I am not sure why, but I am hyper aware of my mom right now. Though she died in 2003 her life and her death continue to shape me. I just had my 61st birthday and I always knew this would be a big year for me, because I am sure at this point in her life she had emphysema and was most likely growing cancer cells in her lungs. I am going to tell this story from the end to beginning.
In August of 2003 I received a phone call from my mom:
Mom: “I am going to die today and I just wanted to say goodbye.”
Me: “Are you scared?”
Mom: “No, death is just a doorway and I am ready to go through it.”
Me: “Will you send me some kind of sign to let me know you are okay?”
Mom: “I will if I can.”
That night, around 2 a.m. her soul left her body, though not without some humor. My mom lived in Alaska and I live in Montana. I couldn’t be with her because I chose to go visit her when she was first diagnosed with cancer. I couldn’t afford two flights to Alaska. Anyways as she was getting close to death, she started laughing. My aunt asked her what was so funny and she said, “They are telling jokes in my ear.”
My aunt asked her who was telling the jokes, “Mom and Dad,” she responded.
That next morning, an old music box in the shape of a grand piano started playing. It had been my great grandmother’s. It didn’t work when my mom gave it to me and it doesn’t work now, but it played for three days after she died. Thats just life with a mom who was a suicidal psychic.
Just a few months prior, in May of 2003 I received another phone call from my mom. Her voice was elated when she said, “Guess what! I got my ticket out. I have cancer and the doctor said I only have 3 months to live.” Of course I was shocked and surprised, for some reason that she was so happy to get out of here. As soon as I could I flew up to Anchorage because we both decided it was better for me to see her alive than come when she was dead or in active dying. When I got there, we had some beautiful conversations. She told me that life had always been a struggle for her. That she had never felt like she had any say in her own life. She longed to be with her parents how had died decades ago. She confessed to me that she would talk to them when she was in the shower. They could communicate more easily through the water.
She also told me at the time, that when she was a young woman she felt like she didn’t have any choice in the direction her life. She came of age in the late 50s. Then she told me that if she had felt she had a choice, she would have been a career woman. Whether it was the culture or the times or her family in particular, she felt the only career she could have was to be a teacher or a nurse. She went to nursing school and wound up on the children’s ward. She told me it was awful because as an empath and a psychic, when children came in sick or suffering, it was more then she could bare. The final straw was caring for a little boy who had been burned so badly that she died. She quite nursing and became a bartender, which honestly seems torturous for an empath.
She also told me that if she felt she had a choice, she never would have gotten married, nor would she have had children. Of course that wounded me at the time, because had she not had children, I wouldn’t have existed. Now I understand things differently. I have come to understand, that if my soul really wanted to be born at this time, I would have found other parents. On some level, her saying this surprised me, even though it explained a lot. She was sure to instill in me the notion that I didn’t have to get married, or have children and that I could accomplish any thing I set my mind to. I remember he celebrating when the pill was developed when I graduated from highschool gave me a photocopied booklet, “101REASONS CUCUMBERS ARE BETTER THAN MEN”.
Ultimately this conversation, because it explained so much about how powerless she felt, led me to have great compassion for her. Instead of being angry at her for leaving us when I was in highschool, I realized that all of the things that she did while I was a child. were a reaction to feeling powerless. I was also super grateful to her for empowering me.
While I was there, I also came to understand how much she hid who she was. Growing up and even to the end of her days, she hated to have her picture taken. There are very few pictures of her where doesn’t cover her face and very few pictures where she looked truly happy.
We always knew she was psychic because she would know that someone died before we would get the call and she would always know who was calling on the phone when it rang. Even as a child, I remember her being fascinated with UFOs. We would sleep outside in our yard together and we would scan the skies for UFO. One of my favorite memories from our last visit was when she took me into her library. I was stunned.
At that time I was just starting to explore spiritual phenomenom, recincarnation, healing and mediumship. She had a library full of spiritual and metaphysical books. She had the Reincarnation of Bridey Murphy, several books by the “Sleeping Prophet”, Edgar Casey. Books on Ufos and other stuff that I had never heard of. I asked her why she never spoke about her interests and she said that people were afraid of things they couldn’t understand, so she had to hide her interests and her gifts.
Again, as someone who was just starting to explore things beyond the five sense, I realized what a phenomenom my mother was. I was also beginning to realize the physical and emotional costs of supressing our authenticty. Ever since that visit, through my work with people, I understand the cost of this suppression. Not only to her but to the countless others who have gifts and interests that are beyond the mainstream.
It also helped me to understand the coping mechanisms she used to supress who she was. She was a night owl. Looking back I understand now, that nighttime and during what some people call the “witching hour”, are psychiclly quieter times. I prefer to go to bed early and get up early so I can enjoy the quiet in those early mornings hours. I also now understand why, when she did go to sleep, she always had a radio or the television going. There are times in my life when, I feel like I need to have sound going while I sleep. Its not that I am afraid, it feels more like it blocks the interference from other dimensions.
The major coping mechanism my mother used was alcohol. My dad said more recently that he thought she might have been a closet alcholic, hiding it from all of us. But around the time she left us and afterwards, she drank a lot. There must have been some impulse to be more authentic. And for whatever reason, she supressed it. It was also at that time, when she was drinking a lot and had moved into a tiny apartment and told us to stay with our dad, that one of her friends told me that she had tried to kill herself, by running her car into a tree. When I confronted her about it, she told me how bummed she was that she wasn’t successful.
There wasn’t much talk at those times, (the early 80s) about depression, addiction or suicide and I think it was so shocking to me that I couldn’t understand. I think I quickly encapsulated it into a hidden part of my psyche and only now as so many people battle depression, addiction and suicide have I been able to process it.
By the time my mother died, she had been sober for many years, but without the coping mechanism of the alcohol buffer, she became a recluse. She was easily overwhelmed by people. I remember taking her to a mall in Seattle once and she had to sit on a bench in a corner, just to cope.
The next part of the story comes a bit from my own memories but also from tidbits of information my father shared with me. I have memories of being very small and my brother and I making our own food and sitting on the counter drinking beer. My dad was a railroader and he worked really odd hours. He said that he would come home and my brother and I would have had to fend for ourselves. He said when I was an infant he would come home to me crying in my crib, with soiled diapers and my mom would be sleeping. Only with hindsight did he realize that she was depressed. So depressed that all she wanted to do was sleep. She was too depressed to get out of bed to take care of us.
Also with hindsight I get the sense she may have had post-partem depression. She potentially was also depressed after having me because when she was 16 she got pregnant and she and the boy eloped. Her father found her, got the priest to annull the marriage and then took the child away from her and gave it up for adoption. She had some resentments against her father for sure.
As I walk, stumble, fly and run through the next year of my life, I know I inherited many of my mom’s gifts. I have different coping mechanisms than she did and my wish is that her death will not have been in vain. We are living in times where there is shocking percentage of the U.S. population that would like to take us back to a time when women lived lives of “quiet desperation”. Because of what she instilled in me, in spite of her suffering, I must use whatever time and breath I have left to speak, act and write in standing for Truth and Justice and Equality.
What a touching story! I think time and reflection provides the opportunity for us to have a more expansive and inclusive understanding. We are all so precious.
I love this, what a remarkable story! I don’t love what she went through - like your mom said people, fear what they don’t know & this world has numbed itself. Once upon a time your mother would’ve been in the center of society, a leader.