It was a cold November evening just before Thanksgiving. The four children were all called home to be together with Mom as she was in the process of leaving this physical dimensional realm and transitioning into the next. We all knew what was coming, but did not speak about it. No longer could she take in nourishment as all of her bodily functions were shutting down. What was to unfold changed my life and family life forever. Unbeknownst to me at the time, my mother bestowed upon me gifts and blessings of the greatest sort.

I was eighteen years old and had just started college. It was hard to leave my mother at home knowing how sick she was. This made the first two months away from home getting use to life on my own more challenging. From the age of four when her illness started, I sensed death and darkness.

At that age, my mother told me she was going into the hospital to have her “appendix out”. When she returned home, I sensed her emotional turmoil and upset. Eight years later while putting her laundry away, I discovered her breast prosthesis. Everything clicked, and I suddenly realized she had undergone a radical mastectomy of the left breast and had all of her lymph nodes removed as well. This explained the hollow under her left armpit, and the permanent edema in her left arm and hand. Even though, she never told me she had undergone such a drastic disforming procedure in person performed by her own uncle, so many things started to make sense.

Deep inside my soul, I could feel her fear, pain, and sadness. As a child, I was scared of the dark and had trouble falling asleep at night. As exhausted as she was, my beautiful, patient, and kind mother would lay down beside me until I fell asleep. If I awoke in the middle of the night, I would either tap my mother on the shoulder when she was sleeping and crawl into bed beside her very careful not to wake my father or I would slip into my younger brother’s room to have another presence near to me..

Over the course of fifteen years, I witnessed my mother undergo myriad procedures having five major body parts cut out, radiated, poisoned, and destroyed due to cancer that metastasized. It was a slow torturous death I would not wish upon anyone. I knew than that if I ever faced those same challenges, I would choose a different route; a route that I now know goes against conventional thinking, but as it turns out, I am not at all conventional.

Eighteen year olds are officially adults, but I did not realize how young I was and how much more guidance, love, and support I could have benefitted from until I lost my mother, and then as it happened my father shortly thereafter. He could not bear the pain of losing his wife and disassociated from his family and married into another one. This is a story for a future blog.

On that cold November evening of 1984, I retreated to my study and opened the window to smoke a cigarette. I knew I should not smoke, but it filled an emptiness inside of me, an anxiety. As I sat there inhaling and exhaling, the wind spirit entered sharply through my open window, moved through my entire being directing me to go to my mother’s side. I immediately put out my cigarette and went straight to her room and sat bedside holding her left hand with both of my hands. I watched her in silence following her labored breathing. Even though she could no longer eat, drink, speak or open her eyes, she could hear and sense everything that happened in her room. It was clear that the wind spirit came for her breath and just like that her breathing stopped. A moment in time opened, and I could sense a deep silence and peacefulness. I just sat enveloped in this experience not wanting to move from her side and not wanting to let go of her hand. It was very gentle and loving, and I had the great honor to midwife her death. This event forever changed my life as new frontiers opened.

Once others in the house understood what had just happened, chaos and commotion broke loose. This was such a peaceful process, and I could have sat with her during her full transition for hours, but I was shooed away from the body as it made others uncomfortable.

Experiencing death up close like this is an experience one never forgets as it is life changing. I know death happens in all kinds of ways, but for me it opened up unseen worlds and her life and death became a gift which led me on a quest to explore the truth of who we are, why we are here, where we come from, where we go, and universal truths of health, healing, and creation magic.

Part 2:

As I have come to learn now, the wind is a sixth dimensional archangel that has consciousness. Many cultures revere the wind and have a name for it. (Hindus: Vayendra, Native Americans: The Wind Spirit, Tao: One of the Five Elements of Transformation).

The wind is moving air. Air is a mixture of gases made of molecules that dance together in unison. The wind can gently caress your face and make the leaves sing or violently tear the rooftops off of structures, uproot trees, and cause sea waves to rise quite high.

The wind is a powerful being and carries the force that animates organisms. Without breath we can only live for a few minutes.

From this vantage point, I believe the wind spirit is alive. Would scientist agree? No. As I have been a k-12 science educator for a good part of my life here on planet Earth, I know that science, even with all of its technological instruments cannot measure or detect many things, and does not consider that the universe may be a living organism.

In teaching science, the questions I posed earlier have not been answered-not really, but through my seeking I have come to form a mental model of the Universe that helps me to move through life here on planet earth and make sense of why it is I am here.

Where did my mother go? Sitting beside her I sensed it was not the end, but rather a birth in reverse. Her physical body remained on the bed in the childhood room I grew up in for many years, but her soul, her energy essence, her conscious awareness seemed eternal.

Newton’s Laws of Motion confirm this: Energy is neither created or destroyed just changes form.  Her energy essence lives on and I can feel her and help her even now. She enters the dreamtime where I can talk with her and she is healing.

The wind moves things, circulates air around the planet, creates, destroys, and maintains. It is the force of the wind against trees that makes the roots grow deeper and holds the tree up stronger. The wind erodes and builds and helps pollinate. The wind can fuel a fire or put it out, can move a sailboat, and can generate energy and electricity. How grateful I am to the wind as it is a powerful teacher for me.

I always pay attention to the wind. Animals innately read the wind signs; a talent many of us have lost due to modern society, but the bears, dogs, and animals with strong olfactory senses can follow a scent for miles. The wind/air carries smells long distances-transporting molecules from one part of our planet to the next. We breathe in air molecules of people who have long since past away. Keeping our air clean is of the utmost importance.

Why did my mother get cancer? Why did it start in her left breast? Why did she die at age 51? Why was I her daughter? Why was I beside her when she transitioned?

All of these questions from my lifelong quest, I have answered in a way that satisfies me, and now I am ready to share these GIFTS with those who ask.

If you would like guidance about midwifing a death, navigating family illness, the loss of a loved one, and how to minimize the impacts on youth and families, please schedule a Free Consultation with Kimberly at www.centerforcorehealing.com