AGAIN

i wake up each morning having forgotten. the solace of slumber has somehow managed to hold me at rest for those hours of dark and quiet. but then i awaken to the crushing reality, AGAIN. always again and again. every time i open my eyes, i see again that she is not standing before me, and will not be again in this world. i open my hears and realize again that she cannot speak audibly anymore, nor sing the songs she wrote. only in my mind can i visualize her hands, strumming the strings of her guitar, brushing her teeth, holding a cup of tea up to her lips. i miss her hands.

so many times those hands held mine. and although i know that metaphorically and spiritually, they still do and always will, in this world they will not. and i am reminded, again and again, that this is the world in which i still must live. and the PHYSICAL absence of her form, amongst a world made of physical stuff - fluttering energy or merely illusion though it may be - drives me mad.

no matter where i look, she is not there. no matter what sounds i hear in my periphery, they are not her sounds. no matter who puts their arms around me to console the death of my heart through this loss, they are not my mother's arms. i miss her arms so desperately.

i am reduced in this state of grief to a melting wreck. completely exposed and leaking all fluids of life force. i am no longer only human. growing out of that comfortable skin is IMPERATIVE to survival under these twisted circumstances.

i now must think of absence as presence. sadness as beauty. dying as awakening. and death as the sacred rite of passage that each of us who live must earn. i HAVE to believe that death is god's greatest gift to us, and that living to get there is worth the pain of being emotionally vulnerable beasts.

barren nerves are not an invitation for hurt, but provide the opportunity for ultimate feeling - which leads fundamentally to true healing. so i must now think of my state of absolute nakedness in mourning, as my opportunity to live blissfully in the womb of her eternal body forever. the chance to be innocent again, while gaining exponentially in strength and maturity, born of her blessed influence.

so by this time tonight, i have built up again to rest in this place of peace of mind. though i know that tomorrow, i will awake again...to the deafening roar of the absence of her voice, whispering in my ear as she did every morning when i was a child, "wake up, my darling". wake up.

Today

Today marks the 7-year anniversary of my Dad's Mom's death...my beautiful Nana. WE LOVE YOU NAN!

She's Singing To Me

It makes perfect sense to me that Mom finds music to be an effective vehicle for communication, between "her world" and "ours". I say so because she ALWAYS used music as a strong means for communicating. She sang like a goddess and danced - at times like an electric storm, at times like a weeping willow in a soft wind. She carried with her her famed bag of musical toys - maracas, tambourines, egg shakers. castinettes, sticks, hand drums, and a weird instrument that created what sounded like mighty crashes of thunder. Her sister Karen was a belly dancer; her brother Tedd is an amazing singer/songwriter/musician. She and my sister Shelly harmonized like doves in synchronized flight. And I...well, I don't sing or play an instrument. But I love dancing for the same reasons Mom did - because it frees the soul, is great exercise, and is a brilliant non-verbal tool for creative and spiritual expression! And truly, deeply, madly...MUSIC SPEAKS TO ME.

So I've decided that - since Mom keeps sending me all of these messages through songs on the radio or on t.v., I need to come up with a "name" for that form of communing between us. What it really feels like, and I think what is most fitting, is that she is SINGING TO ME.

When someone sings to you or plays a piece of music they mean specifically for YOU to hear, the ingestion of their message takes on a completely different meaning than when someone speaks to you in so many words or sentences. The emotional effect is quick, deep, and all-encompassing. Analysis doesn't get in the way of what you're feeling. If the song is sad, sadness permeates the core of you. When someone tells you about something sad that happened, you may likely process their speech in your logical, cognitive brain centers before allowing it to sink in and allowing yourself to rest upon it long enough to FEEL the pain involved.

But when you SEE visual images of something sad, like a seal being clobbered for its coat for instance, you are struck HARD and FAST by the very pain you SHARE empathically with that animal. Similarly, when you SMELL something that is attached by mental association to a vivid memory, you are pulled immediately and intensely back to the moment that memory was made. And of course, following this line of reasoning, when you HEAR a piece of music that moves you, you are moved purely and memorably.

99% of the time, when I am driving in my car, and feel a deep, deep pang of LOSS, and the crushing grief that plows me over in the wake of it, I now know that is Mom telling me to TUNE IN and LISTEN. That she is there with me, and she wants me to know and understand that. So I do. I reach for the radio knob and simply leave the station where it lies - I do not change channels. I have come to trust now, through repeated and consistent experience, that when I push that on button, she will be singing to me. And she is. She is rocking me in her arms like she did when I was a child - and throughout my life in ways both literal and otherwise. And telling me "Please don't cry, Baby. My darling, don't cry. I'm here. Mommy's here".

