A Tale of Grace

posted by Kamala on May 23

Dearest Friends and Family,

Since I last wrote you, much has happened. Anni’s pounding heart beat has become a constant phenomenon. Pounding hard, day and night, her respiration increased to match….there came a point where the general panic was fairly terrible.

I called the Dr. who is our assigned medicaid physician, and his suggestion was to go to the emergency room. When I tried to get the issues of her heart pounding as related to her months of sleeplessness and intense pain, which keeps her from sleeping, he didn’t see any connection. He thought it is from a blood clot, and advised me in serious and admonishing tomes. Its been like this all along. My concerns about her experience with Hepatitis in 2002 are brushed aside, because tests via technology show a normally functioning liver. This despite the fact that there is a tumor on it! Despite the fact that her hands and feet are bright yellow! Same with the kidney test. The tests show normal functioning kidneys, and yet there is a huge tumor, considered the main tumor on one. This type of “modern medicine” is only producing people who are technology based and driven, who can ony presecribe drugs for the pharmaceutical industry. How sad that India should seek in anyway to emulate this system!

The problem with rushing Anni to the emergency room, is that it solves nothing, will stress her and exhaust her unnecessarily, and subject her to more gruelling tests that cannot connect the dots of her illness. The legal, educational and medical systems in my country are so intermeshed, that a person’s rights and wishes are literally taken away from them once they are intubated or enter an emergency room. Seeing her weakened state things can be done to her against her will. Anni was adamant that she was not going to the emergency room….all this was a few days ago, and we are still going on.

So, things have been pretty tense. We got a blood pressure pulse cuff, with which to monitor the goings on in her heart, it also shows irregular beats. We became even more alarmed. But, somehow, deep down, despite the panic of everyone around us, who care deeply for Anni, somehow, Link, Anni and I, felt only that we have somehow to ride out the storm, and things will change. Nonetheless, we found it difficult to resist the fear and panic in the minds around us. The Dr. who is the Gerson practioner for us, after receiving my worried call, called early the next day and spoke to Shirley, and said he could no longer be Anni’s practioner, as “she is beyond nutritional support”. I was amazed. Dr. Max Gerson took patients that had been dumped out of the medical hospitals, left to die, and resusitated them with loving care and nutrional support combined with detoxification. So, its very interesting, but really only points to the intense FEAR that everyone has. At one point, I was being told, “You will be legally responsible for not making sure that Anni got into the hospital….if she dies, there will be an investigation, people will see you as neglectful…” What this all showed us, was the usual attitude in human beings of rejecting opportunities for caring responsibility. No one wants to be sued, and this is a suing culture. Everyone wants to make sure their “behind” is safe, so to speak. So, the best way, if there is any doubt, is to dump the problem into the hands of those society holds to be ‘professionally responsible”. Then, if you die because no one could use their common sense and see connections, or you were overdosed with morphine, as Anni was earlier, or you are given poisons to zap your cancer, rather than meaningful and helpful ways to preserve and enhance the integrity of your body, then, no one is personally responsible, and somehow this is all seen as OK. Efficiency can have a very cruel edge it not springing from the heart….

Another thing is safety. People around me began to question if it is ’safe for Anni to be at home’. These are legalizing terminologies, that come from fear. If Anni is put into a hospital, no one needs blame themselves for what will be the miserable end of her life. Modern science will have done its best. surgeons will have done theirs. Will any of it have helped Anni? this safety issue, is one that is really bogging the country  down. People cannot allow their children to climb trees, or play outside in the snow for a day, or even allow children to touch and hug other children, because, “it may not be safe”. Out of this great concern for ’safety’ comes more and more fear.

As long as we don’t want to live our lives responsibly, we will need ever more powerful social structures around us, which will masquerade as taking that responsibility. We will need police near by, since we can’t and won’t police ourselves, extra programs and tuitions for school, and our children will spend all their time there, since we won’t be actively involved and supportive of their education, hospitals where we can have medical help for the common cold, and more drugs to help us live our unnatural lifestyles and cope with our sickened environment. In India, there was never a police force for social control, and still isn’t in the villages, which for time immemorial have resolved disputes and quarrels through personal and social pressures, rather than the nebulous and impersonal state. There were never creshes either, for mothers to leave their babies, while they assumed the double burden of making a home and earning an income. So what goes? The home and the well being of the babies, and the security of the society. And for some, these structures will be useful, to fill in the thinking and take action and ‘responsiility’ where they cannot.

