| Streams |
Journey's endThis morning at approx 6:00 AM, just as the sun was risen fully, the journey that was my mom's life reached its final destination. In the end, my brother, Cork, and I became the unsure navigators of it all, and somehow we managed to hold on and steer, through all the breathtaking heartache, through the dizzying up-and-down turbulance.. until finally, cushioning her as well as we could with our hands and our hearts, we brought her life to the soft and gentle touchdown of a peaceful goodbye.I honestly can't say I'm ready to live my life without my Fig, but I know so well I have no choice. I can also say that these past many weeks of her undeserved illness has shown me so many sacred truths that it was, as all things are. totally meant to be. Often in my life I have argued with people over the nature of non-attachment, and , in my eyes, the misinterpretation of non-attachment. Many believe that non-attachment means keeping a distance between yourself and others, by shielding one's heart from pain under the belief that it is all fine in the end, that nothing really matters. Accepting responsiblility for no one, because pain is an illusion. It is all an illusion.. I believe that we are all streams from the one ocean, all rays from the same sun, and the reason we are here as individuals is to , by being rays, work to define what the sun really is.. I also believe that the ultimate and eternal goal of us all is to come together... each individual.... to unite to be what the individual rays defined.. My mom was in a horrible hospital at the end of her illness.. When she first was admitted this time around.. I spent so much time there, looking out for her, watching the nurses, constantly on their cases .. It was a chore to even get her an extra blanket when she was cold, and one night I was reduced to screaming when I found her in her room, uncovered, unwatched, the machine monitering her heartbeat not even registering. She was cold and sick and alone and afraid, and my anger got the best of me..I blew up, screaming in the halls, and one of the nurses was fired the next day. It was a horrible place, and I was afraid to even leave her alone there. As her illness progressed, she fought, tooth and nail, to get better. Her white count would rise to an incredible rate, then lower again. Some days she would be totally out of it, then the next day, surprise the nurses and be calling to them, making a joke, being tough, or afraid, or sad... and they were amazed at her. In the process of this amazement, the staff at the hospital got to know her more personally, and in this birth of personal knowledge of my mom, caring was born. As the days progressed and my mom battled on, I saw the care that she was getting change. She liked to lean on one side when she slept, and suddenly, a pillow was always there to cushion her head against the hard bed rail..She was always clean.. If she needed help and I ran for someone, I always got a smile and a response. One of the nurses, Roland, called me one morning.. , saying she had called out to him, and she knew his name.. she was doing better. He was so happy and said she was amazing and strong She became important to him. Yesterday, when she finally had a crisis that she was unable to overcome, and it became clear time was short, I stood out in the hall with Roland, and watched him fight the tears in his eyes for my Fig. He wanted to be strong and professional for me, but he told me that she had become like family to him.. I stayed at the hospital deep into the night yesterday, just waiting. My mom was not really awake, but I still did not want her to be alone when she left. Another amazing human being and nurse, Ruth, told me to go home. She said she would watch my Fig like a hawk, she knew the signs, and would call me at the first sign of change of breath. I put my trust in her because I had begun to know her personally and I went home. At 3:30 AM today, Ruth kept her promise and called me, and we were able to be with my mom in her final soft moments. In the living of this came an undying realization. The only way to solve the problems of the world today is to become personal. Unkindness, violence, apathy cannot exist as soon as the personal begins to live. The key to compassion and unity lives in the personal knowledge of others. Because of this, living with the popular idea of "non-attachment" does not ride well with me. I have a different idea of non-attachment. To me it means living it all, loving it all, experiencing it all, taking the pain, feeling it, then letting it go. Non attachment does not mean seperating from others, it means not letting the fear of pain be so strong that you cannot let it go. In the fear of pain comes the closing of the heart against pain. In the closing of the heart comes the loss of personal. In the loss of personal all things sacred are lost.. In the stomach tightening loss of my mom now, I can only sit back in wonderment of her and say I have never seen a kinder person. I can't honestly remember her ever hurting anyone on purpose. Not one person, anywhere, her whole life. I also have never seen a stronger person in the face of adversity and pain. Her love carried her through it all... I have so many good friends, like pillows, who have been there, every time I was falling, there they were beneath me.. Never allowing my sore, tired, sad self to hit the ground And Christopher, on the phone last night, the worry in his voice, saying one thing to me "Peg.... Breathe"" I love you all 02:22 - 2007-May-11 - post comment
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Description A few Streams of thought to share, for anyone crazy enough to care...
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