December
31, 2004
I
went into Mom’s room this morning to say goodbye, though I know goodbye means
nothing but “Welcome...you are reborn”... in the scope of
eternity.
I left
Aunty Karen’s bible by the bedside. I told mom that Tina and Shelly and I are
strong enough - not only to live on, but to live on with joy-filled hearts - in
the pursuit of fulfilling our highest and deepest dreams. I told her it was
okay to let go...that our only wish now was for her wholeness and freedom.
I told
her...
That
when I used to dream about swimming with whales a lot, the most prominent of
those dreams revealed me as a killer whale calf...cavorting with the most
graceful strides next to a giant and exquisite mother whale. I felt
every inch of her smooth, strong body. My physical presence in that
environment was tangible. I knew this matriarch with profound familiarity; in
fact I had known her forever, and knew her completely.
I was so
very safe in her embrace. Even without
the vehicle of arms, hands, and fingers with which to hold on, she managed
to envelop me perfectly and absolutely within her gargantuan
spirit. Intertwined, we moved together through seamless lifetimes, rolling over and
over like the tides, across endless landscapes and beyond all perceived
horizons.
And
like the ocean... is heaven. Both are defined by the all-powerful
force of ebb and flow. Inhale and exhale. Death and rebirth.
I told
mom that I believe those whales in my dreams were the two of us. That “someday”,
in a place where time doesn’t exist, and life and death are as easily accepted
and honored as our every breath, mom and I would be together again in the
flesh. I told her that the night of July 5, 1998, when mom and I were
visited by a pod of thirty killer whales off the south shore of San Juan Island,
was the best day of my life. I know now that both those dreams - and that
day - will be the best of my entire existence, material or immaterial.
Because they represent both the beginning and end of time in the instant of my
origin, as I was born of my mom’s body and spirit. It defines the fundamental
breath I share with my mom, which will never expire, but only evolve.
Mom
and I will exist together forever in that moment. And because of our joint liver surgery, into eternity, mom
takes with her a part of my own flesh. From her belly, I was birthed. And out of mine, she was given a little more time. We gave one another life. Physical LIFE.
* * *
* * *
Literally
the INSTANT I arrived at the hospital with my sisters, and entered her room
(for what I knew would be the last time), at approximately 11:35pm on New
Year’s Eve, mom’s body let her spirit go. Up she ascended, and out she
expanded, and off she soared into the depths of a blue heaven we will not know
until we have earned it ourselves.
Mom
lost her own mother on the same night exactly 23 years ago – New Year’s Eve, 1981. My
Grandmother was 58 years old when she passed. Mom was 57.
Nothing
is real tonight. Our minds protect themselves, because if the reality of this
grief were to come all at once –
more, even, than one miniscule particle at a time - we would surely
drown in it.
In
this moment, I feel at peace. My heart tells me that tonight, my mom lived -and
died - through the grandest of all spiritual experiences. From that place, I
feel her swishing with ease through the sacred waters of time,
continuing on in her passage. I see her embracing her own mother, and her
sister Karen. She will soar always with the ease of anti-gravity
on the swells of our prayers for her.
Mom is frolicking with
her band of beloved angels now.
Like
the crested caps of whipping waves, underneath which whales live, love and
play…she too is
dancing.
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