A Long Time Dead

About the author Just twenty-seven days after the Peace Treaty was signed to end WWII, Barbara Lee was born in a small Texas town that had been home to Fort Wolters, an Army infantry base. Her parents had lived during both of the 'Big Wars and were part of the post-war culture that didn't talk about the wars. The "Golden Age" emerged, and with it a new shift in advertising that promoted an idealized, picture-perfect life. Talk about war, loss, or anything sad became taboo. It would be several decades and wars later before the results of these unrealistic presentations of 'normal' life would find its tipping point and a breakdown in society and governmental denial followed. Eventually, governments began offering counseling for the millions of veterans suffering from war-induced PTSD. Grief counseling began to be more recognized and expanded into the general population. Barbara grew up during the era of 'social silence' about loss and grief, and only when her son died in an auto accident in 1995, did she reach out to a grief counselor. Through conversations with her therapist, she began the long process of healing not only that loss, but also realized she had a lifetime of other losses that she had never addressed. She also came to understand that loss is not only experienced emotionally and physically, but at its core it is spiritual. She began to understand that the Soul has a garden, and that the soul's garden has seasons, just like the gardens we tend in our yards.