Loss

My mother passed from this earthly plane two weeks ago. Hers was a conscious process of transitioning, as she shed the baggage of this and other lifetimes, clearly determined to leave this plane light – and free.

I am observing the language and rituals of death and musing on what they really mean. For example, so many people have said to me “Sorry for your loss”. They seem quite perplexed at my own perplexed stare, behind which is my silent “Loss? What loss?” For if we truly believe in eternal life, how can the onward journey of those we love be a loss? How can her spirit, which I feel with me and part of me all the time, be considered lost?

Her final gift to me was to demonstrate beyond any doubt that we are moving on to a joyous place. She was happy, indeed impatient, to get going on this new journey. She was like a child, who on a trip to some wonderful place, is packed and ready before everyone else, and who constantly, excitedly and impatiently asks “Can we go now?” “Relax and be patient Mummy” I would say to her, as I have said so many times to my own children, and as she said to me when I was a child.

Yet, as I adjust to a new phase of my life without her physical presence (what we siblings now term the “new normal”), I am reminded that this was not her final lesson at all. For I continue to receive guidance and wisdom from her: when I ask myself “What would Mummy say or do”; in the sharing of what she meant in other people’s lives; in the stories and anecdotes many of which are new to me; in the new insights I am having about memories long forgotten, but now revived. My mom gave me so many things. She gave me lessons in her words and deeds. She gave me memories. She gave me life. These things are still and will always be with me.

And was it not my dear mother who would say to me so many times “Nothing is ever lost; everything is in its divinely ordered place?” Everything and everyone is in its divinely ordered place. My mother is in her divinely ordered place. There is no loss when we know that life is eternal. Once we believe this, there is no loss in death – only the temporary, seeming absence on one plane. But the presence on all planes abides.