Aleta Barbara Werronen
(April 2nd, 1940 - December 31st, 2013)
You are Loved
The Life of a Peter Prototype
It is a daunting task to be called upon to write a
memorial for one you loved so much. Within the swirl of grief over a physical
loss, you must also grapple with the loss of a soul in all its depth and intricacy.
How do you capture not only a physical presence but a soul presence too? How do
you put into words something that dwells only in spirit?
As I reflected, I saw the image of a vast net
stretched across a cove of deep, blue water. I saw the knots spaced along the
net as the dates and events that tie our lives together: the visible chronology
of life. But it is what lies below; hidden from view that forms our essence.
Here lie the interwoven fibers with a myriad of intersections that give our
lives depth and meaning. Here lies the realm of the Soul. It is this that I
endeavor to capture in tribute to my beloved mother: Aleta Barbara Werronen.
She was born in Portland, Oregon on April 2nd,
1940, the first daughter of Harold and Edith Miller. Seven years later came her
sister, Janice, and nine years after that her sister, Stephanie.
In Astrology, she was born under the sign of the Ram
giving her the will and energy that would serve her well in this life. In Numerology,
she was born with the destiny number of an eleven over two: the master number
of spiritual enlightenment that would shape a life long quest.
At the age of 20 she married my father and at the
age of 21, on December 31st, 1961, she gave birth to me: her only
child. She often told me the story that when she awoke after my birth she saw a
tiny baby in an incubator looking back at her and giving her what she termed
as, “the Capricorn eye; as this was my Astrological Sign.” She thought, “This
one is going to be trouble.” Naturally, this was later proven to be a complete
fallacy as I turned out to be a model child never giving her a moment of grief,
anger or frustration. Meanwhile, back in the real world…
Ever since I can remember, she was on a spiritual
quest. For many years she attended the classes of mediums and teachers of many
types. She read Tarot cards. She held meditation classes in our home. With some
friends, she even formed a group called, “The Organization of Enlightenment for
All Mankind” or OEM. Through all of this she was a voracious reader of
spiritual texts. I cannot remember a time when there wasn’t a stack of books
beside her bed.
All of this changed in 1977 when a friend invited
her to the home in Menlo Park, California. The friend told her that there was a
special woman speaking there that she thought my mom needed to meet. Forever
curious, she agreed to attend.
She told me that upon entering the house she saw Ann
Ree Colton (the Founder of the spiritual Group: Niscience,) sitting in a chair
ringed with flowers. Without any hesitation she crossed the room, knelt at Ann
Ree’s feet and kissed her hand. Just as Peter instantly recognized his Lord
Jesus Christ, so my mother recognized her Teacher. Her search was over.
A quote from the book of Matthew:
“He saith unto
them, but whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art
the Christ, the son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, blessed
art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto
thee, but my Father which is in heaven.”
Matthew 16:
15-17
It was after this meeting that Niscience became a
part of our household. As the model teenager that I was, her excited sharing about,
“these anointed Teachers,” “this enlightened Teaching,” and these, “loving and
devoted disciples,” sent me running in the opposite direction. But her sharing
eventually piqued my curiosity. In order to find out what all this, “fuss,” was
about, I made my first trip to the Ann Ree Colton Foundation of Niscience in Glendale,
California (a suburb of Los Angeles,) in April of 1979 and on Easter Sunday
received my Grace Name, Elona, from Ann Ree. For me, this was a life-changing
event. And to my mother I offer my eternal gratitude.
She was a studious and creative disciple. With her
insatiable curiosity and love of learning, she immersed herself in the
Niscience books and White Paper Lessons. She attended many conclaves, unit
meetings and even hosted a unit in our home. She wrote talks, poems and songs.
She loved drawing mandalas and participating in the dance of Pleasance. But a
trip to the Foundation to sit at the feet of her Teachers was a special joy.
She was a traveling disciple, living in a number of
places from Northern California to North Carolina, from Virginia to Oregon and
in her last journey to Massachusetts. She was especially grateful to have spent
a year and a half living with me near the Foundation. But wherever she found
herself, she was a fierce and passionate disciple; a true, “Fisher of Men.” Her
enthusiasm for Niscience was infectious and she freely shared with those who
had, “An ear to hear.” I know of many who first learned about Ann Ree Colton
and Jonathan Murro (the Co-Founder of Niscience) through my mother’s testimony.
