How my Meditation Practice Reunited me with My Mother
My mother was the most beautiful person I had ever
seen. As a child, I wanted nothing more
than to be just like her. She had what I
only later recognized as the innocence of a child. And she loved people like a child – without
reservation or judgment. Not to say that
she was perfect. She was also very
emotional and could give you the silent treatment for an unbearable length of
time. Like a child.
Despite this, I always knew that she loved me and that she
would love me no matter what I did. I
was perplexed by her poise when I would tell her my dark secrets, as she sat
and listened, unfazed. I was stunned
that she would love me just the same. I was mesmerized by her aplomb as she
faced terminal cancer, also mostly appearing to be unfazed, with a wisdom and
invincible strength I had never seen. Anywhere.
As was her wont, she died in dramatic fashion. Home with hospice, it was a Tuesday. We all knew the end was near. Her cancer had spread to her brain, creating
the electrical storms of grand mal seizures.
Big and bad. After the violent
convulsions, there is a period of rigidity and a loss of consciousness where
the body goes limp. As we sat and
watched, we all breathed a huge sigh of relief that the seizure was over… relieved that she had not injured herself –
the irony?! – and relieved that it was over.
Until the third one. As her body
lay limp after the third seizure, relief turned to panic with the realization
that it was truly over. She was dead.
Even writing that now, 26 years later…. Dead…. I gasp. If you have ever watched anyone or anything
take its last breath, you know how utterly inconceivable it is. One moment you are here and the next you are
gone. Like a terrible magic trick of the
mind.
After she died, all I wanted to do was sleep. It was in my dreams that I could find her,
the best part of her, the way I wanted to remember her. In those initial dreams she was her best
self. In the light of day, her closest
friends all claimed that she spoke to them.
Was she also speaking to me? I
didn’t believe them. If she was talking
to anyone, it would be me. It never
crossed my mind that she was talking to me in my dreams or that I could choose
to find her, remember her love in the present tense.
Especially because over time, she became sick in my
dreams. I was losing her all over
again. I thought it was my mind finding
a way to let her go slowly, in my own time.
Then for many, many years, I had heartbreaking dreams where she was
still alive – she had never died but she was sick and hiding out. She didn’t want to see me. I was the only
person she didn’t want to see. I felt betrayed and bereft as I frantically
chased a ghost, chasing after the safety of unconditional love.
These dreams always came at a time when I felt vulnerable. Had that “I want my mommy” feeling that never
goes away, even when I wasn’t aware of it. Especially then. I would wake to the feeling that I need
support that I can’t find anywhere.
And then something magical happened. I took an online course with Sally Kempton on
the Wisdom Goddesses. The first week was
Durga, the divine mother. I wasn’t
thinking about my mother. I haven’t
thought of myself as grieving for my mother for a very long time. I had simply ASSumed that missing her was a
natural part of my life. So when I was doing the meditation, I didn’t make a
connection.
“Oh, goddess Durga,
you whose form is love, wisdom and invincible strength,
Please reveal
yourself within me. Let me feel your
presence, whether in my body, my heart or my mind. Let me know you as my own self. Let me feel your presence in the world.”
After just a few days of this, I had another dream. A crazy good dream. I was on some pier that I don’t recognize in
real life, bustling with happy people. I
was chatting on my cell phone. And
suddenly a gigantic, cartoonish, dreamlike whale/dolphin breached right next to
me, and looked me right in the eyes, impossibly close to me… right by the
pier?! I dropped my phone and it clattered onto the pier and into the ocean. And I didn’t care. It was then that I
realized I had been on the phone chatting with my mother, in that casual way
where you talk about nothing when you know you have forever. And somehow it clicked. I DO have her forever so long as I open my heart,
open my field of awareness to all that is.
Now those dreams, those terrible dreams where she is still
here and rejecting me, are gone. Now when I find myself feeling unsupported, I
remind myself that that is a lie. A terrible trick of the mind. And instead, I
remember the feelings of unconditional love and allow myself to feel the
vulnerability of that. I remember that being supported means being open to
feeling loved. It is with the innocence
of a child that I choose magic, the field of awareness, the field of love. And I realize, my dream has come true: I have become just like my mother.
Xo,
Leslie Kazadi
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