Thank God My Best Friend Died

By: SUSAN BURGER

Presented By: Jeff Sohler

© 2008 - 2009 Thank God I...®. All Rights Reserved.

Thank God I...™
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 INTRODUCTION

by John Castagnini

IMPORTANT...
Please Do Not Skip This Section!

Why this ebook? What makes it so different? Not only

are these answers important, they are integral to your
understanding of the story presented here. Please do
not skip over this brief introduction in your eagerness
to get to the meat of the ebook itself.

When I first thought to include Thank God I Was

Raped as one of the stories for Thank God I...™ Volume
1, the concept sent chills through my spine. Could
anyone who’s endured this brutal, horrifying experience
really embrace these words? Over the years, I’ve
consulted with countless women during their rape
recovery. I chose the title after witnessing what
transpires for them when they come to this conclusion
of gratitude. What became quite apparent over a
course of thousands upon thousands of conversations
is that we only evolve past the mental traum a from
such a happening when we can hold “the love for it in
our hearts”

© 2008 - 2009 Thank God I...®. All Rights Reserved. 2 of 17

What is meant by “God”?

God — Certainly, the biggest three-letter word ever

created. Grand Organized Designer best describes the
God referred to in the Thank God I...™ books, website
educational material and seminars.

The thousands of people sharing their stories in this

series all perceive God in their own light. Thank God
I...™ is about this network of people, willing to move
beyond having the right “name” for God.

Even the word “God” itself cannot finite the infinite.

Rather, God refers to a system governing the brilliance
of what is, and is not.

What this book series is not supposed to be.

This series does not condone or promote any of the

acts the writers have experienced, nor do we suggest
in any way that anyone should either commit any of
these acts or subject themselves to any of these acts.
This series also does not promote or label any specific
kind of behavior as “right” or “wrong”, nor were the stories
written or the book published for the purpose of
suggesting that anyone rationalize their actions or
behavior.

© 2008 - 2009 Thank God I...®. All Rights Reserved. 3 of 17

In addition, the Thank God I...™ series does not promote
or deny any religion. Rather, it honors the existence of
religion and all things as part of a perfect creation.

What is Thank God I...™ about?

Our intention with this series is to convey this one key

principle: Perfection permeates everything. Each time
we fail to recognize this principle, the next lesson to
come our way will once again offer us the opportunity
to see the perfection and break through into freedom.
In fact, finding perfection in the pain and pleasure of
our own personal tribulations is the only way we will
ever liberate ourselves from the bondage of patterns.
Whether it comes in a day, a year, or a lifetime away,
situations will come into our lives that will force us to
become thankful for “what was,” and to whole-heartedly
experience “what is.”

What is meant by “Thanking God”?

During the creation phase of this series, we were

fortunate to have as our ever-efficient assistant,
Cassandra Gatzow, a beautiful twenty-three-year-old
writer and poet. Just prior to coming to work with us,
Cassandra was diagnosed with cervical cancer. A little
over a year and a half later, the cancer spread and she
left this world before the first book launched.

© 2008 - 2009 Thank God I...®. All Rights Reserved. 4 of 17

After Cassandra passed, my heart was struck by the
words she put to the page as she endured this
experience. She wrote of her earth angels and her
explorations as she left her body to “dance with her
angels.” She did not write about her passing, she wrote
about Thank God I...™ living as she moved through her
life’s greatest test, and her life’s ending. She viewed
each person, each moment as precious. How fortunate
she was, to see God in the now.

Imagine — this is what she wrote about her cancer:

“Tears fill my eyes daily with gratitude for every moment

and every breath. It has allowed me to go after my
dreams, to live from my heart, and to be truly free. I
thank God for my cancer and for allowing me to reach
a place in me that I don’t think would have been
possible without this experience. I am now twenty-
three and feel that I have stepped into my skin proudly.
I have felt an inner peace that many don’t find until later
in life. I am truly grateful for all my earth angels and
want to thank them for sharing with me this wonderful
journey”

...Cassandra

There are 4 million tasks to accomplish in order to

bring the Thank God I...™ network to the standard of our
vision. Thank you, Cassandra, for reminding me why

© 2008 - 2009 Thank God I...®. All Rights Reserved. 5 of 17

Thank God I...™ was conceived in the first place.