Yesterday, she sang to me...TEARS IN HEAVEN, by Eric Clapton. He wrote this song to his young son after his untimely passing...And now, I share it with you.

TEARS IN HEAVEN

Would you know my name
If I saw you in heaven?
Would it be the same
If I saw you in heaven?

I must be strong
And carry on,
'Cause I know I don't belong
Here in heaven.

Would you hold my hand
If I saw you in heaven?
Would you help me stand
If I saw you in heaven?

I'll find my way
Through night and day,
'Cause I know
I just can't stayHere in heaven.

Time can bring you down,
Time can bend your knees.
Time can break your heart,
Have you begging please,
begging please.

Beyond the door,
There's peace I'm sure,
And I know there'll be no more
Tears in heaven.

Would you know my name
If I saw you in heaven?
Would it be the same
If I saw you in heaven?

I must be strong
And carry on,
'Cause I know I don't belong
Here in heaven.

Mom always said, "Listen to the Angels"

Yet another blatant message from the world of the winged...

I was driving home tonight, listening to Lionel Richie in my car (go ahead and laugh, it's okay...before that I was listening to Eminem, so...); and having - like i so often do throughout each day - a moment in which missing Mom and needing to know she was near, was so intense as to be nauseating. Tears spilled forth and ran from my eyes into my open mouth - gaping still in horror and disbelief of the physical absence of her.

I asked her to come to me. I then turned off the CD, and turned on the radio. As usual, the station was tuned to 101.1 (a sappy, adult contemporary station). It is always tuned to the same station because I SO RARELY turn it on. I always listen to CD's - never radio! The past handful of times I have turned on the radio, it has been because - I SWEAR TO GOD - Mom USES those radio-WAVELENGTHS as a medium for communication! It has happened so many times now, that I have asked for something from her - some tangible sign of her spirit's presence - and have then been compelled to turn on the radio, where I have been given very CLEAR messages directly from her!

This time, I cried and choked on my tears. Then without thought, the tears stopped for a second, and my hand reached for the button that flips the stereo from CD to radio mode. The woman on KOSI 101 then immediately said, "We are doing ANGEL CARD READINGS here on the air tonight...So call up for your reading!"

If anyone reading this doesn't know yet - Angels were my Mom's band of sisters and brothers. It was like she had one foot here on earth, and one fledgling wing opening up progressively toward the Heavens. And now, she is working with them full-time, which gives her much more power to do the righteous work that she started here on this plane. And she had a deck of Angel cards, which she loved, and whose value she believed in deeply. She utilized them to their fullest potential for intuitive depth and spiritual motivation. And beauty. Mom's love for angels was so beautiful. So unwavering and strong, even in the face of a world far behind her in many aspects of her understanding - her KNOWING. She was a beautiful angel here on Earth. And she is even more beautiful - even more of an empowered angel - in the void of divine Bliss where she now does her flying...and her dancing!

Fallen

More lyrics from another song I heard on the radio immediately after asking Mom for a message...Sarah McLachlan's "Fallen"...

...Heaven bend to take my hand
And lead me through the fire
Be the long awaited answer
To a long and painful fight...

Wild Angels

Here is another song by Martina McBride. Although I had never heard of her, judging by her songs, I'll bet Mom loved her!

* * *
Between the perfect world and the bottom line
Keeping love alive in these troubles times
It's a miracle in itselfAnd we know too well what that's about
Still we made it through, only God knows how
We must've had a little help

Must've been
Wild Angels, Wild Angels
Watching over you and me
Wild Angels, Wild Angels
Baby what else could it be

Well it must've been hard, it must've been tough
Keeping up with crazy fools like us
'Cause it's so easy to fall apart
And we still break each other's heart sometimes
Spend some nights on the jagged side
Somehow we wake up in each other's arms
Must've been Wild Angels...

There are some nights
I watch you while you dream
I swear
I hear the sound of beating wings

In My Daughter's Eyes

I asked God, How is it that I will be able to commune with Mom's spirit in the most profound of ways? Then I looked in the mirror, and felt Him giving me an answer: She is within me. She IS me, and I her. And to know HER SPIRIT the most completely, I should look into my own eyes, and I will see her staring back. She always wanted me - and everyone - to know the divine LOVE of SELF. now she will talk to us all through that channel. When we love ourselves, and see the beauty in our, and others' humanity...we will feel her influence upon us opening up and taking shape...

