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Hiatus

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Dear Readers and Friends:

Thank you for following this Sunday blog and writing to me over the last two years. I began this space with the launch of The Messenger, the story of how a spirit guide saved my life after the death of my son.

I am now working on the sequel, The Messenger II. For those of you who  read the first book, you must know that the story didn’t end there. And so, I have decided to take a hiatus from a weekly blog and concentrate on finishing the second book.

I will write something in this space from time to time, just to keep in touch. Thank you again for all your wonderful notes and encouragement.

As we walking the earth plane will, from time to time, take a hiatus from our work, so is it with our spirit friends, guides, and loved ones. They are not gone – just taking a hiatus.

With love and light,

Helen Delaney

***

The Messenger can be found on http://www.amazon.com. For a signed copy, go to http://www.themessenger.space.

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All You Need Is Love

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For many years, I put great store in my ability to “get things done.” I had to. I was a single mother (even when I was married) of four children, with a job. And, as the jobs got better and better and more and more demanding, I prided myself on keeping up. I set impossible goals for myself. I demanded that I become a better employee, housekeeper, cook, nutritionist, pianist – better and better at whatever was put on my plate. My value system was based on achievement. I was self-reliant, I was delivering, and my self-worth depended on it.

It didn’t help that I worked in Washington, D.C., that famous breeding ground of over-achievement and brilliant performance. I was in a place where I could  watch others doing it up close, and when I could, I emulated it. No, that’s not quite accurate. I admired it. Sort of. But climbing that particular ladder required a healthy appetite for competition and the ability to thrive on conflict. I wasn’t wired for it. I was lucky in that, except for a few years in the competition pit, I worked for people who believed in consensus building. That I loved. That I believed in. Still, in the areas where I pitted myself against myself, I was relentless and driven. The more I could get done, the better I felt about myself. As a woman in a man’s field, I prided myself on outworking the boys, and I got a lot done. But no matter how much I got done, it was never enough. Nothing in Washington stands still. And at home, the clean house got dirty again, the full refrigerator was emptied routinely, the beds were unmade every night, and the kids got hungry three times a day. I had no help, and there was no conquering the unending work. Eventually, it became depressing and exhausting. Not because I couldn’t accept the impermanence of everything, but because I thought I was what I did.

It took a traumatic event to change my mind – the death of my child. Everything I thought was important faded into the mist in the face of this shattering experience. Winning, conquering, being right, being better, doing better, doing more, seemed trivial and insanely secular. Death will realign your perspective. The death of a child will reconfigure it altogether.

I write about this not because I can’t forget it – and I can’t of course – but because of the profound change it brought about in my understanding of life. It’s a long story, and it’s in my book, but the bottom line was – I had to learn something entirely new or die from grief.

I learned that I am not what I do. I am not the body that works itself into exhaustion and ages and dies anyway. There is more to me than that. I am life itself – never ending. I am a Spirit in a body, ageless and perfect. Nothing I do causes that or changes that. Everything else is ornamental. Window dressing. Costumes and makeup. A play. And all the world’s a stage. When I can remember that, “doing things” is much more fun, because the “things” are put into perspective. I was reminded of that this afternoon when I went shopping at Target. For my international readers, Target is a massive general store with supposed competitive prices. I was seriously intent on getting what I needed and getting back on the road (It’s an hour’s drive from where I live but why I was in a hurry I don’t know) when I passed the electronics department. There, high on the wall, on a gigantic screen, were little cartoon characters singing the Beatles’ song, All You Need Is Love. I just had to stop and laugh. Then I drove home slowly through Oak Creek Canyon, one of the most spectacular places on this earth, and let my Spirit take the lead.

***

Read The Messenger: The Improbable Story of a Grieving Mother and a Spirit Guide by Helen Delaney. Find it at www.amazon.com. For a signed copy, go to www.themessenger.space.

 

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My Friend Will

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I’ve known a few artists in my time, among them my son, my daughter, and my brother. But one particular artist entered my mind as I sat to write this. He was a friend of years ago, a professor of art and a prominent artist in my native city of Philadelphia. He would have a show once a year and sell it out on opening day. Every year. Some of his paintings are part of the permanent collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. His work appears in other museums around the country too. On a fellowship once, he met Salvadore Dali! He taught my daughter and my brother in college and, lucky us, he became a friend of the family. His name was Will Barnett.