To honor Ann Ree, she wrote the following poem
entitled, “Lady of Light,”
Oh, beautiful lady of light and love,
Heart as pure as turtle dove,
Soul alight aglow within,
Colleague of the Cherubim.
Walks with Grace; so fair of face,
Speaks in tones of things unseen,
And in her presence makes serene,
All who would listen and be taught,
To walk the path the Master walked.
Oh, shining lady of light and love,
Golden link to worlds above;
Healer, teacher, companion, friend,
Spiritual mother with cosmos blends.
Brings to us the Dharma,
Softens pressing karma.
For she does love us one and all,
No matter the times she sees us fall.
With arms outstretched she takes us in,
And gives us courage to try again.
Dear mystic lady of light and love,
A garden of roses in gratitude,
For sacrifices of yesterday,
God’s blessing, Ann Ree, along your way.
This is just one of the many poems she wrote. These
poems ranged over a wide variety of subjects. Some were written for or about
family members and friends. Some were written to celebrate births and
anniversaries. Some were spiritual poems, silly poems or emotional poems.
Others were about love and still others about loss. Much to my dismay I even
discovered a set of poems about some of my past boyfriends.
In her poetry I glimpsed her passion, her joy, her
fears and self-doubts in raw emotional tones. True to her Aries nature, she was
fiercely honest, bold in her words but yet childlike and vulnerable. Her poetry
mirrored the way she lived her life.
Her love and service to the animal kingdom,
particularly to dogs, was her deep passion. With them her heart was opened and
she bathed in their unconditional love. Nothing so readily brought a tear to
her eye as the suffering of an animal.
There was almost always a dog (or two or three) in
our home. The year I left for college, I was quickly replaced with a Lhasa Apso
by the grand name of Princess Shakti Samya Ree. The Lhasa Apso, often referred
to as the Lion Dog, was bred in Tibet to guard Buddhist temples. True to her
heritage, when Jonathan Murro paid a visit to our home, to my mother’s horror,
she barked, growled and bit his shoes. Forever after, in our family, we
sheepishly referred to this event as the time Shakti, “kissed,” the feet of the
Teacher.
She worked and volunteered at a number of animal
rescue organizations. Her last job before she retired was as an adoption
counselor at the Oregon Humane Society. She had a knack for matching pets and
people and oversaw more adoptions than any other counselor at that time. Her
gift extended to, “animal nomenclature,” as well. When a stray came in, it was
to my mom they turned for just the right name. She always said the names came
directly from the animals and never from her. She started the practice of
saying a quiet prayer over the newly adopted pet and their family before they
left the facility. Later, many adopters referred by friends or family would request
my mom as a counselor and ask for her prayers as well when they too left the
facility with their new family member.
In writing and researching this tribute to my
mother, I was glad to delve below the deep, blue water to look upon her net. I
had the privilege to see the presence of God in her life, in the intersection
of each line of fiber. And as you will see in this final section, even to the
end this, “Fisher of Men,’ wove her final links in perfect harmony to the
rhythm of her Lord.
After my grandmother passed in 2008, my mother moved
to be near her youngest sister in Oxford, Massachusetts. My aunt and her
husband welcomed my mother into their home and eventually helped her to move
into a place of her own. She was so grateful not only for their help but for
the rekindling of family ties. With a sixteen-year age difference she often
thought of my aunt more as a daughter than a sister.
Due to the increasing pain of osteoarthritis in her
knees, she made the decision to have knee replacement surgery in 2010. Her
first surgery was a complete success. Unfortunately, two weeks after the second
surgery, on October 31st, she had a stroke. In January of the next
year, I came to Oxford to be near her.
The last three years of her life were a constant
struggle as she battled to regain her independence. The stroke affected the
entire left side of her body including the loss of peripheral vision in her eye
and the hearing in her ear. She developed a debilitating neuropathy that caused
constant pain, tingling and numbness in her hands and feet. Eventually, she
lost the ability to walk on her own.
Even the fierce will of an Aries was no match for
this physical onslaught. I felt helpless, depressed, frustrated and often angry
as I watched this last initiation play out. It is so sorrowful to watch the
physical suffering of a loved one; especially a parent.
The degenerative effects of the stroke reached a
crescendo in the beginning of April 2013, six days after her seventy-third
birthday. It was clear to my aunt and me that she could no longer live on her
own. She had been in and out of hospitals and rehab centers over many months
with no significant improvement. Reluctantly we transferred her to a facility
that could provide the round the clock care she needed.
