Miracles...

Yes, more than 20 years ago when I started my journey through meditation, vegetarianism, alternative life styles, India and Yoga, it was a drag to try to explain to anyone what it all meant. There was little written, little interested and Gym studios did not offer Yoga and health food shops were not trendy. Madonna hadn't discovered the joys of Yoga and the US was not in love with Deepak Chopra. I did have a HARD time with my family, looking at me as if I had just turned schizophrenic cause I started eating soy meat (that was pig's food in Brazil). One day my grandmother opened my bedroom door and caught me in my lungotas (type of Indian underwear for men) on a full "candle position". I did not blink, after all I had to hold this posture for 3 minutes but she carefully closed my door and quietly called my mother to say that she was very worried, that something was going on with myself and blablabla...

When i came back from my trip to India I found this same grandmother in a very difficult state, in a hospital bed, with tubes sticking out of her nose and she could hardly utter a word, she had had a stroke. I felt pity for her but I have to confess I had a shaky relationship with her during my teens so, after spending the official time for a visit, I got up to leave. That's when she reached out a hand... my mother and other people were in the same room, we were all surprised by the sudden and rather strong gesture. But even more so when she tried to say something... she was clearly trying to communicate... we all came closer to her bed, she was looking very intensely to me... I came even closer, held her hand and again she tried and this time we could understand: PRAY FOR ME... the voice was week, trembling but we all understood. I could not leave the room anymore... I stayed and in this same night she was taken to the Center for Intensive care, she had another stroke that would paralyze her, almost completely, for the next 8 to 9 years. I could not get over it: PRAY FOR ME. Why me??? The one who had terribly fights with her, the one who even once said, and I do not feel proud of it at all, that I would not shed one tear the day she died...

I asked the Doctors permission to go with her, to stay inside of the isolated area with her for a while... they had to discuss it since there were other people in different cubicles and the scene was not pleasant at all. But since I insisted and one of the Doctors was part of our family, they allowed me to. It was a horrible place, dark, many beds separated by screens with mechanical devices making sounds that added up to a bizarre symphony of mourns and heavy breathing from the other patients around. I was barely 18 but, recently arrived form India, must have given an exotic impression to the nurses and Doctors around me. I had a full grown beard, long hair and only wore Indian clothes, a lot of white long and light cotton shirts with big and white and light pants... I did not know what I was doing but I sat down, close to my grandmother, reached out for her hands. She had an amazingly tense look on her face, as if in pain. She is in a coma, the Doctors told me. She can't listen to anything you say. So... I just stayed there holding her hand and because the sound of suffering around us was so disturbing, I started to talk to her. Not really talk... I started to narrate... in a very detailed way, I started talking about a green field covered with sunflowers, a blue sky and butterflies of diverse colours flying around her... in this setting we were walking and she could feel the breeze on her face and the smell of the green grass underneath her feet...

I know... in a traditional tale of a self-help book this is when something amazing and unexpected happens, right? This would be the moment she would press my hand or open her eyes and smile... well... something did happen... that was not less strong nor life changing than any of the above mentioned scenarios...

There I was, holding her hand... the hand that held mine so many times crossing the streets in Rio de Janeiro when I was a kid... the hands that helped drying my hair, brought delicious food to me when I was sick... this hand was now inside of mine. I was the one holding it for a change... I must remind you that at one point in my life I thought I hated her. Or I did indeed... but, there and then, I remembered the love I once had for my grandmother... it was a profound love that for some years was totally blurred by feelings of rejection from my part, thinking she did not love me at all. I started crying, I tried to make it as soft as I could but I was sobbing, allowing my feelings of love for her to come up. I told her I loved her and it felt as if a heavy stone was all of a sudden lifted off my chest...

Now, the following sentence will raise some cynical and tough eyebrows just because it will sound as if I am saving a punch line for the end but, sorry, this is a 100% narration of what happened this day at the Hospital. It was her expression... it wasn't tense as it was before. When I first arrived there was a thick division on her forehead, as when we have a headache and we frown. Now, it was gone... she looked very peaceful and relaxed. I continued coming back there cause no one on earth could convince me that she was not listening to some of the things I was talking to her. I had to go away again, I was not living in my home town anymore, I had to go... she came out of the coma and was transferred home, where she lived, totally depending on machines and nurses for the next 9 years. Whenever I visited home I would sit beside her bed (she had her eyes open, could move her neck and one of her arms but could not walk, speak nor eat - she received a special fluid through her arm), I would get a mini electronic organ we had at home and would simply sing mantras for hours... from time to time I would ask her... do you want me to stop? And she would softly shake her head negatively. We had many quality times there together. And now, looking back , I simply realize that maybe these were the most beautiful and loving times we ever spent together... When she passed away I was not home... I am glad she died at home, in her bedroom, surrounded by familiar faces... and when I heard she had passed away... I cried. And I still do, from time to time, when I think of that day in the Hospital when my heart opened up again for her...