When we first learned about Anni’s illness, I trusted the ‘modern science world like a child, hoping they would help her. As time when on, and the utter folly of the plans for her, plans that really did not take Anni’s whole situtaion into account became apparent. The lack of connectivity between the doctors, the medicine they prescribed and the environmental reality and totality of Anni’s body as a single organism, the lack of genuine wholistic vision, shocked us.

All of this has gone to show us that we have nothing and no one but our Precious Amma to help us. And for this we are grateful, and I believe, we have always known this. I do not know why we are having this experience. Only She knows what is supposed to be happening here. We can only carry on, through the fog….

This is a gripe entry. Sometimes, you have to get it off your chest. We hope we have offended no one. Hope all of you will be alert, and take your own health and healing and education into your own hands. Loving you, Kamala, Anni and Link

posted by Kamala on May 11

Dearest Friends and Family,

Well, we got the blood test done. It showed Anni’s hemoglobin count to be 8.7. Here, when the hemoglobin comes down to 8.0, a blood transfusion is done. Link and I have the same blood type as Anni…will it be enough if needed, will we be allowed to give it? The test also showed some hyperactivity in the thyroid….In India, her hemoglobin was 9. At NIH, it was down to 8.6…it did not seem to be of great concern to the people there…its interesting….I guess when you deal with people with terrible diseases, you can be pretty casual about all these things…I remember a few weeks ago, I called the Dr.’s there, fearing that Anni was possibly dehydrated…and they asked if she was still urinating…so, I guess, its a different definition of dehydration, and acute circumstances….

In the last few days, Anni’s heart beat has become very strong at times, to the point where one can feel the vibrations sitting near her, as well as see her clothing moving. Small efforts, like coughing, bring on the pounding heart….at ‘rest’, it seems to be about 120 beats a minute….thats another thing- the coughing that has started. Since January, when she was incorrectly diagnosed as having pluerisy, it has been too painful for her to cough. Last week, she began to cough. We felt it could be a positive sign, given her inability to cough for so many months…but along with it all, came more and more pain….pain on coughing…pain in every way of sitting and lying down…and then the pounding heart…

So, today, we all entered a general state of uneasy panic regarding her heart beat…I mean, we are not seeing great and rapid improvements…. Shirley felt very uneasy about the heart beat, and the possibility of heart damage, or heart attack occuring….so, we are trying to contact doctors, who would be open to working with the Gerson approach, yet, have medical know-how and could tell us if there is cardiac problem happening…

Now our house is blessed with Rishikesh from Amritapuri and Anand and his mother Pankaj Sharma from LA. Rishi brought lots of mail for Anni from the Ashram, and we spent one delicious day, savoring each letter…there were very special prasads from Amma’s room, too…including a bottle of mostly used perfume that our Lord often wears…it was when we smelled That Smell, that our hearts rent open, and the longing, bravely supressed, flowed out…and Anni began crying to go home. For us, the Ashram has been and is our home…

At night, Anni took the bottle of perfume and slept with it under her pillow, to remind herself of the Precious One. 1/2 way through the night, she got furious with the perfume bottle for not being Amma, and cast it away…There is NO SOLACE but You, O Lord, NO COMFORT but You…what sort of bribery is this? Reminders and hints! We are unbribed, and ever hungry…someone should tell Her….

Rishi said that from reading this blog, some people may have the idea that Anni is in a dying state. But he said that seeing her, her tremendous strength of spirit, her cheerfulness, lovingness and joyousness and smiles, he was relieved to see her still radiating that sweetness and light.

While I have tried my best to truthfully portray the physical state she is in, as we are experiencing and seeing it, I have never felt that Anni is dying. We all see this as some absolutely bizarre experience that we are all having, the outcome of which will be her positive health by the grace of God, through all of you..
When we were at NIH, the Washington Cancer Institute and the Children’s National Medical Center, eg., during the month of March and part of April, I felt tremendous misery, tremendously uncertain….they could only show us a dark road to a short life and painful death…Now, despite all the ups and downs, the decline in her movements, the new heart stuff, we do not feel Anni will leave us at all…I know that Amma is in her, Amma has the capacity to smile out of her at any moment in shining health, and that my Outer Amma loves her, is concerned about her, and with That Concern, how can I take my own worrying seriously?

