letter for Angie

My beloved mama; 

I won't be there tomorrow to give you your birthday hug and kiss and to help you eat the cake so I thought I'd send you a quick note from heaven to wish you a happy birthday and to tell you this:

I know you worry and you wonder how I am.

On the day that I left you I was fully aware of what was going on around me. 

You and everybody else looked so frightened. I wish you could have known that I was no longer in pain-I wish I could have told you.

I was extremely aware of every detail, but I couldn't physically feel anything-anything, that is, except a release and a level of freedom I've never known before.

It's incredible! I feel so free and light!

I have never felt this good!

There are no more tubes, no more needles.

I can move around freely now without any help! And my breathing is no longer labored-it is amazing!

I feel no attachment to my lifeless body. It don't feel as though it is mine. It looks far too small to have housed what I am experiencing. I feel free, liberated and magnificent. Every pain, ache, sadness and sorrow are gone! 

I feel completely unencumbered. I can't recall feeling this way before-not ever.

It is as I have been a prisoner in my own body for the past 15 years as my heart disease and the cancer ravaged my physical form, and at last I am released.

I am tasting freedom for the first time.

All I can say is that I feel a sense of freedom and liberation that I'd never experienced in my physical life before.

I can only describe this as the combination of a sense of joy mixed with a generous sprinkling of jubilation and happiness. It stems from being released of sick and dying body, a feeling of jubilant emancipation from all the pain that my illness has caused me. What I can only describe as superb and glorious unconditional love surrounds me, wrapping me tight as I continue to let go. The term unconditional love really doesn't do justice to the feeling, as these words have been overused to the point of having lost their intensity. But the physical battle I fought for so very long has finally released its strong hold on me, and I have a beautiful experience of freedom now.

I don't feel as though I have physically gone somewhere else - it is more as though I have awaken. My soul is finally realizing its true magnificence. And in doing so, it has expanded beyond my body and its physical world.

It extends further and further outward until it encompasses not only this existence, but continues to expand into another realm that is beyond time and space.

Love, joy, ecstasy, and awe pour into me, and engulf me. 

I am swallowed up and enveloped in more love than I ever knew existed. I feel more free and alive than I ever have.

Unqualified and nonjudgemental ... it is totally undiscriminating, as if I didn't have to do anything to deserve it, not do I need to prove myself to earn it.

To my amazement, I am aware of the presence of Boppa, and it brings me an unbelievable level of comfort to sense him with me.

"I am here, my boy, and I've always been here-for you and your whole family! Boppa told me.  Star is here too! I feel what I can only describe as excitement as their presence envelops me like a warm embrace, and I am comforted!

The universe makes sense! I realize. 

I finally understand-I know why I had cancer! 

I comprehend why I have come into this life in the first place - I know my true purpose.

I am overwhelmed by the realization that God isn't a being, but a state of being ... and I am now that state of being.

I also realize that I'm not who I've always thought I was: Here I am without body, race, culture, religion or beliefs ... yet I continue to exist! I don't feel reduced or smaller in any way. On the contrary, I haven't felt this huge, this powerful, or this all-encompassing. WOW, I've never, ever felt this way!

Here I am, without my body or any of my physical traits, yet my pure essence continues to exist, and it is not a reduction of my whole self.

I fact, I feel far greater and more intense and expansive than my physical being-magnificent, in fact.

I feel eternal as if I have always existed and will always without beginning or end.

You see I am good, I am great, I am well!

I know your heart aches to hear and to feel mine, so when the it gets dark and sadness and sorrow are slowly filling your hear just reach out your hand, I will hold it, I will hold you, forever! I AM EVERYWHERE!

I love you from here to the moon and back ... and MORE! I win!!

I am everywhere, surrounding you, loving you. I am your light...just look up, I am here!

And always will be.

Until the day we meet again, and then we will be one for eternity. 

You and me, one, forever!

Now go and eat a piece of cake for me and smile, it's the day you were born and without you I wouldn't have been born. Celebrate YOU because I am part of you!

I AM HERE! ALWAYS!

I AM GOOD!

I LOVE YOU!

Your Bubba

P.S.

PLEASE make sure Alex is turning off her curling iron! It's driving me nuts that I can't do this anymore. 

And when you leave the house and you are in the care ready to go, please get out and walk back to the house to make sure it's locked. You know how I feel about that!

Tell Peyton and Kemo that baby is here with me, sooo sweet! Looks just like Kemo.

Love the new big belly Bubba girl ... but boy she is a bully! She looks like a tank :)

I love you mom!
Give my love to everybody and tell them I AM GOOD and WE WILL be united for eternity!

(I'd like to give credit for these wonderful words to Anita Moorjani and her book "Dying to be me" ... I used here words to change them into mine. She has been where I am and obviously she is much better at describing this place than I am :)