By: Michael Cross

At the end of January, a couple weeks after returning from celebrating my mother’s 86th birthday in Las Vegas, I received a call from my Aunt Ginny informing me that my mother, Bette, was in the hospital and in serious condition.

I flew out to find she was suffering from kidney failure. This was the first time since my brother was born that mom was in a hospital. It was a shock to see her with the myriad of needles and hoses in a stark room with uniformed attendants. This setting would change slightly three times over the next two months and end at Nathan Adelson Hospice where my mom chose to complete her time here on earth.

In addition, I changed over the next few months as well – my process and subsequent experience lies between my aunt’s call through this very moment.

It began as a sad, foreign, landscape filled with alien bodies, metallic machines, shining linoleum floors, legal and medical languages and it became my daily world. I chose it to support my mom’s well-being and in the end her final intentions. I chose it having no answers, just questions.

· How do I love where I am and what I’m doing here?

· How do I love people that seem so foreign to me?

· How do I participate in a way that fosters wellness and joy?

· How do I set myself up to process environments with brilliance, where my first reaction is a response to pain and suffering?

· How do I include my wife, friends and life 3,000 miles from here?

· Ultimately, how do I support my mom?

Living in these questions was a process of remembering/forgetting, staying conscious/ going unconscious, being joyful/suffering, etc. Had I not been working to build a foundation of love and grace within myself, I would have lost before I even began the “game” (Vegas odds). My world would have been about visiting a sea of old and dying bodies in environments filled with seemingly uncaring uniforms and going home at night to a retirement community of people just waiting to get on that same bus. It would have lasted a long time. That would have been my story when I got home to Maine, the pain and suffering of a middle-aged man and what he has to look forward to.

The experience I did bring home with me and continue to process, however, is incredible and incredibly different from the story above.

I got to spend two months really getting to know my mother. I witnessed her courage, in the condition she was in, making difficult and critical choices and saw that they revolved around her family’s well-being. I witnessed people that emptied my mother’s trash, tended to her bedpan, made sure that she was comfortable and cared for, and worked full time in an unbelievably challenging work environment. And, then they went home to challenging lives. These “heroes” were my partners and I consciously held everyone in the “highest regard.”

It was my intention to create an environment of “highest” caring for my mother. It was also my intention to own my life and participate in it fully regardless of the environment or circumstance. The result was witnessing and befriending some of the most outrageously wonderful people I’ve ever met. They truly cared for my mom’s well-being; they truly cared for me.

The “ancient folk” that were my mother’s neighbors became my own. You would never know by passing them on the street the lives they lived before retirement. Their warmth and caring was felt on many occasions. One woman, Pat, I met weeding my mother’s yard. Not just my mom’s, but at my aunt’s house and in the neighbor’s yards, too. She just did that. The desert is a very harsh gardening environment; a backhoe would be an appropriate tool for the average gardener. And, as I opened up and included these amazing people in my life, I saw that they had already included me in theirs.

The web that I was part of grew and while there were many moments where I missed my family, friends and home life, I realized I was rich here, too. The new experiences and relationships continued to grow as I navigated the legal work and other somewhat “alien” processes related to living and dying. There were times when I felt like I’ve been here before and this sucks, but in truth, I’ve never been here before and I’m just scared. In my best moments, I remembered to breathe and hold in highest regard my own life and everything I am in relationship with, and in doing so, I kept learning the same thing. It is OK. Then, it’s better than OK. Then, hey, this is cool!

Distilling three months within a lifetime is challenging and the bottom line is that I feel more related than isolated. I feel like I got to contribute AND allowed myself to be contributed too. Did I drop the ball? Heck, yes! Did I witness unconsciousness on more than one occasion? Man, did I (try I95 through Vegas)! The point, though, is that choosing to be conscious, choosing to be joyful, choosing to be related is a challenge and my memory holds an experience now far different than it would have held otherwise. My mother died a hero, not a victim. Old age is a fact of life and it’s a beautiful one. We live to serve others; whether we realize it or not is the issue.

I am very fortunate. I have had great teachers. And still, and always, the responsibility for the experience is mine. Sometimes I forget and I torment myself. I also remember faster and so moments of suffering are smaller and less damaging. Consciousness is a discipline, no matter how far we are in the process of practicing it. The result is heaven, when we allow ourselves to have it.

My mother taught me that. Thanks, Mom, for everything!

Namaste!

A special thank you to Michael for sharing a life experience with us and allowing us to share it with our friends.