December 29th will be the last Sunday of this year, 2019.
It has been a rough two weeks for me but I am slowly recovering. Getting through the holiday was not the problem. Getting through the aches and pains of a severe sinus infection accompanied with step throat has been a battle.
It is during times like this I seem to most miss my mother. I lost her in January 2015. She was my best friend and my best support. My mind tells me she would know what to do to give me comfort and help me through this time of sickness. She was nurturing and sympathetic to whatever troubled me. A mother’s love always makes the troubled areas of life seem so unimportant.
But luckily for me, I have another elder in my life that provides wisdom and encouragement to me each time I pay her a visit. She is inching closer to 100 years old and her life each and every day is providing comfort to those around her. Including me. This is how I heal.
My last two weeks of battling this sickness that has taken residence in my body has truly taken its toll on me. I am not the only one, family and friends are suffering through forms of sickness as well. I guess it is just that time of the year for such unwanted guests.
For me, when all else has failed, meaning using essential oils, trying to down broth, drinking hot tea and giving in to the bottle of Motrin to help fight the fever, I give in and go visit my little old friend whose name is Chi-wa-see.
If ever a person could wish for the perfect mother it would be someone just like her. Attentive, caring and compassionate and a very private individual. But today she takes me into her home and we sit in front of a small slow burning fire on a soft meditation cushion and talk.
She starts off by saying, “sometimes we have to just let life be my dear…you don’t have to fight it or fight with it, sometimes it better just to open your arms to the world, inhale and exhale out all the emotions you are keeping trapped inside your mind.”
“Feel the hurt, feel the pain, feel the suffering and let go. Difficult to do? Yes. But during the time of discomfort listen to your core. What is it telling you? Detach yourself mentally from the challenge of making yourself better and just let it be. It will work itself out.”
I tell her how right she is that it is difficult but it is human nature to try and fight the uneasiness. The sickness sucks the very life out of me and I want it to be healed and over with.
Her facial expression tells me I just told her exactly what the problem is and the solution to my dilemma was exactly what she had just said.
“Every fiber of your body knows what its job is. Even your mind knows but it is your thoughts that you can control which will put you in alignment with your body. The thoughts you allow in sometimes are not your true self. Emotions that empower you filter out the process of letting go if you allow them to. Detach and step back allow the body to cleanse and heal.”
“Give it rest when it needs it and give it nourishment when it is required. Breathe in cleaner air and push air out that is no longer healthy to your system.”
Chi, you make it sound so easy but I do know that you have come through a much more difficult life than what I am going through right now and made it through, that in itself gives me a reason to kill the self-pity and take my sick behind back home and rest. I will let this nasty stuff run its course until it has run out of me.
And as always, I am going to reflect more on the gratitude of having someone in my life to run to in the absence of my dear sweet mother. I know she is smiling from the corners of life I cannot see.
Wishing everyone a really wonderful upcoming year!
~DK