On December 19, 2014, my mother died — again. As I ponder the event, and reflect on the twice-happened amazing miracle of death and life, I write this article in total reality. This is not fiction, as some spiritual writers do these days — this was our reality. Our truth.
Let me begin at the beginning. My relationship with my mother has had its ups and downs, as most of us have had, I feel. I was influenced at a young age with the suffering, pain, guilt, binding rules and general despair that is found in Catholicism, and I longed for a breather. My chance came when I graduated from my over-protective mother and constricted patriarchal community in 1970 to attend college.
After I graduated from that institution, in a scant three years, I became a bold adventurer to student-teach math and Russian at Nova High School in Florida, near Ft. Lauderdale. Nova lived on the edge, lived up to its name, meaning new, and experimented with the beginnings of the innovative teaching era. This spoke loudly to the pioneer spirit in me that I had harbored for many years, hidden within. Of course, an opportunity to live the joys of the beach for this Midwestern girl did not go un-advantaged either.
That is when the confrontation with death really started.
A smashed pancake
On our way to Florida, a tire blew as we bypassed Nashville, Tenn. With the picture of our car making the front page of the newspaper, a smashed pancake of metal and glass, no one thought us alive. But we were. All three of us — my grandmother, mother and me. By some miracle, I did not have my seatbelt on, and as our car did side-flips in the median of the highway, we were tossed around the inside of the car like ping pong balls. When the energies had finished their way with us, our car came to rest on its top. We were injured — with cracked bones, twisted knees and bruised bodies and emotions — but we were very much alive.
My grandmother died in the hospital a few days later, only to be revived with prayer and a determined male nurse, who knew that the life span of an angel named Helen did not end there, nor then. For all my life I had been exposed to stories of miracles in the teachings of gospels, yet I had not witnessed the real thing.
There it was. A flat-out miracle.
This was not some daytime serial where the actor survives, to continue as long as the contract is in force. This was my grandmother, living to carry on her loving work for many years to come. Our familial devotion to Mother Mary and the rosary, a sacred vestige of the Catholicism that today’s Pope also values, must be recognized as one of the vibrational energy tools of life-giving, as well. The divine feminine united with the divine masculine as both sexes in my family prayed it regularly.
As I now realize, Grandma was my first spiritual teacher of death and life, and many other things spiritual in nature. She was a golden example of unconditional love, and the closest to Christed energies as I would feel and describe them today.
The genuine compassion and generosity of the people of Nashville were astounding as well, as they offered housing, food and prayers to my mother, who was the only passenger in the car to be discharged from the hospital for weeks. None knew that my grandfather and father were travelling in the car behind us, watching the great tumbling act play before their very startled eyes. They thought we were dead too. They, and the community were shocked and awed with our survival.
We were all alive. Death had not claimed us.
The great shift
Fast forward to 2012. December 2012 was the great shift in many calendars that was written and spoken about by many spiritual teachers. My mother’s great shift started on Thanksgiving Day, a month ahead of the famed solstice, which turned on the magic switch of light. We did not prepare the usual dinner that year, as neither of us felt the desire for the preparation — a premonition, I suppose, of the coming private flip of the light switch.
It was early evening when I heard her faint call. “Cindy,” she said, as quietly as I have ever known her to speak. She was sitting at the table in the kitchen watching the TV. Sensing that something was very wrong, I ran into the kitchen to see her slump in her chair, lose consciousness and all bodily function.
That is when my spiritual training, strong will and determination to not call 911 kicked in. I sat next to her, held her hand and prayed. Silently calling in her angels, guides and acquiescing to her divine will, I sat and waited. Eventually she lifted her head, spoke quietly, and said, “What happened?”
I said, ” I think you died.” With little more discussion, we got to the business of cleaning up the results of losing her bodily functions, and she dressed herself for bed.
Neither of us knew whether she would awaken the next morning. She did, took a few days of rest and a little pampering, and quickly she was back to her old self and her normal agenda. We spoke little of it again.
A loud crack
In what seemed the blink of an eye, it was 2014. As she sat at the same chair, watching the same television, I heard a loud crack come from the kitchen. Mom had dropped the TV remote on the hard floor, and sat with her head back, arms extended, lifeless. This time, I had some experience with this situation, and listened to spirit again. I felt the need to hold her head at the temples between my hands and gently move it erect. I loudly evoked the names of Jesus and Mary (the names she would most closely identify with), a few others, prayed for her return to her body, and ran strong life energy flow with all the techniques I remembered from my various healing classes and previous lives.
Although her face held no color, I sensed that the silver chord had not yet detached, and she had not fully transferred to her new level of consciousness. I kept one hand on her head using my body as a brace, and one on her heart, feeling no heartbeat. Staying in the moment, I again honored her choice. Stay or go. She had lived a full life, as she was 87, and had no grand goals of further life, other than LIVING.
Slowly the color came back to her face, and she began to open her eyes. She moved her arms, and began to speak as if nothing had happened. She remembered nothing. She did not know that she was gone. Really gone. For the second time.
The great feat
As we cleaned the chair and her body, we rejoiced in her choice. She did acknowledge the great feat she had accomplished the next day, and thanked me for my diligence and faith. As I had recently returned from a long journey, her timing was impeccable, yet again. Perhaps this was in the plan all along, as she is also a great teacher.
“Was this how Jesus and other historical figures did it?” I asked myself. “Why did she choose to stay?” “What was the purpose of this TWICE?” “Was this the proverbial Super(wo)man in me turning the world backwards in time?” These and many more meaningless questions ran through my head, as, yet again, we denied death.
It is reported that Jesus said that we would do what he did, and greater things. I thought about that as I resisted the normal American response of calling 911, waiting for an ambulance, and watching a loved one slip away — powerless to act. I did not know, nor did I attempt to do, any of the life-saving techniques taught in “safety and emergency” classes that are taught at the Y. I relied on my belief in spirit, ancient energy techniques and the honor that is due to each person’s choice. That was enough.
Alive and strong
The very low-key drama was limited to the two of us, and our relationship is largely unchanged. We still fight, disagree about most everything, yet are both happy that she is still alive and strong. And we received no huge bill from a drama-filled process that is outdated and unnecessary — for us.
Someday, another exit door will present, and she will choose again. Perhaps pressing the Restart Button next time will propel her into a new reality entirely — for both of us.
As one reads this account, one may ask, “Can I do this?” Staying true to our perceived sources of power, internal and/or external, I feel that ALL of us can.
It is time to walk into our full power and divine responsibility to define life for ourselves. Many more than mom and I have done it, all over the world, for thousands of years. It is time to tell our accounts of love and life! I have, in my truth.
