Our One Great Possession

My grandmother was 96 when she passed away. In her lifetime she had gone from being one of 9 children filling a farmhouse to bursting point to owning, in her marriage to the local miller, quite a large house decorated with antiques and family heirlooms. After retirement she moved with Grandpa to a smaller retirement home still filled with knick-knacks and ornaments. A place where I recall feeling very safe and loved. After Grandpa died, Granny went to live with my parents and so her world was reduced back down to one room with a few precious pictures and favourite pieces of furniture. By now with failing eyesight even her much loved and much used Singer Sewing machine could not find a place. When she finally died all the possessions of Margaret Robinson nee Stewart filled a drawer and a shelf in the hospital, a drawer and shelf quickly cleared and allocated to the next patient.

   It is a cliché I know but a fact nonetheless, that we come into this world with nothing and go out with nothing. In between we can have been a millionaire or a pauper, owned a castle or a caravan - it is all illusory, all eventually passes through our hands. Regardless of our personal experience, however, there is one thing we always carry with us, one thing we truly own - the energy we put out into the world. In fact it is the one thing we have to own, denial is not an option. So we should continually be asking ourselves what energy do I hold within me, what energy do I feed to those around me and what energy do I leave in my wake? Is it of a higher or lower vibration? Is it love, joy and care or is it envy, anger and fear? Is it energy which will return me to my higher self or is it energy that will drag me back in another lifetime to heal ancient hurts, balance old karma and release stuck patterns?

   When I think of my grandmother I hear her humming as she cooked, I feel her soft hands washing my neck in the bath. I listen for the whir of the Singer sewing machine as yet another piece of clothing would be re-modelled or altered within hours of purchase! I see the twinkle in her eye and am inspired by the wonder she exuded right to the end at something as simple as seeing a 'wee birdie' at the window.

   Once we are gone our 'earthly goods' get divided up by the family and are received - gratefully or not – we have no control over that. In many ways it’s irrelevant for it’s in the memories of those who knew and loved us that our worth is really stored. And the nature of those memories, the shape of our energetic footprint we own every day of our lives. It is our energy, our one great possession, and always our choice.