Remembering My Mother

Last week my mother would have been 83 years old had she lived past her 49th birthday. Some years, I ask "what if?" Other years I remember. This year it was a little of both.

Since I began this journey of healing, I have often thought: if only I knew then what I know now - I could have helped her suffer less, lived longer. But, now is now. Then - which we try so hard to get back and not let go - cannot be changed, only our relationship to it.

My mother and grandmother taught me this nearly 20 years ago when they became one of the events that initiated my belief in the phenomena happening to me.

On this day, I was relaxing. Just listening to the cars pass by, enjoying the solitude of having the house to myself. For no reason I can explain, I bent my head back on the pillow to look across the hall.

What did I see? My mother and grandmother walking into the bedroom, my mother in her nurse's uniform, and my grandmother in one of her shin-length cotton frocks and her big straw hat.

They looked at me with so much love and my mother told me all was forgiven. I had been a child doing what children do.

They took my hands, pulled my arms up and over my head, and traced a symbol into the inside of my palms over and over again. Then they made me stand up and traced the symbol over my body. They walked out of the room, never taking their eyes off me.

I remember feeling relieved: my mother knew that I loved her. I cried for a long time. Afterward, I drew the symbol so I would not forget it.

Fast forward several years later.

I am completing my Reiki Master I training. During the initiation, the Master doing the work finishes the process and I wait to be directed towards my seat. Instead, I feel him grab my arms again, lift them up, and start again.

Afterward, he explains that he was told to give me another symbol, one he has never seen or heard of before. However, he was clear that Spirit had told him to do this. He offered to draw the symbol for me so I could have it.

When he finishes the drawing, I smile and tell him that I know the symbol and that years ago my mother and grandmother had given it to me in a waking vision.

Although, even at this writing, I do not know what the symbol means, it was clear then as it is now that my Ancestors had initiated a process in one realm that was - is always - confirmed in this realm.

What was also clear: I did not need to be afraid. What was unseen would eventually reveal itself if I allowed it to do so.