I am here to report that I have been changed by the death of my 22-year-old daughter Teal. And I have gratitude for this change, for I believe I will emerge a better person.Teal died recently of an unexplainable cardiac arrest after six days of being kept alive by life support. What such a radical experience of the quickness of life and the finality of death does for you is put you on notice, basically.Now I suddenly find myself naturally living all the time in my Higher Self, and through no thought or inclination of my own. It’s just happening. I am on my best behavior, looking out for all around me as I begin to see that we are all in this short life together. Gone is the natural piggish inclination I have always bungled through life with, and it is replaced with a new humility.
I am now officially one with God and so must behave accordingly for that is the only way that feels right.
And it is a natural thing, this super-caring. It first came to me as I sat with Teal in the hospital one afternoon as she was dying. We were alone in room as ten different monitors whirred quietly, displaying their digital directives around us. She remained unconscious and her body was encased with tubes, and bandages; the medical team caring for her still operated as if she would live. Yet I knew in my heart that she would die. The ethereal version of Teal had already told me she would cross over soon.
Something happened between us in those moments that I can barely explain. It was so tender and intimate, the wordless exchange between us. It was as if a knowing passed between us – a knowing that life is to be trusted, all of it – the good, the bad and the desperately sad. And it was not unlike the knowing that passed between us the morning she was born, as her tiny, swaddled self was laid on my chest and she calmly looked me in the eye.
I felt lifted out of my old way of being in that stillness. All at once I knew there was no longer anything to be feared in this waking, walking life. Not even death – and not even the death of one so beloved as my girl. I could simply trust the surrender I was experiencing and know that God is, indeed, always benevolent.
I understood that every path leads to growth and expansion ultimately. And that, as they say in the movie The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, “Everything will work out in the end, and if it hasn’t then it is not yet the end.” I also understood that even the path of grieving and sadness has its own beauty and even majesty. There is power and magic to claim in the tears we all must cry in this short life. And this is nothing more than the power and magic of claiming life completely.
It really would be a great disservice to avoid grieving, or to practice a handy spiritual bypass and be too evolved for some good, gut-wrenching sobs. In fact, what I am experiencing now is not just the grief of losing Teal but other, unexpressed grief as well such as a recent break up that hadn’t been properly grieved. And in a way, as sad as I feel when I wake up every morning, I can also appreciate the tenderness and beauty of this sadness.
The thing is that such grief knits us all more tightly together. The outpouring on Facebook of love and support for me, Teal, and our family has been stunning … And it would not be happening, of course, if we could not feel our humanity in times like this.
So this is how I have been changed most dramatically. Like everyone else in this little planet, I was born from love and will return to that love when I die. And yet in between … well, let’s just say there’s be a considerable bit of struggle. And I know I’m not alone here – for this is what we do.
We forget about that natural ground of being, that pure state of love and consciousness we swim in at birth, and we get busy making our lives so difficult. And so very much of it has to do with our hearts. We close them, again and again, to each person we disagree with, are afraid of, or feel vulnerable or exposed with. We make the world wrong, and ourselves along with it, until we begin to hate everything except a few primal pleasures.
We forget that we spring from the great primordial soup together, and that we must swim around this tiny ball, hopefully not doing too much damage as we bump into each other. For that afternoon as I left Teal in her unconsciousness, I knew this and I still do. That day I felt nothing less than the love of Jesus in my heart.
As I walked out of her room and down the hospital corridors, I observed them all — the orderlies and nurses, the mopping custodian, intent looking doctors and weary med students, the occasional homeless person — with a new empathic tenderness. These people were my people … and in fact, they are your people, too. But only if you can open up your heart and claim them. Only if you are bold enough to understand that you are not any more special than anyone else. And that all of us, strangers and friends alike, need each other desperately.
The judgments that you may have grown up with, those you harbor against others and most of all against yourself, are simply illusions, dear friend. There is nothing to them, for they are simply stories — just wisps of consciousness you created in self- protection. And they get bitter and brittle over time until eventually, they turn to dust when you die.
Do not lose sight of your beautiful heart, dear one, for it is your direct link to God. Here you will reclaim yourself, but only if you are willing.
So please ask yourself … can you open up and love the rest of us? That is the only question that truly matters here and now, in the quick of life.