That same day, I asked Mom for another of those "signs" that she was listening, and indeed, speaking back to me in any kind of way that I could understand. I then turned off the CD that was playing in my car, and turned ON the radio - which I hardly EVER listen to. And normally, I would've flipped the station upon tuning in, because the song that was playing was somewhat country-ish. Normally, this is NOT something I would choose to listen to. But something compelled me to stay right there with that woman's voice. It was a singer named Martina McBride - whom I had never heard of until that moment. Following are the lyrics to that song. It is called "IN MY DAUGHTER'S EYES".

* * *
In my daughter's eyes
I am a heroI am strong and wise
and I know no fearBut the truth is plain to see
She was sent to rescue meI see who I wanna beIn my daughter's eyes
In my daughter's eyes everyone is equal
Darkness turns to light and the world is at peace
This miracle God gave to me gives me strength when I am weak
I find reason to believe
In my daughter's eyes
And when she wraps her handaround my finger
Oh it puts a smile in my heart
Everything becomes a little clearerI realize what life is all about
It's hangin' on when your heart has had enough
It's giving more when you feel like giving up
I've seen the light
It's in my daugter's eyes
In my daughter's eyes I can see the future
A reflection of who I am and what will be
Though she'll grow and someday leave
Maybe raise a family
When I'm gone I hope you see how happy she made me
For I'll be there
In my daughter's eyes

By Martina McBride

letter to tina

...over the past few days, i feel like i have started to turn some kind of corner. i have been opening myself as much as possible...to my grief. instead of shutting it off because it is so painful, i have been opening up, because while an open heart lets in the pain, it also lets it back out. and it is progressive. AND - most importantly - think of your heart like it was your ear instead: if we plug up our ears in order to not hear the deafening and hellish silence of grief...we also cannot hear mom. and i PROMISE you, tina, she is talking to us.

i have gotten so many clear messages from her recently. there are so many, i can't even "list" them all here - or explain everything that i have been "getting". but what i KNOW is this: we WILL see mom again. we WILL. mom will NOT let us believe or fear otherwise. it is a FACT that she is here with us now, only her spirit is formless - naked and free - not contained in a body. you know how when mom danced, she looked like she might just fly out of her skin? like her limbs might just fly off, because her spirit was so overcome? well, she IS DANCING LIKE THAT NOW...she is simply less restrained. remember how happy she was when she danced? she is infinitely more happy now!

mom is still worried about us. she feels us holding on to her. she feels our fearful grip. she would never "tell" us to - but she needs and wants for us to let go. WAIT...listen to what i am saying, because i am NOT saying "let go" as in, "goodbye". what i (mom) mean (means) by "let go" is not to let go in the sense that we typically understand that act. because EVERYTHING is a paradox in this world. in the boundless world where mom is priveleged to be now, there is no paradox. no conflict or confusion. in that world, let go MEANS EXACTLY, the ability to hold on more tightly than we can even dream is possible here in this life. meaning, when we can "let go", and relinquish our need to clutch on, to control where mom's spirit can roam (a.k.a. NOT away from us!!); when we can surrender to our own inability to comprehend what "life" and "death" mean in our limited perception...at that time, we will hear mom so loudly and clearly, it will be as though she is SHOUTING at us. we will be able to feel her arms so tightly wrapped around us, it will be as though every breath we take is saturated with her love and presence. BECAUSE IT IS!

i know this, tina, because i've been able to do it...just barely...just one or two times. but even that has been - i KNOW - an incredible PREVIEW of what awaits us. we just must PRACTICE - forever more - learning to THINK differently than we are built to in this body and brain and life. we have to transcend what we THINK wrongly is a true understanding of what has happened. we must look at the BIGGER - and i mean the biggest, most unfathomably BIG - picture. MOM IS NOT GONE. and in fact, her existence - her LOVE - has only expanded and is now free to be its WHOLE SELF. i'm not making this up...mom is telling me!!

and watch how things in your life unfold...as SOON as i started to practice this openness, (just a few nights ago - prompted by a conversation with joanne and ruth and julie's mom, elaine, who was 29 when she lost her mother, who was 57 at the time of her death). i will tell you all about these conversations, and the events that have followed. i just KNOW mom is involved in every single facet of what i am doing, where i am going, and how i am perceiving my life and the world.

tina, you KNOW that i KNOW how badly this all hurts. how unbelievably badly. it will always hurt. always, there will be pain associated with this horrible loss. but you KNOW what mom would say...IS saying now to us...we HAVE TO move forward. and we CAN, because moving forward does NOT mean moving AWAY from mom - it means just the opposite! we are MOVING TOWARD HER. our whole lives now, that is what we will be doing. every step we take, every stride we run, every hill we climb, every stroke we swim...will be toward her.

