My Mother's last blessing

My mother, Trishna, had been an atheist all her life, so it wasn’t easy for her to make the leap to becoming a disciple. She would say, “I feel something from Guru, but if I think about it I won’t be able to accept it." About the word ‘God’ she said, wisely, “I just put another ‘o’ in the middle."

I believe her soul was pushing her towards spirituality because she did not have much longer to live. Her father had died of cancer at age 53, and cancer was already developing in her body, as she had long predicted it would.

About a year after she had surgery, she started having pain again. She had not been to the Centre since her operation, because the trip from Manhattan to Queens was too tiring. The cancer had returned and she was failing rapidly.

The last time she saw Gurudev was at a meditation he held in a theatre at Columbia University. Our seats were near the back of the auditorium, at the right edge of the centre section, so when it was over we were able to easily move into the aisle where we could watch Gurudev as he came off the stage.

Before he started up our aisle he paused to bestow blessings on a couple of people. Trishna said, “Oh, I wish he would bless me!" Gurudev then walked slowly up the aisle and when he reached us, he stopped, placed his hands on Trishna’s head and blessed her. He then smiled at her and continued out of the hall. Needless to say, she was ecstatic!

When she was hospitalized again, I had her transferred to the brand new terminal ward at New Rochelle Hospital, just a few minutes away from where I lived. I could easily visit her there twice a day. I always found her shivering. I would give her a hot water bottle and an additional blanket and do other little things the nurses couldn’t take time for.

One day I found her with eyes wide open and a beatific smile on her face. “Oh, you are so beautiful!" she exclaimed to me. She said the same thing to the nurse who came by. Then she turned to the semi-conscious old lady in the next bed and said to me, “She is so beautiful!" I sang one of Guru’s songs for her, and she said, “I want to sing!" but she couldn’t think of a song, so I sang a few more. Still smiling, she started to close her eyes.

As she fell asleep I sang one more song, then left her sleeping peacefully. Gurudev said that her soul had come to the fore and she had seen the beauty of the souls around her.

I told him, “I would really like to be with her when she goes!" Gurudev said, “If it is the Will of the Supreme, that will happen." He said Trishna was enjoying my attention and he was keeping her alive until August Celebrations were over so that I would not have to deal with everything during the festival.

I used to make my first visit at about 10:00 A.M. when the nurses had finished their ministrations. But one morning, at around 8:30 A.M., I received an inner message that Trishna was about to leave the body. I quickly drove to the hospital and flew past the nurse’s desk saying, “My mother is dying!"

I found Trishna with her eyes wide open, gasping tiny breaths that would have barely kept a little bird alive. I took the Transcendental Picture from her bedside table and held it up for her. Wide-eyed, she looked back and forth between the photo and my face while I stroked her hair and repeated softly, “You can go now." Soon she closed her eyes, and with a soft sound, she left the body.

So this is how Gurudev fulfilled both our wishes. She received the blessing that she longed for, and I had the beautiful experience of being with her as she peacefully passed away.