While Angels Wept
There was a subtle hint of April in the air.
A sun shower followed a rain shower which had followed a sun shower. The roses were unfurling the first buds. And poppies were blooming in the garden. I love this time of year. The Earth refreshes herself, and summer is a dream coming to fruition.
Spring Poppies
One April morning, my grandmother was ill, dying in fact. She lay in her bed, surrounded by loved ones, fully aware of her surroundings. My mom, her brother, and her sister in law were there. Grandma had called me a week or two before. She was in pain and could not reach my mom. I came right over, sat on the couch with her, and let her know that I was there for her. She had had surgery for a tumor a couple of months prior. She did not want me to call the doctor, though her symptoms were such that I thought she needed to see one. I held her hand. She said it was just the pain she could not bear. She had become so tiny and thin and frail. She took my hand and held it close to her.
I made her soup and called my mom. She answered this time. Mom knew her mother was not well. Mom did not know that she had taken a turn for the worse. She was confused about how I knew this. I told her that Grandma had called me, and I came straight over to her home. I told her that Grandma needed medical treatment. She said she would be over in a little bit. I sat down beside Grandma again, held her hand, and we talked here and there when the pain subsided, just moments really. About an hour later, my mom appeared, nervous but taking charge.
The doctor was kind. The tumor had returned and had to be removed. Grandma said no. She had had enough. She did not want treatment. Her children wanted her to have the surgery, but Grandma was firm in her decision. So Grandma was taken home, put on hospice care, and given morphine. The line of visitors gradually dwindled. Grandma went to bed and did not leave except to use the bathroom. Her bedroom curtains were closed, and family and hospice workers huddled nearby. Mom called one morning to let me know that Grandma did not have long now. When I arrived, I made my way through family members to Grandma’s bedside. We spoke a bit while I caressed her silken hand. Her whole face and hands glowed with a beautiful golden light, such as I had never seen. A nurse came to give her medication. I left the room to use the washroom. When I returned, Grandma said, “Goodbye, Janice.” She made it easy. I couldn’t get those two words out until she spoke them. Grandma had always been beautiful, but that day, she was the most beautiful I had ever seen.
Two moments stood out as the tears streamed down my face on my way home. Grandma glowed an amazing golden light that told me that her spirit was ready to leave her body. It was an ethereal light. Grandma was at peace. Her energetic body was preparing to leave her physical body. Grandma gave me two gifts. They were both gifts of spirit. She looked me right in the eye when she said the words, “Goodbye, Janice”, giving me the permission to say the words I was choking down. And in that way she gave me the gift of permission to not return to the bedside vigil her family was keeping. She gave me permission to let go.
Death is a time of transcendence that allows for the healing of old wounds. And for the transcendent healing of old wounds, angels weep. You see, this grandmother was my adoptive mom’s mother. When my birth mother died when I was one year of age, I had no chance to say goodbye and no one said goodbye to me. My mother let go, but I was still holding on. This grandma had come to help out when my siblings and I were young, and when I was older, she taught me to knit and embroider, and her love of travel inspired the travelling I have done. But I always felt within me this little, indefinable distance because she was from my adoptive mom’s family, not from my real mother’s family. But when she was dying, my grandma crossed over that little distance to heal the wounds left by another death. She let me know that it was okay to say goodbye and to let go.
It is said that as the time of death draws near, the veil between the two worlds grows thin. Shortly before she died, my mom paid me a compliment that she had never paid me over my entire lifetime of 60+ years with her. She told me that I was very loyal. I suppose being very loyal is a positive aspect of not letting go. As the veil grew thin, what words from the other side were heard that got passed on, we may never know, but neither my grandma nor my mom had ever spoken to me like this before. They spoke words that repaired old wounds. Such words of love, such as my real mother would have sent me.
Words of love repair the world.
They heal old wounds. Of course, we are accustomed to cleaning up our own messes. But we can also say words of love to another that, if the words are just right, can heal their old wounds. Sometimes it is hard to know just what those are. Yet in transcendent moments, spirit speaks right through us. Those words can repair, restore, heal the world a bit at a time. These are sacred words.
Once upon a time a world existed without wounds or disarray. The Earth people came to be, and hearts and souls were broken. The Earth people were given a task: to heal the wounds and restore the order, to repair the world. The Earth people were given the gift of words, sacred words. Sacred words were the ones that healed the wounds. And while the Earth people pronounced them, the angels wept.
