Susan Page | A Heart-Shaped Reminder That Love Never Fades

THE HARDEST ROAD: FORGIVENESS AFTER LOSING LUCY

by Susan Page | Jul 1, 2025 | Lucy's Heart Rock

There are moments in life that split everything into “before” and “after.” Moments that shatter the world you thought you knew, leaving only fragments behind.

For me, that moment came when I lost my daughter, Lucy.

Just one week after her 7th birthday, Lucy’s life was taken in a tragic accident. One moment, she was here—snappy as a firecracker—the next, the world fell silent. The kind of silence that aches in your bones and echoes through your heart.

There are no words to describe the pain of losing a child. It defies language. It rips through every part of you, leaving nothing untouched. Grief, SHOCK, denial and disbelief take over. But beyond sorrow, another emotion crept in a powerful, heavy anger.

My Life As A Playlist

Music is part of my life. I wish I had been born with a talent to sing or be a tremendously talented musician, but I was born with just a love of music. Music plays morning and night in my little floating home now and when I was on land. During this time when all emotions were creeping in if I had a playlist going it would be my “Pissed Off” playlist. In fact, I have a play list that I used to hike to call Angry Playlist. I played it as loud as I could play it.

I was angry at life. At fate. At the person responsible. At the unfairness of it all. I became angry easily at a lot of things.

And yet, through the storm of emotions, and range of playlists one word kept whispering to me: forgiveness. One thought kept reappearing. Put on a nicer playlist!

Forgiveness Is for Me, Not for Them

I eventually learned that forgiveness isn’t about pretending everything is okay. It isn’t about excusing what happened or erasing the deep scars loss leaves behind. It isn’t even about the person involved in the accident.

Forgiveness, I’ve come to learn, is for me. It’s the only way to keep my heart from being swallowed by bitterness. Carrying that much anger on top of grief was too heavy. It suffocates any space left for love, healing, or peace.

But forgiveness doesn’t come easy. It’s not a decision made once, neatly wrapped up with closure. It’s messy. It’s painful. It’s ongoing. It is something that reappears and sometimes disguises itself in other forms.

Some days, I found space in my heart for forgiveness. Mostly sympathy. Other days, I could barely breathe. And that’s okay. Forgiveness is not a straight path. It’s more like a winding, uneven trail that I stumbled along, holding onto Lucy’s memory as my guide.

Lucy’s Legacy is Love, Not Anger

Lucy was light. Her smile could brighten even the darkest day. Her laugh was contagious. She was a funny girl, who was missing her front teeth and that made her pronounce words in that cute childish way. She had a heart full of wonder, mischief, and kindness far beyond her years.

I have learned to refuse to let the anger surrounding her death be her legacy. She deserved better than that. Which is why I founded Lucy’s Heart Rock Project. To give and help became much easier than anger.

In forgiving, I’m not forgetting Lucy, or what happened. I’m choosing to honor her the way she lived—with love. I want to carry her light forward, not be weighed down by the darkness that followed. I want to seek love in nature and just collect little heart shaped rocks all day. I want to see her love with me in another form.

Her short but beautiful life taught me that love is stronger than anger, even when the pain feels unbearable. Forgiveness doesn’t erase grief, but it keeps my heart open to the love that still remains.

For Those Who Know This Pain

If you’ve lost someone, especially a child—you know there’s no map for this journey. Grief is unpredictable. It’s overwhelming. It’s exhausting. It’s a bully that punches you in the dark.

Forgiveness may feel impossible. And that’s okay. Be gentle with yourself. Feel everything—the sadness, the anger, the love, the hope—there is no “right” timeline. Don’t do like I did and bury that with a smile followed by the words, “I’m fine.”

But when you’re ready, I want you to know this: Forgiveness is not weakness. It’s not forgetting. It’s survival. It’s how we keep living, even when our hearts are broken.

I will always carry Lucy with me—in every sunset, every rainbow, every cloud, every dolphin I see in the ocean and of course every heart-shaped rock. When her absence feels overwhelming, I have learned to get outside and look for the messages of love she is sending me in nature. And I will choose, over and over, to honor her memory with love, with light, and yes, with forgiveness.

Lucy deserved a world full of love and kindness. For her, I will do my best to create that world, even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard.