Thanking God is about the above. Not just what is

above this sentence; it is about what is above, guiding
us at every moment. Beyond the pain, chaos, and
confusion of our circumstance exists true perfection.
Thanking God is about finding this perfection. This
place of thanking God might seem nearly impossible to
find, but it is the only place we will find ourselves.

Thank God I...™ is true “gratitude”.

Sure, we all hear about the “good things” that people are
grateful for in their lives. But, is this gratitude? Thank
God I...™ gratitude is about a state of being. It is about a
state of inspiration, non-judgment, and presence.
Thank God I...™ gratitude is beyond the illusion of
positive or negative. It is beyond the lies of “good” and
“evil”. Thank God I...™ . gratitude is about finding God in
every word, thought, and deed. In spirit, we are beyond
the illusion of pain or pleasure and we are present with
spirit. Thank God I...™ gratitude is about equal love for
all that is, as it is, was, or ever shall become. Gratitude
is loving what we don’t “like” as much as loving what we
do “like”.

The diversity of authors and experiences

The intention of this series is to reach all of humanity,

© 2008 - 2009 Thank God I...®. All Rights Reserved. 6 of 17

every single unique creation. We did not base the
selection of contributions to this series upon any faith
or religious orientation. Each selected author took a
former challenge into their heart. The diversity of
authors spans religions, countries, professions, age,
race, nationality, and definitely experiences. They
range from strippers to doctors, from politicians to stay-
at-home moms, and whoever they are, gratitude rules.
From alcoholism to molestation or rape, the law of
gratitude prevails with each of our authors.
Thankfulness for whatever is, or is not, ultimately rules
every one of our kingdoms.

The vision of Thank God I...™

Little did I imagine how lightning-fast Thank God I...™

would circle the world. This network includes
thousands of contributors, reaching millions of people,
sharing not only their stories, but also their answers!
Beyond the books, and the online community, we offer
worldwide conference calls, workshops, and seminars!
The vision of this series will provide everyone within
specific communities information in order to evolve
past the emotions that are holding them back. The
people and the project are revolutionary.

“All things in nature proceed from certain necessity and

with the utmost perfection.”
...Baruch Spinoza

© 2008 - 2009 Thank God I...®. All Rights Reserved. 7 of 17

 Thank God

My Best Friend Died

MY FRIEND JANICE, A ROSE FOR US ALL

SUSAN BURGER

© 2008 - 2009 Thank God I...®. All Rights Reserved. 8 of 17

Hey, Suz, It was my good friend Michael on the phone.
"They can't find Janice. Have you heard from
her?" It was May 1982. A few months earlier, I
had moved from the Philadelphia area to Chicago to go
to chiropractic college, and my best friend Janice was
to come and visit me in a few weeks. We had met in
1973, when I got a job at a local newspaper after
graduating from high school. Janice and I worked
together in the complaint department and became fast
friends.

We both loved to travel, dance, and go down to the

Jersey shore. We did crazy fun things, such as driving
to Montreal for the 1976 Olympics despite having very
little money. We found a place where they rented cots
to sleep on at a big gym, and bought a big box of
crackers and a jar of Cheez Whiz to eat for dinner, and
breakfast, and lunch... ! Another year we visited a
relative of hers in Miami, and after several days of rain
that didn't look like it was letting up, we decided we
weren't going to waste our vacation! We called a travel
agent and asked for the cheapest tickets to someplace
sunny we could fly to... and the next day we were in
Cancun.

Janice was a "hot pants girl" for the

Philadelphia Phillies baseball team. Our boss got two
tickets to a World Series game... and for some reason
he gave them to Janice and me. We went to what

© 2008 - 2009 Thank God I...®. All Rights Reserved. 9 of 17

turned out to be a winning game, and it sure ticked off
the guys in the department that we got those tickets!

The year before I moved to Chicago, we took a road

trip in her new black Camaro, driving from
Pennsylvania and not stopping to sleep until we
reached South Dakota. As we continued through the
western states, to save money some nights we'd sleep
in the car. That car was our home away from home for
a few weeks. It also took us many times to the Jersey
shore and back. Camaros were known as
"cool" cars back then, and we had lots of
good memories of fun in it.

