It’s Saturday night, and just as I settle under the bed covers, the phone rings. I pick up and hear the voice of my mother’s caregiver. “She has a nosebleed that’s not stopping.”
I call on the Beloved.
My mom comes on the line. “I’m pressing the button,” she says, meaning her Lifeline, a signal that sends a dozen people into immediate action. Within 15 minutes, five emergency responders stand in her bedroom, an ambulance and fire engine rumbling in the driveway.
Her private nurse receives notice and heads there too. Meanwhile at my house, I pull on leggings and a sweatshirt, say goodbye to my cat and head to the hospital, sensing that this may be a long night.
The ER doc stops the bleeding, and just after midnight, I settle mom back in bed at her home. But in the coming days the sense of emergency increases. My mother already breathes oxygen from a machine 24 hours a day, yet in the coming days she can’t seem to get enough.
On Tuesday, after a few restless nights of sleep I struggle to keep pace with the directions from her nurse and caregiver. All want to fix this problem. They want her calm, breathing, alive. And she, of course, wants that more than anyone, so with her will and fear she pushes, she wants. She is like a drowning victim gasping for breath.
And yet…her oxygen levels are okay.
We have set an appointment to see a pulmonary specialist on Thursday, and I hope this will bring some understanding.
I’m lying on the couch trying to gather back some energy when the nurse calls. Tired, I barely grasp the details: the nurse has set up an appointment for a medical evaluation and she wants me there at 3pm. I listen, say okay, and hang up.
Suddenly, a surge of anger rushes through me. It’s a fiery fury that manifests in a scream. I don’t know what it is about, but I cannot ignore it. I want to go outward with it, yell at the nurse. Tell her I’m exhausted, I’m not going. After years of caring for my mother, I fear I can no longer prop her up, be her strength. Instead of yelling at anyone, I call on the Beloved.
I take out a spiritual contemplation note and read it, directing my attention off my anger and onto the loving message on the printed page. My mind wants to stay with the anger, but slowly it submits to the love. I finish the reading in a state of peace.
I go to the kitchen to make lunch. As I cut a beet, a lightening bolt of truth strikes.
“There is no emergency,” the Beloved whispers. “It is all perfect. Your mother is experiencing the expiration of her physical body. It is a beautiful piece of the whole of life, completely natural, wonderfully loving, all in sync with the Divine plan.”
I see how the nurse simply doesn’t know of my mother’s eternity, and so I forgive her pushing. And my mother doesn’t know, so I forgive her neediness.
But I do know that she is a spirit with so much life yet to experience. Soon she will be ready the leave her physical body, which is bed-bound, and enter into a new incarnation, where she can experience the adventures that still ignite her imagination.
As I eat my lunch I feel my own life force return. I can easily be there for her during the medical evaluation and during this whole transition. In the next few days I keep the Beloved close as I do my best to spontaneously follow the Divine nudges in each moment.
I can love her and let her go. (Read more about this in My Mother is Not My Mother.)
I see how this sense of emergency around mortality reflects my own mind’s panic as I let go yet more of my attachment to the material world. My passion for possessions, prestige and satiating my body’s hungers, though still present, dwindle daily as I come to more deeply desire the Beloved. As I let go, mind mobilizes untold emergency responders within me. It wants to run away to a tropical beach, find another soul to lean on, drink red wine and eat chocolate.
Meanwhile, soul only desires to bathe in the soothing current of Divine love.
When systems fail, sometimes we need to push the button and bring in the emergency teams, but there is only one true emergency: to leap into the Beloved’s arms.
Just days after this realization, my mother, Barbara A. Doolittle, transitioned into her next great adventure. We all miss her, but are relieved and joyous for her perfect journey in soul.
Beautiful piece about your mother and her transition, thank you so much. Much love to you during this time.
Thank you, Felicia. So kind of you. Our parents were comrades once upon a time. I’m happy that you and I are now connected once again.
Beautiful Lesley!
You and your mother embody such grace and will always live in my heart.
I am grateful for you both in my lives.
“Take the love road and live for eternity.”
Love and blessings to you both, Nelson
Nelson, some of my mother’s fondest memories in the past few years were the times you came and played cello for us. Thank you for your kind words about our grace. Truly, you amplified that quality for us.
Beautifully understood and written, Lesley. How the Divine uses every experience to open us up to It’s Love is just amazing to me. Much love to you and your mother.
What you say is so true, Tom. Imagine, if I hadn’t had that flash of anger, I would not have had to fabulous surrender. All works in our favor when we are willing to call on the Divine current.
If there were no obstacles, could we make the jump?
Diane, that is such a great point. It seems to me that if we didn’t have the obstacles, we likely couldn’t make the jump. All is perfect in this Divinely inspired and created world. Thank you for joining in the conversation.
I like the short exposure you wrote on “anger”. I don’t think any of us realize how much anger exists within us in the subconscious mind and subtle ego. As for myself, if one could bottle all the anger I have vented in the last year it would be enough to level a couple more twin towers, maybe destroy a planet. And I am not joking. Without the Inner Master to ameliorate and give us the balm of His Love…well, need I say more?
