The following is an excerpt from our newest book, “A Mother’s Final Gift: How One Woman’s Courageous Dying Transformed Her Family.”
Three weeks before she passed from this world, my ninety-year-old mother, Louise Viola Swanson Wollenberg, began what she called her “greatest adventure of all.” It all started thirty-three years ago.
When I was twenty-seven years old, my mother came for a visit to our small rented home in Scotts Valley, California. One morning, she approached me and said, “Joyce, can we sit down together? I have something important to ask of you.”
I remember every detail of this moment as if it were yesterday. I even remember the brown jumper I was wearing, and the way I kept twisting my five-year-old wedding ring upon my finger as she spoke. She spoke firmly but gently, “When it’s my time to die, I want you to be excited for me. I’m not afraid to die. I feel that death will be my greatest adventure. When I lay dying, I want you to help me prepare for that great adventure. No matter how old I am, please know that I’ve had a good life and I’m grateful for all of it.”
I sat motionless, just staring at her, feeling that this wasn’t real. It just couldn’t be possible that she had just spoken those words. My mom was only fifty-six years old, active and in perfect health.
I looked at her with a shocked expression and said, “Mom, I could never be excited for you to die. That’s impossible!”
She smiled at me with compassion and said, “You’re my daughter, and I know you’ll find a way. I’m counting on you to be excited for me when I die.”
Throughout the next thirty three years, I contemplated her request. Sadness and an awful heaviness would flood my heart each time I thought about my mother dying. And then when I thought about her request that I also be excited for her in her dying adventure I would have the same thought, “No, that’s impossible. I couldn’t possibly honor that request.”
However nine years later, I found myself fully honoring my mother’s request as she lay dying in her little apartment above our garage. Hospice had moved a hospital bed into the living room of this apartment where she had lived for fifteen years. The apartment was right next door to our family home, and held many happy memories of family gatherings for Saturday pancakes and birthday parties. My parents had shared this home for seven years before my father died. The last family celebration that he attended was their own sixtieth wedding anniversary.
One day as I walked into the apartment, my mom excitedly announced, “My angel came to me very early this morning when I woke up. I’ve always believed in angels, but for the first time in my life I actually saw one! She was radiant like the sun, and the whole room was filled with love and light.”
My mother’s face was still shining as she continued, “My angel told me that soon it’ll be time for me to come back to my original home. She told me that I would be having wonderful and important experiences in the days before I died and she would be right here with me throughout the whole process. This is much more exciting to me than our trip to British Columbia or even my cruise to Sweden, my homeland. This will be my greatest adventure!”
Back home, I called our three children and asked them to come home for an important family meeting. That evening, sitting around our dining room table, I told them of Grandma’s request that we be excited about her dying process. At first our children, like me so many years ago, were aghast at such a request, but then they began to understand that this was very important to their grandmother. We all committed ourselves to approach her bedside with enthusiasm about her next great adventure. We decided that if one of us was feeling sad or burned out, we would get help from the others.
As we looked at each other that evening, we really had no idea of how deeply the next three weeks would impact our lives. They would be altered forever. We would never view death in the same way. As we gave my mother her final gift in honoring her dying process, she gave us her final gift of opening a window into eternity and allowing us to have a peek.
Over the next few weeks, our feelings soon turned into inspiration and awe as we each felt our lives being transformed by her dying process. None of us – Barry, Rami, Mira, John-Nuri or I – will ever be the same. We were allowed to be a witness to a sacred event, students in a miraculous schoolroom, as my mother communicated in her last three weeks all she was experiencing in her dying process.
This book is about one family’s journey toward transformation, and the inspiration we all felt by witnessing the great and intimate passage called death. It is also about the conscious path of caring for an elderly family member. This book is about overcoming fears, doubts and self imposed limits. Indeed, it is about acquiring the courage to love more fully.
With stunning clarity, she communicated to us in those last three weeks about where she was going, who she was seeing, how she was feeling, and the final instructions she was receiving. She saw and spoke of things that she couldn’t have possibly made up. I sat, notebook in hand, and recorded it all, even though it would be three months after her death that I first had the idea to write this book.
Each of those final days, as she prepared for her greatest adventure, our whole family learned more about life and death, love and pain, confusion and certainty, and our excitement for her grew as well. My hope is that my mother’s final gift, communicating and sharing the experience of her dying process, can bless your life as it has ours.
Joyce & Barry Vissell, a nurse/therapist and psychiatrist couple since 1964, are counselors near Santa Cruz, CA, who are widely regarded as among the world's top experts on conscious relationship and personal growth. They are the authors of The Shared Heart, Models of Love, Risk To Be Healed, The Heart’s Wisdom and Meant To Be.
Call Toll-Free 1-800-766-0629 (locally 831-684-2299) or write to the Shared Heart Foundation, P.O. Box 2140, Aptos, CA 95001, for free newsletter from Barry and Joyce, further information on counseling sessions by phone or in person, their books, recordings or their schedule of talks and workshops. Visit their web site at www.sharedheart.org/ for their free monthly e-heartletter, their updated schedule, and inspiring past articles on many topics about relationship and living from the heart.
