SPIRIT RAINBOW | Lita Warthe |
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My mom was not a religious person in the sense of attending a church or talking about God. She was, however, a very spiritual person. I grew up understanding about compassion, gratitude, honesty, forgiveness, acceptance, and a sense of being connected to and with all living beings. My mom loved animals, especially dogs. She had over 100 house plants and a big flower garden. As a child I never thought about the task it must have been to water all of those house plants; only later when I began to have a few of my own was I able to marvel at the time she must have spent tending to those plants. My mom and I were very close. We spent a lot of time together and we both shared our deepest feelings. We laughed and cried together. She inspired me to be whoever I wanted to become and always gave me the sense that I could accomplish anything. In 1993, I spent a precious last few days with my mom when she was dying. She was not "lucid" as we know it. The nurses said she was "confused" and "incoherent." I felt that she was "differently coherent." This is not to say that it was easy for me to witness the changes she was going through, especially when she was not sure as to who I was. The day before she died I was sitting with her and she began to speak in the whisper voice that was her voice in these last few days. I leaned closer to hear her. She said "You know that white rabbit you carry with you?" I was very surprised to hear this as I hadn't really been aware that she paid any attention to my little stuffed white rabbit that I took with me when I travelled. She then continued, "Well, I am waiting for MY white rabbit to come." My heart skipped a beat and I leaned in closer. "Yes," she said, "And when he comes he will take me to a beautiful place filled with flowers and trees and clear waters and a warm breeze. We are all waiting for our white rabbit to come. And we don't ever get to know when he is coming. We aren't supposed to know. But while we are waiting we need to live with love, gratitude, understanding and the knowing that all living things are as one, THAT is what is important." And then she was quiet, both of us breathing and being in the amazing feeling she had just created between us. Me with tears flowing and feeling as if she had just given me an incredible gift, a peek into heaven, her heaven, a place that was not defined by the traditional sense of God but was filled with that kind of presence none the less. When my mom died, she left my husband and I enough money to take a trip to Hawaii. Upon our arrival we decided to make the journey a spiritual one dedicated to my mom. One night we made an offering at one of the large craters on the big island of Hawaii. We actually climbed over a barricade to get close to the edge and offered some owl feathers into the crater. As we were driving back to our hotel, we looked up into the night sky and saw a rainbow, not the circular kind that the Hawaiians know of as a weather sign, but the true night rainbow that is called Na Po Mokole by the Hawaiian people. They say it is the spirit rainbow that holds our ancestors. It is like a blessing from those who are no longer in their bodies. I knew it was a healing message from my mom. We were told that it is very rare to actually see the night rainbow. I am grateful for this miracle that allowed me to know that there is something bigger than me, something that connects me to spirit and to all other living things on this earth.
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