Meeting Persephone

In Druidry there is an understanding that when we die in this world, we are re-born in The Otherworld. In this Otherworld we live a life not entirely different than the sort we live in this world, we die again, and are born again in this world. It's thought that when loved ones die in this world we should celebrate their birth into the Otherworld and when they are born here we would mourn their loss in the Otherworld. Somewhat complicated really. What it offers (me anyway) is the idea of something beyond this world.

Surrounding my mother-in-law in her final days were those of several religious beliefs (or lack thereof) from Roman Catholic to Evangelical Christian and Pagan to Atheist/Agnostic. Each of us with our own ideas of what she was going to encounter once she was no longer with us. She was Roman Catholic - recently accepted back into the Church's good graces after several years of hard work and repentance for her "unholy and sinful" life. She was tormented with guilt and the work she put in to re-enter the Church was very much worth it to her. Enough said.

But as I watched her deteriorate day after day lying in her bed no longer able to walk, sit up on her own, or muster an appetite, it became very easy for me to also watch a regression taking place. With her parents and brother also losing the same battle she was enduring we thought we had a measuring stick with which to figure her remaining time - the problem was that she experience within hours what took them days, weeks, and months to reach. The progression was rapid and relentless but revealing in some sense as well.

I'd always likened my Mother-in-law to an "Aunt Pitty-Pat" type archetype (ala 'Gone with the Wind'). She was an innocent easily led type with little backbone of her own. She was sweet but frustrating. She also learned to live independently after her husband suffered a series of strokes and was left paralyzed. She cared for him until she no longer could physically but it steeled her spine a bit and she became a bit stronger than she'd ever been.

In her last days, I watched her eyes a great deal. They lost focus but her brow maintained a seriousness as she tried to keep focused on whomever might have been speaking with her. Gradually that focus was lost and was replaced by a clear impression that she no longer understood. It was as though she was already entering an infancy right before my own eyes. She tugged at her blankets and thrust her legs under her sheets in that same weak way that a newborn baby might. While I didn't know that her time was quite as near as it was, it was obvious that it wouldn't be long.

We came home on Sunday - a 10 hour drive. Tuesday morning my husband went to work and Mini Me went to school. At about noon my husband called and tearfully told me that his mom was gone.

It wasn't difficult to imagine a rebirth in the Otherworld after what I'd observed in my mother-in-law in her final days. It may not be what everyone else has in mind from their own religious backgrounds, but it does work for me and offers me comfort and a sort of peace. May she live well in the Otherworld until her time comes to return.

The Trash Heap has spoken.