In the summers of that time long ago, Will would share his New Jersey beach house with us – me, my husband, and my four small children. This was an unbelievable treat, since we lived packed into a small, un-airconditioned city apartment while my husband was going to law school. Will, a bachelor, opened his house and stepped aside, allowing us to make it our own. He took us out of a hot, crowded apartment and we gave him a family. Sometimes our friends came, and their children, and the house was a noisy, joyous place. Will, bless him, seemed to revel in it all.   He would get up early, while it was cool, and paint on a giant easel in his sun-drenched living room. He let me sit and watch him while the kids and my husband slept. I asked him if I could because I wanted to see how those hands and brushes and palette worked together to create the other-worldly things he put on canvas. I sat still and silent, trying to be invisible and unobtrusive, but it didn’t matter to Will. When he painted, he was somewhere else, mindless of everything but what was before him.

One day on the beach, I asked him if there were times when he felt as if he were not in control of the painting, if it felt like something other than himself would take over, mix the colors, make those strokes, and create. He looked at me and said something like, “Oh, sure.” His answer was so matter of fact. And then he looked at me as if to say, “Doesn’t that happen to everyone?”  I suspected that happened with artists and musicians, but I didn’t expect his answer to be so ready, so…matter of fact. I had never discussed spiritual matters with Will. I never thought of spiritual matters in those days. I was busy, overwhelmed with raising a family, working at a job, and trying to make a go of a failing marriage. I lived in survival mode. Only later would life make room in my life for spiritual thought.

Will had no religious affiliations as far as I knew. His father was a Russian Jew who had come to this country and changed his name from Baronet to Barnett. Will was just a good, kind man with amazing gifts. Besides being a visual artist, he was also an accomplished pianist and violinist, talents he wore like a loose garment. He did not take them, or himself, seriously.

Those days at the beach were years before my son Eddie died, and my own life became a nightmare and then a long spiritual search for meaning. Now, I think Will’s secret was that he knew how to get out of his own way and let the painting and music flow through him. I don’t know if he believed in God or not, but he sensed a Force that painted and played through him, and he let it. He let it. It has taken me years to learn that this is the sign of a true spiritual master.

It has taken me most of my life to understand that God is content, not form. It can come through us, whether we are religious, spiritual, enlightened, unenlightened, atheistic or agnostic. The Force is something we sense, something we feel, not something  intellectually captured. It cannot be forced or controlled. It is something we surrender to. It doesn’t matter if we name it or not. It has been given to us. It is ours. We only have to let it work through our minds, our hands, our deeds.

I saw this Force again in Will when, years later, he was dying of leukemia. He and his wife (he had found love later in life) were living on top of a mountain in California. He was near death when I got a beautiful letter from him. It was all about the joys of living on a mountain. Leukemia was an afterthought. When he passed, I got a letter from his wife, who had also become my friend. Will died peacefully and gently, she said. I was not surprised. Like the spiritual master he was, he got out of the way one more beautiful time and let the Force flow through him.

***

Read The Messenger: The Improbable Story of a Grieving Mother and a Spirit Guide by Helen Delaney.  Find it at www.amazon.com. For a signed copy, go to www.themessenger.space.

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Joy, Not Grief

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I talked to a friend a few days ago, and she told me that in the last few months, she has lost several friends. Two she cared for in their last days.  And yet, this woman is one of the happiest people I know. It bummed her out for a time, but she didn’t stay there. I have another friend in Belgium who volunteers at a hospice. She, like me, has lost a child. Her only child. And yet, she is the epitome of cheer to souls who are ready to depart this world.  She had her dark time, too, believe me. But both of these friends can cheer the dying and come away with their own joy in life intact.

It took me many years to find joy after my child died, and I am still not known for my cheer. But joy? That I have. Could joy be the companion of grief?  One state of being that somehow, however inconguently, is joined to the other? If so, then that must be the definition of hope.

