Those very last moments

I sit here living in an absolute state of grace, being carried along by the words of so many friends and strangers, and by the physical presence of so many people who have come to our home today to be with us. To remember, to cry, to plan, and to laugh.

I want to tell you about what happened in between the blog I had written last night and the last paragraph. I want to tell you how sweet and perfectly Cora completed her life.

As I had written, she was struggling and I sensed she was laboring toward the end. She really did fairly well all day, well enough to interact so lovingly with her siblings, and to still reach for my face when I held her.

But as the night went on, she was working. We patted her chest and suctioned her to try to help, but she seemed weak.

Earlier in the day I had asked Jason to bring in Cora's bathtub from home. It's one of those rather large baby baths, and Cora always loved sitting in it and splashing her little arms and legs. Watching her struggle I thought maybe she would feel better in her bath. So we filled it with warm water and we sat her sweet little body in the tub. It broke my heart to see her so frail. She didn't kick or splash, but it seemed in an indescribable way to be the right thing. Jason and I washed her from head to toe, and I don't have to tell you that I poured onto her every ounce of love that I had accumulated over the past eight months.

When we finished her bath we laid her in blankets fresh out of the warmer, and I put her in Jason's arms. The moment I did, she stopped working so hard to breathe. It was as though, so comfortable and safe, life finally became easy for her, and she rested comfortably in Jason's care.

After the longest time, he called me over. Her breathing had changed and we both knew the end was near. So he sat in a rocking chair and I kneeled over his lap, and we had the beautiful opportunity to just tell Cora every single thing we wanted to tell her, and to thank her for the pure blessing she gave us, and to kiss and encourage her as she journeyed away.

She spaced her breaths out and ever so peacefully, she just slipped away.

She was so, so very smart, and so very wise. She so generously chose the perfect time to leave this earth, a time when we could both enfold her in love, on a night when one of her very favorite nurses could watch over her.

She chose this moment, and then she just left this life as beautifully as the moment she entered it.

After her death, my eight or so girlfriends re-entered the room and together with Jason, we sat on the floor and took turns holding Cora, and we sobbed the tears of the brokenhearted as we touched her perfect body, finally free, and thanked her for her graceful life.

Several magical and mysterious things happened last night. One was that at 1am, about a half an hour after she died, her cardiologist walked into the room. He had come over to check on Cora and hadn't known that she had just passed. He just had the intuition to come by. Another magical thing was that one of Cora's other beloved nurses texted last night's nurse, just ten or so minutes after she passed, to say that she had just mysteriously woken up and was glad Cora was in good care tonight. I've heard so many accounts of people today who woke up last night for no known reason, only to find that Cora had gone.

I believe, as I have written before, that Cora is a child who lived in the spiritual world. I believe she understood the course of her life far better than I ever did. I believe she lived to inspire love in people, to ground them, and to move them into considering a better, more deliberately loving way of life.

And I also believe that at the moment she died, a wave of pure love was released from her, and that wave was so strong and so powerful that it spread over a great distance. And I believe, awake or not, we felt that love, and that we are all truly better for having shared the earth with such a magical being.

We will remember Cora's life at 10am next Tuesday, July 23rd at Saint Anselm Church in Ross, California. We are deeply grateful to all of you and welcome anyone who loved Cora to join us, wearing colorful clothing and with joyful hearts, as we celebrate the beautiful life of our little lionheart.