Grief Chapter V

Here is my first post on grief, a subject which lent the final push to creating my blog.  My mother passed away almost five months ago.  It feels more like a couple of months but then, death and grief have put me in a time warp.  So while this is my first time writing about losing Mom, its certainly not Chapter I.  I'd say the first four chapters are written on my heart.  Full of tears, memories, joy, guilt, gratitude, longing, love, peace and heartache so crushing it physically feels like a concrete block was placed on my chest.  That is the mystery of grief, how one can feel all of that in the same day, sometimes within the same few moments. 

Today's chapter touches on something a little heavy that should lighten the heart - the fact that love does conquer death.  This is about the times I have felt my mom with me.  I know that sounds like wishful thinking to those who have no faith in the spirit surviving the body.  Its not my job to convince anyone.  And yes, it certainly is something I would wish for but this is more about experience (defined as having tested before) than it is about manifestation (defined as creating by one's own hands).  

I know I'm not the only one who has had those moments when the thought of someone enters your mind out of the blue and within seconds, the phone rings and that person is on the line.   At some level people know (no matter how uncomfortable or curious it is to admit it), these occurances are too much of a coincidence to be a coincidence, especially when they recur over and over.  I always chalked it up to that "fourth dimension" full of happenings that science can't yet explain but yet ordinary Joes experience, lumped under a heading called "paranormal" which runs the gamut from sensing something beyond the five senses, to psychosomatic healing, to the quack who can channel his duck.  I've never channeled an animal but many times, I'd think of mom out of the blue and the phone would ring at just that moment.  It was a unique, odd sensation that I got used to.  

So now I will tell you that over the past few months, I have had that same exact feeling.  In full disclosure, an intimate moment of comfort (out of the blue) preceded and made me conscious of that feeling once more. It pops in there, uninvited, originating from somewhere outside my consciousness.  And I know in that moment she is thinking of me.  Wherever she is, in whatever form she lives on, I am on my mother's mind.  I've no doubt that if there was such a thing as supranatural cellular service, there would be ringing.  And amazingly for a moment, its as if she hasn't left me. 

The truth of what previously was to me just an adage, a trite one at that, becomes evident - that love is so powerful, it surpasses all things, even death.  I understand that today in a way I don't think possible for me before.    There is a knowing in the depth of my soul of how strongly connected we are and will remain for eternity.  That there are powers that break the barriers of the physical world as we know it.

Then there are days like today where I just feel an immense void because this beautiful woman who loved me like no other ever will, moved on to where she was supposed to go, where we will all journey and where I can't yet follow.  And fresh tears fall, and my chest feels heavy and I miss her like crazy.  But that writes the next chapter in grieving.