When my mother died, she opened a portal in me. It felt like I followed her into the dark, seeking spiritual truths and recreating a life that was authentically my own.

Ever since I was little, I cried in her absence. I held onto her car tires when she dropped me to preschool. I would hide under her work desk because I wouldn’t let go of her leg at drop off. I feared her leaving decades before she finally left. I did anything to ease her stress, keep her positive and healthily alive. Watching her decline in diseases that were preventable made me passionate about fitness.   

After I dropped off my sons to school yesterday, I heard the song, “If we hold on together” by Diana Ross. It was a song from the movie soundtrack, Land Before Time. I instantly knew that when I die – whenever that will be – this song will be played at my funeral. As a child I cried watching this little dinosaur, Littlefoot, who lost his mother during an earthquake. In her dying words, his mother tasks him to find “the Great Valley” and tells him, “Let your heart guide you. It whispers, so listen closely.”

When I watched my own mother die unexpectedly in the ER three years ago, I knew this powerful, charismatic, beautiful, ambitious and vivacious force passed away not because she was sick from her organs failing. I knew instinctively, she died of a broken heart. She lived an incredible life, so much of it was selfless but a lot of it, was selfish. She was constantly doing things for others, while not doing anything for herself. She was a victor in the lives of many but a victim in the life she owned. In her last year as my siblings and I performed home dialysis for her, I saw her decline but refused to see her defeat.

Denial has been my friend for a very long time.

It wasn’t until I was diagnosed with Stage IV Cancer when I began confronting what is real in my world. Having a terminal disease instantly reveals truths, in the world, in yourself and  in others. You see who is strong and who is not. You see who loves you and who does not. Interestingly, some truths are blatantly obvious – like when people make things harder for you instead of easier.

During my hardest times, I wished I could unsee what I saw this past year.

Tonight, in my Ketamine therapy, I saw the phrase, “I forgive you BUT, I release you.”  I felt angry. Annoyed. Done. I knew I needed to be spiritually strong heading into my upcoming surgery, and I need to release what the closest people to me, did to me. I felt destroyed when they colluded with a toxic person in my life. I felt lost when my healing wasn’t celebrated. I felt alone when I had to (again) figure out who would watch my sons during another unexpected hospitalization. I felt disappointed when they saw my pain but still lacked empathy to it.

I felt everything. And, I didn’t want to feel it, anymore. I questioned how much will to live I had left in me while my whole world was collapsing.

Then I saw it.

I saw the world I was leaving. It wasn’t so much the people that existed in it, it was ME, the person that allowed and engaged with disrespect, betrayal and dishonesty in her world, that was now dead. The people pleaser. The ‘good’ daughter. The sacrificial mother. The undefeated warrior. The “bigger person.” The naïve woman. The rose-colored glasses, superhero who saved the day.

The more energy I gave to sustain old versions of myself, the less I gave to my healed self. Every time I thought I moved on, something was triggered to remind me of who I negatively was in relation to them. I had to unchain the old me so I can move into the new world I was waking up to….

It is often said that your greatest adversaries are your greatest teachers. They will push your boundaries, stretch your limits and challenge you to the core. As I leaned deeper into my pain, I felt a more sincere “Maria-listic” phrase, “I Forgive you AND I release you.”  It felt free. It felt loving. It felt like me. I didn’t need their permission to go and they didn’t need my allowance to stay. This contract between souls is complete as I will never mirror back or transfer the ugliness I saw in them this year. The hurt stops here.  

Pain is the resistance to truth, Freedom is the release of the lie. The lie is the invisible cage we hold ourselves inside, telling us we aren’t strong enough to make it to the other side.

As I close in on this life chapter, I want to say thank you, I love you, I forgive you, I release you. Thank you for showing me not who you were, so much as who I am. I learned I didn’t need your validation when I was hurt. I didn’t need your love when I was crying. I didn’t need your guidance when I was lost. I didn’t need your help when I was helpless. I listened to my heart, I followed the whispers, I never gave up.

I survived. And perhaps, that’s the greatest comeback….to still exist when people tried to pretend you didn’t. To love the unlovable. To forgive the unforgiveable. To give grace when it’s not requested nor required. To no longer be in denial and bravely walk this journey without closing my eyes to who descended when the opportunity to ascend and become their highest self passed them by.  

The opportunity didn’t pass me by, nor did it pass by countless others who showed up in your absence.

To the tumor that has been forming inside me for decades…activated by my decision to start controlling my young chaotic world, fed by the lies I kept alive to bury my instinctual knowing and revealed when I experienced deep pain from a man I deeply loved…I let you go. Thank you for your service.

It is time.