I knew what had happened even before the words came over the phone…I dropped to my knees and began to sob. I felt my heart break open inside my chest and nothing I could do in that moment would lift it off the floor. My children came over to me and gave me a hug knowing what happened in their divine connectedness. At that moment I became aware that my life would never be the same.
My Mom died October 30th 2014. It really doesn’t matter how or why but that she was gone from this physical plane forever. No longer could I hear her voice, feel her arms around me, have a shoulder to cry on or someone to talk to or laugh with. She was my best friend and she knew me better than anyone else in this world. As far as mother-daughter relationships go, ours was unique. Granted, it wasn’t perfect but what relationship is?
I was trying to put all the pieces together, not understanding what was happening, not wanting to believe that this was really happening. I didn't know how I was going to move forward or what my children were going to do. AlI I could think about was my broken heart.
We moved to New Mexico to be closer to family so that my kids would have grandparents present in their daily lives. This was something that I never had growing up and longed for. At four and one and a half years old my children are left without a grandmother. My oldest son and my Mom were very close and I ache for him. However, maybe this is what they signed on for, knowing that they would only have her for a short period of time? Maybe that was part of all of our soul agreements?
I believe that for whatever reason at this moment in time our hearts needed to break. Everyone who ever knew my mother was touched by her infinite capacity to love and in her passing our hearts are broken wide open expanding our own capacity to love. It doesn’t make the hurt and the heartache any easier but it does provide comfort during those moments in the middle of the night when all is quiet and I feel the emptiness and sense of loneliness inside me. I share all of this in hopes of finding peace through my grief and as a way to begin my life again, this time without my mom.
My mother did everything with strength and grace yet she could not heal her own grief before it manifested physically and she had to cross over in order to find true freedom. I believe that dying for her was not failure but spiritual attainment in accordance with her Divine agreement. It was a difficult thing to watch and come to terms with knowing that I could not do anything to shift what was happening. To have been witness to the ultimate choice of life or death has made me much more attune to this life and who I am being called to be and what it is I am here to do.
At the small service we held for my Mom we did a ceremony where each of us offered a quality not only by way of remembering my Mom but also one we want to carry forth into our own lives and into the world. The outpouring of beauty through each person's words touched me deeply and allowed me to see my mom through other's eyes. For each quality that was named a string was tied together until we had made a long chain of "qualities". I chose passion. My mother embodied so many beautiful qualities however, her sense of passion for her journey has inspired me since I was little. She was a lover of life and thought that the opportunity to be here at this time was extraordinary. She brought passion and energy to life and in the process she sparked that flame in others.
As I step out onto this new precipice I realize that in order to take the first step I need to integrate this quality more consciously into my life. I have asked myself who and what I am going to embody as I step into this new life? What is it to live a more loving and passionate life?; how do we bring that to what we do?; how we live?; the way we move through life?; what we offer others?. I want to embark on this next phase of my journey with the same kind of fierceness, so that everything I do, I do with more love and more passion. I really have no idea what it looks like or how it will transpire but I am willing to follow the path to seek the treasures that lay ahead.