Some of us don’t want to let go of grief. It binds them to the one who is gone. For a long time, I felt that if I lost my grief, I would lose Eddie. Again. Eventually, though, visions of Eddie started to come to me that let me remember him in another way. I started to remember how funny he was. Sometimes, when I was seriously deep into practicing a Bach Invention, Eddie would slide into the room and dance to the music, pirouetting around the piano like a disjointed ballet dancer, abolishing my seriousness, doubling me over with laughter. I remembered more about the cool things he did – his painting and his martial art. I remembered all the friends who adored him, how they cheered when he crossed the stage to receive his high school diploma. Those are the things that live with me now. The precious, joyous things. Now, after all these years, I know that that is what stays. Not the grief. Not even when you want it to.

It is almost eight years since my husband Bill died, and I am beginning to think of him the same way. Bill, like Eddie, was a funny guy. He was loving, and kind, and irreverent.  He was also cool. New York cool. Although he never quit his daytime job, he was an actor. Many is the time I sat in the dark, watching him onstage, or cheered when he appeared in a snippet in a movie. I was a fan.

I remember one day in particular.  Bill had gotten a job as an extra in the movie, “Minority Report” with Tom Cruise. One evening during the filming, he burst through the door exclaiming – “Guess what? Today I was directed by Steven Spielberg!” That stopped me. And then he said, “You know what he said to me?” “No,” I said excitedly. “He said, ‘Could you please move over there, out of the way, sir?'” Those are the kinds of things I remember about Bill. Somehow his joy in life and Eddie’s joy in life have found their way into my spirit. They have infused me with it. Their joy has traveled from their spirits into mine.

I don’t try to understand how the Universe works. I don’t question the imponderable – things like the connection between loss and life, grief and joy. I just accept them. And I am grateful for the joy those beautiful spirits brought into my life. That is what they left me. That is what lasts. Not grief.

***

Read The Messenger: The Improbable Story of a Grieving Mother and a Spirit Guide by Helen Delaney. Find it at http://www.amazon.com. For a signed copy, go to http://www.themessenger.space.

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Not Yet

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I have an aunt who is ninety-six years old. She lives in Maryland, where I used to live. I wanted her to come out to Arizona with me, but she refused.

Every few days, she drives to Walmart to do her grocery shopping. I wish she wouldn’t. A friend of mine, who works at Walmart, texted me a few days ago. He said he saw her and she was “struggling.” I know it’s true.  She’s generally in good health, but she has a bad knee and walking is difficult. She is ninety-six, after all. She gets around Walmart leaning on the pushcart. My friend helped her get the groceries into her cart, stood with her in the checkout line, and loaded her car. He offered to help her again, and gave her his phone number. I’m lucky and she’s lucky that a kind soul was, and is, so near. Thank you, dear Rick.

I wish she lived in a place with other people (she lives alone ) where her meals could be prepared for her. My brother and I talked yesterday (he lives in New York), and we’re going to try – again – to get her to consider another living arrangement and to give up her car. But it’s hard, because she’s smart, opinionated, and up to date on everything from politics to well…politics. That’s her favorite, because its something she can rant and rave about and come away from it energized. The thing is, she’s mentally sharp, and she’s not sick. But her reflexes are ninety-six years old. She’s an accident waiting to happen, not only to herself, but maybe to somebody else, too.  But this isn’t about being reasonable. She’s afraid. She has said that she knows that some day, she’s going to have to give up the car, but not yet.  She believes she’ll die when she gives up the keys and life on her own terms. She’s probably right. And she’s not ready. Not yet. Maybe she’s not ready because it’s not her time. But when it is her time, I hope that she will be able to hear the Voice that says, “I love you. Come home. ” And no longer be afraid. I hope that for myself, too.

Some years ago, I had a near-death experience. I was on an operating table. The lights of the operating theater were in my eyes, and the last thing I saw was the silhouette of the doctor standing over me. I told him I was ready. He said, “Well, we’re ready for you.” But that wasn’t what I meant. I meant I was ready. I had a ruptured fallopian tube, I was bleeding out, and gently sinking into another place. It was the loveliest feeling I’ve ever had in this lifetime. I wish I had a better word to describe it. I couldn’t tell him what I meant, because then everything  went dark. When I woke up, all I wanted to do was to go back. I never thought of saying, not yet. I still don’t. But then, I’m not ninety-six. Not yet.

