Hope Springs

Even as a Medium, experiencing death and the physical loss of a loved one can be hard. Last week was the 7th year Anniversary of my Mom passing. When I connect with other people who have experienced such close loss the feelings of heaviness on the heart vary. Some people feel like their loved one has been missing for several decades longer than they’ve actually been gone - almost like a distant memory they still cherish. For others, it feels fresh. For some, each passing year the pain feels easier to carrier and the grip of sorrow releases some. For me, the Anniversary of my Mom’s passing is harder with each passing year.

I still forget that my Mom is dead. This supernatural oddity happens a handful of times a year - whenever something really good happens to me. Whenever something worth a celebratory phone call comes through - I’m revisited by this oddity. I always pick up the phone with the intention of calling my Mom and sharing the good news. As I unlock my phone, get to my favorites list and go to select her name - it hits me. The realization that she’s dead. The reminder and feeling don’t take me out. I just find myself in this momentary freeze state. Where I just move a bit slower. My brain catches up to reality. I think, “Oh ya, she’s dead”. I’m not overcome with sadness or hurt or upset - I’m moreso just in this very strange space, not numb but not fully present. Like time has hit a pause. As the moment passes, I put down the phone. Not out of a swarming and encompassing feeling of heartache. But out of a place of, no one else will fill the role she played. It’s not that no one else will do, but for that specific feeling I was riding on, and wanted to share with someone who would celebrate and support me in the way she did, it’s the - no one else will do it like she did. No one else will do. And I put my phone down. And drive in silence. Until the energy passes, and I come back, resuscitated, returning to the world in which I am aware of the fact that she is in Spirit; happy, healthy, and whole - watching over her family and loved ones, protecting us, loving us, healing us.

When my Mother first passed, I just felt relief. I was so relieved that she did not have to suffer anymore. It is an unbearable and unbelievable amount of hurt having to watch someone you love shut down facility by facility - knowing you have no control of their healing, or suffering, and no control of their fate. No help can aid in the lengthening of their life. And knowing that every smile and laugh you share with them to help alleviate the heavy that they knowingly carry on their shoulders as they face mortality - there is still a piece of them that has a solo fight in their mind as they face their physical impermanence, their feelings of saying goodbye to what they know and love, and in very real time confront their beliefs and thoughts of an afterlife.

I can remember doing everything I could to make my Mom laugh and smile. Moments of tears and pain were always done behind closed doors, alone, holding myself through it unaided by another person - the only one emotionally showing up for me and keeping me together through it all was my four legged best friend, my dog, my world - Cheyenne. I would put on a show just to get my Mom howling, grinning ear to ear. I was a self hired stand up comedian in her darkest times. I was her personal cheerleader, congratulating her on every achievement - from emphasizing how gorgeous she looked that day, to celebratory cheers on taking a good nap that would help her heal. I would sit there and talk with her, look her in the eye, and treat her like a human. Even when she couldn’t follow conversation, even when it was hard to look at her, even when other people started ignoring her presence because it was emotionally gut wrenching for them - I would sit with her, look her in the eye, and laugh and chat and connect. Because all that matters is how you show up for people, all that matters is connection. I still have a card that one of her friends wrote me after her passing - where they highlight how my Mom always spoke of how much I celebrated her, celebrated all moments of hers big and small. It touched me that my Mom could see and feel and know how hard I tried to make her feel worthy, good, and perfect as she was.

Every day my Mom would ask me, “Andie, do you think I’m going to die?”

The weight of this question still brings tears to my eyes. And every day I lied. A dying person does not need to be reminded that they're dying. Reading energy, as I do, I could tell she wasn’t looking for cold hard truth. I knew she was looking for reassurance, a happy story, hope. And so every day I told her no. No, you’re not going to die Mom. You’re going to live, you’re, we’re going to get through this. I always told her that life is like a shit smear on a window sometimes - you just have to look for the golden specks of light shooting through. That currently we’re in the shit - but that golden light is also there, too. I would hug her, hold her, and dance with her and did my best to shift the head space she was stuck in.

My Mom never wanted me to leave her side. I continued working full time while she was sick. And after work, I took care of her. Anytime I had to leave the house - she would beg and plead for me to stay home with her. She oftentimes would cry at the idea of me leaving her side. She told me that she just felt better with my company next to her. There were times I felt so guilty, because I needed a moment to breath. Carried guilt for being so selfish in my mind. But I knew that her needs vastly outweighed my own. Most of the time, I would ditch my plans and spend my evenings with her.

When she was healthy, she used to tell me, “Andie, put on some makeup. Andie, do your hair”. I was always her daughter who was very much made from Earth; wild and unkempt. I never cared for doll’ing myself up for the masses. I always left my hair wild, curly, free. And my face sun kissed and clean. She always wanted me to be “put together” and “presentable” for society. I had a very complicated relationship with my Mother when she was healthy. At times, I didn’t think she liked me at all. The things I was attracted towards to study and learn about, the way I chose to live my life out, how I perceived and saw and held the world - they all sat at the table with her, but on the opposite end of the spectrum of her viewpoint. My agree to disagree was always met with the belief that she was right and I was wrong. But there was no one who has ever loved me more than she did, and still does. (Because that’s the thing, physical loss just changes the energy in shape in which they present, but the love never leaves - in fact, it intensifies in death). But when she got sick her values changed. All of a sudden I was told everyday how gorgeous I was, how beautiful my hair and face were. She began accepting me for the wildling that I’ve always been.

