I last saw my mother alive just hours before she died in palliative care. She was struggling to breathe and to maintain consciousness but we had our final conversation. I told her about a dream I had about her the previous night. We were sitting on an elegant café patio somewhere in Europe, drinking white wine. The message of the dream was clear. We were now fully reconciled, friends and she could go in peace. The next day she died.
Despite the grief, for me it was also a tremendous liberation. Finally I felt in a new way completely free. I did what I could to honour her memory. My brother was reluctant to scatter her ashes as she requested and gave them to me. He made up excuses for not joining me in this final celebration of our mother's life.
From the stern of a BC Ferry en route to Nanaimo I scattered my mother's ashes over the waters of the Salish Sea. I felt honoured, more honoured than I could mention. For months the box containing her ashes was in my bedroom. It was rather nice having her there with me and somehow it made gentler this ultimate parting.
In my mother's absence my life took a particularly difficult turn. I don't think I ever appreciated how much her presence supported me throughout my first thirty-five years of existence. I did what I could to internalize and incorporate her essence but now I was truly on my own. Yet the freedom was intoxicating.
I began to finally and truly come into my own as a mature human being. I became an artist, a vegetarian and legally changed my full name. Then I became ill. There was no one really to help me. My father, though he did harbour me in his home, was vicious and toxic and from his resident hatred I spiralled downward.
Mom prophesied shortly before her death that the family would scatter once she was gone. She had great insight.
No comments:
Post a Comment