I have found myself recently thinking of my parents but not of their lives but of their deaths. I have the ignominy of being with both my mother and father when they died. I called the ambulance. I watched my parents leave me never to return. I don’t intend to dwell on death but what has been on my mind is the soul. The soul that we are taught is what gives us life. Many know it as a belief, an ephemeral that we are taught in church. I know that it exists.
My father died 25 years ago but I can still remember the last moments like it was yesterday. I remember my mother saying when my father fell to the ground “Oh my God I think he is dead”. I remember calling the ambulance. I remember the rush of the paramedics and the finality of it all but what I truly remember was looking down at my father and knowing he was gone. I looked at my Daddy and saw nothing, nothing but flesh. His spirit was gone. I felt it hovering above me and leaving this earth. There was nothing there. Norbert Willard Caillouet was gone, never to return. When the paramedics came they tried to save him but I knew it was too late. My mother followed them to the hospital to get the final words. She told me later as they came to tell her, she already knew. She knew the moment she looked at my father in the house that he was gone. She also saw his spirit, his soul had been lifted.
My mother, Momma, I was alone when I found her. I remember I was trying to wake her, calling her name and then I touched my mother and looked in her eyes and knew. I can still feel the tingle in my hand where I touched her body. I looked in her lifeless eyes and screamed “Momma I didn’t know!” I called the ambulance and was found by my adopted sister Cindy jumping up and down in the hallway screaming for my mother. I knew there was nothing a paramedic could do for her because I did not feel her in the house. She was gone. All that was left was the flesh she had possessed.
Since that time I have felt their presence. I have walked down streets and talked to them and asked their advice. I have felt a tingle on my flesh and knew it was their caress. Sometimes I know they are speaking directly to me. There was a time I felt like I should rescue a child from a bad living situation. I was walking down the street thinking how was I going to save her. I was making plans, working out how I was going to manage. I stopped myself and told my mother to get out of my head. the words that were reverberating through my head was her. her soul had joined mine for that brief instance and was talking to me.
The flesh I understand is impermanent. It is a place to house my higher consciousness as I walk this earth. It is not my hand that should touch another but my heart. My height, my weight is a product of heredity and gravity. It holds my place on the ground. My true height is based on my soul. I walk through life registering at 5’1″ but my true height is limitless. My mother was 4’10″ tall but she was a giant. Her love for people, her giving ways, her boundless determination to help made her soul massive. My mother’s smile could light up a room. her touch could soothe the sick. Her spirit swells in the air and when I see a person who knew her, her light still shines within them. Her memory burns strong and leaves them wishing for one more chance to be touched by her magic. My father has been gone longer, his wisps are more subtle. I see them in my son, who never met his grandfather. My father was a math whiz. Born in another time and place, his gift would have been nurtured and his life would have been different. The times my father grew up in made him use that gift the best way he knew how. He was a professional gambler and in the forties owned his own policy wheels. My father was not the most legal man but he tried to be fair. My son has his gift. He understands math intuitively. I taught him how to multiply at 4 by explaining to him the concept of multiplication and reciting problems to him. My father whispers to my son. A man who is not here teaches my baby boy and now my father’s gift is carried on.
These many thoughts bring me back to my soul. Do I nourish my soul? Do I give it the attention it so richly deserves? Am I touching another’s soul the way my parents taught me to do? Am I worthy of this gift that was given to me?
Do I nourish my soul? Do I give it the attention it so richly deserves? One of my favorite things to do is to grow plants. I love the process of watching a seed grow to a beautiful plant. I also love the beauty of plants and share that with my neighbors. When I feel the dirt in my hands I feel life and the abundance of the earth. When I walk by myself I look up in the sky and enjoy the blue sky and the clouds. I smile to myself and just marvel at the world around me.
Am I touching another’s soul the way my parents taught me to do? When I worked downtown there was a Streetwise vendor I passed every morning. He would talk to passersby trying to sell his papers. One day I looked him in the eye and said “Good Morning Sweetie”. He smiled and said I made his day. After that he spoke to me every day and asked me how I was. I answered and inquired about his day. When I was absent he noticed. I know that it brightened both of our days, our brief encounter. Today I find myself in contact with different women all the time. I teach them to dance but so many tell me that I teach them more. It is not a plan by design but happenstance. When I teach I feel my ladies and want them to leave with not only a new dance move but a better outlook. It may not happen all the time but I will never stop.
Am I worthy of this gift that was given me? I am a child of God. A vessel of love. I am not worthy but I am oh so grateful for the opportunity to touch the world if only in a small way.
copyright Louise Caillouet November 2009
