Chapter 12: At Peace With The Afterlife
An excerpt from You Have Chosen to Remember: A Journey of Self-Awareness, Peace of Mind and Joy by James Blanchard Cisneros.
My grandmother, as I mentioned before, had always been more of a father figure than a mother figure to me. She had a very strong personality. Her personal relationship with me, my brother and mother was that of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Her tongue was sharper than any knife and she had an absolute inability to ever say that she was wrong. I never, in my 33 years of life with her, heard her say she was sorry. I grew up with my grandmother, mother and brother. Although she seemed to care for us, it was a very physically, verbally and emotionally abusive environment to grow up in. I don’t think she ever realized how much she mentally crushed us every time she verbally, emotionally and physically attacked us.
My grandmother, before she passed away, had been very sick for about a year and a half. Although we had nurses providing 24-hour care, our family also took turns sleeping in her bedroom. My night was Wednesdays, and as soon as I was given Wednesday night, I felt that was the night she would choose to go. So for a year and a half, we took turns sleeping over. On the night of March 20, 2001, we all felt the time of her passing was near. Then again, with my grandmother, you never knew.
Most of the family visited that day, and by 11 p.m., most of them had gone home. The nurses and I were in her bedroom and my Aunt Cari was in the kitchen. At 11:30 p.m. I decided to go to sleep so I put the recliner chair next to my grandmother’s bed. My body faced her body. I had left a couple of feet between the recliner and her bed so that the nurses could get next to her if they needed to do so.
I began to meditate. I prayed, three “Our Fathers” and three “Hail Mary’s.” I then mentally invited my guides into the room, and then invited, one by one, Mother Mary, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Next, I invited my grandmother’s guides and family members she knew who were on the other side. I asked them all to join me in filling the room with love and light. The feeling in the room was great. I literally felt as if I wore a one-foot-thick coat of peace and love from my waist up. I then asked them to help end my grandmother’s suffering and take her home. A few moments after my request, the nurse tapped me on the shoulder and told me that my grandmother had opened her eyes once, closed them, and had finally passed on. It was 12:12 a.m.
As soon as I got up from the recliner to see my grandmother, my Aunt Cari ran into the room. She was very upset, and a little panicked. Although now completely out of the meditative state, I could still feel that one-foot-thick layer of peace coating my upper body and head. I immediately calmed my aunt down and told her that my grandmother, her mother, was finally at peace. She calmed down pretty quickly and began to make phone calls. I later asked her how she knew that Mamina, my grandmother, had passed away if no one had told her. She said that Mamina had come to the kitchen in spirit form seconds before she passed away to tell her that she was now leaving. By the time she ran into the room, my grandmother had passed on. Once the family began arriving at the house, I openly shared with them my experience and it seemed to bring them peace, especially to my uncle, my grandmother’s only son, who had always been extremely close to her.
Three days after her death, I went into meditation and quickly found myself out of my body, being taken to a room. I say taken because many times when you’re out of your body, you are taken by the hand or hips by a guide to different places. In this room, there was a simple wooden table and two chairs. In one of the chairs, there sat my grandmother. I saw her, and sat down on the opposite chair. I was not in shock that I was there with her, for I knew that this would happen sooner or later. But I was amazed at how she started our conversation. She looked at me and began to talk. “I’m sorry” were her first words to me. These two simple words carried so much weight that just hearing them from her helped me release a lot of feelings I had suppressed. I considered myself to be a spiritual being, and I had made myself believe that these two words were really not necessary for me to hear from her. I absolutely felt that I was above needing to hear those two words. But I now know that I was completely wrong. For those two little words allowed me to free myself from a lot of the hidden pain and anger that I thought I was above feeling, but I now know I still retained toward her. In the spirit world, a small phrase like I’m sorry is not so much two words that express regret. In that space, those words can carry with them a massive thought form – many of the reasons why you are sorry, and it was this that I felt. With those two words, the past was truly forgiven, and with true forgiveness came an absolute release, a total letting go of thoughts and emotions I had once thought I had already dealt with but had simply hidden away from my awareness. I’m sorry – no other two words could have offered me so much freedom when it came to my relationship with my grandmother. There was an immediate acceptance on my part, and we were then free to continue our relationship on a much deeper and meaningful level.
This text can be found in the book - You Have Chosen to Remember: A Journey of Self-Awareness, Peace of Mind and Joy.
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This is a really cool concept. It seems like it would be very liberating to make peace with someone who has died. I’m going to give this a try.