team I began to cry. I don't remember what the team prayed over me, I just remember having a picture of the grim reaper appear on the screen of my mind. The image was the stereotypical image of death in a black hooded robe carrying a sickle. In amazement I watched as the image of the grim reaper was suddenly split down the middle from head to toe. Then out of the image of the grim reaper came the image of a toddler dancing with joy. I knew the toddler represented my inner self, which had been imprisoned by grief. I started to cry hard and did not stop crying for the rest of the day.

I praise God that ever since that experience I have been able to feel joy again. I have also had much more freedom to express my emotions naturally. I praise God, because I believe he has truly healed me.

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Linda: A Miracle is a collection of true healing experiences, poems and photographs related to my daughter, Linda, who died of leukemia as a child

Copyright © Diane W. Newell, 1999.  All rights reserved.