Guest Post by Liz Kuhn

What should I write about? What is the Universe trying to tell me? What does God want me to hear? What am I supposed to do with the rest of my life? Hell, what am I supposed to do with the rest of today? Who can I talk to who will give me my answers?

The signs - they were everywhere. Just stunning and shocking. I am told I am connected. My mother told me I had the gift, my grandfather would say, trust your instincts, "God gave you eyes to see, ears to hear, hands to touch." My sister would say take the job, take the job. My friend would say, listen to your guide. My husband would say, what do YOU want? Contemplate! I hear a friend’s story and I see her recent 8 hour adventure as a mirror of her life. I see the 8 hour challenge as a confirmation of how strong and capable she is. She came through the impossible with her very own resources. She survived. I hear these words coming out of my mouth as if I am talking to myself. I am amazed at how connected we are, all of us.

I hear Eckart Tolle say, "Listen to the stillness between your thoughts. We are human beings. Focus on the being and less on the doing."

But how do we settle into just being in a sea of uncertainty? If I sit on my hands, or hold a yoga pose and focus on how to stand on one leg while twisting my arms in a pretzel fashion…

will my mind be free of the incessant questions as I try not to fall?

And when I come out of the pose, when I come out of the endless Shavasana, will I be enlightened? Will I have my answers?

Today I was called into an interview for a part time job at the very facility my mother died in 22 years earlier. As I sat in the foyer waiting to be called to the interview I looked up at the glass dome I walked under for 2 weeks as I was preparing to say good-bye to my mother. When I got called into my interview, into a beautiful, clean, well decorated office, I sat at the conference table which looked out a window and beyond the window was the window I looked out of, from the room my mother was dying in, that many years ago. My heart opened and I smiled.

I vividly remembered my 7 month pregnant belly, my 2 1⁄2 year old sweet daughter dancing at my mother’s bedside singing, "See you in my dreams. See you in my dreams" as my mother took her last breaths.

In those last weeks of my mother’s life and those last days of her life I saw unimaginable heartbreak and as strong as the pain of losing this woman who had been my everything, was the love she held for me, my sisters and my sweet baby girl, was twice as strong. Her body failed, and shrunk before my eyes, her skin was clear, she had finally given up smoking. Anything she had ever done wrong to me, or as I used to believe was wrong or selfish or stupid, all faded into nothing and was taken over by the smile she used to give me when she saw me. The memories of the twinkle in her eye when she saw my sisters, her on bended knee with arms outstretched reaching for her granddaughter, “How’s grandma’s peach?” The times she picked Mary and I up on visiting Sunday’s from the orphanage, kneeling with arms outstretched as we ran into her arms..

Today as I stood outside this building that I have not been to in 22 years, the building that is 9 minutes from my house, I see the window of the room she occupied. I see myself within that room looking out the window as I stood with my baby girl. She squealing with glee about the birds in the aviary in the hall on our way to that room.

I see my mother’s smile.

She is still with me.

Life is a circle of connections.