You are Good, Keep Going

All of us on 125th Street.

This Monday I am going to show my ESL students the movie, "The Long, Long Trailer" with Lucy and Desi. It just seems so perfect for them: humor, easy (albeit crazy) dialogue, and a way for us all to escape on a trip!

This movie has been on my mind a lot for this class, although, it also is a movie my sister and I showed our mother days before she transitioned. Guess we were trying to give her something to watch to distract her, but finally she said, "I am dying. I don't want to watch this."

Now I think of her statement and realize she had to say it out loud and this silly movie provided a space for her to say it. How would you say it? It cannot be an easy thing to do. My mother was terrified of dying. I realize this now that it must have been decades of her praying to stay alive, disabled with her left side paralyzed, speech impaired, legally blind, and sensitive to sounds, lights, well, lots of things as well as highly religious. Now I know how naive I was to even consider why someone might horde life over death no matter how rich are those streets of gold and hem of Jesus so readily available past Heaven's doors.

She told my sister and me she thought maybe she was a bad person, translated to she thought she was going to Hell. But I told her everyone gets in free to Paradise and at that late hour of her life, she bought it, and never looked back. As her hospice caregiver, soon after her transition, I used the bathroom and as I was washing my hands felt her behind me, giddy and free, thanking me. Dazed, I said, "you're welcome," and she was off to glory.

 “People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway.
If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway.
For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.”  - Mother Teresa

So if Lucy thrashing around the long, long trailer helped her somewhat get there, then good. Like young women with newborns, my sister and I were trying to keep our mother as comfortable as we could and a movie from her generation seemed to be a good choice.

Thanks, Lucy and Desi. We still love you and my students will, too.

Te amo, mamacita.

 

Sheela Wolford is a writer, poet, photographer, and spiritual healer, dedicated by her favorite lyric by the Georgia Satellites: "I don't want to die asking for another chance." Another lifetime will roll around, but this one smacks of NOW. And she is ready to provide and to produce what rides in her, energetically free and colossal. She is writing The Year of the Brown adidas Running Shoes, as well as Cliffhanger, a play about her relationship with her mother, a colorful and grounding grief journal, and a poetry and photography collection. In November, she will train to become a Reiki practitioner in the NYC tri-state area. As always, Sheela is ready to write and to lead a workshop customized for whatever is needed. You can contact her at wolfordfindyourvoice@gmail.com or go to  Workshops by Wolford and please feel free to "like" her on Facebook.