"Life, Death, & A Helping Hand"

It's been over a month since I did this.  It's been a hard cold month emotionally; but also filled with love.  .

The man who married my mother 41 years ago, lost a valiant battle with a disease still known to too many.  The one that can devastate us and sometimes steal our last breath.  Lung cancer and all cancers, are still an unpredictable menace regardless of all our advancements.  I watched this monster inside him, not only steal his life away; but also my poor, sweet Mom's  It's diffucult to soothe and console from a 1,000 miles away.  I had a vacation planned for this Summer; but that of course was deleted in the aftermath of a crazy car accident that left me out of service for 3 months.  He was trying to hold on and I was too, as we looked forward to my trip home at Thanksgiving.  But in the middle of a scary night, where my 83 year old mother was forced to take him to the hospital, fate changed everything and no one was ready for "goodbyes".  

So I spent a day in agony and torment 1.000 miles away.  Listening to tears and sobbing from my mother and daughter who stayed by his side.  I got the first flight I could and made a trip to home two weeks early.  They had just recieved the news that the deal on their house they had tried to sell, had just fallen through.  I think it was more than he could stand, thinking of my Mom left with a house and alone.  You see, he was 11 years younger than her.  He took care of everything for her.  She even had to learn how to take the medicines he would always lay out for her.  He also had walked the small dog that was theirs for the last nine years.  She still waits for him and won't let anyone take her harness off of her.  

It was a sad and pathetic scene to see my mother who had just lost her soulmate.  She still sleeps in his shirts.  She made me sleep in her bed the first night, as she just couldn't stand the loss.  I didn't sleep well myself; but I had to do it for her.  I had to do alot of things for her, and in a short time.  Including identifying the body...something that just had to be done..and I was the most logical choice.  I have seen death in many stages after 20 years in healthcare.  It's just not the same though when it's someone you know, even for the most seasoned veteran.  So I had my moment to say goodbye, and was grateful for a most peaceful and serene face.  It didn't matter if it was a makeup trick of the mortician; it was how I needed to see him that last time.  

Then my mother wants to show me where their stone will be.  This is a large cemetary in Indianapolis, my hometown.  Where they have multiple options for that tribute to your final resting place.  They had chosen it together and loved this little rock garden surrounded by trees.  Passing by an old friend and neighbor, where we laid rocks telling of our visit.  The rituals of life and death are many, and I visited them all this month.

On a happier note, I was elated to spend time with my only daughter, who is blooming in love all around her.  Re-connected with a young love, who found her again 10 years later, and at just the right time.  He still had a picture of her in his wallet all those years.  While she explored men who never really appreciated her, and thought there was no relief in sight.  So that's how life is; it has it's way with you when it feels like it.  We are then forced to do things like confront our fears and conquer the moment.  If you don't rise to the challenge, a life changing consequence is also sometimes our fate.  

Is it really that simple?  Does someone, something, really pull the strings?  I believe that Quantum Physics is real and that the Law Of Attraction rule also applies; but is there another plan that cancels out all our hopes and dreams, no matter how dilligent we seek them?  My mother asked me many times in the last few weeks; where do you think he is?  My mother was never really a dilligent religious soul.  She took us to church and we attended parochial school for about half our elementary education.  She chose the school and church because they were literally right acroos the street from our house, and she felt good with the people there.  But life makes you jaded with it's experiences sometimes and with more questions than answers as time goes by.  Till the end is closer than ever and we all want to believe in our salvation.  

My personal beliefs are multi-cultural and complex, and change with my own experiences.  How do I soothe this poor grieving woman with esoteric and existentialism now?  I tell her I believe he is surrounded by love.  Because I believe we do have something waiting to reflect on our lives and with guidance and resolution of lessons learned.  Maybe more like school than heaven; but without all the pain we took in our past incarnation.  I also believe that if our energy is still so drawn to this plane and the people left behind, we do stick around for a little while.  My mother had several moments of feeling that presence in the first week.  Starting with a sensation that someone was following her out of the hospital the day she left her husband there.  There was a key that needed to be found and she had searched thru his pants to no avail.  She finally spoke out to him and asked him to help her.  When she checked the pocket again, the key was there.  The next week she recieved an offer for her house that looks to finally be reliable.  Divine intervention?  Who can really say?

So this week I boarded a flight to home again to celebrate Thanksgiving.  I made a beautiful full course meal with all the trimmings.  We laughed and looked at old pictures and teased the young couple about the upcoming nuptials and the eventually spoiled oppspring.  My daughter now has a new affinity for all things "Baby", as we did the traditional shopping trip.  She's almost 29 and hearing the proverbial "Biological Clock" most loudly it would seem.  She never before would coo over tiny boots or the variety of baby carriers.  A new future looms in the mist on her horizon, and she seems to feel it and embrace it these days.  Life goes on.  One way or another.  When we least expect it.  Without regard always for our plans.  Revealing in it's own way, that there is a plan that we can't see.  We are forced to play the game in the meantime, naive and unaware of what's really to come.  Till we've done all we were meant to do in this story, and then are sent home to learn for at least a brief time, who we really are and how we all fit in.  

Here's an account in timeline form that I found a couple of years ago.  I don't say that it is anything but possible re-telling of other ancient stories of our beginnings and designs.  I do find some answers though that fit, as my perceptions have adjusted with knowledge not found in churches.  Especially not these days.  Do I think there was a scheme to control us with stories that were altered to suit those who wished control? Most definitely, there's just too many flaws and tears in the veil of wonder we call the Bible.  

I personally witness the amazing workings of the human body every day in my profession.  I take ultrasound pictures and measurements of the heart and compile a report for the Cardiologists to review.  I take approximately 70 digital clips for each patient I see.  When you see what we are made of and how intricately the design was concieved that everything should work together, it is humbling.  All this did not just happen.  Though I had a patient recently who desperately wants to believe that everything is made up of chance; because her recent diagnosis of cancer, had her questioning her own finality.  Personally, I can't deny there is a grand design and a creator beyond our meager imaginations.  It's that very thing that gives me the most hope actually.  For as I have told many a patient as I let them peak inside at their hearts.  If someone or something is that grand and in control; I'm alright with that.

Here's the story of the"Helping Hand" for your review.  Just a more than small encounter with someone who wanted to share....something.  In a time where so much seems surreal and out of control, it does bring questions of a design that we're not priveleged to.  Full of theory and speculation; but with just enough that is familiar and profound to make you wonder.

Here's the first line in this conversation:

"Every so often, as per the directives of the Law of our Creator, a brief window of opportunity opens, whereby a select handful of our Family are required to make communication with our subjects, and offer you the chance to ask us any questions you would like answered. "

http://home.comcast.net/~readingnews/Hidden_Hand.html