***

Read The Messenger: The Improbable Story of a Grieving Mother and a Spirit Guide by Helen Delaney. Find it at www.amazon.com. For a signed copy, go to www.themessenger.space.

 

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Nothing Lasts Forever

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I live in Arizona and we’re having a heat wave. Imagine that – a heat wave in Arizona! It was 108 degrees in Sedona today. Phoenix, two hours away and in “the valley,” has been hovering between 118 and 122 degrees. Airline flights have been cancelled. Smaller airplanes can’t fly safely in that kind of heat. I didn’t know that. I’ve never lived in the Southwest before.

I have been in 120-degree heat before. In India. It was about three years ago, and my daughter Michaela and I were in Delhi. She went for business and I tagged along. One of the sights there was a not-to-be missed mosque. Of course, we had to take our shoes off before entering. There was a courtyard between the entrance gate and the interior. Running across the paved courtyard was like running on a bed of hot coals. Michaela, bless her heart, gave me her socks. We toured the dark, cool mosque and carried on. I mean, how many times in one’s life does one get to see Delhi? Arizona doesn’t seem so radical, when I think about it.

For the last week, I have hunkered down and stayed inside except for early morning excursions to the supermarket and my air-conditioned meditation group. Today, my outside cat became an inside cat. He has braved the heat for the past couple of days, but today I laid down the law.

Oh, yes, and did I mention the desert roaches are back? The people here tell me when it’s this hot, they come in looking for water. Of COURSE they do. So, I’m doing what people here do – I spray the insides and outsides of my front door, my garage door, and the door to my patio. For the past three mornings, I have come into my kitchen to find no roaches lying on their backs, wiggling their spindly little legs. I thank God, sincerely and fervently. But then, this afternoon, I found one who made it in through my patio door. (How do they do that?) And why do they always end up on their backs? Never mind. It’s better than having them run around.

These creepy little insects are part of the balance between the incredible beauty of the high desert and the things that live in it. I don’t like sharing this space with them, but they were here before I was – probably before anybody was.

Back in Maryland, where I lived before, it was rain. And mosquitoes. I lived in wetlands. My house was beside a gorgeous river, but when I opened the door in the summertime, the mosquitoes would eat me alive, and I hated the days when the sun didn’t shine. It doesn’t matter where you live. Wherever you are, the earth will be made up of beauty and beasts. It will be blazing hot or freezing cold. Wherever you go in this life and on this earth, there will be something over which you have no control. In the meantime, I spray. (I found out that Raid makes a lavender scented poison.) I try to distract my complaining prisoner cat with toys (that lasts for about a minute). I stay in my air-conditioned condo. I read. I work on my book. I binge-watch good things on Netflix. I eat a lot of ice cubes. And…I treat myself to ice cream. Without guilt.

When I really think about it, things are okay. And guess what? The monsoon rains are coming. They come to us in Arizona from July to September, to cool everything off and make the cacti bloom. And the sky will be dramatic and breathtaking. The roaches will disappear. (Yea!) And Dorian (the cat) can stay outside under the car port and watch the rain.

I like the way the Buddhists handle this. They see the impermanence of things in life – the good, the bad, the heat, the cold, the beauty, and the beasts. They know that nothing lasts. And they don’t sweat it.

***

Read The Messenger: The Improbable Story of a Grieving Mother and a Spirit Guide by Helen Delaney. Find it at www.amazon.com. For a signed copy, go to www.themessenger.space.

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Angels?

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sedona[1]

Do you ever feel as if you are…watched over? Protected? I did, last week.

I went hiking on a new trail. It’s what Sedona people do. It’s also what people all over the world come here to do, not only because it is ravishingly beautiful and awe-inspiring, but you can enter a trail and in a few minutes, be in wilderness. Sometimes the silence (if nobody else is on the trail) is, as they say, deafening. I’m a city girl, and until I entered a wilderness, I don’t think I’ve ever “heard” true silence before. It is quite an experience. Oh, occasionally, you will get the sound of a bird, or the wind rustling a tree, but if no one is on the trail, there are no human sounds. That kind of silence can put you in an altered state, the state you reach for in meditation. That’s why a lot of us do it. You can feel something in that silence you can’t name, but it feels like God.