My Dad and I were the two family members living at home taking care of her full time. Although many beautiful hands helped us take care of her. Two mornings before she passed - my Dad was out of the house taking care of their car and I was alone in the house with my Mom. Hospice had told us that she would be passing any day now. I wanted to connect and to get her attention when she was as coherent as she could be - for at this time she was on morphine. So I timed it out; it was during sunrise, right before her next dose of morphine would be administered. I came downstairs with my guitar and a cup of coffee. I sat by her bedside in the family room by the hearth. Gorgeous morning light cascaded through the windows. Everything was still, pure, peaceful. I played the guitar that she gave me when I graduated college. That was her gift to me for my achievement. She played guitar, and she always told me that she loved how I played and the joy that emanated from me as I finger picked the strings. So it was a gift to me. I shared this gift with her that morning. I told her that everything was going to be okay, that I just knew it. I let her know that it was okay to pass, that we would all be okay and she would be okay, too. I told her that she will be met by Ancestors and loved ones and peace - that there is only love where she is going. I told her it was okay to let go. As our time together unfolded, I played guitar and sang to her. I drank my coffee and told her to pretend that we were drinking coffee together. The stage she was at was an active stage of dying. She wasn’t supposed to be able to smile at the stage she was at - but to my absolute shock, she smiled a teethy smile as best she could. Her Spirit heard me, felt me, knew me.

The second night after she passed I had the most vivid dream of her. We were sat at a back table in a crowded, small cafe. Intimately sat at a circular back table with several extra spare seats at it. She had her small hands clasping a coffee mug with hot black coffee, long sleeve olive green cotton shirt on, her blonde hair restored to shoulder length, eye glasses pushed up into her hair acting like a headband, and her beautiful green hazel eyes staring at me. No makeup, a natural beauty. She had us sat -at a cafe - drinking coffee together. The dream was intense, she had very serious things to tell me about. My role in the dream was to listen. She was cashing in that offer of having coffee together.

I had always had experiences growing up where nighttime was extremely active for me. Spirit surrounding my bed looking to speak to me. Infiltrating my dreams, telling me about their lives. It was when my Mom passed I realized why this was happening. I was helping them release what they needed to release from their Spirit, and aid in the lightness that crosses them over to wherever it is we are all from. I crossed my own Mother back to Spirit side, as many Mediums have done before me for their loved ones.

My Mom apologized to me for how she showed up in life, in terms of not allowing me to explore my connection to Spirit and asking me to play in rooms I had no want to play in, and keep me from rooms my Soul so desperately ached to be in. She let me know that she realized that connecting with Spirit is the reason I incarnated on Earth, it is part of my purpose for being here. And she let me know she will be my #1, cheering me along as I walk this path. My Mom has always loved me fiercely. And I can attest that the love has actually only grown stronger and our bond even tighter since she passed. She really is my #1. My Bumpa (grandfather) and my Nana right behind her. I have the most beautiful team of Souls cheering me on and supporting me down this path and whenever I really think about it, it moves me to tears. Spirit is the most divine, beautiful, unconditional love I have ever experienced.

No matter how connected you are to Spirit, being a Psychic Medium, connecting with energy - the physical loss of a loved one is exceptionally hard. When she first passed - I was so relieved that she didn’t feel suffering or pain anymore. With each passing year, the physical presence she had in a room is missed more and more. I wouldn’t want to change how things played out, or change the story of what has become post her passing - as I believe, not to project at all, that this was all intentional, divine, and part of her greater plan all along. I believe that her Soul provided me the opposition in life that I wanted and needed to carve me into the person I intended to become, to make me stand strong in my knowing of Self and the connection I hold with Spirit. I believe her passing allowed me to step into who I intended on becoming. I do believe it was all in perfect divine time. But that one truth of mine doesn’t negate another truth. That I miss her heaps. I miss her back scratches when life feels really heavy and hard. I miss having her to call whenever I get good news or want to talk. I miss her leaving voicemails that ramble on forever and have no point to the reason that she called in the first place. I miss her laugh, she had the BEST laugh. I miss her smile, she had the BEST smile. I miss her fierce love. I miss having someone show up, in physical presence, and cheer me on only the way a Mother can.

If I could have just one more moment with her, I would just want to sit with her, at the edge of a dock, bare feet dangling, holding her hand, my head on her shoulder, and listen to her talk, and laugh, and joke while we look out at the water.

Love and loss are complex and layered. It’s intimate and personal and vulnerable. It comes in waves, and ebbs and flows. And the second you feel healed, another waves crashes on you, reminding you that you’re mortal and that time here on Earth is short. So live it the way that your Soul pulls you towards. Live it unapologetically. Show up as you are; even if it’s messy, unkempt, stumbling and stuttering, shaking as you stand. Speak what you need to speak and leave nothing left unsaid. Leave what doesn’t feed your Soul, and send heart and love to the people who critique, criticize and condemn your choices and your path. Leave space in your heart for if they choose to come around again one day with a more open mind. My Mom taught me to live, love hard, don’t settle in life, go after what you want, and to always choose the higher road.

So if you have ever struggled with close loss, or loss of any form, know that you are not alone. If you feel the loss gets harder with each passing year, and that the Anniversary date is a struggle to be in and around - you are not alone. It’s a date on the calendar that reminds you to feel the emotions that your Spirit has been asking you to confront, face, and work through. Not that I believe I will ever be “healed” from such a devastating loss, but by allowing myself to feel and face the things I purposely choose not to remember, for they are wounds that carry so much heavy hurt and pain, it’s this massive reminder that I really am so small, and that I really am just so human. If this is you, or a parallel version of you, just know you are not alone. Have space and grace for yourself, as death is complicated, complex, layered, and healing is anything but linear.

Author:

Andie Hay; Owner & Psychic Medium and Empath of By Breath & Bone