This is what I’m learning about the Soul from my mother who is forgetting more than she is remembering.
The Soul never stops working on your behalf, no matter how old you are. Your physical body may age, but your soul is ageless.
My mom is in her fourth chapter of life, the one that comes after the wisdom years of being a Crone, where the veil between life and the great beyond becomes less and less defined, where reality and vivid dreams cross paths and sometimes merge. This is my observation any way.
Mostly I’m incredulous at the daily pronouncements my mother makes. She rewrites history to suit her current vision, a historical revisionist, I say. She talks about my dad, who recently passed, in glowing terms. He would spend his last nickel on me, she says, and give me whatever I wanted. He would spend it on you too, she says. When the time comes, she announces she wants to be buried in his favorite dress, which is a sleeveless blue cocktail dress, by the way. Do I include the 4-inch heels? I would bury her in pink, her favorite color, and make sure she had a jacket on because she’s always cold. No, that’s not what dad liked, she says. After a while of this, I say I think she is looking back with rose- colored glasses. Her response…well, it was rosy. It was perfect, she says. What was not to like about it, she asks? My jaw drops open. What about my experience I wonder to myself?
For a split second my past is erased. My body relaxes into this whitewashing of reality. What’s not to like? It makes emotional healing so much easier. Why dwell on the pain of the past? Then I snap out of it incredulous again.
My recollection was of a dad who yes, spent his money on your every wish, but also could not keep a nickel in his pocket or a job, at least not while I was young and lived there. I never knew what occupation to write in on my school contact forms because his job changed every year, construction, sales, trucking. There was never a steady flow of income in our household on his part. Money was here, and money was gone. Mom was the stable income earner. My ears still ring with the sound of loud arguments, my mom wanting him to get a “regular” job. Her anger and frustration spilled out onto me. One time she drove me around an adjacent neighborhood looking for housing and asked if I would go with her if she left. Yes, I said. I silently willed her to do it. They were close to divorce more than once.
This is only the tip of my experience living in a house of secrets and facades.
Now I’m frustrated. I want to ask her questions about the past. Questions I feel would help me fill in gaps and potentially heal old wounds. I know now I won’t get an honest answer. I will get the answer from a different colored lens.
My first inclination is to think she is losing her mind and her sense of reality. She can’t really remember and is absorbing the way everyone else saw my dad, an over-giver in many ways, offering to bring neighbors groceries up the stairs, taking the older ladies to appointments, and, yes, giving you his last nickel. Everyone thought he was the best, so now she does too. With death you remember and emphasize the good, not the bad. Cheekily I would say her anti-anxiety medication is working.
I take myself out of the family equation. As hurtful as it is, this is not about me. It’s about her and him.
As I listen to her, I’ve come to realize she is appreciating my dad in ways she never did while he was living. She is recognizing how he contributed to her overall well-being. His worst qualities no longer matter. She is reconciling the past like a ledger in a bank book. Focusing on the positive things about him makes her happy and makes her believe her marriage was successful despite the bumps and trenches along the way.
This may all be true, is true. But on closer observation, I’m thinking the Soul has a hand in what’s happening in the final chapter of her life before her next transition.
My mom is making Peace with her Soul.
She is still learning Soul lessons. She is kinder and gentler. She laughs more. Her Soul is helping her come to an inner peace that has until now alluded her. As her mind is slowing down, her soul is still expanding. It has a contract to fulfill, one she signed on to at birth. Your Soul never gets tired, never slows down, never ages. She is infirm, but her soul is as vibrant and radiant as ever.
The Soul wants resolution. It is giving her an understanding she couldn’t have previously when the stress of everyday life and anxiety took over. She was too busy surviving. She is no longer frustrated by my dad’s daily activities allowing compassion to take center stage, generally not her strength. She acknowledges out loud that she wasn’t perfect, she ignored his complaints and didn’t listen to him, doing exactly as she pleased. Is she working on forgiving herself? Perhaps.
Her Soul is preparing the way for her transition to the next chapter, where higher consciousness and the Soul become One. It is healing and mending, bringing her peace.
Who am I to judge this process?
More and more she tells me how she is being kind to others, giving them pennies to pay a bill or freely giving a hug. Do you know what happened, she asks? That same woman came out into the parking lot and hugged me too! She is surprised by the kindnesses coming back at her.
Strangely I feel comforted by a radiant, ageless, timeless soul always working on my behalf, helping me transition to the next level, and the next and the next. Giving me lessons and experiences I may not currently appreciate like my mom erasing my painful history. In time I trust I will comprehend the why. It certainly is bringing me to a deeper healing I’m still exploring. And with greater compassion.
Our Souls are radiant, ageless, and timeless. It remembers why we are here, our entire soul journey, and knows what still needs to be resolved in preparation for lasting peace.
This is what I believe I now know.
