The New Normal

BARDO: The word “Bardo” comes from the Tibetan words bar, meaning “in between” and do, meaning “island” or “marking point.”

The preparation for the transition of a conscious death happens in life through deep levels of meditation, through authentic love and compassion , a life of sharing and receiving, a life which reaches towards the highest peak of human consciousness.

The realization of Enlightenment can happen at any moment, and the moment of a conscious death is a most potential moment to realize our oneness with all of existence.

Quoted from: http://www.bardo.org/ and
http://www.bardo-meditation.com/

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Today is Gina’s 35th birthday, though she lived to be just 33. Gina used to talk about the Bardo a lot, back when I was barely listening. I believe she practiced the Bardo at the moment of her death. I believe she had the power to achieve Enlightenment at that moment. I hope she did.

This morning at 10:25 I drove Jonah to his first Music & Movement class, which is an expensive, nationally recognized program for kids 1 1/2 – 3 years old. We get to go for free through the early intervention program. I had hoped that there would be more children like my son there, but there weren’t.

Jonah was almost immediately drawn to a light just outside the classroom which he could see from the window in the door. The other kids (even those who were new) all were with the program, more or less. I couldn’t even get Jonah to sit in my lap. We were all sitting in a circle, maybe 15 kids and 15 parents, and Jonah stood, ignoring the circle, staring at the light.

he backed up to get a better look at it and bumped right into the mom & kid sitting next to me. I apologized and tried to hold him in my lap.

the music and movements, once we got going, did hold his attention okay, but he couldn’t participate the way the other children could. at one point the group leader brought out a box of music-sticks, and each child was told to take 2 for his/herself and 2 for his/her parent. i was the only parent who had to get my own and my child’s too.

when we held hands and moved in a circle, i had to pick jonah up because he was clueless. and on and on and so forth until, even though it’s just a 30 minute class, i was biting my lip and holding back tears. i couldn’t even talk to the group leader afterwards – she saw i was on the verge of really crying and told me she would call me – she seemed like such a nice person, the other parents seemed fine too, but i felt like such a freak and a mess and i don’t know if i can do this, raise this child, feel this pain and i’m so tired, so very tired…then i’m putting on jonah’s coat and the tears are falling and i’m rushing away, avoiding eye contact, don’t look at the freak with the boy who’s soft in the head…

then i drove home, which luckily is only 1/2 mile or so, and since i am alone in the car now i am really crying, it’s all blurry and so cold and i get us inside and jonah is happy when i put on sesame street so i go looking for andy’s loritabs, i know he has a whole bottle because of his eye and he didn’t like to take them because they made him sick, but if i can stand it until jonah’s naptime, i am sobbing now, perhaps i can put him in his crib and then swallow all of the pills and call 911 to come get jonah just before i go to sleepy bye land, the place of peace where it doesn’t matter anymore…

but i can’t find the pills, i’m scrambling in the medicine cabinet and the linen closet, nothing, where the hell, then i find them in his room…

but jonah wants to play downstairs and i still have an hour before his nap so i manage to keep it together and i follow him downstairs where he happily plays with his toys…..he is playing on a foam mat made up of interlocking squares of letters and numbers.

andy had just grabbed 25 of them or so out of the bag of 50 to make a small play area, a square of 5 x 5. so i’m watching jonah and i’m staring at the squares and thinking about how i need a miracle and then i think, gina, help me, come to me, talk to me, tell me what to do.

i start playing boggle in my mind, thinking, “well, if i can find a G, I, N, and A all adjacent, then she’s with me…” but there’s only a G — i realize i can hardly make any words at all, there are numbers mixed in and mostly letters like K, J, X, G….in fact the only vowels were A and O and i’m thinking this is stupid…

and then i see it. B-A-R-D-O. the letters all adjacent in a row and everything.

bardo. and i know she is with me, and i don’t need to take the pills to be with her.

a miracle, thank god.

it still hurts, but i’m going to stick around for the pain. and maybe ask my mother-in-law if she can take jonah to the classes. (she used to come every thursday to watch him anyway, so i could run errands or whatever). that way jonah can still get what he can out of the classes and i don’t have to spend every class with a lump in my throat.

“If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance”.
~~ George Bernard Shaw