There’s a starman waiting in the sky
But he thinks he’d blow our minds
There’s a starman waiting in the sky
‘Cause he knows it’s all worthwhile
-Starman, David Bowie
MY mother Marisa recently asked me if I was facing the Christmas season with dread. It is, after all, our first Christmas without Kidlat. But I told her that Christmas was not a trigger for my sadness. I miss Kidlat most in the everyday ordinariness of life. Making the morning coffee, grocery shopping, taking the kids for a haircut. It’s in the mundane that the absence is most felt. We did, after all, share a life together in all its minutiae.
A few months ago, a friend asked me if the grief is easier because I can actually talk to Kidlat, that I can see, hear and feel him. I said, no, because I still allow myself to feel the physical loss, the fact that he is “not here.” When he passed on, my world was turned upside down. I had to relearn this world, a world of concepts without him. Chair, table, sky, house. I had to name things once again with a Kidlat-shaped hole in my heart.
When we apprehend spiritual truth in this earthly realm, it appears as a paradox. So even as I grappled with the reality of his death, of his physical absence from our lives, I could not deny his palpable presence as pure unconditional love. I feel it in my heart and soul, and see how his energy supports us, fills up those cracks and crevices left by his demise.
In learning to live with this paradox, the word “balance” comes to mind. Nothing is completely bad or good. Kidlat is both here and not here. Even as we as a family experienced the pain of an unimaginable loss, we have also been the recipient of endless grace.
A few days ago, I woke up sad and lonely, but Kidlat immediately entered my space.
“Focus on the fact that I am here with you, always,” he said.
“Easy for you to say,” I grouchily muttered in my mind.
“Try to accept the fact that my being here with you is more real than you could ever imagine,” he patiently answered.
And so, I did. In that very moment, I connected to him in my heart, and I felt a wave of love wash over me and fill me from the inside. I felt one with him.
I realized that Kidlat was teaching me to do for myself what I teach others — that the resources we need are already inside us, but it is up to us to reach for what we need, what is most useful for us.
A couple of weeks ago, I was up at 2 a.m. because Kalinaw had a high fever. Unable to go back to sleep, I had an inner nudge to open my Gaia TV account and listen to a talk by Dr. Joe Dispenza, whose research has shown how the brain can heal the body through meditation that brings the brain to a theta and gamma wave and allows one to connect with the quantum field where all possibilities exist. As I got ready to do the meditation, I could feel Kidlat getting excited. “I’m glad you’re doing this. This is good for you,” he told me, which I found funny, for shows like Dr. Dispenza’s were usually the ones he found too boring to watch while he was alive. As I followed Dr. Dispenza’s voice with closed eyes, my consciousness reached out into the endless blackness of space before, behind, and all around me. And I heard Kidlat say, “This is where I am. I’m in the quantum field.” I felt tears prick my eyes as my heart connected with him. “This is where you are, too,” he continued.
I see him in every blue sky, in the vastness of the sea, in the tender light of morning, in every winged thing. “You see me in everything, for I have returned to Love,” he tells me. “And Love is the source of everything.”
I am human, and I allow myself to feel the spectrum of human emotion. In doing so, I embrace my wholeness. Yet I also remind myself that I am more than human. I open myself up to exploring this new way of being with Kidlat, my Starman, my partner in this crazy adventure called life — and beyond.
