Mourning is an intense emotional wave that submerges you
My mother loved me unconditionally from the moment she learned that she was pregnant with me. All her life she shared everything she had with me. She gave me everything she had. She gave me her life. Throughout my life she repeated to me continuously that the best day of her life was the day she gave birth to me. Mama! I love your kindest heart! My aunt Magalie told me that my mother truly believed that the reason she survived her plane accident on January 22nd 1966 in Haiti was because she was suppose to give birth to me. My mama believed that I had a special purpose coming into this life. My aunt Magalie told me to find out what my purpose is, to live my life mission and true soul purpose. I intend to follow her stellar advice. “Memory Theater” is a short experimental film I directed in 2006 during my first MFA at California College of the Arts in San Francisco, on the topic of my mother's experience as the only survivor of a plane accident! “Memory Theater” is my first film. Here is the link to view this 15-minute experimental documentary film. https://www.neidrya.com/memory-theater.html
My mother's name is Claudette Jean-Gilles. The day my mother died, she had gone out to do a few errands in the terribly cold Montreal winter temperature. Just a day before my mother died, I had gone out briefly and had noticed how exhausted I had felt from the intensity of the cold temperature. Extreme cold is unforgiving. My mother never used a car even though she lived in Montreal for most of her adult life. She walked everywhere. It is mesmerizing to me to consider the thought that she quite literally walked into death! Next to her body was her stroller full of the food that she had bought that day for us to share. She use to refer to her expensive Spanish stroller as her Cadillac! She would make both of us laugh! She was a powerful woman, stubborn, full of love, intelligent, and with a great sense of humour! I will continue to miss her with all of my heart. I began eating the food she bought for us over the next few days, as I was entering evermore abruptly the most intense experience of sadness of my life. I am still drinking the coffee that she bought for me. And I am drinking too much of it. I am not quite myself. I am so deeply grateful for the love my mother showered over me. I miss her with all my heart. I consumed the food she brought back that day with profound presence, consciously, intentionally, ritualistically, as the last food that I would be consuming that my one and only mama would have bought for me in this lifetime. I was her one and only daughter.
Death is sacred. Death is a sacred process. I have discovered that mourning is a profoundly creative process, a deeply poetic process as well as the most sacred moment of my life. This piece of writing about death and the mourning process is an important part of my healing. Mourning is a sacred ritual, it is the chaotic release of the heart. It is a tsunami SIZE emotional wave that is overwhelming, abrupt and heartfelt concurrently. An utmost reminder of the deeply rooted earthbound attachment to the one who gave birth to me. I am still a child on my knees blubbering to my mama. “Why did you leave me so quickly?” “Why did you leave me?” “I want my mama back.” Goddess please help me understand who I am. I am lost without my mama's love. My heart is broken in a thousand pieces. I am kneeling in front of the ultimate consciousness-reality, that which is nameless but which I choose to refer too as Mother Goddess because it suits my deeply personal cosmo-spiritual creative expression.
For me, personally, the morning process has been a deep emotional outcry to the Mother Goddess and to my mom. I made friends with the mourning process early on in the process. I am strong. Morning is the chaotic experience of the intense unravelling of the tight emotional bio-physical energetic bonds which attach mother-daughter into a helix of spiritual growth on this earthly mortal plane. I am stronger now that my mother is dead. This is one of the most trans-formative moment's of my life. This is the saddest experience of my life. My soulmate, my heart, my one and only mama has gone away for eternity! She is never coming back to be with me. It is the indubitable finality of death that makes life and death truly sacred. Mother I love you dearly. I have been experiencing some of the most intense emotions I have ever experienced. My love for my mother is sacred that is why the emotional dismemberment I am feeling is also sacred and a quantum testimony to the bound we shared. It was not always easy but we loved each other and helped each other daily. I miss you so much mama! Life is sacred, challenging BUT SO beautiful. Life is a ritual expression of the divine. My heart is being ripped out of my chest. There is no doubt that this is one of the most difficult experiences of my life. I am embracing the painful rupture with courage and love! The morning process is extremely difficult. My morning is profound. I am morning with all my heart. My morning process is deeply sacred and a reflection of the sacred bound that I will always have with my mama. Mama you are my soulmate, confidante, my best friend, and my true heart. You are the love of my life mama! Her death came so suddenly, unexpectedly! As it does indeed often come! Mourning is a loud outcry, the soul singing a lullaby to heal a broken heart. For me the morning process has been coloured by a wide range of complex emotional textures and landscapes. Death is the ultimate experience.
When I found my mother dead on her back in front of the house. I panicked. It took me three times of attempting to dial 911 before I was able to compose the right number. I yelled. I cried. I screamed. I prayed frantically. The police and ambulance arrived after what seemed to be the longest 10 minutes of my life. She was declared dead a few minutes after. After which I asked the ambulance personnel to bring her in her room and to put her dead body on her bed. The investigation took three hours. I held her stiff hand on and off while the investigation was going on. My mama is dead. There were several police officers walking all over the house, as well as doctors and paramedics. The hand I was holding was cold. My dear mother...how I love your generous and kind heart. Dear Goddess please help me! My heart hurts. When the investigation was over, I had 45 minutes alone with my mother's dead body. I choose to hold her by putting my arm around her shoulders and neck one last time. I held closely what had once been an important part of her. I took pictures next to her dead body. I ritualistically told her how much I loved her. I thanked her for everything she has done for me and expressed deep gratitude. Thank you mama for loving me and caring for me. I am so lucky that I had such a strong powerful woman as a mother. I promise to honour you and make you proud. She was an extraordinary woman, strong, courageous, and the only survivor of a plane accident. She was a survivor. The first one of 13 children who immigrated to the US from Haiti. After a few years of working in the US, she came to Montreal and bought this house. She was the sibling who found work in Haiti when the family was on the brink of starvation. She was the one who fed all the family when her father was in prison during the Duvalier dictatorship. My mother use to say that Haiti was a little paradise. I am so lucky to have had my mother close to my heart all my life. I am grateful for the intensity of the morning process because it is a kind reflection of the sacred and unconditional bond that we shared with devotion. I love my mother with all my heart. Thank you mother for your unconditional love and compassion. I have the deepest and kindest of gratitude.
Below are the pictures and video I took when I was left with her body for 45 minutes after the investigation. If you are too sensitive please do not open the link below. These are images of me and the dead body of my mother. For the strong hearts only please!
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