When my little son died for no reason, I had to find answers internally and externally.
In the five years since my son passed away, I have been on a journey to heal my broken heart. I have tried and tested every alternative therapy I could find that works faster than talk therapy, penetrates deeper than prescription drugs, and has the potential to soothe the soul beyond human senses.
At first, my efforts sparked some curiosity. Then they created hope. Eventually, I began to move forward little by little, discovering new possibilities and finding a personal balance between Eastern and Western healing modalities. But it was only recently, when science and spirituality merged, that I had the most profound healing experience to date.
My story begins in 2018, when I went to see my pediatrician three days before my 12-year-old son, Tommy, suddenly passed away in his sleep.
“He has chest pains,” I said to the doctor when he came into the exam room.
For almost all of Tommy’s 13 years of life, this pediatrician was caring, attentive, and knowledgeable. For example, when Tommy and his younger brother were born, it was this doctor who showed up at the hospital later that day to examine them personally. Similarly, when Tommy’s younger brother developed a 105-degree fever a week after birth, this doctor admitted me into his exam room for two days in a row, spending time with me while he nursed me back to health without rushing me. They went above and beyond to make sure I could see my son every step of the way. He was taken to the emergency room and his IV and needles were inserted.
So when Tommy thought about who to call the morning he complained of chest pain, this pediatrician was his first choice.
“He has growing pains,” this doctor told us after taking Tommy’s blood pressure, listening to his lungs, and further evaluating his symptoms.
“Really?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. “This week I had at least a dozen teens in my office complaining of chest pains. Most were growing pains. That’s normal during adolescence.”
With some peace of mind, Tommy and I drove over two hours from our home in Los Angeles to San Diego for a weekend soccer game. During that long drive, Tommy suddenly asked me: “Is it possible to go to sleep and not wake up?”
At the time, I was shocked by this question, but I didn’t worry. We weren’t a religious or particularly spiritual family, so I thought he was just curious.
But what struck me was that a few minutes later he said, “It must be hard for a parent to lose a child.”
I took my eyes off the road, turned my head, and looked at him in the passenger seat next to me. “That won’t happen to us,” I told him. I’ll die first. That’s what parents do. And I was so sure of that that we spent another 10 minutes agreeing on a sign that I would one day send to him from the other side.
“I have time,” I assured him.
We spent the rest of the car in a spiritual conversation, which for a family that had never talked about God and only celebrated holidays like Christmas to enjoy sweets and presents with family. made no sense. I told him how much I loved him. I made him understand how proud I was of him. I looked back on my entire life with him and marveled at how he was absorbing it all.
Once in San Diego, we enjoyed a steak dinner, Tommy attended a soccer game, and we spent quite a bit of time talking about his upcoming 13th birthday.
Three days later, back in Los Angeles, Tommy falls asleep but unexpectedly never wakes up.
When the paramedics confirmed he wasn’t coming back, I felt myself dying and woke up at the same time. My heart broke and new sensations suddenly opened up. As the pain spread viciously through every cell of my body, I started hearing, seeing, and feeling things I had never felt before. Before I knew what to do next, a higher voice began to guide me. This voice was much wiser than mine, and I willingly surrendered to it.
this is some kind of planLooking back on our conversation, I quickly realized that Tommy and I had driven to San Diego just a few days earlier. I thought we were having a discussion.I thought. But clearly our souls had something else in mind. For the first time, I realized that I had a soul separate from my mind and body, with a purpose of its own.
On that unfathomable morning, my first call was to my mother.
“Your father and I are on our way,” she answered without hesitation.
The second person I called was Tommy’s doctor.
“Tommy didn’t wake up this morning,” I managed to whisper through unimaginable shock and sadness.
“What?!” he exclaimed in disbelief.
I could tell by the tone of his voice that the blood was already running down his face and his body was numb from shock.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
I was speechless. Tommy had come to soccer practice the night before. He wasn’t dizzy. He didn’t faint. Other than him telling me his ribs hurt, which was consistent with his previous complaints, he was a happy and outgoing personality.
“I love that boy,” the doctor whispered, and each word oozed truth.
“I know,” I answered. “I love him too.”
Then I hung up.
where did i go wrong? I wondered, replaying Tommy’s short life in my head. What did I miss??
“There is very little we know about the human body,” said one of the two homicide detectives who asked me and my husband routine questions later that day. “Don’t beat yourself up about it,” she further advised. “Just the other day, a teenage girl was in the emergency room down the street and had every possible test done for her chest pain. She passed away 24 hours after she got home.”
These words were supposed to be comforting, but I sat there wallowing in sadness and blaming myself for failing my oldest son. mother protects childI blamed myself.
