Romancey Pants

Friends, today’s post isn’t about romance—it’s about death, spirits, and peace.

I recently lost my mother. The truth is, we did not have good relationship. I spent much of my life being terrified of her. You see, she wasn’t well and refused treatment and/or support. I’m queer and she also disapproved of who I was. In fact, she told me to my face, time and time again, that she was ashamed of me. Due to her state of mind, she was generally very abusive—so much so that, when I very young, I repeatedly dreamed of running away. Her delusions often put me center stage, which made things very hard—even dangerous, at times. When I was an adult, the last thing Mum ever said to me was, “I can see into everyone’s minds and everyone thinks you’re a bad person.”

Over the years, things got very tough. Eventually, when my own mental health was suffering very badly, I told her I couldn’t be in a relationship with her unless she agreed to get some help—any help! Homeopathy even!—with her condition. As a result, she chose to end the relationship. (She then persistently stalked me.) But I never stopped loving her.

Now she’s dead, something beautiful has happened. I’ve started to feel and hear her everywhere. When I open my phone, her favorite songs start playing even though my music app isn’t even open. I feel her presence all the time. I hear her say, “I didn’t mean any of the abuse and I’m so sorry for it. I was very, very unwell.”

Now, above all, I feel her sense of peace. It’s such a gift. And my phobia of moths is transforming too. When I was a child, we lived in the countryside where there were lots of moths. I was a depressed child, so I didn’t look after myself, and I repeatedly left the windows open in my attic bedroom. Often, when I went to bed, there’d be moths sitting all over the wall. They were huge, plentiful, and for me, frightening. But I couldn’t go downstairs and interrupt my parents. That time of night, my mother was always “being mind-controlled” by a man who lived abroad and who, according to her, he was “forcing her” into an affair. As for my father, at this time of night, he was usually shutting himself away with his religious books, trying not to focus on her illness. (I was raised in a cult that saw medical intervention as sinful.) So I’d trap myself upstairs, trembling, terrified of those moths with their panicked wings. Eventually, in a tear-drowned frenzy, I’d smack each insect with a book. Then I’d go to bed, trembling.

As an adult, I’ve since healed considerably from my moth phobia, though I still feel scared of the creatures. Having a wonderful husband really helps. But just the other day, a couple of days after I discovered Mum had passed, I heard her very clearly while I was in the bath. “Darling,” she said, “think about the word ‘moth’ very carefully. What other word is similar?”

It took me a moment to think of the word ‘mother.’ I’d never made this connection before.

Mum went on to explain that my fear of being left alone to cope with moths was actually my fear of being left alone with her. After all, I was her one confidante when it came to almost everything—but especially devastating delusions. This was very, very hard, because from a young age, she’d sit in the car with me for hours, telling me about her pain. She required me to carry a lot of dark stuff, including her secret hatred of my father. “I don’t need therapists,” she’d tell me, “I just need you. If you’re listening to me, I can be alive.” She also constantly emotionally abused me through her delusions, so you can see why I was the one who always longed to get her treatment, to help her heal. I pleaded with my father. I pleaded so often. “She’s just a perfect idea of God,” he’d tell me, shutting me down.

But I want you to know this: In losing both my parents, I got them back.

Over a decade ago, my father died very tragically and suddenly. Losing him was really hard. I first got him back when, at a point when life was really tough, I broke down and cried out, “I am so alone!” At that moment, my laptop, which was in another room, started playing one of Dad’s favorite songs, Frank Sinatra’s ‘Me and My Shadow’—a song about never being alone because our shadow is always with us.

That’s how I went from being an atheist to believing in a benevolent universe, not to mention life after death.

Now that Mum’s returned to me too, it’s simply amazing. I finally feel the love and affection I felt starved of for decades. It’s a beautiful feeling. It lights me up. Now, I can speak with her whenever I wish, and she comes to me as the loving mother I remember from when I was four or five.

Another reason why I’m feeling so much peace right now is my favorite spirituality book. It’s a channeled book called The Wisdom of the Council by Sara Landon, and it literally BLOWS MY MIND because of its incredible guidance. It’s completely changed my life for the better. When it comes to missing those who are dear to us, the Council say,

“Because you have free will and because you are choosing your experience, you will create the reality that they are gone and you are separate and you’re missing them. But the truth is they’re not. They’re in your field. They’re here! If you start perceiving and sensing your connection to them as never separate, you will start experiencing a reality of them, and they you, where there is no separation.”

I believe this is what has happened for me.

Anyway, on Friday, to honor Mum’s passing, my partner and I are going to a butterfly sanctuary. Usually, due to my moth phobia, I’d be terrified of those flapping butterfly wings, but these butterflies will now be special rather than terrifying. These will be the butterflies I loved in the back garden when I was five. I’d hold up my hands in delight, asking Mum, “Can you see it? Can you see it?” Yes, these butterflies will be proof that in spite of all that happened, Mum always loved me and I always loved her. Because I believe love never leaves. I believe it’s always with us.

In the meantime, whenever I speak with her spirit, my father is always there too.

I’ve got them both back. And I’m not afraid anymore.