I believe we are guided to read certain books at just the right time for what we need. My last blog was on the book Beyond Knowing by Janis Amatuzio. After I finished reading it, her first book Forever Ours became available at the library.
In one of the stories her first patient was sick with pneumonia and she gave him antibiotics. He recovered from the pneumonia but then the doctors were able to detect that he had a cancerous tumor on his lung. He decided to not have treatment and to go home and enjoy the time remaining to him.
Dr. Amatuzio was devastated by the thought of losing a patient. She thought he was giving up and she wanted him to fight for his life. But over the years she came to realize he wasn’t giving up, he was letting go. He’d accepted that he was dying and wanted to be with his loving wife in his own home.
This past weekend my aunt was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor the size of a baseball in her lungs. She has also decided not to do chemotherapy or surgery. There is a chance she can be treated it with antibiotics since she wasn’t a smoker, but the parallel between having just read the story in the book and my aunt being diagnosed with lung cancer struck me a more than a coincidence. We are being guided all the time if we pay attention.
Letting go is hard but there are many things we have to let go of in life. The hardest is letting go of a loved one or letting go of life when it’s time to move on. But there are lots of other times we have to let go of smaller things like favorite possessions, or a lost or dying pet, or friends who move away, or past hurts. Learning to let go is part of life. Gradually as we grow in wisdom, like Amatuzio did, we begin to let go with grace.
In the book Forever Ours, the title refers to the love that we have with people. Janis Amatuzio concluded we will always have this love even when one of us moves to the other side.
When her mother was in the hospital with heart disease, she began to pray. Almost immediately her head filled with the following words. “Janis, I love you so. Don’t worry, your parents will be fine. At the moments of their deaths, I will wrap them up in my love and yours, and they will be forever ours. The comfort, amazement and relief I (Janis) felt were overwhelming. I knew the words were true and would last me a lifetime.” p. 200
The book ended with a beautiful poem.
Ascension
And if I go
While you’re still here. . .
Know that I live on
Vibrating to a different measure
Behind a veil you cannot see through.
You will not see me,
so you must have faith.
I wait for the time when we can
soar together again
both aware of each other.
Until then, live life to its fullest!
When you need me, just whisper
my name in your heart. . .
I will be there.
-Colleen Cora Hitchcock p. 201
If you have any stories about letting go or dealing with death, I’d love to hear them. Post your comments on this blog.
Today I’m leaving on a Caribbean cruise. I’m looking forward to warm days, swimming in the ocean and seeing green trees and flowers instead of snow. I’ll post photos when I return. Embrace life. It’s a precious gift.
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There’s been so much letting go these last few years. All the relatives of my parents generation that I grew up knowing have now passed on, including my parents. My wife has gone on before me, and now friends and relatives of my generation are experiencing diseases commonly associated with “old age”, and some may themselves be gone yet this year.
At my aunt’s memorial service today I shared with my cousins kid that even though I’m not prepared to accept it, my generation is now the “old folks”, and that while I still think of her as a kid, not unlike her own children, she is now of the “grown ups”, and her kids are the kids making memories and growing into what they’ll be. This was not just a memorial, but a right of passage, acknowledgment of the cycles of life.
I’m not ready to grow up, and never having had or raising children, I’m hardly ready to acknowledge myself amongst the grown ups, let alone the wear the mantle of being of the old folks. I reserve the right to not grow up even if my body is becoming old!! My heart laughs and squeals in joy like the children did in the narthex of the church the service was in, and doesn’t feel old at all.
On a spiritual level I continue to unfold, and understanding soaks in slowly, beautifully. Driving to pick up my sister for the ride to the service in RedWing this morning, there were tiny snowflakes in the sun soaked air, reflecting the brilliance of the creators light and love. The perspective that all existence is expression of soul, realizing each snowflake was souls unique expression of a brief experience forming that snowflake, and living its brief childhood journey through the atmosphere to reside a while on this planet to blanket the earth with others, only to end that existence and be transformed as vapor to condense with other souls and experience a journey to earth again.
Our lives are like that snowflake, never meant to last forever, but ours to express as we will in the form in which we reside here in this realm in our time. All outward expression is but a reflection of inner truths to be recognized. The beauty of the sparkling snowflakes on a sun soaked day were recognition of souls journey here on earth, and how beautiful that can be should we choose to express, reflect, and share the creators love and light with joyful abandon. That abandon is a letting go and letting be, which for me is the only way to go beyond the pain of loss of loved ones so dear.
May we all know the creators love every moment, and share it with abandon.
Thank you for your comment, Steve. I love the image of snowflakes. We are all snowflakes reflecting the light of the sun.
Years ago, just after the teachings of ECKANKAR were first brought to my attention, a friend lent me “The Third Eye” by T Lobsang Rampa. By a curious coincidence I have since met many other Nigerians who had a very similar experience. So, indeed, we do find the right book at the right time
Good insight. I haven’t heard of that book. I’ll check it out.
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