SHARING DEATH / A DRAWING

 ANNOUNCEMENTS

……For those of you who are aware of the fall I took in mid-January and the surgery which followed, I passed my tests at the Therapy Unit where I went to workout on last Friday.  I may never get a full line-up of my left arm again, but I’m close and I am grateful!   Onward and upward.

…….If you haven’t noticed, IANDS is featuring more and better programs as well as local meetups for people across the world.  If you have not attended one, please do - also in Norway and Sweden.  Other countries, as well.  

SHARING DEATH / A DRAWING

A daughter’s memory of her mother’s death.  Her drawing follows.

“Those last moments I was clear she was ready.  Juliet had given me permission telepathically first thing in morning to go ahead and give her maximum morphine.  I hit the morphine pump every hour for three hours in a row.  She was sitting up hunched over struggling to breathe.  She held to the railing periodically until she grew too weak, and then she would fall back and rock in her attempt to breathe again.  She was very alert even still, as she had been the entire time I had  known her.  I commented to her that there was a new rattling sound in lungs now.  We had been watching so closely the demise of her frail cancer ridden body.  She nodded yes, acknowledging what we both knew.  I left the room to take a break and to see Sharon off.  She had stayed with us the night before and was heading out.  She shared with me her dream that the helpers were waiting until her breathing was steady, and then they would cut the cord.  Cut the cord of her life here on Earth.  I spent a short while doing yoga and drank some juice.  I was beyond tired.  I was fully present, however.  My mummy was leaving.  I had to be steady, somehow, for both of us.  It had been one long day that lasted ten weeks, but I was never in a hurry for this moment to come.

“I went back into the room with the thought of regulating her breath from the message that Sharon had given me.   I felt her relief when I walked into the room.  I paused briefly to stroke her head as I entered, to help her sit up a bit.  I probed her body, helplessly, looking for a way that I might comfort her.  I went to the foot of the bed and sat down in a chair facing up at her and watched her gently as she tried to breathe.  I began focusing my breath inside of myself; breathing intentionally from my feet up through the top of my head, and then from my head down and out through the bottom of my feet.  I got in a rhythm inside of myself and then I transferred my breath to Juliet’s struggling body.  I began focusing my breathing through her body from her feet and out her head, from her head and out through her feet.  I really felt us breathing together as we joined in the sharing of one breath, even though I was breathing for her, too.

“I just stayed there with my eyes closed breathing, focusing on the breathing and then at once my eyes popped open and I looked at her…. She made one more gasp and then stopped moving.  I leaned forward and said ‘oh yeah?’ and froze.  From above her, suddenly the room was filling up with what looked like snowflakes pouring down from the ceiling above her head.  The room seemed to go white and I just stared at her body as these snowflakes covered her entirely…. It seemed like there must be two snowflakes for every cell in her body gently covering her right down to her feet.  And, as they covered her feet, they immediately began their ascent back up through the ceiling in perfect rhythm, never skipping a beat.  She was gone, carried away in Light by snowflakes…. I washed her face and brushed her hair one last time, and for some reason I cut a bit of her hair and mine and put them together on the altar.  I helped her lay back in the bed she no longer hunched over.  Her struggle was truly over now.  She was free…. And I was ready for a long nap!  She came to visit the next day, though our communion was never interrupted.  It just changed.

We have transitioned.  Juliet Nightingale left her body on 28 February, 2009.

“The next day. . . “I’m ok kid!”  Juliet was carried away by Snowflakes, there were details to take care of.  The hospice nurse had to pronounce her dead and the coroner did come to take her body away.  Sharon took me to dinner and I went to bed alone in her apartment.  For the last ten weeks we shared, I hardly slept and ate less.  The next day, Sunday, I buried myself in the down comforter and disappeared somewhere.  I remember the sun was bright - afternoon sometime.  In my tossing and turning Mum - Juliet came to me very excited.  She was a gold ball of Light.  She kept saying come here kid, you got to hear this, come on!!!   I told her I could hardly move, that we would have to move the bed because I couldn’t get up.  So we did.

“Next thing I know I am looking from my bed over a balcony.  Juliet was swinging back and forth full of joy.  She didn’t have any legs, just her animated, unattached hands swinging her back and forth….her smile so bright!  Then I heard music.  It was the most beautiful music.  It made me cry for the first time….my tears woke me fully.  Juliet was part of a choir called ‘Nashville in Harmony’ for many years.  The conductor, Don, was a special friend and he had been informed of her transition the day before, Saturday.  When I checked the email a few days after Juliet’s visit, there were 3 emails, one from Don and two other choir members.  They excitedly shared with me how they had a rehearsal the next day, Sunday, in a large church.  They went to a balcony and sang up to her a farewell song.  They all reported feeling her presence so strongly they wanted to let me know!!!

“At the time it was a huge relief and affirmation of all the years we 

had shared.  She showed me in her passing what she had always said regarding death being transition, ‘as if entering another room,’ Juliet would say…. I had no idea how much this visit would carry me to this day.  I spent a full month in her apartment after she left.  Every day, literally, I would go to her room and look for her only to find it empty.  I saw her carried away yet some part of me still looked for her.  And I still look for her.  I love you Mum - Juliet…. Shining down on me, I know it.  Thank you.”

Her drawing of how she feels today about her mother’s passing.