MOM'S JOURNEY HOME

One bright sunny morning in late July 2006, mom readied herself to leave this world. She was 94 years old. Each year, usually in winter, she contracted bronchitis or pneumonia, presumably because she had congestive heart failure, which made her vulnerable to those maladies; but this was summer, so I wasn’t expecting pneumonia, even though it was the only reason she was ever hospitalized in the last four years of her life. She had gone to bed a few hours before I did and seemed fine. At about 6 a.m., she awoke, needing to go to the bathroom. I was tired, so I ignored the obvious movement in the bed. My bed was high, so mom sat on the edge and slowly slid down until her feet touched the small meditation cushion I used to facilitate her easy access in and out of bed. She groped her way around the foot of the bed and came over to my side. I asked her what she was doing and she said, “I don’t know. I think I want to go to the bathroom.” I said, “Stop playing around. You know you’re not anywhere near the bathroom. Go on. I’ll follow you.” She wanted me to physically take her to the bathroom, but I refused. Instead, I followed her, letting her grope her way out of the bedroom, holding onto the bed, the walls and the door. After she finished in the bathroom, I let her grope her way back into the bedroom and into bed. 

I got into the bed beside her and immediately felt remorse. I had been annoyed at being woken up, so, instead of acting from my heart, I acted from my ego and judged my mother’s behavior, something that would haunt me for a long time afterward. I had been such a bitch. What was I thinking? She was 94 years old. So what if she just wanted me to help her to the bathroom. Mom did not have a mean bone in her body and she would never wake me up unnecessarily. My eyes filled with tears as I turned toward her and put my hand on her back as a gesture of love and apology. Her body was hot and she shivered feverishly under my touch. “Mom, you have a fever. You don’t feel well do you?” “I feel lousy,” she said. My heart sank. “Mom, I’m sorry. I think you have pneumonia. I’ll call 911. You’ll feel better soon.” I immediately dialed 911 and then got up and got dressed.

About fifteen minutes later, the doorbell rang. I wondered why the doorman had not used the intercom to let me know someone was on the way upstairs. Assuming it was the EMTs, I opened the door and was shocked to find four firefighters, who promptly entered the apartment. Although the EMTs are affiliated with the fire department, firefighters had never before shown up when I called 911 with a medical emergency. What was even more perplexing is that these firefighters carried no equipment of any sort; nor did they have paperwork with them or anything else that would indicate why they were there. They were very well groomed, sparkling clean and dressed exactly alike: bright red suspenders, crisp blue tee shirts, yellow rubber pants, and black boots. A soft and subtle golden glow seemed to surround them, as if they were standing in sunlight. They went directly into the bedroom without being told where it was and surrounded the bed upon which my mother lay. The home health aide, who was there to help care for mom, said, “Those are some bright and clean looking firemen.” 

One tall firefighter stood on the right side of the bed, another stood on the left, and two shorter firefighters stood at the foot of the bed. All the firefighters were white, except one of the shorter two, who had beautiful dark copper-colored skin and thick black hair. The one on the right of the bed asked what mom’s name was. “Linnette,” I said. One of the firefighters at the foot of the bed commented that I had a beautiful apartment. I said thank you. That was the extent of our conversation. These firefighters did nothing but stand quietly around the bed, smiling at mom, who was lying quietly with her eyes closed, a look of contentment on her face. After about three minutes, they left the room single file. By that time, the doorman had already buzzed my apartment to inform me that the EMT’s were on their way up. When I opened the apartment door to let the firefighters out, the EMTs were right there and entered the apartment as the firefighters were leaving. The two groups passed each other in the doorway like two ships in the night, seeming not to have noticed each other.

I directed the EMTs to my bedroom. While they took mom’s vital signs, I looked for her medications, and, at the same time, glanced outside the bedroom and then living room windows, looking for a fire truck, but saw none. I thought that was odd, but didn’t give it much more attention. I went back to the bedroom and gave the EMTs all the necessary information on mom’s medications, symptoms, and insurance, after which they placed her on a gurney and wheeled her out of the apartment. I accompanied her in the ambulance for a fast and bumpy ride to the emergency room at New York Hospital. As we sat in the emergency room, I asked mom if she had seen the four firefighters who stood around the bed at home and she said, “Yes, they were my angels.” I was somewhat surprised at her response, since her eyes were closed for the duration of their visit to the apartment.

