I recently returned from a trip to my homeland. It was a special one this time, aimed at saying goodbye to the Mother who gave me birth, and who infused in me, along with my father, a desire for living life at its utmost.

My mother had a long, beautiful life, and would have turned 89 this month. Yet, it was a very difficult, harsh life, ravaged to some extent by the horrors of the second world war; not so much the horrors of an occupied Parisian suburb, but rather the ‘ravages’ she encountered at home with her own mother.

It is not easy to see the beauty of my Mother’s life behind the veil; the veil imposed by her own mother, knowing she loved us the way her mother did.

I am glad I am able to see her life’s beauty and am grateful to have been able to visit her an extra five times in November, due to the fact that, unexpectedly, a cousin of ours passed away in eastern France. It was a special time, just the two of us, with very few words uttered, holding hands. An exchange of Love & Light.

This ability to see, beyond the veils or the “sacred wounds” our caretakers carved upon our psyche in our childhoods, is something I have been questioning for a long time; at least consciously for the past 11 years.

Why is it that some people see, and why is it that some don’t?

And why is it that some people do the work their soul is calling them to do, and some don’t’?

The question remains, deepens even, beautiful as it is, as my life transformed itself in the crucible of my Mother’s eternal love.

I experienced something out of the ordinary during this trip. Perhaps a lifting of a veil, perhaps a seeing of some sort in an unexplored area of my inner self.

It happened, I felt it happening, and yet, obviously, couldn’t put my finger on it. It happened early morning on January 27th on the way to the funeral chamber where my brother, his companion and I would be able to pay our last respects to my Mother.
I would call it a shift and, yet, perhaps the best way to describe it is to use the French word “déclic.” Something that was stuck, or possibly stored away for some time, starts moving. There is sudden motion, there is life.

This shift got confirmed as I was texting with my wife, who was 9 hours behind us. We discussed the matter of what was going to happen that morning. Then a pause; then, a few minutes later, we addressed an issue related to our son’s school, texting to each other at the very same time: 7:44 am. Such a beautiful, divine confirmation; or so it felt.

A friend of mine, Lillis, said this energy shift was due to the doors closing from the energy of me and my Mother. And yet something seemed to have opened up.

Synchronicities started to abound; all the more incredible. Connecting with a sister last Friday (February 3rd) over a trip she had taken to Dublin, Ohio, in the early 80s. I traveled to Dublin, Ohio, in June of 2014 for a France-related training and, mystically, on my way back home that day, I was flying through the other Dublin, Ireland.

As I waited for my flight to Dublin that morning, I was able to share some thoughts with my friend Altair, trying to put into words what had happened in the past few days.

I wrote to him that “for a reason that I do not fully understand, my mother’s death seems to have created a ‘liberation of some sort’ in me; or the removal of a veil, if you will.”

It felt as if the concept of surrender had gone out of my life; I no longer knew what it was and perhaps, as Altair suggested, I had surrendered into surrender.

I also wrote that “it seems that I have lost, along the way of surrender, all my expectations. Only ‘nothing’, or possibly ‘what is,’ remains; pure and simple, like a tear, a drop of divine water.”

I had tears in my eyes while writing these words; they seem to come from somewhere else.

So it seems that this is the beginning of a new journey, or possibly one undertaken at a deeper inner level.

I do not know—knowing we so seldom do—what will happen, and the only thing I can do is walk forward, offering my Light & Love while honoring the memory of the woman who gave me life and so many other blessings.

Merci Maman. Je t’aime.