A few months after my brother passed away untimely, he was thirty-nine, my father and mother wanted to reopen communications with me. Our relationship had been strained for many years. I was a Hare Krishna running around airports and if that was what I wanted to do with my life that was my decision. But now that my brother was gone and I was the only one left they thought they needed to take closer look at what I was doing. So they came for a visit at the farm community where I was living.
Before going to the property we took a long peaceful drive through the surrounding area. So beautiful. All hills and pastures and trees and streams. Really, really lovely.
My mother was beginning to develop Alzheimer and we never knew what she would say or do. But we knew it would be different. Her perspective and freedom of expression were enviable. She was very funny and never mean or senile.Just "out of it" but loved and cared for so what was the problem? She was protected.
As we drove through the hills and on winding country roads fully forested every few minutes she would say "Overpopulation?" as if she hadn't already said that at least fifty times already. After a couple hours of that we were all in hysterics as you could almost time it when she say "Overpopulation?" She was so much fun. It was always like that with my mother. She was so precious.
I was living in a fourteen foot trailer in a cow pasture at a Hare Krishna farm community. There was no farming and really not even a community either but there were some people walking around chanting Hare Krishna. My mother then changed her mantra from "Overpopulation?" to "Oh, this is the valley of the lost souls."
They had great visit. Two weeks of very special service, buying bhoga for the Deities, snapping green beans, visiting the Mennonites to get milk from their farm community. They actually had a farm and milk and serving prasadam to the devotees on Janmastami.
No comments:
Post a Comment