As The Eagle Cries Sharon’s Journey Home

As The Eagle Cries

Sharon’s Journey Home

Carol A. Freeman

Copyright © 2008 Carol A. Freeman

Smashwords Edition

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Reading your manuscript was very moving emotionally, awesome in its imagery and overwhelming spiritually.

Your story is one of belief and non-belief, anger and love, compassion and fear. In it the duality of life is expressed in the life choices and decisions made by all who seek the lessons of the Creator.

Well done.

Chief Phil Crazy Bull

Lakota Nation Ancestral Chief and Medicine Man

To my husband Ron and son Christopher whose loving support and advice filled the void and lifted my spirits.

To Chief Phil Crazy Bull of the Lakota Nation. His teachings of the Native American culture and ceremonies opened my mind and heart to a greater spiritual awareness of life and death. To our spiritual community of friends for the support and encouragement throughout this journey.

To Michelle, shaman practitioner Deborah, spiritual advisor, and Colleen, Reiki practitioner. Thanks to Bev, a special friend who helped me rediscover aspects of myself which provided me with inner strength and guidance.

To Ianne and Elyse for their support and encouragement in getting this book published.

Special thanks to my daughter Sharon who helped me see everlasting life beyond the physical realm.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1 Reflections of the Past

CHAPTER 2 The Accident

CHAPTER 3 Searching for Meaning

CHAPTER 4 Traditions and Ceremonies

CHAPTER 5 Vision Quest

CHAPTER 6 Trusting the Visions

CHAPTER 7 Beyond Our Reality

CHAPTER 8 Courage and Spirit

CHAPTER 9 The Greatest Gift

CHAPTER 10 Acceptance and Moving Forward

CHAPTER 11 The Phoenix Bird

CHAPTER 12 A New Beginning

EPILOGUE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

As The Eagle Cries

Let My Spirit dance

With the sun and moon

In the Time of the Winter Sky

Let My Spirit sing with the wind on high

As the Eagle soars and cries

Let me dance the dance of a soul set free

On a night when the shadows watch

And as I dance this spirit dance

Take my hand and dance with me

Smile with me and then I’ll go

Into the nighttime sky

Flying high with the stars and moon

With the Eagle as my guide…

The dance on earth is a dance that’s done

My spirit now set free

To dance a new dance

In the skies above

While the Eagle smiles at me…

Guided Inspiration by Brenda Trumpold

CHAPTER 1

REFLECTIONS OF THE PAST

I looked around at my surroundings and wondered, was I doing the right thing? I had come to New Mexico to try and find the answers that troubled me, but was this the right way to do it? I was in the Sandia Mountain range of Albuquerque in Bear Canyon, on sacred Native American ground. I was sitting on my sleeping bag surrounded by prayer ties I had made and praying for a vision. My daughter Sharon had been in a coma now for ten months. I had several questions and no answers. I began to reflect back on what had brought me here.

Sharon Renee Freeman was born November 15, 1971 in Cambridge, Massachusetts after a long and difficult labor. I remember the doctor saying during the delivery that she did not want to come out. That was my first indication that perhaps her life this time would be difficult for her. Sharon was my first child. Her reddish hair stood out when I first saw her in the hospital nursery surrounded by the other babies with much darker hair. She had brown eyes like her father. Feeding Sharon was a challenge. The first time I fed her four ounces of formula she immediately vomited all over my dressing gown. I felt there must be something terribly wrong and called the nurse. I took the nurse’s suggestion and started to feed Sharon only one to two ounces, and she was able to keep that down. Sharon had difficulty adjusting to a normal sleeping pattern. She would fall asleep around 2 am and would sleep most of the day even though I tried to keep her awake by tickling her toes. Nothing would arouse her from her daytime sleeping. This bizarre sleeping pattern persisted for two months. When I took her for her two month checkup the doctor said she was doing fine, but I looked exhausted and asked what was going on. I explained the situation, and he suggested that I feed Sharon, make sure she had a clean diaper, and put her in her crib. He warned me that she would cry but eventually would get back to a normal sleeping pattern. He was right. For three nights she cried and by the fourth night she went right to sleep. As she grew she was full of energy, always excited and eager to venture out and explore her world despite the consequences she encountered both good and bad.

Seven months later my husband Ron and I decided to move to Arizona. Ron had allergies, and we were tired of the winters in Massachusetts and decided the Southwest would be where we would settle. We sold our used car because it wouldn’t make it that far. Ron convinced Bill, a friend of his, and Ron’s younger brother, Chick, to take the trip with us to help us move. We left Massachusetts September 15 with a total of one thousand dollars and our belongings in a rental truck being driven by Chick and Bill. Sharon was nine months old. The backseat of the car was her domain with a mattress that covered the entire backseat and her favorite toys surrounding her. The only problem we encountered was the day we spent traveling through Texas. The car had no air-conditioning. It was hot, and the smell from the cattle fields we passed lingered in the heavy air. Sharon spent a good part of the day crying and fussing, and nothing we did helped the situation. By the time we pulled into the motel parking lot in Gallup, New Mexico, we were all exhausted and ready for bed. We got a good night’s rest, and the next morning on the way to breakfast, we started to notice the cultural differences. Colorful Indian totems graced the entrance to the pink stucco restaurant. Inside were blue and gold piñatas. The Southwestern décor was inviting and serene. After breakfast we got back in the car and continued our journey.

