Mom's last hours

For the last six months of mom's life we really didn't know how much time she had. Toward the end, we wondered what was driving her, how she kept beating the odds and the doctors predictions, and how was she continuing to go on despite all her difficulties and pain. The day before she passed away we realized she was about to complete her final commitment. Our traditional period of morning for a parent is 11 months. Our grandmother Gloria passed away exactly 11 months to the day before Mom passed away. Mom always fulfilled her commitments and completing her mourning of her own mother was her final task.

The morning Ellen Levand passed away, her caregiver Tes told my sister something very out of the oridinary had occurred in my mothers final few hours. Tes is an experienced caregiver, originally from the Phillipines, that has been present during the final moments of several people's lives, including grandmother Gloria. Rather than ask for an explanation that day, my sister asked her to simply right down what had happened. Here is Tes' account of what occurred on May 19, 2005.

I don't know how I will say this or rather if I can describe fully well the thing that I saw this morning, as I see it. At almost 5 this morning as I woke up to check Ellen I didn't get up like I used to. I just lay there on the bed facing her and looking at her if she's fine and wondering what's happening with me because as I watched her I thought I'm having double vision of her. It seems my eyes are hazy or foggy, I don't know. It's like there's something around her which I can't figure out. I felt myself. I'm not dizzy and I'm not dreaming. There's really something that's enveloping her. But I can see her face through that and it's so beautiful. The more intense I look at her the more I see how beautiful she is, so glowing and so peaceful in her sleep. I never saw her so beautiful and peaceful like this before. Her face looks like she's in a meadow lying there peacefully with a tiny flowers around her face. I don't know. I can't explain. I must have imagined the flowers seeing her on that moment. I do believe that people have a soul. That when we die our souls will depart from our body. But I never thought of that. I'm just wondering why she was so different that morning and why something I can't explain was happeining. But whatever it is I want to believe (after she's gone) that she allowed me to witness it so she can send a message that she is happy and peaceful from where she is now.