Anniversaries

Anniversaries are milestones in one's life journey. The most celebrated are the wedding anniversaries: paper anniversary and so forth till you get to the silver, and if one is lucky, the golden anniversary.

Of course the paper anniversary which is the first anniversary will be happily celebrated as the young couple are still in their honeymoon stage. When you can get to celebrate your silver anniversary, that really is something because it means both of you have weathered the ups and downs in your marriage and are still together.

The other anniversary is the death anniversary. We see notices in the newspapers with photographs of the deceased indicating the anniversary of the departure of their loved ones.

Today is my fifth sister's third anniversary. She passed away 3 years ago after a courageous battle with cancer. She fought the disease for two years, each round of chemo leaving her more fragile and a shadow of her former radiant self. The disease was devastating her system but her spirit was very strong. She refused to let the disease stop her from leading a normal life.

Cancer is an insidious disease. It takes hold without you realising it until it is too late. Then the arduous battle begins but it is usually a losing one as the toxic cocktail of drugs weakens your system progressively. It is a disease that literally eats you away. I watched my two sisters become wraiths before my eyes as the disease progessively attacked the internal organs. It is a disease that cannibalises its victims.

My sister was a loving and loyal wife, mother and grandmother. Yes, she saw her newborn granddaughter before she passed on. However she was not lucky enough to enjoy her grandchild as she had weakened considerably and the baby was still too young then to interact with her. She had guts and determination. Her faith in her religion was exemplary. She took her suffering in her stride and never complained. Ill as she was, she still gave comfort to others.

I miss her very much. At one stage we used to play golf whenever I went to Kuala Lumpur. I miss her elegance, her beautiful smile and the lovely lunches that we shared. She knew where the best food was and it was amazing how she negotiated the maze of roads so alien to me, to get us to where we would try out something new. I can occasionally sense her presence. Her image is still very clear in my mind.

This brings me comfort and makes me feel all the more certain that another dimension exists alongside ours. Those who have passed on inhabit this dimension and when our number is up, I believe we pass into this other dimension where we will re-unite with our loved ones. Life in this world is fleeting and transitory. Our body is a garment which we will shed when we move on to the next stage.

So what happens after death? Do we remain in that parallel dimension as energy or spiritual being or do we reincarnate? According to the book "Messages from the Masters" ( by Brian Weiss M.D. ) we go through a renewal stage followed by a learning stage and then we have a choice, either to stay in spirit form or to return in another lifetime, to continue learn and grow. According to Dr Weiss, lifetimes are scripted to enhance our learning and evolution.

This is a book worth reading.

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