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.