By Jayadev Das
Dear friends
It is with a little sadness mixed with great joy that I inform you that Nanny Doreen left at 2.55 am this morning for climes anew
To tell the whole story would be perhaps too much for you all to plough through, but suffice to say, it is a good one, and thus I beg your kind patience!
Since she was diagnosed with lung, bone and adrenal cancer a couple of months ago, my selfish desires to see my mum safely back Home to Godhead has been my strongest desire and focus.
I must have completely driven dear Krsna nuts with my incessant prayers beseeching Him to allow me the last precious moments with her, where I could ensure she was either chanting the Lords’ Names or at least hearing Them.
One day following Gayatri I started to launch into my prayer list putting Mum’s (or my) request boldly at the front.
Suddenly, I had a realisation that Krsna doesn’t have to be asked again and again and that my prayers should be worded in such a way ,that accords Him the respect of someone who has been “in the game” a long time and deserves a regard not accorded by my constant nagging….so I adjusted my prayer to simply..My Lord please bestow on my mum the opportunity to achieve the highest success possible given her/our circumstances …and left it at that!
And, I have to say, it would have required the sight of a blind man to miss each blessed miracle that blithely fell upon our family over these last weeks in the form of blessings from devotees and friends from all around the world, as well as the Upstairs Management’s unseen guiding hand!
After she was deemed too sick to struggle by on her own at home, she was afforded a rare opportunity of a bed in St Francis Hospice.
as the population versus the modest bed capacity there precludes admission to many… but Nanny Doreen was admitted and what service , compassion, sensitivity etc etc etc…, the list of superlatives to aptly describe the experience is way beyond my capacity…..in short..I am eternally in their debt…. a book could be written with little problem on how good they are there.
Even when, after the first week they were thinking of releasing her to a nursing home, all paid for by Her Maj… the one we chose had ” by chance”, as it’s Matron, a vegan, who was …. surprise surprise…. a devotee of Krsna and welcomed the idea of bhajans in my Mum’s room and in the general lounge area….. anyways, on the day she was to be transferred St Francis Hospice deemed her unfit to travel and in need of the care they had previously outlined.
As wonderful as it was, Mum was in a nice ward with three other ladies, so we had to be sensitive to the other patients when we did our chanting sessions.
But as soon as we began to wonder “how would we be able to sing and chant for hours and hours when the vital time came for leaving her broken body?”….. the ward sister suddenly approached and said “How would Doreen like a private room with a view?”…. “Has the Pope got a balcony?” came our enthusiastic response…. and there we were in this wonderful room where we spent the next 5 days engaged in deeper and deeper communication of the soul, with both my brothers Charlie Peter and Ian as well as Ma!
As each day brought a worsening of pain for her, the hospice staff’s skills brought about a swift alleviation, always monitoring without infringing on our private discussions and sensitive family exchanges.
As mum’s condition exhibited signs of worsening, we stepped up the time we spent with her, sometimes spending 8 to 10 hours daily with her but always going home to sleep at night.
I started feeling uncomfortable about leaving mum alone and first partially remedied the guilt of doing so by having my Mantra cd play Radhe Shyam’s Holy Names throughout the night…. then I realised if I want to be there when she departs.. I should be there more, perhaps share the time with my brothers, but we needed to up the ante
Yesterday I stayed from ten thirty till around 9 pm when my brother Pete turned up. I was a bit shattered as mum was talking unintelligibly and it was getting harder and harder to hold her mind on Krsna. Feeling so tired I asked my brother Pete if he could take over and I would come back in the morning, to which he agreed and then my mother’s breathing started to worsen accompanied by a gurgling sound as the secretions built up and could not be coughed up by cancer paralysed lungs.
So I opted to stay and see what Krsna had planned.
I slept for half an hour whilst Pete took control and then took the reins constantly chanting and encouraging her for around 3 hours.
At one point I called out to mum, great mum you’re doing great. she typically mumbled “I haven’t done it YET!, we both laughed at her no nonsense approach to dying.
Then Pete became exhausted just when it was my turn to sleep so I offered to do the next “watch” and how glad was I that I did…
Suddenly mum slightly coughed and the breathing slowed to normal. I quickly awoke Pete and called him to her side, he held her hand with so much love and he told mum how much he loved her. I responded with how much Krsna loved her and told her to run toward her Lord with wide open arms calling His Names Krsna Krsna Krsna…..
Her breathing slowed more and more .. I watched her slip, slipping away as I chanted and chanted and chanted….Finally her mouth, which without her false teeth had collapsed, opened prettily and with her last breath her soul popped out to be… I beg and pray… with Her Lord!
Oh sorry to have to write more about todays’ events but after the early morning high drama with Nanny Doreen’s passing, I was booked to “do” the funeral for our other Nan, Enid, Saci’s Mum who left on the previous Ekadasi
After only 3 hours sleep I found myself driving a little absentmindedly along the A12 to Hainault Crematorium with Saci beside me and Siddhartha my son and daughter in law Cheryl in the rear, hoping that I would conduct the service nicely, when probably one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen in my life appeared before my eyes.
At around 150 feet flying at exuberant high speed, from left to right 6-9 of the most tantalizing white swans (they mostly are of course) I gasped in appreciation of this rare spectacle as they darted across our path and swooped down to their left, now travelling in the same direction and speed as us and gracefully landed in an adjacent lake
It filled all our jaded hearts with joy and thanks… I just knew it was a sign that all was well with our world, that the funeral would go well, the healing that various members of the family needed would transpire, and Nan would receive the blessings she needed for her journey!…. and so it was!
Thank You Thank You Thank You!
Jayadev Das