After several months in this facility, her condition
dramatically worsened. I prayed and cried. Then prayed and cried again. I felt
no hope. On one particularly dark night in December, I got down on my knees yet
again and asked God that His Will be done for one whose will had been so
strong. I said, “God let thy Will be her will and let her will be Thine.”
Three days later, on December 20th, she
was found unresponsive in her room and rushed to the hospital. Unable to
breathe on her own she was placed on a ventilator and kept in a state of
sedation: a cocoon state of sorts. For seven days, including Christmas day, she
remained in this state.
During this time, I had three dreams:
In the first dream she called me on the phone. She
was talking so excitedly I had to tell her to slow down so I could understand
what she was saying. Though I never understood the words, the feelings of joy
were unmistakable.
In the second dream I saw just her face surrounded
by white light. Her large, warm brown eyes were soft and clear. She was looking
at me with such love that I felt it as a warmth surrounding my entire body.
In the last dream I saw her leaving the hospital.
She was dressed all in white and was accompanied by three men also dressed all
in white. Her hair had been completely shorn off. All four entered a white car,
my mom in the front passenger seat, and drove away from me.
On the seventh day in the ICU, she was removed from
the ventilator and could again breathe on her own. I was very joyful and very relieved. My
immediate thought was to go and visit her but something within me resisted. For
three days, I too seemed to be in a cocoon state. I was filled with happy
thoughts of what the future might bring. We were planning to move her to a new
facility and I had great hopes that they could help her recover the use of her
legs. But I was also filled with sad thoughts about all the pain and suffering
she would endure to get there.
On that third day, my aunt, my husband and I visited
her in the hospital for the last time. They had moved her from the ICU to a
lovely room with a large window overlooking a bridge crossing a river. She was
happy but also frail and childlike. She remarked on the wonderful room and care
she was receiving.
The conversation had a happy tone. We joked and
laughed and shared some stories. We talked about the new facility she was going
to and she was especially excited because they had a dog as a permanent
resident there. As we prepared to leave I bent down to kiss her goodbye and she
said two things to me: The first was, “I feel Ann Ree all around me and I know
I am safe.” And the last was, “I love you more than life itself.”
The next morning, December 31st (my
birthday), the hospital called and told me the doctors felt she was ready to be
released that afternoon. Though I felt happy, I also felt a strange twinge in
my stomach. She had seemed so frail the day before. After talking with my aunt,
we both felt it was too soon to release her. I phoned the hospital back to ask
them to postpone her release. The doctors agreed.
At 6:15 pm I received another call from the hospital
telling me they had again found her unresponsive and were preparing to put her
back on the ventilator. I immediately called my aunt to go with me to the
hospital but got no answer and so I assumed she and my uncle had gone out to
celebrate the New Year. Later she told me they were home but for some reason
never heard the phone ring.
I drove to the hospital alone. As I approached, New
Year’s Eve fireworks began to explode across the sky. They looked like
gigantic, fiery mandalas. After each one expanded and then disappeared into
space, there came a loud boom. It was just like my mom to go out with a bang!
When I exited the elevator and headed to her room on
the sixth floor, my phone rang. It was the doctor telling me that she had
passed away. Entering her room, I felt only peace and tranquility. There was no
more pain. There was no more suffering. She lay in quiet repose; her skin soft
and translucent; her hands still warm. I kissed her forehead and held both her
hands. I said some prayers and I left her to her journey.
Her time in the hospital lasted eleven days: the very
master number that was her destiny to fulfill in this life. Her final
initiation lasted nine months from her birthday to my birthday. Her last hour
of life was my first hour of life fifty-two years before. And thus, it was that our journey as mother
and daughter began quietly in a hospital room and ended quietly in a hospital
room.
Two days before I wrote this Eulogy, I had another dream.
In this dream many members of Niscience were waiting in an airport to catch a
flight. I looked around and didn’t see my mom. I asked someone if they had seen
her and they said, “Oh she took an earlier flight.”
In farewell I say to her, “I love you mom. Have a
safe and happy journey to your next destination.”
I close with her poem entitled, “No Limitations:”
This is the moment
My destiny finds me,
This is the moment
I try my wings.
This is the moment
I’ve worked so long for,
This is the time
I see what faith brings.
No longer earth bound
I am a sun child,
No limitations
I’ve cut the strings.
This is the moment
I break thru the dark clouds,
This is the song
My heart wants to sing.
