My Angel — A Personal Tribute to 2010

2010 was a year of tran­si­tions for me, and I won’t bore you with the details, but in 2010 I expe­ri­enced the loss of some­one near and dear to my heart — my grandmother.

As we all pay trib­ute to 2010 and say good­bye to a year that was in a lot of respects — a tran­si­tion for all of us. A tran­si­tion out of the cur­rent eco­nomic mess, the health­care mess, and some bold steps into the unknown for what the future may hold for this country.

But for what 2010 may have lacked, or for what it may have pros­pered — remem­ber that only good things can grow from the bad.

It could be argued that life could be guided by two sim­ple rules: 1. Thank those you love. 2. For­give those who may have crossed you.

What­ever 2011 may bring for each of us, we’ll meet it together in CoAc­tive spirit.

Below reads the eulogy I gave at my grandmother’s funeral. It was the proud­est moment of my life to cel­e­brate such an amaz­ing woman’s life. Although this doc­u­ment is very per­sonal to me, I think the ideas are uni­ver­sal and worth offer­ing to you as we count down the last ticks of 2010…

My Angel

Last Wednes­day, I got the call that my grand­mother was being tran­si­tioned to hos­pice. These sorts of calls are the ones that come ear­lier than you want, calls you wish you never had to take, but are calls that some­times we just have to face up to.

On Thurs­day night, my grand­mother passed as peace­fully as one could hope — sur­rounded my loved ones refus­ing to leave her side. Just as today, Gram is sur­rounded by loved ones want­ing to say one last goodbye.

I invite you to rewind a lit­tle to last Wednes­day night, most of you will remem­ber we had a pretty severe light­ning storm. Trees fell, sig­nif­i­cant dam­age had been made, and lives had actu­ally been lost. You know, it struck me that that storm was run­ning through Williamsport at about the same time my grand­mother was being tran­si­tioned to hospice.

I could not help but think, that the uni­verse knew that some­thing was wrong. Some­thing wasn’t right. Wasn’t it too soon for this?

So I was dri­ving on my way to the hos­pi­tal from New Jer­sey and I was dri­ving into that same light­ning storm. And I couldn’t help but think about one of my favorite songs of all time. The name of the song is “Light­ning crashes” by Live.

The lyrics of “Light­ning Crashes” talk about the cir­cle of life and death, and how the death of a loved one, is bal­anced with rebirth. The song itself con­trasts the death of a mother with the birth of a new child and more abstractly, how death in the phys­i­cal realm, leads to birth in the spir­i­tual realm.

It seems like life on Earth is kept in del­i­cate bal­ance by the equal pulling of life and death, and Some­times we take for granted this del­i­cate line between the two that we wake up with each day.

In the same man­ner that none of us were ready for the news that was to come late Thurs­day night, I really don’t think the uni­verse was ready either. But the uni­verse works in mys­te­ri­ous ways…

Just maybe, it just meant that my grandmother’s phys­i­cal work was done and it is now time for her spir­i­tual work to begin.

But as we know from life, from the Bible, and from sto­ries passed down to us. Storms become rain­bows, Fall becomes Spring. Night turns to day, fear to solace. And with pain & strug­gle, comes hap­pi­ness and peace.

There’s a law of physics that states that energy can nei­ther be cre­ated or destroyed, but can only be trans­formed from one form to another. As many of you know, my grand­mother vibrated with more energy than any­one I know.. She lived in a sim­ple home, stuck to sim­ple val­ues, did sim­ple things. She never made a lot of money, and she never drove. What she did do was love uncon­di­tion­ally every­one in this room and those who were not able to make it today.

Whether it was through writ­ing a let­ter or a card, help­ing a neigh­bor in need, devot­ing time to the church, offer­ing a smile, or a hug…my grand­mother made sim­ple ges­tures, but their effect was pro­found. How do small actions deliver pro­found results one might ask? Their intent.

I know for sure that my grand­mother never lacked intent for one thing — and that was love.

It’s hard to think how we could lose some­one like my grand­mother. But remem­ber, energy is never lost, it is only transferred.

“Love” is lim­it­less. Unlike mate­r­ial objects, there is no set quan­tity of love to be divided out. My grand­mother rec­og­nized this and lever­aged it to its full potential.

So on the same line of thought, let me remind you that my grand­mother only lost her life in the phys­i­cal sense. Yes we are here to say good­bye, but really we are just say­ing good­bye to the ves­sel from which my grandmother’s lim­it­less spirit resided.

Her spir­i­tual energy con­tin­ues to live. You may won­der, “how?”. And I’m here to remind you that her energy lives inside all of us in this room, through our rich mem­o­ries and and the Know­ing that the loss of my gram only means that it is our turn to write the let­ters and thank you cards, offer help­ing hands to our neigh­bors, greet strangers with smiles and hugs, and con­tinue the exam­ple she set for us.

My gram was the most beau­ti­ful per­son I will ever have the priv­i­lege of know­ing. She was liv­ing proof that angels live among us.

So in the light­ning storms ahead, do not be bur­dened by what you feel today, my gram would never want that. Instead, have hope and find solace in the recog­ni­tion that we may all be com­forted in the days, months and years ahead know­ing that her energy for­ever lives inside of us — and will never be lost.

An angel opened her eyes on Thurs­day night.

Thank you Gram, from the bot­tom of my heart for the gifts given, and the many gifts yet to come.

One last thing before I close…I men­tioned in my pre­pared words above that when I was ini­tially trav­el­ing to spend my last hours with my grand­mother before she passed, I went through a rather severe light­ning storm. Well in the days between her death and the funeral ser­vices, I had trav­eled back to New Jer­sey to return to work and set­tle respon­si­bil­i­ties at home.

On my way back to Penn­syl­va­nia to attend the ser­vices and say my final goodbyes…I wasn’t met with storm clouds. In fact, I was lit­er­ally met with a dou­ble rainbow.

So as we close 2010 and say our good­byes to another event­ful year, remem­ber that for every storm, there’s a rain­bow wait­ing for you somewhere…sometimes two .

Cheers and Happy New Year!

–Dr. Alex