Being part of the dying process and passing of my father confirmed the beauty of the cycles by which we are governed. As human beings these cycles offer a deep insight into the true nature of our being and the evolutionary path, we are all returning to. My father’s passing was the greatest gift that he ever gave me, and it is with much joy and celebration that I share with you, my experience.

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I was witness to profound changes taking place within him as he began the process of accepting and surrendering to the final phase of his life. These changes were varied and many, but essentially included:

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• a greater understanding and appreciation of our life cycle and just how short one life is. 

• his willingness to converse and discuss life, moments, challenges, and issues at a much greater depth. 

• a willingness to go into those ‘uncomfortable’ feeling zones to let rise what needed to be ‘felt’ and if needed, discussed, and let go of.

• an increased connection to God and life being much more than the physical temporal existence that we superficially know it to be.

• an increased sensitivity, vulnerability, and tenderness.   

In 2015, my father was diagnosed with bowel cancer which accelerated the above changes to an even greater depth. What I observed during this time was the transformation of a man who had lived the roles of a husband and father, dutifully providing for his family, to the unfolding of a truly great man and being, called Raymond. 

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As a teenager I always remember saying to my mother, “Dad doesn’t even know who I am”, which pretty much summarised our relationship. It is something I know now I had previously held my father to ransom for and perhaps why I hadn’t allowed myself to see the full beauty of all that he held as the person that he was.  

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However, the person that I knew back then was not the man who was appearing before me. The more my father surrendered to the cycle of life and his impending death, the more I got to meet and cherish his beauty – particularly as he humbly dealt with the impact of cancer and its effects on his body. The raw vulnerability, sensitivity and tenderness that came forth were endearing and so reflective of who we are at the core of our being that it was immensely inspiring.

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During this time, our conversations were expansive and deep, like nothing I had previously experienced with him. They embodied a mutual understanding of our depth of connection and the connection with life and our other-worldliness. 

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During this time, he began to express how he felt. He began to express his love with others 
on a more intimate level and there was no holding him back.

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At this point it needs to be said that an impending surrender to the final phase of life gave my father permission to express and acknowledge this depth of connection and love within himself. Yet, it had always been there. However, we often don't live out the majority of our lives from this depth of acknowledging and expressing the innate love we are. We tend to bring focus to all that sits outside the essence of our being and reduce ourselves to live out and express from a lesser version of who we are. As human beings we are here to learn, grow and evolve. We are perfectly imperfect and have lessons to learn to support our evolution back to the knowing of who we are in truth – love. And although we may be dealing with ‘stuff’, it does not negate the fact that we are love at the core of our being.

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Being witness to the accelerated evolution of my father during this time was a confirmation of all that I share. It highlighted how much we choose not to honour and live the essence of who we are in our everyday lives. 

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Why wait until we are near our final call to live the call we were originally birthed forth to be?

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In the final weeks before Raymond departed, he was in a rest home. Being in his presence was beautiful on so many levels. As he surrendered more deeply, he emanated a quality of being in stillness. This quality allowed all who came into his presence the opportunity to ‘simply be’. He offered a space from which to be at one with yourself, an ease of being and a place in his presence where I could have been all day, every day. There was no imposition, no force, no drive, no intensity. Instead, there was an exquisite space of tenderness, love, and vulnerability; the kind that simply melts your heart. He shared the raw humanness of who we are and how we are all truly vulnerable and sensitive beings. His body and his being had become so light that any, even slightly aggressive tone, or touch was an assault on the delicate nature and sensitivity of his being. Raymond shared this openly and offered a reflection for me to feel this exquisite state of being within myself and to feel the fact that this is within us all.

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We simply mask or hide this delicate and sensitive nature underneath protections, guardedness, and control from buried hurts. But crack the surface, dig a little deeper and we are all of this same essence. No matter what skin colour, religion, nationality, or gender. We are one and the same.

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As a family, my mother and my brother all had an inner knowing that our job was to hold Raymond in the love that we are, to support him to pass over. And this is exactly what we did. All of us were present around his bedside as his body was preparing to pass. The quality and unity of love held was palpable. We gently guided and supported Raymond to know and feel the love he is and to let go and surrender to that love. This was precisely what he chose and as he took his last breath, we all arose with him. 

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In that moment Raymond became the universal man he had always been.

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The at-one-ment felt in that moment and that we were graced with after his departure was a confirmation of the universal and divine order, we are a part of.  We were left in awe at the inspiration that had been bestowed upon us.

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His body left on the bed was simply an empty carcass and gone was the light that had once been in-housed in it. The light of Raymond’s Soul had moved on from this life and into his next. His body was left as a reminder of the person and essence that he had lived out in this life and the lessons learnt. The body and its purpose were clear, in that it enhouses the Light of the Soul and that we have the choice to live and express this via our body, in every movement, gesture, action and expression. 

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We are more than human beings. We are multi-dimensional beings.
We are universal and hold a magnitude of magnificence

that would blow us away because of how awesome we are!

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In Raymond I met this magnificence and in doing so I met mine. 

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Raymond’s departure was a celebration and a blessing. It offered a true gift for my family and consolidated the fact that life is about love. Being love, expressing love and sharing love, simply by being who we naturally are.

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What we experienced and how we brought understanding to the cycle of life and death is actually normal and a natural way in which to prepare a loved one and ourselves to pass over. It showed me that, as a society, the way we deal with death in this day and age is actually archaic and false compared to the true Light that comes with embracing the cycles we are naturally a part of.

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Thank you, Raymond, for sharing the essence and Light of your Soul with us. 

 

Published with the permission of my awesome family.