Please join Joyce and me in holding a vision of a world where women, men and children of all nations, races and religions can see and feel the divine in themselves and one another. Here is our current 2011 workshop schedule. Joyce and I would love to see you at one of these events. Please remember how important this spiritual-emotional growth work is. Together let’s take another step on this journey into the heart of love and deeper awareness, where real world healing begins. Peace be with you all.
March 27-April 3, 2011
Hawaii “Couples in Paradise”
A week-long retreat just for couples that will transform your relationship. This retreat is for you if you’re ready and willing for a quantum leap in your relationship. The romantic quality of Hawaii and the luxury of having a full week together will make this retreat truly life changing for each couple that attends. We will focus on healing, renewal, communication, forgiving, deepening the sexual relationship and rising, not falling, in love with our partner. We will have couple meditations and yoga, inspiring music, laughter and thrilling sight-seeing – in short, an extraordinary heart-opening experience for you and your partner in the presence of dolphins, whales, giant sea turtles, a beautiful black sand beach and the nearby volcano, steam vents, and thermal warm ponds. Kalani Honua on the Hilo side of the Big Island. Music by Charley Thweatt. Tuition: $1950/couple. Lodging and meals: $1050-1820, depending on lodging option, includes 21 gourmet meals. More info…
April 13-17
Personal Mentorship Ending Retreat. Aptos, CA ... more info
April 30-May 1
Portland Couples Workshop
Location: Nanette and Joe’s studio in NE Portland. (503) 252-1451.
Times: Sat, 10am-6pm; Sun, 10am-5pm.
Cost per couple: (if paid in full by Apr 23) $495. $545 after Apr 23. $75 nonrefundable deposit. $150 nonrefundable after Apr 23. Payment plans, partial scholarships & work-exchanges available.
May 13-15
Women Living from the Heart Retreat
With Joyce at our home-center. Give yourself a true spiritual gift. Empower yourself to more fully express your divine feminine. The focus of this retreat will be the deepening of our connection with the sacred and the supporting of ourselves and each other as women to express all the beauty that is within us. Friday dinner to Sunday lunch. Cost (includes six vegetarian meals and either camping, bed-rolling or day use/local lodging): $295 if paid in full by May 6. $320 after May 6. $50 non-refundable deposit per person. $100 non-refundable after May 6.
May 27-30
Rowe, MA
East Coast “Couples Living From the Heart” Retreat. Memorial Day Weekend at Rowe Retreat Center in the beautiful Berkshire Mountains. Music by Scott Kalechstein. Call Rowe at 413-339-4954.
June 3-5
Esalen Institute, Big Sur, CA
The Shared Heart Retreat: The Couple's Journey to Wholeness. Learn skills to dramatically improve your relationship, while luxuriating at one of the most uniquely beautiful retreat centers we have ever visited. Work-trades or alternative lodging available. Phone: 831-667-3005. …more info
June 24-26
Summer Couples Retreat
Would you like your relationship to reach a new level of love, healing, intimacy and commitment? Cost (includes 6 vegetarian meals): $590/couple camping or day use if paid in full by Jun 17. $640 after Jun 17. Limited indoor accommodations, so please call early to reserve space.
July 10-15
Klamath River, CA
White Water Adventure Quest (for adults and children 6 and older) Our 21st annual Klamath River trip will again emphasize spiritual renewal, celebrating nature’s simplicity and beauty, family bonding, and having fun! We’ll journey for 5 days and 4 nights on Northern CA’s wild and scenic “middle” Klamath River. 25 participants max, so please plan ahead to avoid missing out on this trip of a lifetime. $795/adult and $675/youth.
July 17-22
Breitenbush Hot Springs, OR
Summer Renewal Retreat with music by Charley Thweatt. For individuals, couples, and families. Each summer at Breitenbush Hot Springs Conference Center, we witness individuals and couples moving through the barriers which prevent them from fully loving. We rejoice as families are united and children opened to their natural selves. The children’s program is alive with art and movement, nature experiences and fun groups! The age groups are 4-5, 6-8, 9-12, 13-15 & 16-19. The overall theme is “The Quest,” a series of adventures leading toward self-discovery. This is the highlight of the year for our whole family. Cost: adults $660-935 depending upon lodging option. Children: FREE-$555 depending upon age. Registration: Mira at The Shared Heart Foundation office toll-free 800-766-0629. Partial work exchanges are available in the children’s program. More info…
October 8-9
Germany
Couples Retreat at Osterberg Institut near Hamburg. http://www.osterberginstitut.de/
October 14-16
Norway
Friday evening-Sunday. Workshop and training for couples. Contact Renate or Hermod Nordby Hansen hermodnh@online.no.
October 18-24
Assisi, Italy
Living from the Heart Retreat for individuals and couples with music by Charley Thweatt. More info…
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