Ferryman of souls. My father's passing. How can we help the departed?

On the other side, a ferryman of souls...

It happened in August 2013, while I was running a 15-day Yoga retreat.

What a retreat!

I will never forget the faces and the wonderful moments shared during this Yoga retreat, which I organised with Amine and Patrick from 10 to 24 August 2013...
We shared the light and the awareness of our deep nature, we grew and evolved together, and we shared my father's passing.

I want to thank warmly, from the bottom of my heart, everyone who took part in this retreat, and for the help this light brought in the pain of seeing someone so dear to me leave. I know it was a precious help to my father in the suffering of his departure and afterwards.
Thank you to my friends and companions on the path, Amandine, Amine and Patrick, faithful and luminous in the same wish to share and to give, quite simply, what inspires us.

I would like to bear witness and offer you what I lived through during my father's last two days.
It might be a help to everyone in the torments of our lives.

During the night of the 19th, I received a message from my brother, who is in Nice, telling me that my father's liver markers were collapsing and that I should come to Nice to see him.
In the morning I took part in the morning Yoga class and left for Nice. The retreat was on its day of fasting and silence...
When I arrived at the Archet 2 hospital, my father was on the second basement level, in intensive care.
The shock on arriving was hard, the tears flowed; he was lemon yellow, a little green...
The doctor asked to speak to us and told us with infinite kindness and gentleness that our father was at the end of his life: his liver and kidneys had stopped working altogether.
The tumour in his colon had spread to the whole of his liver.
The liver stopped first, then the kidneys; it was over...
She offered to move him to a separate room to give us more privacy.
He was placed in an intensive care room, with all the electronic machines crackling around him.
The room was cold, with no windows to the outside, lifeless; it had not been used for a long time and so served partly as a storeroom, but it was clean and fairly tidy.
One may wonder why the Archet 2 university hospital, built on a beautiful hill overlooking the sea with such a lovely, peaceful view, never thought of setting up a room for those who are leaving, where they could enjoy the calm and the light of the open sea and the blue sky.
The hours passed, and my father's vital signs remained stable. He was sturdy, muscular from years as a building contractor; he seemed so strong, still so young, so handsome...

While the atmosphere of the room was rather grim, the nurses were extraordinarily kind and humane, and my whole family thanks them warmly.
In the evening, the head nurse told us: “Your father is admirable, he is a person of great elegance, he never complains, he constantly tries to help us. It would be sad to hear him moan, because he is beginning to show the mask of pain. Talk it over among yourselves and, if you wish, we can give him a little morphine so that he does not suffer”.

I talked it over with my brother. I told myself we should not dull his consciousness, and the line from the Bhagavad Gita came back to me, in the scene where Krishna says to Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra: “Do you think an arrow or a spear can destroy the soul, which is eternal?”
So we decided to give him a little morphine.
At times grief overwhelmed me, but I stayed strong in awareness, connected with my father.
During the night, at around 2am, my father was sleeping calmly. I took my mother to my brother's home in Nice and went to sleep too.

My brother stayed in the room.
At around 8am I came back.
My brother went to get some sleep.
I was there with my mother.
At around 11am the nurses asked us to leave the room so they could attend to my father.
We went up to the ground floor for a coffee and something to eat.
We came back down 30 minutes later. As I entered the corridor I heard a nurse say in the distance that he had gone...
I went into the room and held up my mother, who was faltering a little. I told her it is often like this: people leave at a moment when they are alone. He had been sublimely discreet to the very end...
I had been in conscious connection with my father for hours and there, in front of me, the body was no longer breathing, the machines were no longer working, there was nothing left...
He had gone...
I listened within his body: nothing moved, nothing seemed to be happening. There was a kind of total suspension.
I had my brother called, and he arrived quickly with his partner.
Corinne arrived too. Things began to get busy; there was a lot to do, a lot to manage...
From time to time I withdrew to pray and stay in conscious connection with my father, and so did my brother; my mother found this strength too.
My brother and I decided to go and call the family and friends. We went back up to the ground floor.
The emotional charge was heavy. My father was a generous, intelligent and calm man, loved by everyone who met him in his life.
So the news was terrible for many, and the tears flowed.
My brother and I calmed down; his partner organised the transfer to Cavalaire.
After more than an hour, I decided to go back down to the second basement level; I did not want to leave him alone...
Before reaching the door of the intensive care unit, we passed the door of the maternity ward. People were there in tears of joy, and the rather strange image of a big airport came to me, with screens announcing departures and arrivals. A somewhat strange arrangement...

