Sure do shine

November 26th, 2020

I know we met at one of the Passover seders I helped organize with her and the other HinJews at the ashram in Castro Valley, California. Are you surprised? An ashram in Castro Valley? Or is it the Jewish thing? Jews in Castro Valley? Or is it the Hindu thing? Ahh, it’s California, not much surprises anyone. The M.A. Center, or ashram, is off Crow Canyon road, an area filled with riding stables and small farms with sheep and pigs peering out from fences along the road as cars zoom by, using the north-south canyon road to avoid the freeway traffic. The M.A. Center has been my spiritual home since 1996.

My friend grew up in Brooklyn and at some point in her life ended up at our guru’s main United States ashram. We met in the early 2000s at one of the Passover seders; mostly attended by non-Jews; sometimes 30 or 40 people crammed in to long tables, filled with raucous laughter and the joy of a truly shared experience. One Passover someone brought a loaf of sour dough bread to the potluck meal; yeast bread, which is forbidden during Passover, I graciously took the loaf and hid it away to give to the ashram residents later that night after our seder ended. Everyone was welcome, bread in hand or not. I explained to the woman why I wasn’t serving it but reassured her it would be most welcome at the Main house where the residents, who were not observing Passover, lived.

Our guru or spiritual teacher’s birth name is Sudhamini, or beautiful pearl, She is known as Mata Amritananda Mayi, or Mother of Eternal Bliss, but all call Her, Amma, which means Mother in many languages in India; with Amma, the language of the heart needs no names. In 2002 the United Nations in Geneva awarded her the Gandhi-King citation to honor Her humanitarian work in the world.

My friend’s name , her spiritual name, given to her by Amma, is Tejaswini. which means, lustrous , radiant, intelligent.
If you want Amma to name you, after She blesses you with Her embrace, after She hands you your prasad (gift from the guru) which from Amma is a chocolate Hershey kiss and a few rose petals, you ask Her, just as She is leaning back to get ready for the next person’s blessing, “Amma, name”? Amma’s reply is usually, “Yes, later.”

I received my name a few hours after asking Her, along with about 20 other people who were receiving their names. A friend of mine received her name 12 years after her request. Sometimes “later” is really and truly, later, much, much later.

The name Amma gave me is Suprabha, this means radiant, illustrious.

I always thought Amma made a mistake with my name, I thought she was going to name me Grumpy-ji or Kvetchy-ji. I can be an Eeyore but I am working on letting that persona go.

Tejaswini and I resonated with each other not only for our love of movies, shared Jewish heritage growing up, me in Queens, she in Brooklyn; we talked about our early dreams of fulfilling our creative desires, she a screen writer, me a published author and storyteller/performer. I like to think we saw the radiance of our higher Selves reflected back underneath the “mishegoss”, Yiddish for craziness, of being two humans on a very crazy planet. We shared our humor and capacity to see through others’ bullshit very fast. “Don’t kid a kidder” she liked to say.

Ahh that past tense.

It is 130 p.m. in the afternoon today. Her daughter texted me early this morning from UCSF where Tejaswini has been for 3 weeks. She is in their transition room now. Interesting word, transition, leaving one’s tired and sick body; I think of it as reverse birthing.

She was diagnosed with 4th stage cancer in April 2019, all because she had been hoarse for a few weeks and nothing was healing it, the doctor suggested she get a chest and throat x-ray to see what was going on; what was going on was a tumor pressing on her larynx and cancer in her lungs; and within a few weeks an external tumor on the back of her skull erupted. She was an anomaly, the chemo did not help; radiation helped a bit; we all know these journeys of loved ones with these monstrous diseases. Months or years of torture to prolong or maybe cure or maybe put into remission that which eventually kills. How to weigh all the toxic treatment options vs. giving up and letting the disease take its course, like a heat seeking missile it knows where it is heading and won’t rest until “mission accomplished”.

I have been weeping on and off today; the lid on my grief exploding out from the tight, airless box it was stuffed into.

I am also homesick for Oakland California. On Saturday when Biden crossed the threshold to become president elect it was dead silent in the condo complex where I live in South Carolina. How I longed to be in Oakland dancing in the street where I lived, I imagine myself there shouting and hollering with my elated neighbors. Here I am a brave blue dot in a sea of red. Though there are streaks of purple shifting the map, slowly ever so slowly.

That picture above the story is me on the beach not far from the suburb I moved to. I moved to South Carolina in September; COVID pushing my decision to move earlier than planned, eager to join a dear, dear friend, to no longer live alone in the slow torture of COVID isolation; I left the Bay area of California having lived there more than half my life. That is another story to tell one day; about the city in the 1970’s and 80’s when I was a disco queen and life was …well that is most definitely another tale to tell.

I am relieved my friend will be done with the awful suffering she endured on her cancer journey. Her daughter alongside her every inch of the way. Their bond so beautiful to witness.

I had a last conversation with her in October, we laughed about I don’t know what now, tears in my voice as we said goodbye. I already miss our conversations about movies and director’s choices of scenes, the way we dissolved into laughter at a reference to our Jewish sensibilities, the two of us meeting in places I share with no one else.

December 2nd is 2 years since another dear friend passed away from the shitty C. I used to say AIDS was the most hated 4 letter word I knew, losing 11 friends in those pandemic years, as well as my beloved younger brother in 1986; now I say cancer is the shittiest 6 letter word. My friends suffering with Parkinson’s have it all beat, that is the shittiest 10 letter word and the journey even longer.

I believe Amma is with Tejaswini as she is passing on through the door we will all journey through one unknown day. I feel my friend’s presence like a light kiss on my cheek; I texted her one last time that day in October, “face kisses, head kisses”, in Yiddish, “punim kisses, keppie kisses.” Her smile as big and bright as ever in the picture she sent me in response. I am not posting her picture — I carry that image in my heart.

Amma saw who you were when She named you, dear Tejaswini, goodbye, illustrious radiant one, shine brightly.