On April 11, 2018 I wrote My Grandma Pat is Dying which involved how I used my spiritual practice. Seven days later my mom messaged me to say that it wouldn’t be long. I lit my altar and called the waiting ancestors back in.
Parents
of my grandmother
Margaret
Burke & Robert Art.
*
Grandparents
of my grandmother
Eliza
Conners & Frank Burke.
Katherine
Pils & George Art.
*
Great-grandparents
of my grandmother
Mary
Dowd & David Conners.
Thomas
& Ellen Burke.
John
Pils & Mary Smith.
Adam
Art & Ana Catherine Blume.
*
Great-great-grandparents
of my grandmother
Barney
Dowd.
Betsey
(uknown, married) Conners.
Ann
(unknown, married) Burke.
I
opened the way. I told her it was time. When she was ready she could let go.
But
she wouldn’t. I was standing in front of my ancestor altar with one foot in
this world and one foot in her limbo. I saw her, hanging on to an almost
translucent thread. We were in motion, being pulled to the right. She stared at
me, her left arm curled up around an empty space.
Bella.
Her
cat.
I
told her Bella would be fine. I promised we’d find her the right home.
Fuck.
Those oaths you have to keep.
She
relaxed. And she was gone. I was back in my room in front of my ancestor altar.
I bent down to check my messages and as I watched, in Ethernet real time, my
mom let me know her mother was gone.
I
surprised myself by bursting into tears.
I
was sad but wasn’t grief. I didn’t know her well enough for it to be sorrow.
But it was sadness. Sad for my mother. Sad for the day I will lose my mother
that I know will come. Sad for the years of getting to know the
woman-my-grandma-had-become I won’t get. Because she changed at the end. I was
sad for the relationship I won’t get to
have with her. The sadness was real. Just greater than I expected.
I
didn’t cry again.
*
A
few weeks later I attended an outdoor gathering where I went to a Grief Ritual.
I didn’t necessarily feel like I was grieving but every cell of my body felt
this pull to go. I felt I needed to go. So I did.
I
was given a moment to speak to her one last time. And I did. I let two things
be true. I wish she’d been able to make different choices. And I loved her. I
almost qualified that with ‘anyway’ but I took a breath and held that word in.
She
was one of my grandmothers. I knew of her growing up if I didn’t know her. She
was Christmas Eve after-dinner and before-santa. There is a part of my heart
that the shadow of her lives in. I have always carried her with me, imperfections
and all. And I feel her loss.
*
In
her last incarnation she adopted a cat and made friends with a local deer and
their family. They would come to her ground level window and look for her. She
would cut up apples and take them outside. The deer would let her walk among
their young to set the apples on the ground. I wonder if they know what
happened to her. I wonder if they understand what an empty apartment means.
I
wonder who’s feeding them now.
The
last time I saw her she gave me a book she said was too complicated for
her—there were more than five characters and she couldn’t keep them straight.
It’s not bad. I started reading it again when she got sick as a means of
connecting in to her energy, to her heartbeat. I stopped reading when she died.
It’s the last thing she ever gave me in a life where she didn’t give me many
things… although she did give me a lot of my Nancy Drew Mysteries. I forgot
about that until I was writing this. That’s something, too. They meant
everything to me.
But
I stopped reading. I put a bookmark in between the pages. It’s the last thing
she will ever give me.
I’ll
sit with that and set the book aside for now.
*
At
the end of the gathering I was standing in the outdoor Ancestor Shrine and a
friend was leading us through a meditation to connect with an ancestor. I
opened myself to whoever wished to come through.
I
almost audibly gasped.
For
a moment I got a picture in my head. It’s almost always a similar one when I
see him. Some forest glade, thick old trees and part of a rustic wooden fence.
Mop of thick hair. Tall. Smiling. This was my German Guy. I realized in that
second that he came to me through my Grandma’s family line. I also,
instantaneously, felt the reassurance that she had crossed over.
Something
like ‘we got her.’ But in German.
Hail
to the Ancestors.
Safe journeys, Traveller.
Bye Grandma.
