Sat 19 Dec 2009
Our Mother
( in loving memory of Jean Colman)
Our Mother
Who remains forever in our hearts and memories
Hallowed be the Love you gave us
In every Joy, in every Truth, in every Breath
Your life is sung by all of us
in unfurled flowers, in silent rock, in brightest stars
and in our children
We remember that when all is resolved in deep acceptance
the need to forgive, or be forgiven, no longer exists
May we always be led into compassion
and delivered into the Light of Understanding and Insight
by the Shining Grace of your example
and in Loving memory of your Being.
On the 10th of December our Momli went to a better place surrounded by all her loving children.
It was a befitting date as she went on the exact same date that her beloved husband, John died two years ago.
Today we collected mom’s ashes. I was struck by this small box sensitively and somewhat poignantly wrapped in wrapping paper depicting clouds in a blue sky, that I held on my lap. I was struck by the wrapping paper design as I often refer in my life to clouds that cover blue sky as a personal metaphor that puts me in touch with the idea that even when times are difficult and one has suffering, one should try to remember the bigger, often unseen picture in one’s life. The same goes for the psyche. When the head is adrift with ‘clouds’ of thoughts that make one feel negative and depressed, it helps to know that this is just a passing state and that one’s Being, one’s true essence, is unaffected by the shennagins of one’s thoughts.
It is strange to think all that remains of a precious body is a small box of concentrated grey ashes. A body that bore 5 children, that loved them, that held many grandchildren in it’s arms, that always had a smile on it’s face and a kind word to give to many people. A body that tended to flowers and animals. A body that lovingly and carefully knitted bright squares to make warm blankets for our African Aids babies. A body that knitted all of us together too. It was a body that mattered greatly and the vessel of a beautiful spirit.
So I don’t know why, too often, on bad days, I can’t get the meaning of my own body. Why can’t I accept that even if my skin hangs like a hundred and twenty year old’s, even if I am scarred from top to bottom and that my wrinkles are happening el rapido, I should not negate all that my body allows me to express. Looks matter little where real Love exists. I know this as surely as I know when rain is falling on my face. But somehow I forget it and I lament my body instead of honouring it.
We live in & through our bodies in an intricate & wonderful vision of synergy between flesh & spirit. I need to learn to come to a full acceptance of this and to remember it! Another life lesson and one that seems to peak and ebb in my life, alas!
I miss momli’s body. I can almost hear her saying in my ear (as I write this) that actually she does not miss it at all! She so wanted to leave all the pain & suffering of her body behind her in those last emaciated weeks of endless discomfort.
But I miss giving her a hug and a kiss hello - or goodbye. I miss delighting in her joyful body movements - she used to quite often break into a ‘happy little jig-dance’ when she heard of something that made her feel happy. Sometimes she would do this to cope with her encroaching dementia too. She’d lose a thought and then do a funny little dance and we’d all laugh and jig arms around her waist, to a song she would sing and end up forgetting what she was going to say anyway! I always thought there was serious latent genius in this diversionary tactic. 
I don’t miss her presence because spiritually I feel her energy all around us. Before she died we spoke about how Love continues across the ether, through all dimensions and that this is the one thing that is eternal. Therefore if her time to go had come I tried to assure her that she should try to hold this close and not worry, because we’d both draw comfort and peace from this after she had left her body. We affirmed this for each other as we held each others hands with a deep unified knowing.
In her last weeks her dementia seemed to fade and she often had very lucid times. Later she’d forget these moments but somehow it did not matter because the process of dying is uncannily timeless. We lived very much in the moment and that was all that mattered really.
I will be back in the UK on the 23rd - just in time to celebrate Christmas with my children. It will be a humble christmas this year as there has not been time to prepare for much other than our traditional christmas eve dinner and a few wee token prezzies. There has been no time for putting up a tree or a big shopping spree and tbh I am glad, because it is a great feeling to release all the commercial baggage of Christmas and just celebrate the real gift of spending a happy time with my loved ones. 