ME AND DAVID BOWIE

by Susan Page | Jun 25, 2025 | Lucy's Heart Rock

A few months ago, I realized that I speak of grief recovery and how spending time outside in nature had softened the ragged edges of grief for me, but I didn’t talk much about what happened to Lucy. Most of those who have received Lucy’s Heart Rocks know the terrible story; and I don’t really enjoy reliving it, but I know it’s necessary for those new to my website to have those questions answered. My marriage to Lucy’s dad had come to an end after 15 years. We were co-parenting well together; and our kids seemed to be adjusting to two homes and parents who did not live together any longer. At the time of Lucy’s accident, I had remarried and lived with my husband on a ranch outside of San Angelo, Texas. It was a normal Friday morning; I dropped Lucy off at school and went to work.

Unthethered

It was their dad’s weekend to have the kids, so I felt ‘free’ in some sense of the word. It’s impossible to grasp how much I have regretted that welcomed untethered feeling. Saturday morning at the ranch was a workday for my husband and myself. We had horses to saddle, and cattle to work. In my ex-husband’s world he had a pasture to mow and 3 kids who were arguing over whose turn it was to ride with dad on the big blue Ford tractor. Seth was sent back to the house and Lucy climbed on the tractor with her dad.

Is it weird to not know exactly what happened?

Really, there is nothing quite like sitting in your favorite saddle on a horse you dearly love on an early October morning. The week before had been spent celebrating Lucy’s 7th birthday with a sleepover at the ranch with her best girlfriends. I’m sure there was still birthday cake in the refrigerator.

The siren

Living 8 miles from the highway brings a lot of quiet. So much quiet that sound travels a long way and you notice anything that is not in the normal range of what your mind has adapted to. “The siren sounds really close”. I remember saying. It seemed to keep coming and coming. The road to our house on the ranch had 1 fork in it. While we worked, neither of us said much to each other, we were both hoping we would notice some distance between us and the siren, maybe that they would take that fork in the road away from us. There was tension between us and the cattle, and I felt that my horse could sense my tension because his mane twitched as if there were flies around. When we could see the Sherriff’s car, he turned the siren off. In a small town, it’s nice to get to know everyone so of course we called the Sherriff by name as he stepped out of his car. I trotted my horse right up to him and watched him take off his hat and look at me with an ache in his eyes. He looked at my husband and said, “I need to take Susan to the hospital, Lucy has been involved in an accident.”

Denial 101

I was sure he had the wrong Susan Page. I mean how wild it is that there was another Susan Page in the same town, but there was. Stepping off my horse; I remember feeling as if my feet didn’t really touch the ground. I sort of floated. Things began to go both in fast motion and in slow motion. Wavering between the two. This feeling didn’t change for many years. Years later I learned that this was a trauma response. I handed my horse off and floated into the Sherriff’s car. We made small talk. Being southern, of course I first apologized and then thanked him for coming to get me. I remember asking him what was wrong; and him stumbling around the words that he didn’t really know. My mind told me it was a broken arm, something trivial and normal for a kid, but the speed in which he drove told me otherwise.

Why don’t they pull over when they hear the siren?

Something odd has stuck with me for 23 years and that is why people don’t pull over when they hear a siren behind them? Not everyone does or did that day which made the 38 minutes it took to get to the hospital enough to make my hands begin to shake.

My ex-husband, my pastor and my friend, the pediatrician

Another moment in time where I felt I was on a spacewalk happened when I realized that my ex-husband, my pastor and my very good friend, who happened to be the pediatrician on call that weekend, were waiting for me on the sidewalk outside the hospital. As I got out of the Sherriff’s car, my body walked in slow motion, as if my space suite was heavy, toward my friend who walked up to me, grabbed my arms, looked at me square in the eyes and said, ‘you have to be really, really strong’. And so, I was. For years, I was really, really strong.

Just enough to be dangerous

My dream was to be a flight nurse. I had taken 2 years of nursing school, but marriage, babies and contentment curtailed that dream. Those 2 years of nursing school and 1 year of working in the ER as an ER Tech had given me enough knowledge to be dangerous. I saw some things in the ER. Attempted suicides, motorcycle wrecks, car wrecks, cut fingers, all the normal ER tragedies so the environment was not too far from the norm I had been used to at one time. It’s different though when you walk into an ER and you’re the mom of a little 7-year-old girl lying on an ER bed. I felt eyes on me; I also saw eyes diverting my eyes. I was still on my moon walk at this time, so things moved slowly. I noticed things that I think in a normal day we don’t notice. It was here that I learned parts of what happened to Lucy. To this day I still don’t know it all. She was riding on her dad’s lap and had attempted to jump off the tractor and move a limb that the tractor couldn’t mow over. Her little foot caught, and she began to fall. Her dad tried to catch her, but her weight pulled his foot off the already loose clutch and the tractor jumped forward running over her.

ground control to major tom

The words from her neurosurgeon reminded me of the song by David Bowie, ‘Major Tom’. As if they should offer me some peace. He explained that she was here one moment and in the kingdom of heaven the next. Although, she was still alive. It was his way of softening the blow possibly of suffering. When I touched her bandaged head, I noticed blood coming from her ears and her nose. An image I rarely allow my mind to go back to. She began to have a seizure, and I was escorted out of the room.

