“I’m alive! I’m here!” With the exuberance and energy of a 21 year old bursting at the seams to share the greatest experience that any one person could ever go through Diana Cooper’s soul broke through the heavenly barrier and proclaimed her status. “I’m alive, got it?” I could feel her saying as my mind was taken a hold of and shaken to WAKE UP!
What in the world am I talking about? How can I ‘feel’ someone ‘saying’ anything? If I had the answer I’d be sure to follow in Steve Jobs groundbreaking shoes.
This past week I experienced a gift, one that is difficult to explain but possibly meant for only those closest to Diana Cooper to understand. Di, as she was lovingly called by many, was a 72 year old woman who haled from Mississippi. Her outpouring of love, strong direction in discipline and manners, and drive to never let an opportunity pass made her one of the most sought after women to have ‘on your side’ because you certainly didn’t want her as an enemy. 😉
I met Di only once… in person. January of last year I was asked to go to Mississippi and do a retreat for the teens in the Delta area. Catherine, the woman who headed up the team that brought me in had just found out her mother, Di, had been diagnosed with cancer for the second time. While I was visiting Catherine asked that I take some time and visit with her parents Charles and Di (yes…Charles and Di…love it! 😉 ). It was in this meeting that my spirit connected with Di’s and in that hour or two the world around us vanished as she asked me question after question after question about God, heaven, hell, our worth, the Catholic faith, the Eucharist, etc. She had questions. She wanted answers. I gave her everything I could led fully by the Holy Spirit.
When Catherine and I left that afternoon Catherine turned to me in tears and said, “Did you feel the Holy Spirit in the room? I was afraid to breathe, I didn’t want it to stop.” You see Charles, Catherine and her two older brothers are all Catholic. Diana considered herself a ‘Metholic’ – Methodist/Catholic. Charles wanted his kids brought up in the Catholic faith, Di never stood in the way but she just couldn’t bring herself to accept it as her own.
Over the next seven months Charles, Catherine and I kept in touch. Di wasn’t one to email or get on Facebook so I relied on them to keep me informed in regards to her cancer, her health, etc. About two weeks ago I received a text from Catherine that told me her mother had fallen and broken her hip. Surgery was needed and once she came out of surgery her body weak from the chemo just couldn’t bounce back. On Sunday evening I received an email from Charles thanking me for the time I spent with Diana for that evening the priest came to see her and asked her if it was her will to become Catholic. She gave him the sign that it was and he was able to administer to her her last rites and her first communion. This made the family ecstatic and I’m certain Di wanted to make them completely in union of faith.
Monday morning I text Catherine to see how she was doing and I was told they had taken her off all meds except for the morphine. I knew the time was near so I said a prayer for her and the family. That evening I had gone to bed early. I was in a deep sleep when suddenly I felt someone in the room with me. It wasn’t Neal (I could hear the TV going in the living room). I didn’t open my eyes. Even though I have had this happen I am my worst and first critic. “It’s only my imagination,” I said to myself, however I couldn’t keep my heart from pounding and brush off the distinct feeling of someone being in the room. Finally I succumbed and opened my eyes to my pitch black room (I like it dark). A bright white light was shining in the direction of my bathroom door and I quickly reasoned it was the light coming in through the bathroom…and then it moved to the right, down, to the left and over again to the right….like it was dancing.
I flipped over to my left side and shut my eyes again. “What!” I thought. “I swear I am crazy.” At that moment a picture of a 72 year old woman wearing a cheer leading uniform flashed in my mind. It was the very picture Catherine had shown me of her mother when she had put on either her own old cheer leading uniform or it was her granddaughter’s, regardless, it was a great example of this woman’s spirit. I hadn’t thought about that picture since I’d seen it months ago. At the very moment I saw this it clicked like a light switch “It’s Di, she’s gone,” I thought. And then I felt this sudden burst of urgency and excitement as if I could here her say, “I’m alive! I’m here!” She was in heaven and then it was as if she reached out to shake my head in-between her hands as if to say ‘WAKE UP and tell them!’ I opened my eyes and didn’t see the light, only blackness but I could still feel her. “What do I do? Do I call and ask, ‘Um, has your mom passed?’ How do I do this?” I thought. The feeling of urgency didn’t leave and so finally I sat up in bed and said out loud. “Okay!” I reached over, turned on the light, grabbed my cell phone and text “Everything OK?” to Catherine. It was 11:56pm.
I got up and went to the bathroom. When I came back I saw that I had a missed call from Catherine. I hit send and Charles answered. “Oh Shannon,” he said. “My sweet Di went to heaven 20 minutes ago.”
I stared down at my comforter in disbelief. “It was real,” I thought, secretly still assuming I was crazy and imagining all of this. “Charles I have to tell you what happened….” and I went on to explain to him what I felt. They were so excited and full of JOY that she was no longer suffering here on earth. Their sweet wife, mother and friend was now in peace.
To make a rather long story short the next day I kept having this need to go and be with the family for the funeral. They had expressed their desire for me to be there but being it was such last minute getting a reasonable flight would be challenging. All the right cards fell into place and before I knew it Neal was giving me the go ahead to take off and head to the Mississippi Delta where I was received with open arms, tears, hugs and lots of love. They held her funeral in the Catholic church and there were so many people in attendance there was no room to sit or stand. Two minutes before the funeral began Charles and Catherine came up to me and asked if I would say a few words during the service. Stunned by the suggestion I wanted to decline, I did not know Di the way the packed church did, but they insisted.
My heart beat with the anticipation and I bent my head in prayer, asking the Holy Spirit to guide me and for Di to direct me with what she’d want me to say. When I was called up to the front I knew what she wanted me to share. The main point being that though all her life she had reached out and made certain everyone knew they were loved and His beloved, in the end she wanted to know she was His beloved. She questioned and He gave her the answers. “I’m ALIVE!’ she wanted them to know…and though they wouldn’t see her in the flesh, it would be unexpected and they would feel her in the wind, or in the morning dawn sun or in the quiet.
Later that afternoon as we celebrated her life with infamous Delta fair and live music Charles had taken me by the hands for a dance to ‘her’ song Diana and there she was, whipping about in the winds catching everyone’s attention and letting them feel her say – I’M ALIVE!
May God bless the Cooper family – Charles, Charles Jr, Bo, Catherine, her daughters-in-law, son-in-law and all of her precious grandchildren.
Thank you for sharing your family and Di with me. I’ve been touched by her spirit.
Blessings
Shannon