At the entrance to some trails, there are signs that warn hikers to watch out for snakes and bears. These signs never stopped me.  Maybe I didn’t really believe them (you should). The trails I usually hike are popular (by that I mean you meet humans now and then), and I figure the wild life avoid them. As a matter of fact, I’ve never seen any wildlife on a trail except once – two gorgeous mule deer, a doe and a fawn, once looked down on me from a shelf above, and that was all. Well, until last week.

As I said, I was on a trail I’d never been on before. I’d read about it in our local paper. I also went on a weekday when the tourists are scarce. The trail was exquisite – not too steep as trails here go, and dotted with the most beautiful cacti and wildflowers I think I’ve ever seen. It was also shaded – lots of trees. Ideal. And I was alone in the blessed silence. Had the God place all to myself.

But when you’re in the wilderness all by yourself, something kicks in. Awareness, maybe? Some kind of survival mechanism? A little ways in, I became acutely aware of my surroundings. I watched where I put my feet. I stopped every now and then and looked around me. I felt the wild life there, even though I couldn’t see it. I began to feel a little wary, a little uncomfortable. This trail felt different.  It wasn’t the challenging climbing trail sought by tourists. This was a walking trail, a trail for the locals.  People who know what they’re doing. Not city girls.

At some point, I saw a dog, making his way toward me, and behind him, two couples, aged like myself. One couple was obviously showing the trail to the other – visitors, and it seemed, city people like myself. I began to feel a little better.

“I thought the dog would have noticed,” I heard the taller of the two men say. I came closer to the four of them, and they were stopped, looking at something. “Don’t worry,” the man said, looking at me, it’s just a king snake.” And I got a look at my first snake in the wild. He was a beautiful creature, not too large, decorated in green and black diamond-like patterns. We all stood still while he slithered across the trail, calm as could be, as if he were used to seeing people on his trail all the time. The thing that surprised me the most about all that is that I wasn’t afraid. “That looks like a pack-rat’s nest,” the knowledgeable man said, pointing toward a tree, “and I guess he’s going in for lunch.” Now that stopped me. A harmless snake is one thing. Rats are another. I couldn’t see it, thank you God. I wouldn’t know a pack-rat’s nest from a hole in the ground (that isn’t a pun, but excuse it anyway), and there are some things I don’t want to know.

As the two couples made their way past me and back to the trail’s entrance, one of the women stopped, looked back and said, “Don’t worry. King snakes are harmless, but if you see a snake with a diamond head, they’re the ones to stay away from. But,” and here’s where she got me, “isn’t it nice that we were along when you got to the snake?”

And there’s the miracle. Out of all time and space, I was to meet these people at exactly the point and at exactly the instant a snake was about to cross my path. I wouldn’t have known that it was a king snake, or that it was harmless. I would have freaked out, for sure. Maybe I would have stumbled and broken my ankle, like a friend of mine did on a trail.  I saw nobody else on the trail that day, coming or going. I had to look after those people to make sure they weren’t angels. Or were they?

This kind of thing happens to me too often for me to just dismiss it, or chalk it up to coincidence. Something or someone is always put in my path when I need help, and the timing is always perfect. It may be something I’ve “lost,” like records for my tax return. It may be stopping in traffic, not knowing why, just before another vehicle appears out of nowhere. Did God, did my angels, put these people in my path at just the right time? What do you think?

I went on my way, as far as my strength would take me on the trail and came back, back across the place where I saw the snake. The snake was gone. And I was unafraid.

I embarked upon a spiritual path years ago. The death of my son left me with nowhere else to go. After years of study and experience, I am now aware of small and large miracles, “coincidences” that were overlooked in the everyday busyness of my earlier life. I see angels where there were none before. Sometimes, they meet me on the trail and tell me not to be afraid.

For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.
They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.

Psalm 91

***

Read The Messenger: The Improbable Story of a Grieving Mother and a Spirit Guide by Helen Delaney. Find it at www.amazon.com or, for a signed copy, go to www.themessenger.space.

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Levitating and The Circle of Life

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Last week, I wrote about my daughter Debbie’s recording of The Circle of Life from the Disney movie, The Lion King. Debbie sang the French version, L’histoire de la vie. Her gold and platinum record hangs on my wall. Can you imagine someone giving you such a thing?  That tells you a lot about Debbie.