But the detectives’ words somehow confirmed what my new senses were already telling me. So Tommy’s sudden disappearance wasn’t medical, but Mysterious. Suddenly, doctors and detectives seemed like normal people just like the rest of us, trying to do our best.
As the weeks passed, science and medicine could not explain my son’s sudden departure. It was clear that Tommy’s heart had stopped. But I didn’t know why.
Desperate for answers, I turned to a medium. If science and medicine cannot verify why my son passed away so soon, perhaps the so-called “spiritual world” will.
The first question the medium asked was whether I had lost my son. This was an encouraging start as a friend set up the phone and assured me that the medium only knew my first name.
The medium then continued to explain the son’s personality and personal hopes and dreams. I couldn’t deny that the more she talked, the lighter I felt.
“He was grateful that we had that last conversation,” the medium said, and I understood that he meant the conversation we had before we left for San Diego. did.
“Even if you rushed him to the hospital, the doctors would never have found out. They couldn’t find anything.”
She said it like a fact, and it felt like the truth.
When the pediatric cardiologist called a few weeks later to explain what our city’s leading heart researchers had concluded after studying Tommy’s heart, he said, We’re looking for an explanation. ”
Both our city’s mediums and top doctors have come to the same conclusion. “There is no definitive answer,” he said.
As the days passed, and then months passed, my grief grew even stronger as the reality of my family’s loss loomed in front of me. Watching my second son suffer without the older brother he idolized, I felt indescribably depressed and wished I could have swapped places with Tommy and lived with his younger brother for the rest of my life.
In the end, I found myself lost in what grief expert David Kessler calls “a normal maze of ‘what if’s…’ and ‘what if’s.”” I wish I had insisted on getting more tests done that day in the doctor’s office. I wish I had checked on Tommy before I went to bed that night. I wish he had told me how bad his chest pain was.
Friends and family members also held the blame. One or two of her asked what many others thought, “Are you going to sue your pediatrician?”
I was surprised. Sue the doctor who made everything go right for your family until one seemingly normal night when everything went wrong by chance?
“It’s his fault,” one person emphasized. “He misdiagnosed him. He should have taken Tommy to the hospital or to a specialist.”
At the time, every stage of grief hit me from every direction, and I couldn’t think, much less make an informed decision. Fortunately, the high voice that started guiding me the day Tommy left stepped in again to give me advice.you and your doctor are in this together”
At a time in my life when solid answers were hard to come by, I listened because the words of this voice were the greatest of all. Instead of blaming my son’s doctor or letting the tragedy divide us, my heart opened and I insisted on doing the opposite. I myself could hear myself wanting him to be close to me and continue to be a part of our lives.
So he did.
Over the next few years, this doctor actively searched the international medical community for answers and regularly shared his findings with me. He donated to the foundation my family established in Tommy’s honor and supported our efforts to brighten the world with his playfulness. To this day, the doctor keeps a hat with his son’s initials by the front door of his home and remembers him every day as he enters and leaves.
Instead, my second son remained a patient. My family still invites him to special events in his honor and trusts him with all medical matters.
More than five years have passed since then, and we still don’t know what caused Tommy’s life to be cut short. There are rumors and theories, but sadly they don’t matter anymore because the end result is the same. I followed the recommendations of numerous grief books and forgave myself for not being able to save him. I also listened to the advice of a spiritual healer to forgive my son for leaving home, although I never blamed him. One night, I practiced forgiving a vague energy that identified itself as “the universe” in a dream and asked it to forgive me for taking Tommy away.
At that point, I already believed in the eternal nature of the human spirit. I saw too many signs and experienced too many vivid dreams to deny that something else was happening beyond this physical world. It is where Tommy and I communicated on our drive to San Diego, and where true healing and transformation occurs. I may never know why Tommy’s body betrayed him, but that drive to San Diego was an opportunity to say everything I would have said to him if I had known he was leaving. gave me. Remembering this always fills me with a sense of peace.
I recently called my pediatrician and had him send medical records to my second son’s school. I accidentally dialed his cell phone.
“What’s going on?” he answered, my number obviously programmed into his phone.
“I’m so sorry!” I squealed. “I was going to call the office.”
While his personality was chatting, his soul was conveying a deeper message.
we are still together in this situationit assured me.
two people. One is faithful to science and facts, the other explores the path of the human spirit. Together, we will do the best we can.
Nikki Mark created the TM23 Foundation in memory of her 12-year-old son, who passed away unexpectedly in 2018. After spending more than 20 years in his career developing startups based in Los Angeles, Nicky embarked on an unconventional journey to heal his heart. Nikki’s first memoir, tommy’s field, is scheduled for release in 2024 and her weekly articles, alternative healing toolkits, and free gifts can be found at Nikkimark.com.