Bubble wrap

“You must be very, very strong” and so I was as God wrapped me in bubble wrap. I didn’t feel. Medical experts would call it shock. I like ‘bubble wrap’ better. That is how I felt. Functioning. Strong. As if I could lift a car off my child. I felt as if I was elevating from the room but could see it all happening in slow motion. “Ground Control to Major Tom. Ground Control to Major Tom. Take your protein pills and put your helmet on. (Ten) Ground Control (Nine) to Major Tom (Eight, seven) (Six) Commencing (Five) countdown, engines on (Four, three two). Checking ignition (One) and my God’s love (Lift off) be with you. This is Ground Control to Major Tom. You’ve really made the grade. And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear. Not it’s time to leave the capsule if you dare. This is Major Tom to Ground Control. I’m stepping through the door. And I’m floating in a most peculiar way. And the stars look very different today. YES, THEY DO, THEY STILL DO.

STRETCHING AND GROWING INTO MY NEW MISSION

by Susan Page | Jun 13, 2025 | Lucy's Heart Rock

Today marks my youngest son’s 23rd birthday. Cash came to me as a gift from the heavens. I was 5 weeks pregnant with him when Lucy died. I was on the pill and not planning to have any more children. At the time of Lucy’s death, I was unaware of my pregnancy. I had two unexpected life events occur within less than 2 months which made this an exceedingly challenging time in my life. All the excitement of a new baby, while grieving the loss of my daughter. So, it is appropriate I believe for this to be my first blog post as his gift of life was the beginning of a new me.

If you have visited my website, you have learned that I have a passion for teaching those who grieve the loss of a child, a parent, a spouse, a lover, a pet, the gifts of healing that nature can offer us.

If you have experienced the death of loved one, you have experienced trauma. A study at the University of California, Berkley, has shown that the awe we feel in nature can dramatically reduce symptoms of post-traumatic stress. Which I believe is what happens to our bodies and souls when we endure the death of a loved one. Reconnecting with nature is an essential component of reconnecting with ourselves and the purpose and meaning of life. Being connected with nature, engaging in outdoor activities, or even just viewing pictures of natural settings helps people to heal and get back what’s been lost through experiencing trauma.

FRIENDS THOUGHT I WAS STRONG, BUT I WAS FLOATING ON THE RIVER OF DENIAL.

How long does shock last? For me, years. I was perfectly fine and able to function through life. Looking back, I felt happy. I laughed. I was loved, and I loved. I raised my beautiful sons. I rode horses. I began to speak to anyone who would like to have me on the benefits of organ donation from a donor family standpoint. I was a volunteer for a program called Building Bridges which is a grief recovery program for children.

I WAS FINE.

Outwardly I was working through the loss of my only daughter. However, inside the ability to mask what was happening to me was coming unwound. I began to do things to excess. Running, walking, riding my horses. Heck, I even fell headfirst into endurance racing. Endurance racing is a cross-country horseback race that covers a course of 25, 50, or 100 miles. It is possible that was the beginning of the connection with nature that I found to be so healing.

When I wasn’t riding, I was hiking. Over time, hiking became my go to pain reliever. Time in nature hiking or even just a walk around the neighborhood offered me time to cry alone. Something that I didn’t do. I felt crying was like letting water through a crack in a dike. If I did it, the whole thing might just come down. So I held it back…until one day I couldn’t. I hiked and cried, hiked and cried and hiked and cried.

I FELT BETTER.

And there was that one day…. that one day that Lucy sent me the most perfectly formed heart shaped rock right in the middle of the trail. As I smiled and picked it up, I could not help noticing that it was pink and as big as my palm. At that very moment, I felt Lucy with me. For the first time in an extraordinarily long time. It was the warmth of her presence. The completely opposite feeling I felt at the moment in the hospital when her soul left her body.

AND SO, IT BEGAN…A TREASURE HUNT FOR LUCY’S HEART ROCKS.

Am I ready to turn this passion of finding Lucy’s love in nature into a Non-for-Profit business for the purpose of sharing this healing with others? At times, it feels heavy and out of place. I left my day job to focus on finding Lucy’s Heart Rocks to share with others.