Last summer as I was doing an intensive TM teacher re-certification course, my dear friend Sherry decided it was time for her to step beyond the relative and slip into the sublime. It’s taken me all this time to write about this, but that is usually my way.
I realize how fortunate I was to be in Fairfield last summer – truly another well orchestrated, nothing is by chance moment.
Once there, I was juggling the course and trying to see her most days. My buddy, Harriet and I were stretching to the max. Our other closest friends just happened to be leading the course. That alone was amazing…4 of Shri’s very best friends on this whole planet where in the same place, doing the same thing, at the same time. Shri had been on my case for so long to do this course but I had to wait for a time when I knew my Mom would be okay without me. My window came and little did I realize how all this was truly Shri’s intuition and organizing power on overload.
Guru Purnima that summer was another significant milestone. I had gone to see her a few days before and as usual she was orchestrating not only my life but also my wardrobe. She always remembered how Maharishi had liked me to be in very sparkly colours to bring on the light and how once, after watching back a video we had made, looked at me and told me to wear more “rosaries”. Hah..tell a woman to wear more jewelry…wow…lucky me!
So Shri loved to pick from her sari’s and have me wear them. They were so much more beautiful then any of mine, except for the ones she had already given me as gifts of course. So we chose a few and then, and this was a first, she sent me to get her jewelry boxes and asked me to wear her over-the top – gold necklaces and earrings. It was such a tender moment, that I cannot fully do her service here in the writing of it. I always knew, she would have given me the world if she could. Her heart was full of generosity and love as she took on so many people and looked after all of us with such goodness and compassion. Sighhhhhh
I need to digress here for a moment and set the parameters and complexity of our sisterhood. Many years ago, I had come to Fairfield with Ali when our lives took a significant turn. She and Bob and Carol, especially, held my hand in those very first uncertain days before the move. Then Harriet, Warren and Janet were there waiting for me in Fairfield making sure the transition was smooth. Very delicate time – that one but I was well served and very grateful. Amazingly enough, Shri moved to Fairfield a relatively short time after me and literally for exactly the same set of circumstances as my own! So now, I was a few steps ahead and she actually let me lead for a bit…very temporarily, if you knew her! What is so incredible to me as I look back is here we all were together again in the same place…best friends forever…true blue…over and over the same. What followed was a lot of great years of sharing our lives and that of our kids. ( Ohhh just remembered.. we also had the same mid-wife and our kids were born in the same building in Great NecK! hah!)
So now back to the reality of last summer…the day she stretched her wings and took flight.
Being there for that most intimate moment is the ultimate illusive gift that I can never say thank you for.
When you are a silent witness to something so personal and sacred it is beyond my beyonds…
To be there when the breath becomes so subtle that it seems not even God can hear the stillness, was intense and magical.
Solemn yet sweet, you are there, at the very moment when the eyes of God and the eyes of a very grateful, humble and devoted Shri meet.
In that moment as the rush of all that you know to be true is exchanged between her heart and the heart of the Divine,
the picture of her embracing the essence of everything she believed in her whole heart, and
the final element of letting go and falling so deeply into magnificence and grace, falls beyond the imagination.
I made my peace with her before she left. It was another gift. I was with her and Samantha. Curtis had said as he opened the door to her room, I think that you should say your goodbyes. I remember not wanting to disturb her so I just sat next to her and held her hand. I whispered a few things but nothing significant. I wanted Samantha to have all the moments she needed for herself while she sat holding her Mom’s other hand.
I got up to leave and as I was letting go of Shri’s hand, Samantha looked at me and basically, what I heard her say was, that’s it?( whatever she said exactly was more like…you don’t have to go…stay..talk to her..it’s ok ) but I was hearing Shri, as always, calling me out – “That’s it Reen? ”
And with that, Samantha gave me her gift, as in that moment she was the embodiment of her Mom.
So I stayed and it all was finished by the time I walked from her room.
We have shared a lot of moments in this life….like every birthday for many many years.
She was though the one friend I would have to wait for my moments with, watching for the windows, following the steps on being the best friend possible, and say my piece when it was easiest for her to listen. She was quite a force to be reckoned with as we all know with a huge smile.
But here, in those few days, I said it all and we were complete and finished for now.
And She is the one I know will be waiting for all of us when we meet again.
What a blast it will be to play around on all the lokas, in our sameness, and shine brighter than any star in the night sky as we continue the journey…together…all of us..for time eternal.
Love from me to Shri