Yet, I find her pains unbearable, and now they are constant…Uncle Jeff if most often away, but calls quite frequently, several times a day, and himself cannot sleep well, being away from Anni…

It is a great blessing that at this time, we are all together, to be with Anni, to have a hand in her healing, to witness her sweetness, to remember at every moment what is important in life, and to live in that awareness. Her eyes are so beautiful, her smile is so radiant. All of you, who are praying positively for her, who are taking active steps to promote her healing, all of you are part of her healing….how can we not succeed? Our Lord has the softest of hearts. How can She not hear? There is nothing impossible for Her, how can Anni not be healed?

Perhaps it is that we all need the harsh reminder of what is important and real in life, what is worth cherishing and serving and loving and honoring. So therefore, our lesson time is long and protracted, because we are slow to learn and quick to forget….we should all realize how much pain people who walk awkwardly or cough miserably are in. Rishi noted how Anni is walking like our sweet Satyabhama in the Ashram. We should all realize how much terrible and deep pain our dear Satyabhama is constantly in.  Seeing Anni’s great discomfort, I do not know how Satybhama has been able to bear her discomforts for so many years.
Whenever I look at Anni, and I feel she is in some pain, I say, “Don’t you worry, buttercup”, and she looks at me with irritation and sharply retorts, “I’m not the one who is worried, its all of you!”

We have brave and pure lights before us.  We need only faith that they are there.

Please give us your blessings, that we grow in true understanding and wisdom, shed our indifference and serve Her truthfully in all.

Loving you all,

Kamala Anni and Link (KAL)

posted by Kamala on May 7

Dearest Friends and Family,

Forgive our tardiness in posting letters. It is very busy here. I cannot say that Anni is improving, although I hope so. She moves much less. We don’t go for walks anymore. But, maybe, she should just be having bed rest…we always had to push her before.  She has gained a pound of weight, and, we hope that is good news. Her nights are pure torture and hell, it starts around 6pm everyday, and only gets worse through the night, and slightly better during the day, then back to another hellish night.. the build up of sleepless nights, racked with pain, and days with increasing pain, is having its toll..on her, on everyone….

We found out we may not be doing the supplements right, and are trying to get a blood test done tomorrow for the Gerson Practioner to examine…

The other Dr.’s in the NIH group decided finally that Anni has a very rare chromosomal cancer, called TFEB. I dunno. They think all kinds of things. Steve Fleischer is gone….its clear that the type of medicine offered by the American Medical Association is not for cure…it treats the body like my country treats other counties: Bomb them, and then act like it is not going to have an effect on the whole planet….or the whole country…When she spoke with the Dr., Anni told him she wanted him to come with her to meet Amma when Amma comes…but, he is off to a new job in Texas, so…the dreams of life go on…..

So. I don’t know what to say. We are always encouraged by dreams and positive ideas. We know Amma is greater than any fumbling effort that we can make, and that ultimately and immediately, we stumble along in ignorance, trying to do what is the best for Anni,  I fear often we frustrate and hurt her more than we know….

The intensity of her suffering and pain agonizes all of us.  We try all kinds of little things to help…but, today, nothing is working.  The last few days, nothing is working.  So, WHAT CAN I SAY?    There is no one to whom I can scream and shake…other than the Nameless One,  and knowing all,  we are nothing and no one with out Her,  and so, as She once said to me, “Who are you to advise Me?”  Her power,  Her laws, are absolute…we do not understand or know what direction we are in….

Lets see….positive things….

We really learn how to live in the present moment with all this.  And even so, is it the real present moment?  I don’t know…existential questions, reading, poetry, fine thoughts, exalted mind states,  springitme. politics, newspaper, movies, and trivial chatter,  all that is beyond our scope of understanding, experience and interst.  We are only - Now.  only - Anni.  only the straining to hear -Amma.  Birdsong is still interesting.,  is it Her voice?

So.  We need help.  We need all those who can, to go to Amma, physcially,  and tell Her, Amma!  keep Anni on this earth to be in your physical presence, to serve you, to inspire all those around You with the glory of Your Love and Joy!   We are not there to talk with  Her.    Can those of you who are near Her, do so?  Can we give up ouir shynesses, and all press the Lord?

Wherever you are, to the Amma in your hearts, can you press Her to end Ani’s suffering in health and Joy?  Can I now shamelessly beg you this favor?  Can you call the Ashram or send emails to Her?  Send letters, and heart calls?

I don’t know what Tapas can move You, O Lord, to end your silence, to end Anni’s pain, to bring the heart hope of Joy….

With all our love,  Kamala, Anni and Link