Celebrating a life

"Do something to celebrate her life," said Stephanie.
"Find a good memory and hold it until it glows," said Tammy.



I went to The Grotto, formally known as the National Sanctuary of our Sorrowful Mother, a Marian sanctuary maintained by the Servite Order. It seemed somehow fitting. Sorrowful Mother, indeed.

I wandered the acres of gardens, working my way to the grotto itself, featuring the replica of Michaelangelo's Pieta. And there I offered a prayer to the God of my grandmother, that if there be such a place as heaven, that my mother is there, that she is at rest, at peace. Surely someone who was as tormented as she was in life, deserves peace.

Then I went up to the meditation chapel, built high on its basaltic spire, with its glass wall facing north, overlooking north Portland, the Columbia River, Vancouver, and Mt St Helens. When I saw Mt St Helens, I knew I was in the right place...she had such an affinity for volcanos, and she had been living in Oregon when it blew 25 years ago. The chapel was deserted, and so I claimed a square of floor just before the glass panels. I sat lotus and sought samadhi with the white-capped volcano as my focus. And there, my face barely a foot from the glass, I did the most painful thing I have done in memory... I let myself feel. I do not know how to grieve. I know the stages, intellectually, but my self, its does not know how to grieve. It knows only loss, and pain, and the avoidance of both.

I let myself feel, and I held a memory in my mind, the memory of Mom brushing my hair when I was a child. I remembered the pleasure of the brush scraping lightly against my scalp and pulling gently at the roots of my hair, running down my back, and the waves of gooseflesh that ebbed and flowed with the rhythm of the brush... I remembered the sun on my face and on my skin, warming me as I sat naked before her, my knees pulled up under my chin. And I remembered her voice, her beautiful, mellifluous, soothing voice, saying "KellyRae..."

And then I cried, fearlessly, shamelessly. I allowed the tears to flow and for once, for once I did not chide myself, did not hate myself for crying. I did not allow Dad's voice with his hateful "Stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about" to intrude. When he rose to mind I banished him, and focussed again on Mom, on that golden moment when all was right in my world, and I knew my mother's love. I didn't try to push the feelings or the tears away, I let them come, I let them flow over and through me, all the while remembering her fingers on my hair, the slow sweep of the brush down my back, and her voice saying my name. KellyRae. KellyRae. And I was grateful for that one memory, and I held it until it glowed, and I wished into the light of my mother's love the first step in metta: May I be free from anger and hatred. May I be free from fears and anxiety. May I be free from pain and suffering. May I be free from ignorance and delusion. May I be happy and peaceful. May I experience Nirvana within. In that moment I believed, I truly felt--for the first time in memory--what I had always known: that she wanted me to be happy, she wanted me to be safe, that she wanted me to live, that she wanted me to know that moment for the rest of my life.

I do not know how long I was there... long enough for the tears to dry, long enough for the sky to darken, long enough for the setting sun to do its magic, changing St Helens from a snow-capped mountain into a purple confection with pink topping. Long enough to be emptied of remourse, of self-hatred, of grief. Long enough to find peace. I stood up, slightly dizzy, my legs aching a bit from the rush of blood, and looked down upon the lights of the city. I walked away from the meditation chapel knowing that the best celebration of my mother's life was... for me to truly live my own.