Spirit
- oil on linen
- 36 x 36 in
- $7,750
- Michael Abraham
-
Available
She’s everywhere …
I was on my way to get a hot chocolate in the middle of the night. My brother phoned from upstairs and said “She’s going”. I turned around and felt a whooshing breeze and a sound of air flowing past, but I wasn’t running. I was kind of walk floating. In the moments as I ascended the stairs to the hospital floor where I knew my mother was passing away, I felt an uplifting rush of air and calm jubilation that I cannot explain. I remember looking up to the top of the stairwell. “Ok Mom, I know it’s you”. I could feel her release. It was as if I sensed her spirit passing through me and rising up. When I arrived at the room where her body lay my brother said she had just passed away. And was strangely happy too, saying “She did it!”
On speaking with a few other people about this I came to calling it a mystical experience.
When we were cleaning out her home a week later there was the loveseat I played under as a kid that she promised to me upon her passing. Tucked deep in the crease between the seat and side upholstery I found a little printed card with lovers that I had painted. It had once wrapped a piece of our wedding cake. Along with a little note, there was a poem folded and snuggly tucked in that she had left there for me. The poem included the line “I am a thousand winds that blow” and “I am the swift uplifting rush”. This gave me goose bumps and made me well up in tears of happiness all at the same time. Was this a way of her letting me know the feeling I had during the moments of her death was of her spirit passing through me, a divine sign that there is something greater than we know beyond this realm of experiences. I like to think so. It felt like a message that all is ok – Trust the universe.
When I created ‘Spirit’ I connected to the idea there is spirit in all things. All cultures from indigenous to European have a desire to understand the deep mystery of the divine energy that is the maker of all things.
While I grieved I also kept the words that my father often said in my thoughts. “Never give up!”.
I bought the best speakers I could and continued to work in my ancestors’ honour.
- Subject Matter: figurative - surreal