I was asked to share her recording with you, and so I shall. Click on the link and enjoy the video.  Thank you Debbie, thank you Elton John, thank you Disney, and thank you to all the friends, guides, and loved ones who have completed the circle of life and have gone on to begin another.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=w9u21s1wuok

***

I read a small article today on levitating. No, it wasn’t about actually levitating, but the exercise of rising above a situation that has you baffled or frustrated, in order to see it from another perspective. Notice, I said exercise. This is something you have to practice.
I encountered a situation recently that called for levitation. It involved someone who wouldn’t do what I wanted them to do. Oh, I hear you chuckling. But honestly, haven’t you ever wanted somebody to do something they just wouldn’t do? It’s really frustrating, especially when what you want them to do would make their life easier – no, better than that – it would make their life pretty wonderful. And, like a wilful child, they just won’t do it. It’s enough to make you tear your hair out.
I spent a couple of sleepless nights arguing with someone who wasn’t there, giving them all the reasons why they should do what I want them to do. And while I was awake, angry, and righteous, I’m pretty sure that person was sleeping like a baby.  Come on, tell me you haven’t done the same thing.
Anyway, back to levitation. I’ve noticed that whenever I am in a state of suffering (because that’s what this was), the Benevolent Universe comes to relieve me. It sends me a gift. The only trick here is that I have to ask for it.
On the night in question, while in the throes of my wee-hours agony (I couldn’t get to sleep and I couldn’t stop arguing with the invisible person), I remembered to pray. I asked the Universe (I called It the Holy Spirit this time) to change my perspective, and a few minutes later, this thought came to me: Why don’t you try to see this person as God sees them? That’s when I levitated. I rose above my desire to control this person and tried to see them – not as I want them to be – but as they are in the sight of God – beloved, accepted and embraced for who and where they are at this moment, and endowed with free will. All the things I want for myself.  It was the next morning that I came upon the article. It was like a telegram from God, confirming what I’d received during the night.
This kind of thing happens to me a lot. It’s not because I’m lucky. It’s because I have been in the company of spiritual teachers, and every once in a while I remember what I’ve been taught. Plus – I don’t like to suffer. Trying to control somebody else is almost the definition of suffering. It feels terrible and it never works. What a relief to remember that I don’t have to manage anybody’s life but my own!  When I get a little out of line, my job is to levitate. Get above my ego and adjust my perspective. My perspective. Everything else will go as it will.
I can just hear the Holy Spirit saying, “Now wasn’t that easy?”
Actually, it was easy. It only took a minute.  I got to sleep and didn’t worry the next day. We are all on our own paths, and we have the right to our own learning process. This all reminds me of when Debbie was a baby. She was my first, and I hovered over her and watched her like a hawk. One day, when she was getting used to standing alone, she let go of the coffee table she was holding on to, and tried to take a step. She started to fall and I caught her. My then husband watched me do this a couple of times and said, “You know, if you don’t let her fall, she’s never going to learn to walk.” I suppose I levitated then. The next time she tried it, I stood by but didn’t catch her and she fell onto her bottom. It was more like she sat down. I think it was in that moment that she got the hang of it, because she got up and tried it again, and sat down again. But she learned to walk, and learned to sing, and learned to be a mother herself. One might say it was the Circle of Life.
***
Read The Messenger: The Improbable Story of a Grieving Mother and a Spirit Guide by Helen Delaney. Find it at www.amazon.com. For a signed copy, order it at www.themessenger.space.

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The Complexities of Life

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Life is up. Then it’s down. It’s happy, then it’s sad. It’s never wholly one thing or another. Life in human form is complex. The question is: can we get comfortable with that? Can we see that it is all right?

I was in Los Angeles last weekend with people I love more than anyone or anything on earth—my three daughters and my granddaughter. Debbie, my oldest daughter and Celine, my granddaughter live there. Michaela, the youngest, had come out from New York on business.

Debbie called me with a last minute inspiration and said “Why don’t you come out, too?”  And I got lucky. My cat sitter had a cancellation in her schedule and she was free to stay with Dorian.  Then we learned that Niki was flying out from Washington, D.C., to round out the group. It was a spontaneous, star-studded turn of events. Heartwarming. Happy. Joyous. It’s not easy to get us all together. These are incredible girls, all of them— women, I mean—with careers and commitments. But we made it.