Mom indeed had pneumonia and after several hours in the emergency room, she was taken to a room in the elder care unit on the tenth floor. The room was private and big enough to fit thirty visitors! It was a corner room on the water, the only one that had free phone and television service and a panoramic view of the East River. A blue recliner sat in the corner near the window next to her bed. I couldn’t believe our luck in getting such a room. I sat in that comfortable blue recliner and thought about the fact that I used to tell mom that whatever she did, she shouldn’t die in my bed, because I didn’t think I could handle that. I wondered in that moment if she was preparing to leave this world. Mom slept peacefully. I watched her sleep for a few hours and convinced myself that she would be okay, so I went home. 

I couldn’t get the firefighters off my mind. Something about their presence was otherworldly. Why had they shown up? When I arrived in the lobby of my apartment building, I asked the doorman if he had seen any firefighters enter the building earlier in the day, and he said no, but that I should ask the doorman who was on duty before him. The next day, I asked the same question of the doorman who was on duty when mom was taken out the day before. He said, “No.” He noted that had firefighters entered the building, that fact would have been recorded in the black guest book at the concierge desk, and no such entry had been made. 

I was mystified. I thought about everything that had happened: how this was the first time firefighters had ever responded to a 911 medical emergency, how the doorman didn’t announce them, how the EMTs didn’t seem to see them even though they were only inches apart as they passed each other in the doorway, and how the firefighters had no paperwork or other paraphernalia and did nothing but stand around the bed; and, of course, there was that glow about them. I surmised that those firefighters were indeed angels, and mom knew it. I knew in that moment that she would not be coming home again.

I had been visiting mom at the hospital for about a week, and on each visit, she slept. She was never awake. I wasn’t even sure she knew I was there. One day, I entered her room, took one look at her and exclaimed, “Oh mom!” She seemed absent and lifeless, as she slept with her mouth slightly agape. The nurse commented that mom had not gone to the bathroom at all in the last few days, a sure sign that her body was shutting down. I sat with her for a few hours, and wondered if I should go home. I tried to convince myself that she would make it through another day, but a friend who was with me, said, “You better stay.” I didn’t need convincing. I knew this was the day. So I stayed, and about a half hour later, I saw mom take her last breath as a small puff of smoke escaped through the top of her head. It wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be. She was sleeping peacefully with her hand resting against her chin. She inhaled and exhaled a couple of times, but the last time she inhaled, she did not exhale. She was “gone.” Her spirit had left in that puff of smoke. I called the doctor into the room and told him that I thought she was “gone.” He asked me to leave the room, so he could examine her. From outside the room, I heard him say, “Mrs. Stallings! Mrs. Stallings! Mrs. Stallings!” I started laughing and couldn’t stop. “Is this the way they tell if someone passed away?” I thought. “I could have done that!” I eventually re-entered the room and sat down near her bed. I touched her face, which was cold, and then I cried. I already missed her. After all, she had shared my bed and my life for the last six years. She had brightened my world and made me focus on someone other than myself. She was my major source of joy, and she taught me how to find joy in everything. 

It took me about a week to pack up mom's clothes, which I donated to a charity. I knew she would want me to do that; she certainly would not have wanted me to hang onto her stuff in any sort of maudlin way. Mom was cremated a few days later. I did not mourn my mother’s death. Instead I celebrated her life, a journey well done. I put together a memorial service for her that would take place about two weeks after that. Mom had always told me that when she passed away she wanted me to buy yellow happy-face balloons for her service. She wanted them released into the air after the service. She said that way her smile would float over the city, a fitting expression of who she was. At the service, I tied the helium-filled balloons to the railing at the front of the altar and played her favorite version of Amazing Grace. I mentioned to the guests that she loved the particular version, because she felt she could “dance” to it, sway was more like it. Mom loved to dance and could always find a melody she could move to in just about any type of music. As I played the CD, the balloons, which had been motionless on that hot August evening, suddenly started swaying from side to side. The guests in the church gasped. Even they realized that that was a sign, a reminder that mom was still there dancing her way through the afterlife.

I learned a lot about my mom at the memorial service. One young man said that she took him in after his father had kicked him out. He mentioned that mom, who was almost a foot and a half shorter than he, grabbed him by the front of his shirt and said, “Neily boy, you’re coming home with me. You can stay as long as you want.” According to “Neily boy,” because of mom, he was able get on his feet, find a job, and eventually move into his own place. I heard many inspiring stories about mom that evening. We were poor growing up and we lived in the projects, yet mom’s extending herself to someone who needed her help was as natural as breathing. She always found enough room or food to share with someone who needed it, human or animal. She took in many stray or neglected kids over the years. She also took in stray animals. She rescued many cats, adopted a tiny dog, bought a parrot and tropical fish, and was gifted a cockatiel. She lived a bountiful life.