Al, your humility is gorgeous. One of my biggest fears in posting this was that people would see me as selfish in the face of my mother’s transition, that they would judge my anger. But I now know that admitting to my anger has been a huge step in the Beloved dissipating it. What you wrote about your anger is poetic and prophetic. We truly need the Balm if the Divine love.
Emergencies gain a whole new twist when the Divine slips in an opinion, but what sensitivity to perceive it under such circumstances! I love how you draw from the life around you the lessons you need and how fearless you are to admit you have not already learned them. Yet, you acknowledge the growth in consciousness that comes in pieces and in stages, and give credit where it is due. What a beautiful dance your mother and you performed for each other in this incarnation. Perfect lessons all around! Inspired piece — thank you very much.
So kind of you, Rudy. Truly, Mom and I served each other well in this life. I am ever grateful to her. Especially in the past year, we learned to talk conflicts through with both fury and love. As for drawing from the lessons, you are definitely seeing yourself reflected. You inspire so many of us.
Lesley, I could barely finish reading this for the tears in my eyes. Such an exquisitely beautiful contemplation and lesson. Thank you for sharing the Beloved’s message about the lack of emergency. May the blessings be for us all!
Marian, every time I edited this, I cried. How wonderful that our tears can melt us into Divine love. I am happy you enjoyed my lesson on emergency. Thank you!
Much love to you, Lesley!! Such great revelations that brought you such peace and understanding. I feel very grateful for your understanding and acceptance of Love and Truth. Blessings to you and your mom and your family!
Thank you, Sonja. Isn’t it wonderful how understanding brings peace. What an equation that is.
Pinpointed beautifully, thank you! Much love to you and yours.
Deep Gratitude for this poignant and courageous sharing. Tears of surrender, joy and
Truth arrive as I read this beautiful experience….sent by the Divine as a guide for my
own letting go of a loved one. My heart whispers: Thank You…
MIss Lesley,
Oh dear lady I am so so very sorry. My words are not, will not, can not be enough. The number of lives she has touched on her journey no one will ever know. I am thankful this lady blessed this world with her breif visit. You are being prayed for Miss Lesley.
My Dear…nothing can take away the magic time I spent with Barb one day in White Oaks. Two old and troubled souls met…and we were better for it. Love and care to you…Tony
Lesley, your beautiful words are a tribute to your mother. I understand. Prayers for your mother, for your family and for you……with many blessings.
So glad I had that recent visit with you and your mother. Thank YOU for allowing and making that visit happen. Was hoping for more of those but her time came and she’s been released from this round. I imagine that via you, or perhaps of her own volition/ Soul desire, the Beloved is accompanying her transistion.
Thank you for sharing more of your experience with her, yourself, and the Beloved, including the anger aspect. You let us see how we can use the lower bodies’ reactions to spring board into the Beloved’s arms. I am sure you will continue to do so thru all levels of relief and grief.
Blessings, dear one!
Lesley, anger is a part of bereavement. We all feel it both before and during our loved ones transition. You handled it beautifully relying on the Master and I appreciate your sharing these deepest emotions and thoughts with us. It was a wonderfully positive way of helping your mother to make her transition. Thankyou dear soul.
Leslie: I was not part of your mother’s care team at the time of her transition, but did know her a good many years ago, through the home health agency I used to head. Saw her obituary in our local paper, with your name as her daughter, within days of learning from Al of your chela status and your website. Our Beloved walked with me through my father’s time of liberation as He walks with you now, and as He has also, clearly, arranged this encounter between us. I am alive with curiosity to see what of the links between Watrous, Sapello, Albuquerque, you and me He wishes me (us?) to give attention to!
Lesley, this channeling on the last days and the translation of your Mother has touched my Soul very deeply! There are so many lessons of truth within this writing that tears filled my eyes of love for your honesty and realizations obtained through this experience of your Mothers translation. This point of view is such a powerful channeling gift from the Divine that I am so blessed by reading it! You are truly a co-worker with the Master in sharing this and all of your writings to us!
Leslie,
Such a beautiful piece. Thank you for sharing your inner process with the Master. It is an honor to witness. I love the metaphor of the mind being like the first responders jumping into action. Very insightful and instructive. And I love the idea that the only emergency is to leap into the Beloved’s arms. Thank you for that! Peace to you in your letting go.
Debora
Thank you all for the gift of these observations. What beautiful souls you are. I am busy with details of my mother’s estate right now, but will answer more soon. Many blessings to you.
No words, sitting in the silence and being in Love.
Such an amazing journey is that of Soul. To be a part of another’s passing with the knowledge of Soul’s ongoing journey is a celebration that few in our world are graced to experience and truly understand. It is a joy to see the cycle of Divine play of life and death unfold.
I was blessed to be with my father before he translated and continued onto his next glorious Soul experience. I will never forget it. How the body fights to hold on and then when understanding dawns how acceptance allows the flight of Soul to shed the form in peaceful surrender.
What a relief to know that we continuously merge with the Divine essence as we travel back home.
Sweet blessings to you, Lesley, for this letting go of your mother is a journey just for you. You are lifted up and loved beyond measure.
What you write is beautifully true, Deborah. Though sadness visits me when I miss my mother, the larger experience of her passing so astonishes me that I spend my days in awe of the Divine orchestration. True joy comes from negotiating these stormy seas, knowing all the while that I am safe in the Beloved’s boat. Thank you for your poetic comment.