In spite of our scheduling “miracle,” we weren’t completely rounded out.  My granddaughter Elenni (Michaela’s daughter) in New York couldn’t be there because of her job. We face-timed our missing link and she was “there” for a laugh with us, but do you see what I mean? Therein lay the complexity. Complexity doesn’t spoil the joy that is ours; it is just life. It’s the way it works. The question is, can we get comfortable with it? Can we see that it is all right? The girls are conscious people, spiritual and awake. They were fine. So was I. We took it as it was, we missed our dear Elenni, and were grateful for the joy that was ours.

The meal of the weekend was a cook-out in my granddaughter’s back yard. It was elegant – lamb chops and teriyaki chicken, no less, and other luscious tidbits, like grilled pineapple. The table was set beneath a canopy fashioned by God – a full, lush avocado tree. Celine’s orange tree was heavy with fruit, as was the lemon tree. Something blue on a large shrub (I don’t know its name) was in full bloom, as were crimson hibiscus. It was California at its best. The weather was perfect; the food was delicious (the girls are good cooks). We laughed a lot. I was overflowing with love and gratitude. We are a tight group. Still…there was that little piece missing. And then, there was Zoe.

Zoe is Debbie’s cat. I slept in her room and Zoe (who sleeps there too) commandeered my little weekender. The bag was just her size, and from the moment I put it down, she got on it to sleep and never moved from it, pretty much the whole time I was there. We had to move her when I needed something from the bag. Finally, I just took everything out, so that Zoe, seventeen years old, frail and ill, could have what she wanted. My granddaughter’s two dogs, on the other hand, were young, robust, and feisty. They’re pit bulls. Big. Commanding. Another little complexity.

On the last night I was there, I went to a real Hollywood party. A friend of ours, whom we’ve known for many years, is a film director, and a movie of hers was premiering on television. The “watch” party was at her house – a dream place that looks like you think a movie director’s house would look like—high on a hill with the lights of LA twinkling below. Glamorous food. Some of the cast members were there, humble, shy, and friendly. Not a sign of ego. Normally, I am not a big fan of parties, but I had a great time. Every once in a while, though, I thought about Zoe.

The next morning, I packed my things in bags and left my weekender for Zoe to sleep on. She looked so sweet, curled up like a baby. I couldn’t take it from her. I drove back to Sedona through the Sonoran desert. It is a breathtaking drive in the spring. The desert is in bloom and so spectacular that at times I was compelled to cry out loud, “Oh, my God!” But it takes about eight hours, with a stop or two for gas. Breathtaking drive, God’s beauty, long hours, fatigue. There it was again.

When I got home, I texted the girls – it’s what we do when we travel – and asked about Zoe. Debbie had taken her to the vet that morning. She texted back that by afternoon, Zoe was gone.  Amidst our great joy of being together, there were tears and loss. We had loved Zoe for seventeen years. She was family. She was also failing; we all knew that, and nobody wanted Zoe to suffer, but still. There it was.

Debbie is a singer, and she had a big hit a while back. While living in Paris, she recorded the French version of “The Circle of Life” (L’Histoire de la Vie) for the soundtrack of the movie, The Lion King. Niki found it on YouTube and sent it to all of us. And that’s it. The circle of life is life as we are able to see it, complexities and all.  But the complexities of life are not without purpose and meaning. I believe there is a Divine Order and that Love has created it. We are just in a place where we cannot see it with human eyes or understand it fully with human hearts. Yet, in those moments when we are comfortable with our limits and accepting of the complexities of life, we are in a state of peace. In those rare, beautiful moments, we know that everything is fine, and we are safe, and loved, and at home, as are those who have gone before us.

Zoe as we will remember her – young and happy

 

See the Sonoran desert in bloom at http://www.livescience.com/30433-sonoran-desert-springtime-flowers-bloom.html

***

Read The Messenger: The Improbable Story of a Grieving Mother and a Spirit Guide by Helen Delaney. Find it at www.amazon.com. For a signed copy, go to www.themessenger.space.

 

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