He would have been 20 today

Today is my son Edzus birthday. He would have been 20. I never, however, fantasise who he would have become or what he would have done if he didn’t die at the age of 11. There are some things in life we cannot change. When someone you love dies there is no way you can change that. There is no way you can reverse what had happened. But you also don’t have to stay trapped in the past, in memories of life you once knew as normal. You don’t have to stay trapped in grief and sorrow. I know it will sound almost like a blasphemy for people who are in deep grief and they will resist even considering the possibility of being able to change how they feel because the pain of loss might be unbearable. Yet, we can change how we feel; we can change how we think, and we can change how we perceive death.

Last week I came across Martha Atkins video More to dying than meets the eye and I felt so uplifted and grateful – finally (in my experience and my awareness) there is someone who speaks so in ‘as a matter of fact’ manner about death, so grounded and even with humour, and at the same time bringing in deep sense of wonder and hope. At the end of the video she asks the audience: ‘If you have a deathbed vision, experience, a witness experience with somebody you love, would you raise your hand?’ I didn’t see who raised their hands, but there were people who definitely did. Martha said: ‘I would like for you in the next 48 hours tell somebody about that. The more we tell our stories the more we’re gonna eradicate this fear. And it’s really important.’

More than 48 hours have passed, and I’m going to tell my story here. It is Edzus birthday today. I remember the good and the bad, I remember the joy and laughter he brought as a child to everyone around him, and I remember my despair about losing him. A little bit more than a month before his death he said: ‘It’s not long now. I have been inviting Her for a while’ and then: ‘Nothing can warm up this body anymore. It dies.’

I knew he was talking about death, but at that point I was so scared to talk about it myself. I had hopes and despair and all spectrum of emotions a mother goes through when her child is terminally ill and dies.

Then 10 days before his death Edzus said: ‘I want to move over. To there.’ He always was my Gift of God as he himself and I loved to call him and besides that I considered him to be my greatest spiritual teacher. He taught me about life and death, about love and compassion, about fight and surrender more than anything and anyone in this world.

During his last days Edzus said: ‘You don’t need me anymore. I have a different companion now.’ I asked if he was happy and he said yes. All of that in the midst of pain still present when morphine doses wore out more and more quickly. I noticed that he was talking to somebody – agreeing and disagreeing, nodding slightly, without words that I could understand. Once I asked who he was talking to. His answer was ‘To God.’ In Latvian the words ‘to God’ (if pronounced quickly) and ‘farewell’ sound the same so initially I thought he was saying farewells. But then he separated the words and emphasized each part: ‘To God’. He repeated it few times.

The day Edzus passed away was beautifully sunny Golden summer day – 23rd September at 8:55 in the morning. He asked if I could give him a cuddle. Every move obviously caused the pain so I just whispered to him: ‘I’m holding you. I love you. I’m holding you’. I will always remember and cherish his last ‘I love you.’ At that moment my mum who was also present went to the bathroom and I whispered more: ‘Go to the light. Go to the light.’ I was grateful that my mum left for a moment as I was scared to appear phony or crazy or whatever. He did a slight movement that I translated as nodding and then he was gone.

Writing this almost nine years later still make me cry. But they are good tears. My little angel’s crossing over caused very intense emotions and I don’t ever expect to reach a point where I feel nothing. Nor do I want to. But there is no pain anymore, no despair, no devastation. I want to share his life and death and I definitely know that there is no separation forever. Even now the separation is just on physical level. He is and always will be in my heart and that gives me joy. There is light and love and life after death.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY EDZUS!

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