August 29th - 11:11

Title: August 29th - 11:11 Medium: Super-8 film Aspect Ratio: 4:3 Resolution: 2880 x 2160 File Type: H.264 Codec / MP4. Comments: Dear Mom, I love you. Thank you for giving me this life on Earth. For being my mother in this lifetime. For the protection and care you've bestowed to me when growing up from an infant into becoming a man. Mom, please forgive me. For not being strong when I should have been. For not being there when you needed me most. For being a lost soul waiting for death to come. I was too young to understand the pain, to understand the family strained. We heal in our own ways. I did my best to make you proud in the way I could to make you happy. To be a star student and excel towards greatness. To find my voice in a hopeless void. You gave me the strength to become a man, and I pray you can see me from above for all the work I do is to show my love for you. Life is hard without a mom. I miss those calls and texts to hear your voice, even if you were yelling at me for getting high with my friends in the backyard. I miss those days when I would cause trouble but you would always have my back, teaching me compassion even when I did not deserve your help. Thank you, Mom. For doing your best, for fighting as long as you could to be there for my sister and I. If I were to do it all again I would've been by your side than hide outside in fright with the fight between life and death. When death never came I grew older and drifted further. To make a life for myself outside of home when I was just a boy. To leave Long Island for the City to start a new. A fresh start in a big city to make my wildest dreams come true. All the phases of life flew past until that final breathe I shared with you in that hospital room. When things got harder for you in that 8th year. When the doctors lied and said you would be okay. To stop taking the medicine that kept the cancer away. It was too late. The cancer crept back silently. Only this time it couldn't be beat. But you kept strong and a positive attitude. To laugh in the face of death with your only children. I could not bear the pain that day hearing you tell us the end was near. Month by month, visit by visit I could see the bodily changes. The smells that still haunt me. Your croaking voice breaks my heart. All I could do is sit by your side and cry. Holding you hand until the moment you died. To be a good son after all these years of being filled with fear of loosing you to the unknown. That moment it was you and I you asked if I could see the butterflies. My eyes teared up and blinded me as you looked into my soul with nothing but love. Yes, mom. I can see the butterflies. This was the last words she spoke. The last connection we shared. Just you and I in that hospital room with you in that grey bed in me in that white chair. You said to me, I just want to look at you. The room was quiet and I could hear your heart beat. We sat there for an hour in silence while you stared, and I cried saying I love you mom. You can fight this like you always have! She were never alone, since you had so many friends and people who loved you. It was time for me to go, even though I wanted to stay she demanded I go finish school since it was my final week with final exams of my senior year of college. She died during winter break. And, I returned to school numb and in shock with a flatlined grin turning up to class just to make your dying wish come true. Your dream was to see me graduate and it killed me knowing it was weeks after you passed. But I knew you were smiling down from heaven. Just as I experienced death with you in that room on your last day on Earth. I sat beside you holding your swollen hands, at the edge of the room I could see a shirt that says, Worlds Best Mom. How true. All your friends and family besides your bed. I could only see through you. My head down and eyes closed. I can see from the astral plane. Your detached spirit looking down at us, at your decaying body, afraid to leave this realm because you love us so damn much. When the room emptied it was you and I. I read you passages from the Tibetan book of the dead. A buddhist text, to show you my beliefs as you showed me your Jewish roots. We are all one, with God. I read you the passages to help you pass on without attachment. To calm your spirit to walk into the light, peacefully. It's okay, mom. You can go now. We love you and we know you love us. Please, follow that light. I went to use the bathroom, and came back no more than 5 minutes later. The book vanished. There was no one in sight, not even a worker at the hospice. I knew you took that book with you to the other side. As stubborn as you were about judaism and our faith, there is something beautiful to learn about the sacred texts I read to you, to find your peace. You inspired me to be as kind and loving to everybody. That every day and every one is a gift. A smile that can make the world a better place. And it starts with you. Mom, I will never loose you even in Death. Because I carry your life in my heart. Whenever I walk alone in this world I know you are with me. As a guardian angel, Gabrielle. When I see the birds and the bees, or the whispers from the trees. I know you are here, watching and waiting with me. After all we saw the blue butterflies together. I love you, mom, I will see you again by my side when its time for me to die at the perfect time. To leave behind a life, a family, a legacy. All made from... love.