One of the things I am most thankful for this Thanksgiving was the opportunity for Clare and I, just the two of us, to decorate turkey sugar cookies. Charles wanted to work out at the Y and he offered to take Nathan and Olivia with him. Thank you, Charles! I forgot what a gift one-on-one time with each of my children is. The cookie recipe we used was my grandmother's recipe. I had never tried making this recipe before, and although she is gone from our physical presence, I am convinced her love still lives. As we were icing and carefully placing a chocolate chip for the eye, and candy corn for the feathers, and red hots for the turkey's waddle, I shared with Clare my memories of cooking with my grandma, all the wonderful dishes she would make for the holidays, and some of the little moments that were special about being with family. As we were sharing the memories and talking about what kind of woman she was, and what it was like to be her granddaughter, I could see Clare putting all the connections together. She really got that her great-grandmother was my father's mother, and that is what made her my grandmother. And she began to figure out that my father had siblings and that is what made them my aunts and uncles. You could literally "see" the family tree growing not just in her mind, but in her heart. And I could really sense that Clare felt that she was a part of that tree, and together we all make up the Tree of Life and Love. Every limb, the trunk, every branch, every leaf, every ring, a new generation. She got that she was part of something larger, something beyond her, something deeper and higher that has touched her, and formed her, and made her who she is. As we finished the cookies, she was asking more questions about death, and what I believed about death. I told her what my thoughts were, and that I believed that even though people leave their bodies behind, everything about them remains alive. I shared with Clare one of my last conversations with my grandmother by phone. My grandmother kept repeating that she would never forget me and that she would always be there. I tried to explain to her that the parts of us that are forever are the way she loved us, the wonderful things she taught us, and the fun we had together. I also shared with Clare that I believe that the people that have gone before us are still with us, and that when we suddenly think of them, or remember something about them, that is their way of reminding us that they are near to us.
After we finished the cookies, we moved on to the stuffing recipe that Grandma used to make. We got all the ingredients, and as I was about to finish preparing the stuffing, Clare excused herself to go to the restroom. I was just about to put the celery and onion mixture into the bread crumbs, and I heard my Grandma say You forgot the apples! Sure enough. I totally forgot about the apples! Clare came back and I told her I had forgotten to put in the apples. Immediately Clare said, Mom, Olivia ate the last apple! Now what are we going to do! Wondering which store might be open to buy some apples, I went into the refrigerator to put the eggs away and noticed a container shoved to the back. A container with small packages of apples already peeled. They were the little individual servings of apples that I put in the kid's lunch boxes. Grab a scissors, Clare, and start opening the bags. We have apples! Thanks, Grandma!
The holidays can be a time when our grief becomes heightened, and our awareness of loss feels more intense. The season of Christmas is all about celebrating love, and we want to have all of our loved ones with us. It can feel as if the Tree of Life and Love is missing a very significant branch. We still long to hand a present to the loved one who now takes a place in the Larger Tree of Life and Love. We want to hold them close and whisper Merry Christmas in their ear. We want to sing our favorite carols with them. We want to sit with them at the Christmas church service, and hold their hand as we pray the Lord's Prayer. We want to sit down at the table and eat the turkey and mashed potatoes and ask them to please pass the stuffing. We want to listen to their bad jokes and give them a hard time about their football team that lost the big game. We simply want them with us.
As I was going back through my journals in preparation for my next book, I found an entry from another time in my life when I was struggling with the loss of my father, whose passing from this world was December 7th, 1987. In the entry, I literally ask God to tell me about death and this was the response I got.
I really don't have to tell you, Susie. You are living it, experiencing it, and deep inside you, you already know. You've simply forgotten. There is nothing secretive or mysterious about it. People have created and maintained a fearful. mysterious "idea" about death. People fear it because of their deep and natural attachment to a spirit's physical body. Leaving behind a physical body only seems fearful, unnatural, and frightening because people have forgotten that death is a beautifully ordinary, yet a magnificent, loving act. It is as joyful to die as it is to be born. You must think of your spirit as larger, stronger, and more pronounced than the body. Your spirit can never die. It is forever. It is pure love, and love lives forever. Your spirit takes on the form of a body in order to learn how to love deeper, more fully, and more effectively. Your spirit takes on a body in order to learn how to love everyone. Shedding the physical form of a body feels as normal as removing your coat. If you've ever been caught in a downpour of rain with no protection, and you were wearing jeans, you know how heavy those soaked jeans feel. Taking off those jeans is a relief and wearing dry jeans makes you feel light and warm again. Death is just like this. It is a relief. It is warm. It is light. It feels comfortable. And you feel "right" again. There is nothing final about death. There is nothing fearful about death. There is nothing unloving at all about death.