We were two girls looking for adventure. My parents

would worry about us because of all of the places we'd
go. After all, isn't it safer if you just stay closer to home
and not take so many chances?

While our lives went in different directions, we

remained close friends. So when Michael called me
that day with a strange sound in his voice, we were
both concerned. Janice hadn't shown up the night
before for a date and had been reported missing. I
hadn't heard from her, and being out in Chicago, there
wasn't much that I could do to help find her. I was sure
that she'd show up soon and I'd find out she was O.K.
At least, that was what I'd told myself. It was later that
night that a deep sense of foreboding struck me at the

© 2008 - 2009 Thank God I...®. All Rights Reserved. 10 of 17

oddest time. Some friends and I had decided to go out
dancing. Disco music was playing loudly; many of the
songs were those Janice and I danced to when we had
been out in the years past. The bass beat of the music
was pounding, the strobe lights flashing, and the song
"Born, born, born... born to be alive,"
echoed in my ears. It was a song that in the past made
me feel energetic and happy, but this night as I
danced, I felt weird. In the pit of my stomach, I knew
something was really wrong.

The next day, the police found the black Camaro

abandoned, with no sign of Janice. The day after that,
Michael called to tell me that some fishermen had
found her body in a nearby park. I remember just
doubling over. "And the big story on Action News
tonight: missing local girl's body found in woods."
Within a couple of weeks after that, a sixteen-year-old
boy was arrested for her murder. Ironically, with all the
places we had traveled and circumstances we had
been in that could have been unsafe, she had been
stabbed twenty-five times while she was sitting and
eating lunch outside at a picnic table behind the
newspaper office where we had worked together. Who
would ever imagine that this would happen in such a
benign place and time? Why would this troubled teen
do such a thing? He apparently wanted her car. He
couldn't just ask her for the keys?! She would have
given them to him... he didn't have to take her life.

© 2008 - 2009 Thank God I...®. All Rights Reserved. 11 of 17

He was tried as an adult and sentenced to life in
prison. (I later heard that, ten years after that, he
hanged himself. That didn't make it better. It was all so
sad.) Now I can look back and still wonder why, but I
have learned not to expect an answer to that question.

I was so shaken as I prepared to fly home from

chiropractic college for her funeral. I was at my locker
putting some books away and preparing to leave when
Jim, a good friend of mine, came up to his locker, next
to mine. Looking at him, I said tearfully, "I don't
know if I can do this."

He looked back at me and calmly said, in a matter-of-

fact tone, "Of course you can."

He probably never knew how grounding that simple

statement was. "Of course I can," I said to
myself... and left for home.

Seven months later, I was home again for Christmas

vacation. Janice's parents hadn't been able to get
themselves to clean out her bedroom, so I went over
one day to do it for them. It was this process that
helped me to begin to see all I had learned, and would
continue to learn, from
this experience. Rather than feeling angry and sad, I
found myself reliving the fun I had with her. In her
closet were some cute outfits she had loved to wear

© 2008 - 2009 Thank God I...®. All Rights Reserved. 12 of 17

when we went out dancing.

There were boxes of pictures from trips she had taken,

many of which we took together. How grateful I felt to
have had a friend like her during such important years
(from ages seventeen through twenty-seven) in my life.
I did have the strength to deal with it, all of it.

I looked back and saw that her death taught me as

much about myself as did the times I spent with her
when she was alive. For years I have been, and
continue to be, involved in activities promoting peace
and non-violence. In my twenties I wondered if I would
ever be able to defend myself, or if I could kill another
person even in self-defense. I know now that if my
family, children, loved ones, or friends were seriously
threatened, that indeed I would defend myself, or even
kill. A strange revelation for me.

An old friend from my childhood, whom I hadn't seen in

years, sent me a letter. We were in a church youth
group together for a while when we were teens. I left
the group, but she chose to go to bible college and
wrote asking me if I had known if Janice was
"saved," and if not that I should have done
more to be sure that she was before she died. At first I
was angry: How dare she try to make me responsible
or guilty!

