Chris

Chris

(mascara alert)

by Katherine Ari July 10, 2009

I had this really special lady in my life named Chris. She didn’t confide in me, but I knew something was going on with her breast for some time before she told everyone. She had breast cancer, but she had been trying alternative solutions. I really don’t know what she had been doing or for how long but in May, 2007 she had a diagnosis. The condition was in advanced stages and there was nothing the doctors could do.

People at the spiritual center were in little groups whispering and crying. Another friend of Chris and mine was talking to me. He said he was so upset about Chris. “What’s going on with Chris?” I said.

“She has (such and such number) phase breast cancer. She only has about a month or so to live.” He went on to say that he was really angry because she could have prevented it. He was angry at her and angry he was losing a good friend. She was going to die.

I could tell that the little huddled groups were her close friends and they were crying and talking about her condition too. Chris was going to die. Well, I know how sensitive and intuitive Chris was. Having all those people she was close to thinking and saying, “Chris is going to die” did NOT help her live, help her affirm a healthy life.

In July, we had a big celebration of her life while she was still living. It was wonderful but people still cried. The heaviness was there. As “enlightened” as we pretend to be, our own grief and sadness and projections were weighing us down.

I started going through my own stuff. When I get close to people I feel things. I am somewhat of an empath. I felt very in tuned to Chris. When she would have a bad day or night, I would feel her symptoms and discomfort. There would be heaviness in my chest and it was hard to breathe. When I would see her I would say, “Were you having a bad day on Monday?” She would always say yes.

I wanted to be near her. After all, everyone was talking about how sick she was and time was getting shorter. The more I was around her the more I “soaked” up. I don’t think I was helping her and it was making it hard for me to function. I pulled away. I avoided the groups discussing her. I mentally and physically withdrew from the energy around her.

But I still cared – deeply. I loved her very much. And I wanted to help her. I sent her a story I wrote. It was actually an account of a story journey I had with my spirit guides. The journey was about ascending up to the top of the Tree of Life to the land of Keter. I also was told by one of my spirit grandmothers that she would be with Chris instead of me until she was no longer needed. She did not say until she died – just until she was no longer needed.

I saw Chris one Wednesday night before I sent her the copy of the story. I told her about my grandmother guide being with her until, I paused, “you know, when it is time.” Chris was okay with what I said and how I said it, but a woman standing near-by had this horrific look on her face as if what I said was terrible.

I did a painting of T-cells lined up like soldiers going after the diseased cancer cells. My inner guides told me to leave it up on a table easel until they told me to take it down. “You will know when it is time to take it down,” they whispered to me. I would look at it especially when I felt her symptoms. It’s like I felt when she was weakest I needed to do the imaging for her. I would look at the painting and see T-cell soldiers fighting the battle. And her energy would come back up.

One day, I was feeling angry at my own body issues. I was fuming and feeling sorry for myself. I got really worked up. I suddenly realized that was what Chris was feeling. She was angry her body had not been able to be healthy, stay healthy, and get healthy. She felt it betrayed her. She had done everything she could do but she was losing the battle. We were both screaming, “It isn’t fair!”

I took out my watercolors and paper. I painted the angry sick body I – we – were angry at. It was a mess and the anger and disgust showed. I put it on the canvas and then sat a while. Anger is a normal feeling but it is important to not hold on to it, to move through it. The first painting dried enough that I could remove it from the block to do another.

I began a painting of a woman’s body surrounded with healing purple fires. I wanted to use the image of the purple flame to make our bodies whole and well. There are many healers who talk about the purple flame and call it to a situation to heal what needs healing. It’s no coincidence T-cells are mostly purple. Violet fire is a healing energy!

I had released the feelings when I painted them. I then painted a third. It was art therapy. I was going through a transition in my thinking and using art as a way to process it. The third painting I call the Goddess of Health. After the healing process, I saw the woman – me – as a mature healthy woman. (See Painting.)

I took pictures of the raw paintings and exported them to jpegs. I emailed them to Chris with a brief explanation because she didn’t always understand my abstracts. She said she got it, felt that way, and she thanked me.

In December her family moved her into hospice. I could not go see her. I wanted to. One time I went into my meditation state in my bed at home and took her hand to go up to the place of my meditation story. My spirit grandmother and other faint spirits appeared as I imagined the ascension. Yes, Chris could go to that “place” but I was not supposed to be there. I started choking and abruptly was no longer in the meditative state. She went up and was there a while, but she didn’t stay – not that time.

Around Christmas I got a simple command. “It’s time to take the T-cell painting down now.” Nothing else was said but I knew the battle was mostly over. I lay in bed close to midnight on January 1, almost January 2. I hadn’t talked to anyone for a few days about her. They said she was very weak and the morphine had been increased. As I lay in bed, I felt a heaviness and difficulty breathing. I had experienced that same feeling when my mother made her transition. She was in a small town hospital in Oklahoma. I was in a hotel in Vicksburg, Mississippi. Mother passed. I felt no breath, no movement. “Goodbye Mother,” I whispered and wept myself to sleep.

I started the walk up the spiritual path, the magical place with Chris. Halfway up you stop to receive a bundle that becomes your robe and then a white dress. I stopped there and Chris took the bundle. She continued alone though I could see my grandmother Oma and images of others with her. “Goodbye Chris. I love you and will miss you.” A couple of days later I learned Chris made her transition just after midnight on January 2, 2008.