ON THIS DAY ONE YEAR AGO

December 31, 2004

i went into mom's room this morning to say goodbye, though i know goodbye means nothing but "welcome...you are reborn"... in the scope of eternity.

i left aunty karen's bible by the bedside. i told mom that tina and shelly and i are strong enough - not only to live on, but to live on with joy-filled hearts - in the pursuit of fulfilling our highest and deepest dreams. i told her it was okay to let go...that our only wish now was for her wholeness and freedom.

i told her... that when i used to dream about swimming with whales a lot, the most prominent of those dreams revealed me as a killer whale calf...cavorting with the most graceful strides next to a giant and exquisite mother whale. i felt every inch of her smooth, strong body. my physical presence in that environment was tangible. i knew this matriarch with profound familiarity; in fact i had known her forever, and knew her completely.

i was so very safe in her embrace. even without the vehicle of arms, hands, and fingers with which to hold on, she managed to envelop me perfectly and absolutely within her gargantuan spirit. intertwined, we moved together through seamless lifetimes, rolling over and over like the tides, across endless landscapes and beyond all perceived horizons.

and like the ocean... is heaven. both are defined by the all-powerful force of ebb and flow. inhale and exhale. death and rebirth. both are created of the buoyant property of saltwater. both are made from the substance that fills our bodies, and floods the veins and arteries of our organic world...

...and our bodies in their purest form are tears, which come in waves, and flow for the losses of our loved ones like rivers flow into seas and then again become the rain that bathes our cheeks as we fall asleep on these deeply dark and fluid nights...

i told mom that i believe those whales in my dreams were the two of us. that "someday", in a place where time doesn't exist, and life and death are as easily accepted and honored as our every breath, mom and i would be together again in the flesh. i told her that the night of july 5, 1998, when mom and i were visited by a pod of thirty killer whales off the south shore of san juan island, was the best day of my life. i know now that both those dreams and that day will be the best of my entire existence, material or immaterial. because they represent both the beginning and end of time in the instant of my origin, as i was born of mom's body. it defines the ever-lasting breath i share with mom, within the watery, life-giving walls of the earthly womb.
mom and i will exist together forever in that moment. and into eternity, mom takes with her a part of my own flesh. of my belly, too, she was given life.

one minute before i entered the room again, at approximately 11:35 pm this new year's eve night, mom's spirit let go the body...and off she soared into the depths of a blue heaven we won't ever fathom until it is our own time. mom lost her own mother on the same day 24 years ago.
nothing is real tonight. our minds protect themselves, because if grief were to come all at once, we would surely drown in it.

in my heart though, i feel peace. my heart tells me that tonight, mom lived -and died - through the grandest of all spiritual experiences. from that place, i feel her swishing with ease through the sacred waters of time, continuing on in her passage. i see her embracing her own mother and her sister karen. she will soar always with the ease of anti-gravity on the swells of our prayers for her.

mom is frolicking with her band of beloved angels now...and like the crested caps of whipping waves, she too is dancing.