We arrived in Flagstaff, Arizona, around midday. The sunshine felt warm and welcoming. We stopped for gas, and the station attendant overheard us commenting on how nice the weather was. He told us it was about 80 degrees and asked us where we were headed as he glanced at our license plate from Massachusetts. We told him we were going to Phoenix. He chuckled a little and said it was a lot hotter in Phoenix, probably around 110 degrees. Ron and I looked at each other in shock wondering if we had made the right decision. As we descended the mountain, the bottle of milk I was feeding Sharon dried on her mouth like chalk. That was our first indication we were entering a climate we were totally unfamiliar with. Ron and I had grown up in Connecticut, and this was a new experience for us. The cactus and giant saguaros along the side of the road were magnificent. We felt peaceful being in the desert.

The man at the service station was correct. When we got to Phoenix, it was 109 degrees. We checked into a high-rise hotel in central Phoenix, which was fairly inexpensive and began searching the newspaper for an apartment. After three days we found an apartment with a view of the mountains, put down $300 for the first month’s rent and settled into our new life in the desert. We loved the warm weather. We felt we had made the right choice in moving West. We spent a lot of time in the air-conditioned apartment and drank soda pop when we went outside. We couldn’t get enough to drink. We both looked for work, and I was lucky enough to find a job the first week in a hospital doing medical transcription on second shift. Ron was not so lucky and spent many hours searching the employment section of the local newspaper. It was difficult living on my salary. Occasionally when there was not enough money to pay for rent and for food too, Ron would eat at the local mission. The day before Thanksgiving we debated about whether we really had enough money to buy a turkey since the rent was due the same week. Ron eventually found a day-shift job, and this worked out well since we couldn’t afford the money for daycare. Sharon and I spent our mornings at the pool in the apartment complex. Her other love was watching Sesame Street.

We spent two years in the apartment, our finances improved, and we decided to look for a house. Ron was a veteran having served in the navy for four years during the Vietnam War. House payments weren’t much more than we were paying for the apartment. With no down payment required for a veteran loan, we found a nice new housing development on the west side of Phoenix. We bought a house in a neighborhood filled with families with small children so Sharon had many friends. Sharon was now three years old. One of her friends was nicknamed Shorty, and he lived next door. Shorty really liked Sharon and would come by each day to see if she could play. He was content to do whatever Sharon wanted to do, and so she directed their activities. One day I glanced outside to see my newly planted flowers dug up and lying on the sidewalk. I saw Sharon with a small shovel in her hand. She put it down and came inside along with Shorty behind her. I asked her if she had dug up my flowers, and she didn’t answer me. Shorty quickly came to her rescue and said he did it. No matter what Sharon did wrong, Shorty was willing to take the blame so Sharon wouldn’t get into trouble. Sharon also had a friend named Roy who lived across the street. He would tease Sharon telling her she couldn’t do certain things in his yard or play with certain toys, and they would argue. One day I was pruning my flowers in the front of the house when Sharon came from across the street. She seemed upset and went in the front door. Within a few minutes she came back out with her pop-up toy that had a handle. When you rolled it on the ground, the colorful yellow and blue balls would pop out of a larger plastic ball and make noise. With a determined look in her eye she quickly put the toy over her shoulder and started to walk down the sidewalk and across the narrow street separating the houses. I asked her where she was going with the toy. She loudly proclaimed she was going to hit Roy with it. I glanced across the street to find Roy’s mom glaring at me. I got up quickly from the garden area and took the toy and Sharon into the house to find out what had happened. She kept saying, Daddy said I could. Ron came to her rescue and said he was tired of her not standing up to Roy and coming home crying and she should do something about it. Of course, he didn’t know she was about to take things into her own hands and hit Roy in the head with one of her toys.

Snowball was Sharon’s first dog. Snowball was a white Samoyed. They were inseparable. Snowball was very protective of Sharon. One day I was scolding Sharon for something she had done, and when the tone of my voice changed, the dog came and stood between us and growled at me. The next day Sharon was playing with friends across the street from our home. I glanced out the window to see Snowball dashing across the street. I knew something was wrong since Snowball had been trained to stay in the front yard. I immediately went across the street to see what was happening. The next thing I knew the dog was flipping a gopher in the air. Desperately the gopher tried to get back to its hole and each time Snowball blocked the hole with her paw. Finally, the gopher laid lifeless on the cement. Sharon was holding her finger and crying. She had gotten bit by the gopher when she put her finger down the gopher hole. We took Sharon and the dead gopher to the emergency room. The doctor informed us had we not had the gopher Sharon would have had to have a series of rabies shots. Within weeks we got the results back on the gopher. Luckily, he did not have rabies.

Sharon was five years of age when she wanted to know where babies came from. Ron and I went to the local bookstore and found a picture book which was appropriate for her age. It was a story about an uncle