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The Purple Bandana

It had been laundered, carefully folded, and left next to the family phone – a simple bandana. Extra large, purple with light-blue flowers and utterly harmless in appearance, it was a sign of impending death.

Years ago, I’d had dozens like it, worn as a stylistic echo of the hippie era. But I’d slowly been giving them away for most of this century – a few to a sister in law with leukemia, some to friends. Most recently, the purple bandana had gone to May, a close friend of my mom’s.

May was dropped off at our home early in the morning once a week. I’d return from the gym, and there she’d be, sitting or lying on the couch, with the cat keeping her company, head covered with a scarf or bandana.

I’d prepare breakfast and offer some to May, but she’d usually decline. We’d talk with her or let her rest, whatever she needed. Sometime in the mid morning mom dropped May off at the hospital for her appointment, and either stayed with her or retuned and picked her up later.

Eventually it became clear that the chemo wasn’t working, that nothing was going to work, so they stopped. May’s hair began to grow back, and she looked better, if you didn’t watch the way she moved.

May appeared two or three times more. The pain grew and they increased her oral medication, but eventually that was not enough.

The last time May visited was just before she went to the hospice. She’d had the bandana laundered, folded it, and left it by the family phone for me to find. She didn’t need such things any more.

I picked up the purple bandana, focused in my heart, and aligned upward with the Christ.

From the heart, I aligned outward with May, and upward from May to the Christ.

Then I invoked Christ’s Light and Love for May, and allowed that Light and Love to flow into her aura, and back up from her as a beacon lighting the way home.

I made sure the Light shone for her physical instrument, as well as her soul, so that it too would feel the call when it came, and release the soul to its journey.

Namaste,

Glen

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