I was still thinking about those firemen three weeks after the memorial service. One evening, I was listening to a friend’s radio program, during which he was channeling a seventh dimensional energy known as Master Kirael. Mom had a particular love for Master Kirael, to whom she listened each week via the Internet. She was open to all things and she judged nothing, so listening to a disembodied energy was no big thing to her. I called during the program and asked Master Kirael who the four firefighters were who came to my apartment that fateful day. Master Kirael said, “The one on the right of the bed was me; the one on the left of the bed was Master Jesus, and one of the two at the foot of the bed was the Goddess Pele. You know who the fourth was.” I did indeed. I also remembered that one of the firefighters was copper-colored like a Hawaiian (the Goddess Pele. I was not confused by the fact that Pele showed up in a male body, because I know that once disembodied, a spirit can take any form) and I certainly recognized the other one, who stood next to Pele, but that shall remain my secret. 

Mom traveled out of body a lot while she was with me. Sometimes she’d be gone for three days at a clip. She literally slept for 72 hours, never waking for water or sustenance. The first time she did that I thought she was sick and took her to see a doctor in the middle of her snooze-fest. It was a disaster, because they couldn’t find anything wrong with her, except some dehydration. They insisted that she drink water, which she couldn’t, because she wasn’t in her body. She gagged and vomited the water up. They finally put her on an intravenous drip to hydrate her, after which, I took her home. Thereafter, when she went on a snooze-fest, I let her sleep. She rarely got up to use the bathroom and she did not eat or drink at those times. Yet, by day two or three, she would awaken rejuvenated. She would hop out of bed, all smiles and with a zip in her step. Even the home health aide got used to these incidents. When mom awoke, the aide would say, “She’s ba-ack!” Indeed she was. Mom was feeling like a young girl. It was as if she’d gone to get a lube job for her body. She would be rejuvenated for a few days and then would slowly start to feel the aches and pains of old age and arthritis again. She left her body often in that last year of her life, but she always returned better than she was when she left.

One time, I was exiting my bedroom when I heard the home health aide gasp. I asked what was wrong and she said that she had just seen some smoke come out of the top of mom’s head. Mom was sitting on the loveseat in the living room and had fallen asleep. I told the aide that mom had just left her body, which would be on autopilot until she returned. Sure enough, about two hours later, mom awoke, happy and ready to boogey. The only other time I saw that smoke come from her head was when she took her last breath.

The health aide, whose name was Annemarie, was open to spirituality when she came to work with mom, but she was also cautious, displaying a healthy skepticism. By the time she had worked with mom for a year, Annemarie was completely open to the magic of the spiritual life. She couldn’t deny a lot of what she saw and heard. She knew everything had meaning, and she slowly, but surely, learned to listen to her inner voice, and her gut feelings, and to spend less time in her head. Thanks to her relationship with mom and me, she developed the inner strength to bring a destructive love relationship to an end, move out of her father’s apartment, and get her own place. She was in her thirties and it was about time. One day, she told me that after my mother died she would not work in the health aide business again, because she was certain that she’d never find another charge like my mother. So, when mom passed away, Annemarie quit that field of endeavor. She ended up falling in love with my nephew, whom she met while he was here laying some wood floors for me. Now they live together in Atlanta and have a beautiful baby girl, whose middle name is Linnette. 

More magic: two months after mom’s memorial service, while I was sitting at my desk, I turned my head to look out the window, where, to my absolute delight, I saw stuck in a tree across the street two yellow happy-face balloons tied with yellow ribbon . They were caught on a branch and were dancing in the air. They remained in that tree for almost a month, through all sorts of weather, until they were completely deflated. Coincidence? I don’t think so. Every day for about a month, I looked out that window and cheerfully said, “Hello Mom.”

Mom knew this world was not all life had to offer. Many times during her six years with me she saw angels at the foot of the bed. I’d always ask her what the angels said and she’d say, “Nothing and I didn’t ask them what they wanted. I just know that I’m not ready to go anywhere, so I went back to sleep.” On a couple of occasions when she left her body and then came back to tell me about it, I captured the moment on videotape. You can see and hear her in her own words on YouTube (”mom travels to the spirit world” and “mom experiences the spirit world”) or just above this story.

In this world, we have a choice. We can live from our egos and see with our physical eyes, or we can live from our hearts and see the world from our third eye, where all the magic is. The latter is the easiest way to bring clarity to a chaotic world. In the interest of my own evolution, I do my best to see the world through the light of my third eye. After all, it’s the most powerful lens available to us. From that vantage point, I am always in touch with mom’s spirit.