I entered the corridor to go to the room and there was my father, beside me...
I perceived his energy body very clearly.
He had taken my left arm and huddled against me, frightened, astonished by his new condition...
It was so like him...

I was no longer caught in emotion, and my mind had been switched off for days thanks to the Yoga practice of the retreat, which had begun on 10 August.
The perception had nothing mental or imaginary about it: it was tactile, real, absolute and unmistakable.
He was there against me, a little frightened and happy to find me again.
My legs buckled under the weight; I had not expected this, something so sharp, so clear, especially since a little over an hour earlier everything had been very calm.

So I spoke to my father out loud, as if I were speaking to him while he was alive.
“Dad, you have been a wonderful and calm man, you have nothing to fear, you are luminous. Stay calm and go towards the light, come with me!”.
I felt all my energies merge with this wonderful energy body, which still had the shape of the man who was my father in this earthly existence...
At the same time, I asked for him to be helped in this passage, and closing my eyes I saw a vertical white axis. Everything became light, with a very beautiful orange light at the very top, soft, heavenly.
We rose into it together; he entered it and I could not go any higher...
With the feeling that he had shed the heavy layers of existence and regained his full light, a body of glory, my heart became light. I then had the feeling that my father was just in the next room, not far away...
Back in the corridor, I perceived that everything around me was luminous, as if the whole hospital had been washed in "liquid light"; everything was light, vibrant...

There were things to do, everyone was busy and talking, and the business of life took over again...
Fairly soon I was in the car and suddenly a doubt crept in, a fear.
I told myself I had not taken enough time to listen carefully and make sure he was no longer wandering the corridors of intensive care.
My heart told me everything was light and luminous, but the mind had come back in force with its doubts...
So I put my trust in life, in the divine light, and placed myself in its hands, because clearly all of this is beyond us.

I returned to the venue of the Yoga retreat, above Sainte-Maxime, after a meal shared at my daughter's and Corinne's.
Everyone was practising, and I went to sit in front of a beautiful cork oak. The moment was calm and sublime; the light was there once more for my father.
A great moment of grace, sitting in front of a beautiful tree...
The class ended and I met the participants one after another. It was good to see them, to hug them and to be in a powerful place where the fire of the practices had purified everything and where a beautiful heavenly presence reigned.
The room vibrated so strongly that my heart was touched.
I felt in each of you how much you too had been touched by the loss of loved ones, and how equal we are in this reality of our existences.
There were very touching moments, looks, hugs, laughter, smiles, flavours, so much light and joy, thank you!
I thank Corinne, who took on a great deal of the organisation and looked after my mother while I was at the Yoga retreat. I tried to be as present as I could on both sides...

On Friday I went to see him at the funeral home in Cavalaire, and my doubts about my father's ascent towards the light disappeared: a gentle emanation of him was present.

Seven days later, during a somewhat restless sleep, my father came back to see me in the form of a being free of any human form. It was magnificent!
I saw the heavenly being we all are, a great white, luminous sphere. I tried to take my father in my arms, but energy is hard to hold...
His presence was magnificent!!

Seven days later he came back in the same way, tapping me on the shoulder...

I have so much gratitude for you!
Continue your path in the light, we will meet again.

Thank you for everything!

NB: For years I have been meeting the deceased and helping them leave this world so that they can continue their path. At this time in humanity, when few people pray or have deep within them a contact with the Spirit, many of the deceased no longer know how to leave this world, and ferrymen of souls can help them...

Peace to us all!

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