we have to take care of ourselves; our bodies and our health. we have to meditate in order to begin seeing things in a more enlightened light - because this is where we will find mom - on some neutral ground between where we are and where she is...i GUARANTEE, that place is somewhere in our higher, higher, higher consciousness. the more we can ASCEND in our minds, to try and grasp the beauty and miracles unfolding, the closer we will be to mom. and this involves feeling our pain, but not letting it hold us down. this involves holding onto mom by letting her go. this involves allowing our grief its __expression through us - at the deepest root of its reality - no matter how painful - so that we have room for the LOVE and LIGHT that exist on the other side of this devastation.

read this over again, but instead of hearing my voice say the words, hear mom's. when mom says it, it makes perfect sense.

i love you so much, and we will get through this together. and we will not only survive it, we will turn it into power and strength that will work in our lives in every way - in our careers, our relationships, everywhere! mostly, we will use the strength we will gain through our grief, as a means of connecting with mom in amazing new ways...ways that weren't possible until now! think of how EXCITING mom thinks all of this is! she just wants for us to share in her excitement. she needs that from us, so that she can feel okay about flying free up there...

in her flight, she will continue to bestow upon us the LOVE that she always has. and with her angel wings, she will be able to show it to us in ways more phenomenal, more mind-blowing, more AWESOME, than she ever was before.

messages from beyond me

...i've been having these AMAZING experiences - always involving other people...in fact, based around all of the friendships in my life...where everything falls perfectly into place in a beautiful way. and where i am with people who are fun to be with, are completely supportive and loving, and provide me with the most pertinent resource of all - laughter! when you're laughing, there is no way to help but feel joy! and i KNOW that MOM IS DOING THIS WORK in our lives!!! she's showing us "cosmic synchronicity" all the time!

kelli said a few times that she could absolutely FEEL mom there with us, enjoying watching us have so much fun. kelli kept saying she was thankful that we had such a magical weekend which did NOT involve any alcohol. she realizes she has a problem with that, and has stopped drinking. she recognizes that mom is working in her life on that level...

it's like mom is providing these awesome, loving situations in our lives, so that we can survive the unbearable pain of grieving. she is still bringing us joy. she is showing us how to find ot and make it for ourselves - in our own lives. she is helping us from where she is.

i am weeping desperately and deeply as i write this still. but i know that even when i cry like this, i am doing so because she has entered the room. and as much as i am mourning her absence in these moments and always, i am feeling the gift of her enveloping, loving presence at the same time.

i feel now that mom is working THROUGH us. and to keep her alive, we must do as she would do; reach to the standards that she set. and like you said dad, command respect - from ourselves and others. mostly, in order to honor her, we have to look for the joy in our lives, and pursue it. we have to do what makes us feel good, strong, and happy

**
god, i miss her so much, words cannot express. but i do also feel like i am turning some kind of corner...thinking about all of the beautiful and amazing things that are going to grow in wake of her transformation

sound-bytes

my voice comes to you from beneath crumbling barriers. i am reaching toward the sun in revelation. * * *

i want to come to hawaii.

i want to pull weeds and harvest tropical fruit and honey. i want to meditate. i want to be bathed in heat and float in saltwater. i want to run on the beach, swim limitless laps across the never-ending ocean, and hike on volcanoes. i want to hear whales breathing, and find dolphins in my everyday periphery. i want to dive deep under the water, for it is there that i am certain my heart's healing lies.

my mom is sending me strong messages of guidance, and this feels truly right


i am very lucky to be able to do this traveling. though i feel more blessed than lucky. the difference, as i see it, is that luck is happenstance...random. but to be blessed means, i think, that i am reaping a karmic reward. i think my blessings are going to be proportionate to my losses. like they are in my life to make grieving for my mom somehow bearable.

Letter to a Friend

dearest j.

as most things do, your letter made me weep. i think i can confidently say that i understand sensitivity and vulnerability, tied in with the profound beauty, divinity, and fragility of life and death...more than anyone else now - or at least as much.

my dad's cat just entered the room and meowed. i picked him up and kissed him and smelled his fur, which always holds the faint aroma of dirt. it is difficult to summarize what "these days" are like - as i - and my life - are changing so rapidly and drastically as i muddle through this brutal time of exhausting grief. but right now - feeling a cat or dog's fur seems as profoundly comforting, sad, and beautiful - as drinking a cup of espresso with my dad and sister in prague, hearing moby's words sting my peripheral audio, as he sings over and over again: "hold onto people, they're slipping away...hold onto people they're slipping away". looking at my own hands - looking into the mirror - or looking at a crowd of sweaty dancing people at a club, while i dance in front of them, as if the end of the world were about to sweep us all into an oblivion just beyond the dance floor...these things make me feel the overwhelming pulse of being alive - so intensely i might die from it.

