Three years after my mother died, she came back to give me one last birthday gift.
It was my birthday, June 27; I was at an event with people I knew and people I didn't.
At night there was a big celebration, a costume ball and I was dressed as a dragon.
The night before, I'd sung/performed a concert that became one of the most magical experiences of my life. By the end, the audience was dancing, laughing, completely alive. I felt deeply seen.
Out of nearly a hundred people, I found myself searching for only two women. Olga, a beautiful and well-dressed Guatemalan woman, whose gentle presence felt instantly maternal. and Myrna, 86 years old, whose embrace reminded me of my grandmother. I didn't know why. I simply trusted it.
All through the next morning I kept having tears come out of my eyes. I was feeling my mother's presence. Three years prior my mother died on June 28.
She had Alzheimer's and, in the end, she went into hospice, but she held on for almost a month with pretty much zero food or water. It defied science.
And as we got closer to my June 27 birthday three years ago, I prayed, mom don't do this to me, don't let me remember my birthday and your death on the same day. So, she waited one day and died instead on June 28. She listened.
There I was at this event with tears and lots of confusion and angst and I didn't know what was going on. I felt so complete at the end with my mother. I worked through our relationship my entire life. And her last three years I was able to heal so much. And when she was no longer able to speak or communicate, my partner and I would go play music - we communicated with her through music since she was a musician.
And in her state of Alzheimer's, she became so lovely and innocent. We would look at each other and say, "I love you." For the first time in our lives, Alzheimer's gave us that. Alzheimer's took almost everything. Yet somehow... It gave us our first "I love you."
When it came to her time in the last weeks, I was able to meet her as a Shaman and pray over her and help her find her way to the rainbow bridge. It was incredibly beautiful and powerful. I truly felt complete and healed. Very grateful.
So here I am at this event sitting in all this emotion and confusion.
Most of the morning had been spent with some of the 91 attendees raising their hands asking questions of ZaZar, a sixth dimensional ET being that channeled through Marilyn Gewacke. I love ZaZar and receive enormous amount of wisdom and humor from him.
As the questions continued and the hands were raised, I felt this thing building inside of me.
Finally, I raised my hand because I thought, I've got to get out of this, whatever this is. It is so distracting and I'm feeling this upset and confusion, but I don't know where it's coming from. I raised my hand. I had no idea what was about to happen.
And so, I said into the microphone, some things about the experience I was sitting in. I also mentioned my two dogs, my two fur-girls who I love beyond any kind of love. And after my childhood, I swore I would never abandon anyone close to me in my life who had earned it, and that if I was ever a guardian - like I am to my fur babies - I would be an exceptional mom. And I am. I'm firm, however I'm a great mom, and those fur-girls know they are loved, seen, heard, and cared for.
Then ZaZar interrupted. "Come stand in the center." Olga came. Then Myrna. One stood on each side of me. They wrapped their arms around me. And I began to cry.
The message continued: "Your mother is here." "She says she's sorry." And, I knew it was true, I had been feeling my mom around me in the room all day. I hadn't felt my mother since the day she died. And here we were three years to the day of her passing, and suddenly there she was. Everything inside me broke open. "She is so proud of you and of who you've become."
It meant the world to me to hear this. There was so much peace, so much gratitude, so much energy pouring out of me while these two beautiful women one in her 60s and one in her 80s held me, while ZaZar gazed into my eyes and cried together; our faces were wet.
Of all the birthday gifts .... and I love birthdays. I love being celebrated, I love cards. I love gifts. I love the songs, the cakes, the surprises, all the things... Because I think everyone deserves to know how happy we are that they were born and that they're here... This exchange was the greatest gift ever.
I had no idea that there was still grief inside me. I truly thought I was complete. I believe my mother facilitated that on my behalf so I would be cleaner and lighter going forward.
Hearing her say she was so sorry, I knew she meant it. I knew those words weren't coming from the frightened, wounded woman who had lived on Earth. They came from the fullness of who she had become after returning Home.
Looking back, I often wonder if beneath all her neurosis and pain was simply an extraordinarily sensitive soul who never knew how to live in this world. Perhaps if she'd felt safer... if she'd known her sensitivity was a gift instead of a burden... our story might have unfolded differently. I'll never know. Mom was born September 26, 1932 and raised in a different era where emotions were still seen as a weakness. But today, I see her with far more compassion than I ever could before.
I have such reverence that she came back on her death-day to do this for me. To help me to let go more.
I've learned that grief isn't a story. It's energy. It asks to be felt, moved, released. And when it finally leaves the body, what remains isn't emptiness. It's space. Freedom. Joy. Capacity for more love.
Three years ago, I thought my mother gave me one final birthday gift by waiting until the day after my birthday to leave this world. This year, she gave me another.
She came back, not so I could remember how she died...But so I could finally remember how deeply we loved each other.