© 2008 - 2009 Thank God I...®. All Rights Reserved. 13 of 17

I realize now that she meant well, and am grateful for
her letter; especially because it made me do some soul-
searching regarding my beliefs about death. While I
had drifted away from organized religion, I found a
spiritual knowing inside of me that helps me see and
feel gratitude.

This experience also taught me that in this society we

often misinterpret how well people are handling things.
So many of us are walking around with smiles on our
faces but tears just below the surface. Even when we
do find and feel gratitude, the healing still continues.
Just because she seems fine doesn't mean she is. It
usually means the person is just controlling their
emotions so that other people around them feel better.
A phone call, an opening to share or even just a hand
on the shoulder can be important. We all need to
continue to love and be there for each other, even if it's
been twenty-five years. For me the lessons still present
themselves. We can experience deep healing and find
a heart full of gratitude, but that doesn't mean we have
forgotten.

Since Janice died, I periodically get a strong sense of

her presence: when I was married, had my kids, later
divorced, and as I venture into new relationships, and
especially when I travel. There were times that I may
not have thought about her for a while, and then at just
the right time she comes up in my thoughts, or a song

© 2008 - 2009 Thank God I...®. All Rights Reserved. 14 of 17

comes on the radio, for me to know there is someone
sharing things with me and supporting me from afar,
but not really so far...

As I thought about writing this story, I asked my friend

Rudy, a gifted chiropractor, to do some N.E.T. (Neuro
Emotional Technique -- a way of releasing buried
emotions from the body) with me. I was feeling stuck.
There were so many thoughts rumbling around in my
head and heart. The first thing that came up with the
N.E.T was that at some level I still felt guilty that I
wasn't there to save her.

Next, there was the issue of anger that I didn't realize I

still held onto in my body. I was angry that she had
deserted me. As I connected to this
feeling and went through the release techniques, I
found myself saying to myself, Damn you, Janice!!!
You son of a bitch....

Immediately, I sensed her there looking at me, smiling,

and I saw and heard her say, to my surprise, Good for
you!!! All these years I didn't want to be mad at her, it
wasn't her fault. And now as I acknowledged, felt, and
expressed this anger, I see again that she is fine and
wants me to be happy. She wants all of us who loved
her to live our lives better and stronger because of her.
Whatever we feel is fine, but she doesn't need us to
feel any of it. One year for her birthday, I wrote out the

© 2008 - 2009 Thank God I...®. All Rights Reserved. 15 of 17

words for her to one of her favorite songs, The Rose,
sung by Bette Midler. There is a line in that song that
says, It's the one who won't be taken who cannot seem
to give, and the soul afraid of dying that never learns to
live. I didn't know how much more significant those
words would become to me. I feel that I honor her
every time I live my life to the fullest, every time I step
out and live my life with courage and joy.

The last verse ends, Just remember, in the winter, far

beneath the bitter snows, lies the seed that with the
sun's love, in the spring becomes the Rose. Somehow
things are as they should be. Thank God I knew Janice
-- she has become a Rose for many of us. I look
forward to seeing what else I will learn because of her
influence.

Janice, you were my best friend then, and in some

ways, you are still my best friend now.

. . .

Dr. Susan Burger has been the owner/director of

Riverside Chiropractic & Vitality Center, a holistic
multipractitioner center in Morrisville, Pa., for over
eighteen years. She teaches workshops on many
aspects of natural healing and tapping the power of
conscious intention to live our lives in balance in mind,
body, and spirit.

© 2008 - 2009 Thank God I...®. All Rights Reserved. 16 of 17

She is a founding member of the Greater Bucks Peace
Circle, an interfaith group that offers events and
resources for the community, and promotes conflict
transformation, understanding, and action for change.

Dr. Burger is the mother of two teenage boys, who add

another delightful dimension to her life. The principles
in her story and this book, gratitude for all that is, and
living with love, are values that she hopes to inspire in
her boys, just as so many have inspired her, and
continue to do so each day.

Join the Thank God I…™ Community online to share

your story and chat with the Thank God I…™ Authors.

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