As I awake, I see the
Sky, as my ever expanding mind.
As I awake, I see the
Sun, as the light of my own heart.
As I awake, I see the
Universe, as my intricately woven body.
As I awake, I see
myself, in the mirror of my Divine.
As I awake, I
realize, I am no longer dreaming.
As I awake, I realize
the greatest gift of all,
To be alive.
-Jennifer-
I recently taught a Kundalini yoga workshop on the 7 Steps
to Happiness as Taught by Yogi Bhajan.
During the sixth class, I talked about how our life is a gift (and I
believe this to the core of my being) and that the world is waiting for all of
us to share the gift of ourselves. So I
begged the question, “If the world is waiting on us to share our gifts, what exactly
are we waiting for?” This is a question I’ve asked myself in more
recent times when I become fearful and start to hold back or resist the flow of
life and its calling. It is the notion
that helps me push through most obstacles that come my way. I had no idea as I taught this class, that it
was actually preparing me for one of the biggest life shifts I have ever
experienced.
In the coming weeks, I was told that my grandma was not
doing well. That she was not responding
and that her passing could be anytime.
So the following day I went to see her.
I didn’t know what to expect when I walked into the nursing home. I was pleasantly surprised when I asked where
I could find her and the nurse pointed to my left and there was grandma raising
a ruckus in the commons area.
I walked over to her.
She looked so different from the last time I had seen her. She was in a special chair, unable to lift
her own body and was very confused. I
knelt down beside her and said, “Hi grandma! Do you know who I am? It’s Jenni!”
She paused and looked very closely at me and said, “My Jen?” I smiled and shook my head yes and told her
that I came to see her and spend some time with her. We talked and she was in and out, sometimes
making perfect sense and other times not making any sense at all. I stayed and sat with her until the nurses
were ready to take her back to her room.
Grandma looked at me and said, “Now I want you to get on the road before
it gets dark so I know you’ll get home safe.”
I gave her a kiss and hug and felt really good about the visit. I told my dad that she isn’t going
anywhere. I jokingly said, she is going
to live forever!
That all changed a few weeks later over Mother’s day
weekend. I went to see her that Friday
night with my parents. She would respond
to my dad only if he talked really loudly in her ear. But it was just a nod of the head or a mumbled
sound. We came back on Mother’s day and
my dad said prayers over her with her rosary.
This was a side of my dad I had never seen before. I’ve seen him cry only a few times in my
life. I don’t like to cry in front of
anyone. But I just couldn’t hold back my
tears. I knew grandma wanted to go and I
wanted her to be with my grandpa who has been gone for almost 30 years. She had been waiting for a long time. It was hard knowing that time would soon be
here. I looked at my mom and said, “I
noticed I have no patients scheduled [at work for the following week] on
Thursday. I think there is a reason for
that. “
I went to work on Monday and felt like I was in a fog. By Tuesday I was so emotional I didn’t know
how I would keep it together. I couldn’t
stop crying as hard as I tried. Then there was a point to where I didn’t want
to hold back the tears. I was losing
someone very special to me. So I just
allowed myself to cry no matter who it was in front of. But the days went on and there was minimal
change. Grandma was still holding on.
Tuesday was spent with a lot of my family
together in grandma's room. Family I hadn’t seen and talked to in a very long
time. I had a very special talk with my
aunt that I will hold close to me forever. Grandma was stable so we all went to
dinner. It was so nice to be
together. There was a point when we were
all in the room and then again as we were all sitting at dinner that it hit me
how incredible family really is. Family has always been important to me but
this was different. I heard stories from my dad, aunts and uncle about what they
remember growing up with my grandparents.
And I realized at that point that if it wasn’t for my grandparents, that
none of us would be here. I said to
myself, look at what they created. This is
incredible!
Wednesday, still no change.
The remarkable thing is grandma at this point had nothing to eat or
drink for over a week. Then Thursday
came. For me something felt very
different when I woke up that day. I felt
very restless and uneasy. I don’t know
if it was because the Sunday before I had mentioned Thursday to my mom and that
day was finally here, but something was different. My youngest brother was coming through town
for the night before his annual golf outing with friends. I asked myself, could grandma be waiting for all of us to be together, and I mean, all
of us?