Watching a baby come into the world is the same as watching someone leave this world. It is a happy, joyful occasion, a time to celebrate, shed tears and embrace a new future. Just as a body labors to bring a new life into the world, a body also labors to release our spirit into a new world, fresh possibilities, and untouched adventures. When a loved one dies, they don't "go to a place outside themselves". They simply arrive in a place that already exists within them. There is a world inside us that is already peaceful, without pain, empty of all fear, full of the brightest light, and the purest form of love. Immediately, you are ushered into the fullness of healing. Human beings are so used to looking "up" to heaven. Death is an act of remembering to look "in" , a remembering of who you already are. Death is simply a change of focus, from focusing on our body, to being fully present and focused upon, and fully embracing, love and contentment. No one has to die to get "there". No one has to earn "there". You are there everyday of your life. When you die, you are made "more" of who you are...and your "more-ness" is change and happiness. Beneath the weight of grief for the physical presence of your loved ones, lies the light-ness and the more-ness of happiness. Whenever you cry tears for your loved one, those tears dissolve everything in your relationship that isn't real,which is the body, and the parts of you that aren't me, until all that remains is happiness and love. Bodies are temporary, happiness and love are not. Death doesn't separate. Death doesn't part anyone from us. Death doesn't honor time. Death does not bow before the altar of age. The body absorbs the cold and the lifeless parts of us so the spirit can rise, warm, safe, and alive. Death doesn't have to end communication, but simply changes the way in which we do it with each other. You don't have to look up when you think of a loved one who is no longer with you in bodily form. Look around, listen for their whispers, feel them lay a hand on your shoulder. You can be as eager to die as you are to live. You don't go toward the light, the light flows more fully through you as you leave the denseness of the body behind. Watch an ice cube melt. Hold it right out of the freezer, cold and with a definite, rigid shape. As the warmth melts it, it has changed into something new, and yet still recognizable. What you learned to do with ice now becomes an opportunity to learn what you can do with warm water. Drink the warm, soothing waters of death in. Wash yourself in its resurrection. Feel it clean your mind of what this "friend of life" isn't. Follow its wave into paradise and become aware of its clarity. See your reflection in its ebb and flow and recognize Me, your Creator. Recognize you, the Created. The Tree of Life and Love grows near its shores. Let my light change the muddied waters of what you thought death was. Pray to understand and accept new thoughts about life and death. The way light changes under water is responsible for the under water atmosphere and it offers creative possibilities not found on land. (from seafriends.org)
Now I know why I didn't forget the apples. My grandmother is still a living part of the Tree of Life and Love. And that tree still remains, and will always remain, even in death, and both my grandmother and I still sit in its shade, still admire its beauty, still reside there together, and eat its fruit. It is the Tree of Life and Love that gives what we need, even apples that come in a bag. The death of a body offers us creative possibilities of communication, guidance, and love that we couldn't learn while physically together. Everything that I have taught myself in the past about death probably isn't right. And I must let God undo what I have done. Death cannot undo love. Death cannot unravel the golden cords of happiness.
Whoever you might be missing this holiday season, trust that they are with you. See their faces and feel their presence around your Christmas Tree, the Tree of Life and Love. Let the gentle breezes blow in and around the branches of your memories, stirring up the longings of your heart. Wrap your tree in the holy garlands of fresh knowledge and truth about the friend of life that death is. Let the winds move your thoughts in a new direction and raise you up on a fresh path. Feel its lights warm your inner self as they shine upon you in the spaces between its green-ness.
Written in loving memory of those resting beneath the Tree of Life and Love Richard Heavican, Martin and Bernice Heavican, Ed and Marie Prokes, John Augustine, Norma Uhlik
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