Excerpt from Passing On: Farewell to Mother (Joanna Romer)

Farewell to Mother 

Reading Dr. Alexander’s book about his near-death experience, I was immediately struck by the experience I’d had when my mother was in a coma. It was so vivid I can remember how it felt to this day, though it was now 29 years ago.

My mother was a very healthy woman. In her 70s, she swam every day, worked on her writing and maintained a busy social life with the local garden club and other organizations. When my father died, Mom was 75 and her abilities were undiminished. After two years, sShe seemed to be rebounding nicely from Dad’s deathafter two years, yet something may have been missing that I wasn’t aware of. Or perhaps, as a neighbor hinted, she’d met a new man…

One night I was awakened by a phone call around 1 a.m. “You’d better come down to Florida,” an unfamiliar voice said. “Your mother’s in a coma.” I was astonished. Just four days earlier I had talked to my mother and she’d told me she was on her way to Miami to see the Pope, who was visiting the U.S. at the time. Mom had sounded lively and cheerful, just as usual. What had happened? Had there been a car accident?

No, not a car accident, the doctor told me, but there had been an accident—from cosmetic surgery. In a state of shock, my husband and I boarded a plane the next morning from New York to Orlando, and were ushered into my mother’s hospital room in nearby Altamonte Springs.

The story came out: Mother had not gone to Miami at all; she’d checked into a clinic for a face lift, which had gone well, and then a tummy tuck, which hadn’t. In between the two, she’d called me and my brother Robert to tell us about her fictional Miami trip—not wanting to worry us with her surgery.

I gazed at my mother lying in the hospital bed, her face peaceful and serene. Already, she didn’t seem to be there. Mother had evidently come through the tummy tuck initially, but then an embolism had formed and gone straight to her brain, putting her in a coma. The condition was irreversible.

After an agonizing six days, Robert and I made the decision to remove my mother’s life support, according to her wishes. She did not pass on immediately, however; and here is where “the miracle,”, to my mind, occureds. Early in the morning onf dDay seven,7 Robert and I were called to the hospital to say our goodbyes. I went in first, and sat on the bed at my mother’s side. In my hand I held a string of blue faience beads, an antique Egyptian necklace dating back to the time of Amenhotep IV in 1330 BC and before. (Amenhotep, also known as Akhenaten, is responsible for the first instance of monotheism in the ancient world.) I’d been writing a novel about ancient Egypt, and I knew my mother was also fascinated by this period so I brought the beads with me. Holding the necklace, I put my hand over my mother’s hand, meditating for her peace and well being.

I lifted my eyes and gazed out the window, and all of a sudden I “saw” my mother in space, traveling back in time. I didn’t see her body; I saw her essence—joyous, lively and marked with her usual avid curiosity. She was going to visit ancient Egypt, where she’d always wanted to go. There was even a mention, or “feeling,” of her interest in the revered status of cats in this period—she’d always been curious about that. Time stood still, or rather, there was no time, and in those brief minutes I also came to realize there wais no death. Released from our earthly bodies, we are free to travel anywhere. Accompanying this realization was an overwhelming feeling of peace and love—the feeling that everything was “just as it should be.”

I’m not sure how long I gazed out the window at this vision, but after a while there was a knock on the door and my brother entered to say goodbye to Mom. I left the room, feeling as if I were not of this earth. I was no longer sad; instead I experienced an exaltation that laisted over three months. There was no anger, remorse, pain or suffering, such as I’d felt two years earlier when my father died. I knew, somehow, that my mother was going on, continuing to live her life. Her earthly body passed on shortly after my brother’s visit.

I’ve been on this path—toward clarity—ever since. Thank you, Mother!

Read more about Joanna Romer and her books HERE.









Read more about Passing On HERE.