Quest of the Goose

The days following my mother's death have been turbulent. I have struggled to keep my balance; it has not been easy and I've failed miserably sometimes.

But such is the way of it. Grief knows no bounds, it is very like the waves of Ocean that crash to the beach. Some waves are bigger than others, and they must be ridden out. During the first few days, the waves are usually large, dark and stormy, full of debris.

As time goes on, those waves grow slower, gentler...more accepting. And here is where I find some serenity, when my heart has ridden out those destructive first waves of grief.

Early this morning, before Sun had risen over the treetops, Goose flew over, at the head of a long V formation. Wings tipped with gold, from Sun that had not yet shown his face to the rest of us, Grandmother Goose led the flock to the West...the place of rebirth on the Medicine Wheel. The West direction tells me of my responsibility to all things...and to each other. West is the direction of Wisdom.

It is a week since my mother died. As I sat on my stoop, in the early Morning stillness, I sent blessings with Goose...and thanked her for her message.

Grandmother Goose teaches how to navigate great turbulence in life. She tells me it is time for an inner quest, one where I learn, once again, that I can change nothing in others, only in myself. It is a difficult lesson for me to learn, seemingly, since I am caught up in it consistently.

She tells me of loyalty and how sometimes, loyalty can blind me to the true facts. She's also telling me this is all part of the journey of life; that I have the tools and abilities to make it through.

And suddenly, my intuition tells me I do.

It is a blinding realization.

Have I ever entered any traumatic situation as well-balanced and with as many tools as I have been given in this one? Recognizable tools?

I think I am making progress. I think my studies of messages given from the Universe are bearing fruit. Fruit that is still in the ripening stage, granted; however, I have faced family disruption these last few days with relative calm.

Families that lose the last surviving parent can go into free fall, I was told by a nurse last week. Instead of pulling together, siblings tear each other apart. That is the situation that occurred in my family last week. But it was not just my mother's death that brought about the strife, which is not new...it has always been thus.

Will that last unfortunate blowout be the end of it? I don't think so. I think each member of my family still wants to be heard, wants to be validated. I think each sibling is still clamouring for Mom's attention. And I think my mother wanted it that way, during her convoluted life.

My mother and I grew close, during the last couple of years. We grew close because I would not get involved in the strife that fueled my Mom and her daughters; I would change the subject, talk about other things. In that way, I made a conscious decision to ignore the bad and embrace the good about my mother.

My mother gradually realized the error of her ways, when she entered the Care Residence. She then had contact with others who did not believe in stirring strife in family members, for attention and diversion. But for my mother, that epiphany came too late...after a lifetime of pushing painful buttons in each daughter, only distrust met her overtures of love and apology.

And it seems only distrust remains.

But it is early days yet. My eternal flame of optimism lets me fantasize that her daughters will see that Mom tried, towards the end of her life, to walk a loving, gentle path, instead of the torturous, mountainous route she had chosen most of her life. Unfortunately, she made a Will, in an angry state, that continues to fuel the fray...one that controls generations not yet born. One that pits children against parents, one that will continue to remind her family of a mother that used control and anger and manipulation to bring her daughters in line.

Hours before her death, she asked me to write a book about her...Make them understand, she said. It is an enormous request, one that will take me on a journey that will follow my mother's life, one that will take me into a tortured mind.

And at the end of it, perhaps I will understand.

Grandmother Goose, with her message of the great quest to come, tells me I will.