i was doing really "well" for a while i think...living inside certain semi-comforting abstract constructs i'd built around my broken heart...but for the past few weeks, i've been so unbelievably sad. the sadness so tangible and relentless. so sickening, ripping, tearing, bludgeoning. so torturous. the reality stabs and grabs and bashes and haunts until i run screaming, or crumble into a heap with my eyes squeezed tightly shut, for i can bear no more of it...she is physically gone. i can't see her ever again. i can't ever hug her or hold her or cry in her arms. she won't know my children.

i miss her so much. it's so bad, j. so bad. i try and feel her all around me - in the clouds and rain and in butterfly wings. but i miss her physical body. i want HER. i want to see her walking toward me, holding onto something insignificant but REAL, like a coffee cup or a hand bag. i don't want to only have memories of her! it's too soon. it can't be true.

all of this pain is all of my love for her. both so much bigger than me. as you talk of your love for j., and for your unborn baby - your child - your flesh and blood. these connections grow so far beyond us, and come from so many infinities before us. i, too am blessed. that is what i always know at the end of the day. no matter how much my head and heart and eyes hurt from crying. i know that she is with me every second, and that to have her as my mother, i am eternally blessed.

What Else Can I do But Dance?

Crying isn't enough sometimes. Grief of this depth requires creative outlets...and movement. Lots of movement. Movement of the physical body, in and around and through physical space. Pain like this begs to be made visible in some form - in this case, the form of my limbs in a stiff musical wind.

Mom didn't merely "love" to dance. It was a portal for her. A channel through which to breathe deeply, sweat out the intensity of her LOVE and RAGE...and BE, meaningfully. When I dance, I feel her in my feet. I feel her pushing my arms out and waving them about. I feel my face contorting and my eyes closing, and when my eyes are closed, I can see my own face, and it is hers.

The unbearable weight of the empty space where her body once moved - is like a straight jacket. But struggling in it, kicking and screaming and biting, won't remove the bondage it creates. Nothing will ever "remove" the pain of missing her. But dancing is somehow a better tool than anger. It is a stronger force. When I curse God through vengeful tears - running at the truth with a useless battering ram only to be knocked back, like a crying child fighting against bed time - the straps only grasp me more tightly, leaving my body immobile and exhausted. I hug myself violently with those arm restraints. But no matter how hard I try, with anger, I cannot get free.

So instead I do what mom would do. I dance. And when I dance, God knows and aknowledges my pain. He lifts me up and lets me mourn in his arms. For the end of her life, and the sadness so deep and rich in my broken heart. He rocks me gently and strokes my hair like she would've done. He tells me that it is okay to cry - for the end of the world, and the beauty so endlessly vast in the unbroken circle of eternity.

And my body moves about like a blowing storm, a seething wind. And tears fall as a hard, cleansing rain. And I feel the fact that HER LOVE made me. And I see what she saw when she danced. And I think to myself...When crying out in anger alone is not enough, how else am I to express my pain, to God or to myself, in a way that affirms its limitless power?

What else can I do? In these moments, it is dance...or die.

So I dance.

words as wings

today, every swallow has been a hard lump, barely gone down. sleep is but a dream tonight. i keep picturing her eating an ice cream cone and laughing in the front seat of the car - from the back seat; from my post as an innocent.

i will die of this pain...unless i can learn to walk the walk of the masters at heart. jesus, help me to realize with every breath, tear, shriek and stabbing swallow, that pain is merely beauty in its naked state.

then beauty shall be what kills me. the beauty of dying will simply break my heart, until its beat is no more than a silent remembrance, hanging still like nothing in life does. this life, this pain, this death...all will register as nothing but a blip - an unnoticeable side trip off the longest of all moving sidewalks.

one blink, like childhood...the cone is melting.

INCEPTION

This web site is to honor my beautiful mother, Geneva, who now has wings of her own. She communicates with them now, not with words. While she was here, however, she was a genius with words - with communication in general. Every word she spoke or wrote translated purely and simply as LOVE. This site is a place for reflection, for healing, and a space wherein her spirit can roam and continue communicating with us all. This is a medium she and I will share - and I hope others who knew and loved - who still and will always know and love - my beloved mother, will contribute thoughts and reflections of their own! This is a place to bask in her LOVE, as it gave me life, as it has shaped my blessed being, and as it comes to me now. While she is now free in her formless state, we here can still use words to folmulate what we need to communicate. So it shall be - and so shall we do. LOVE to all. LOVE will be at the root of every message posted here.