My mother, who had studied to be a Pastor after her ability to heal others with her hands came forth in the late 1990s, early 2000s, when she became terminal a decade later, was TERRIFIED of dying. I finally stopped doing monthly visits and went to be there for the end, with her and the idiot man she’d literally purchased to be her last husband. (The doctors and nurses were relieved that there was an adult mind present between her strokes and his idiocy, the State had stepped in and removed her from his care/their house.) I did sassily bring up where was the “power to heal” now? I got a true Pat-ism in “Fuck you.” as an answer. lol
Then she sort of rallied. So what I thought was a 6 month sabbatical for her end turned into 2 years with my eventually bringing her back from Charlotte to NYC.
But as her older siblings had died, there were only a few sporadic visits from cousins and her husband was her slave/pet and therefore bewildered and near catatonic running around in financial and mental distress—-as she, the brain, was no longer in absolute control——her and I had lots of discussions about everything. And I challenged her with the above question. She didn’t have a clear answer but then I saw a film, Griefwalker which cleared it all up.
Stephen Jenkinson is essential a Death Social Worker who specializes in dealing with the terminal/dying and death. But what he specifically talks about in the film, aside from spirituality and individuality, is how extremely religious people learn from religion—-how to live. Religion doesn’t teach people how to die.
And that’s what happened with my mother. She had so many questions and fears about death itself——and I could only tell her about my experiences, dreams, near death experiences——but I had not ever been “entirely dead” so I assured her I would be there until the end but that it was like a hallway with a door at the end. I would stay with her through the hallway but she would ultimately go through the door itself, by herself. Initially she was not satisfied with this answer but over those 2 years I found a lot of my educational/teaching/counseling work and techniques helped greatly. In us both accepting her death and how to make the transition comfortable (she was in pain from amputations, heart surgery, bed sores, etc..) And lots of tough love about the way she had treated her body and diabetes that got her to that point, the ways she had treated people (me, her husband) due to control with money and religion and that in some ways her condition was an example of how our bullshit can boomerang back upon us—-she was a dying testament to being thoughtful as a living human being for me.
We were able to apply my broad spiritualty to her religious beliefs and in the end she died in my arms. I was able to treat her as a human being——and though the death wasn’t “perfect” in life drama and logistics—-it was good, loving and closure so that I could release her, be relieved in her death and she made levels of peace with dying in the last couple of weeks.
A few months later, I was reading the Bhagavad Gita on the 1 train, heading to school/work and a woman stopped me, stopped the train doors from closing—-and told me it was a wonderful book and had been helpful when her father had died. I told her my mother had just passed and she emphatically said yes, it would help me understand death. It did——my mother went through many of the emotional, psychic and physical things described.
I also had a great spiritual mentor/teacher in my godmother, who died a few years later, but I sat with her for about a year just talking about life and death, as she sat, blind, in her house, dying herself.
So…there’s that.
I’ve personally had 3 experiences with dying as a child—-in a fire in our home; as a teenager from a near overdose; and then at a hospital being given the wrong meds.
What I know for sure is that I am still connected not by a rope or chain, as when alive——we had several spiritual experiences in Charlotte together and then in NYC when she died—-but now a thin, permanent thread, to my mother. And other dead relatives, her siblings and parents, came to me when I was on the fence about bringing her with me to NYC.
I know for sure there is more than this flesh body, this mortal five senses, this space/veil between what we call life and death. I’ve been both fortunate and annoyed enough to have near constant engagements with my mother since she died, often asking her in dreams and waking, to stop trying to assuage her guilt of bad parenting and fear for my safety, as an only child. Like a loving fly she continues to buzz around me, from There to Here and back again.
#KylePhoenix
#TheKylePhoenixShow
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