I talked to my cousin Thursday morning and she said, “She’s
different. Her breathing is really fast
but it’s different.” Then I talked to
the nursing home and was told she was declining and that it would be
today. When I walked into the room I
knew that it would be anytime. I contacted
my mom and simply said, you guys need to get here.
One by one all of my family began to arrive to grandma’s
room. We all were sitting around her bed, waiting and waiting. My family prayed around her and in her final
moments we all became still. We all had
told her at some point it was ok to go.
But she kept hanging on. My aunt
was the last to arrive after making the drive up late that night. It was just moments after my aunt arrived
that I saw massive changes in grandma. I
have seen this many times working as a hospice nurse but never with my own
family. I felt an incredible peace. Each
breath became less and less. And then
she took her last breath. I was holding
her hand watching it all. I saw the
breath of life leave her. I saw the
breath of life for the first time as the breath of God. Everything made sense. She was at great peace and so was I.
Throughout this process after hearing story after story of
grandma’s life, I realized that this was a woman of great strength. This was a woman who lived one of the most
faith filled lives I’ve ever witnessed and that I have the great honor of being
able to call her my grandma.
Grandma and I had many talks over the last few years. She was always worried about me not being
Catholic or tied to any religion. In one
of our final great talks I told her that I was ok. I didn’t have a religion but that I have a
daily practice with yoga and meditation that keeps me centered. I knew she was trying hard to understand what
that meant but I also knew she didn’t quite get it. So the morning after she
passed, I woke to do my morning sadhana.
As I sat in front of my altar I tuned in and then I said to grandma, “This
is my love. This is my
way to God.” I continued with my
practice that morning. At the end I felt
this incredible peace and need to be very still. As I was sitting in silence her voice said
very loudly and very clear, “Wow! I had
no idea this is what you’ve been doing.”
I started laughing because of the exuberant joy in her voice. I felt her
joy as she said those words as if it was my own joy. Not only did I realize in that moment that she
understood what my practice was, her voice allowed me to hear that she was free
from the bindings of her own body. She
was no longer chained down to the pain she experienced on this Earth. She sounded so free, so liberated and so full
of joy. She then said, “I will be with
you from here on out.” And I have felt
her strength and her love with me ever since.
I can honestly say I’ve never felt a love like this. Grandma
has given me one of the greatest gifts in this life. She has expanded my ability to love in ways
that I never knew possible. It was
almost strange to me in the beginning that a death could help me to understand
the depths of love. But what I came to understand more deeply is the
extraordinary gift that is this life.
Our soul has been given this opportunity to remember God’s grace through
each experience of life. No matter how
much we’ve forgotten or how far away we’ve gone from love, each experience can
be an awakening. Each experience a
teacher. Sometimes we need to experience
death in order to understand how it is to truly live. Sometimes we need to step
into the darkness in order to understand what it is to be the light. Sometimes we need to reach the depths of
sadness in order to understand the heights of happiness and even more so joy. And
that all of life matters in ways that only God knows. But if our hearts are open, we can experience
great awakenings on this Earth that will bring us directly to the knowing of
our Source.
I thought it so appropriate to open this article with the
opening passage of my upcoming book in honor of the awakening I’ve experienced
through my grandma’s last days here on Earth.
It is a passage I wrote very early on for Spirit Launcher that allowed
me to understand that writing for me is a direct connection to my Divine. What I’ve been given is the opportunity to
experience. One of my favorite quotes
from Yogi Bhajan is, “Knowledge is understanding. Knowledge with experience
becomes wisdom.”
At the time that my grandma took her last breath, I thought
about all of the breaths we take in this life time. Our first breath represents birth, the
unknown and all of the possibilities of this new life. Our last breath
represents the legacy of every breath in between. Each breath is each memory is
each moment. And that we are the
sacredness of each breath and of each beating heart. And while this breath for me, this memory,
this moment isn’t my last, I am awake enough to know that the breath of life,
the breath of God is definitely one in between.
As always with love,
Jennifer
©2015 Jennifer Fremion. All rights reserved.
