Sufi Remembrance

URS date: February 4, 2019

Coco Zamila Tamar McCarter (1945-2019)

 

Our dear friend, mother, neighbor and long-time Sufi sister Coco Zamila died of cancer (treatment-related angiosarcoma due to radiation to keep her alive from years earlier breast cancer) in Missoula, MT on February 4, 2019.  She had been supported by her sons Max, Shoan, and Willard. (Her other son Mies lives out of the country) and by her sister, friends, neighbors, and a steadfast steady stream of folks from the Sufi community in Missoula and Hamilton, MT. Friends from Spokane, WA and Nelson BC and other parts of Montana traveled to be with her frequently.

 

Coco began this long healing journey surrounded by the same people who began the journey with her with her initial breast cancer journey, and before that when she had a stroke at age 50. They stayed on the long and winding road with her, supported by the songs and Dances of Universal Peace, healing practices and teachings, which constantly returns us to the Center, to Love, to the Heart.

 

She was capable of complaining, but she mostly loved to paint, laugh, go to retreats and Women’s circles, and play guitar for the Dances of Universal Peace. And Coco was amazingly open: she wanted (me) to share everything about her journey.

 

She was a long-time member of the Sufi community.  This tribute came from her first Sufi teacher, Qahira of Calgary (written to Quan Yin, who had come to be with Coco for her last week):

 

“I spoke briefly with Zamila/Coco last Monday during which call I assured her I will love her forever ~ she replied in kind, uttering the forever three times. So precious.

“Take us in thy parental arms and raise us from the denseness of the earth. Thy beauty do we worship ~ to thee we give willing surrender.” From the HIK prayer SAUM will continue to be the focus of our concentrations here in Canada.

You have been a stalwart & devoted friend and travel companion for our blessed sister. I always delighted in hearing of your various road trip experiences. Such a gift that you could both share, totally beyond compare.

Her gifts, as we both know, were many but perhaps the greatest was her heart’s ability to bring people together and allow them to share love with one another through song, dance, food, gardening & her love for them.

The magnificence and vastness of soul coupled with her once indefatigable physical strength drew people to her like a magnet empowering them to see their own possibilities, greatness, beauty, and truth.

With an innate grace, she has allowed everyone to release her into birthing her self into the next being. Her presence, her voice and her laugh will be missed by all of us but our memories serve as a vehicle to keep eternally the precious shared moments and exquisite power of love she embodied while on this earth.

Blessed Be
Qahira/Fran”

 

When I arrived 5 days before her passing , Coco was able to awaken, engage and talk with me and allow me to feed her last food (peach yogurt) and drink her last real drinks of water.

 

Her son (and her older sister Margaret) were steadfast in support of her. Her friends, mostly but not exclusively from the Sufi community (a few Buddhists made the cut) were steadfast, coming every week if out-of-town or several times a week if in. They washed and cleaned and fed and laughed and picked up books, audiobooks, DVDs at the library and watched movies. Her Hospice volunteer painted with her.

 

Hospice was fantastic (no surprise) comforting her and answering all her questions and guiding the last months and weeks.

 

All of us were waiting for a “sign” (Leonard Cohen: “You asked for signs; the signs were sent”) which came 3+ days before her death when her post-surgical area opened. That was effectively it.  She never awoke fully again.

 

When it was clear at the last Hospice meeting that this was it, there was a tender bedside gathering of all the workers, all weeping, as they had come to love her.  Later that day, the hospice harpist came and a large group of friends and family was present, and we were all awed and privileged to be a part of a “new birth”——into death. From Me (Quan Yin):

 

Coco is ever-closer but still with us, not in pain. She wants to go and has been given  the go-ahead by her family and friends. Here’s my experience of this Holy Thursday:

 

“For it’s in dying that we are born”: the Nativity of Dying.

 

In Atum’s teaching on the Nativity (based on Jung’s work), he taught of the Mandala (wholeness) of the Nativity. The resolution of the paradoxes calls for balance of the opposites: the Angels in the heavens, pure and disembodied, yet fully present; the Wise Men, who recognize the signs and follow the guidance to the place of new birth; the Shepherds, a symbol of simplicity, together with the Animals, holding Warmth (and Welcome). All surrounding the Holy Family: the Mother and the Father (uniting the Masculine and the Feminine) and the Holy Child, symbolizing New Birth, New Life.

 

Today I witnessed the Nativity of Dying: Coco Zamila Tamar McCarter, holding the Center, holding herself steady as she gets ready to pass from this world. Two of her sons, holding the Masculine, making it complete in the center. Surrounding her the Hospice Workers, the Magi or Wise Ones of Death, knowing and following the signs and guiding us to helping her release this body; an Angel harpist/ thanatologist, playing music and offering a beautiful opening for Light; Friends and Family and young children, serving the function of the Shepherds and Animals, offering her gifts of gratitude, warmth, and welcome.

 

It is made whole. It is in Dying that we are born.

 

The beauty of community present was remarkable. The 6- and 9-year-old little girls, the 16-year-old grandson, his parents (divorced yet united by all their love for Coco), the one giving Reiki, the one meditating, the one writing (me), the kids eating ice cream. Like a Last Supper with each person orienting in their unique way to the center. We are all made whole.

All dissolving and letting go (Solutio) in tears, all together, each in their own way.

Toward the One!

 

And a few days later, she left her body. I wrote this 2 days later, at son Willard’s request:

 

Dearest friends and community, Beloved Coco Zamila Tamar McCarter took her final breaths early Monday am. Her son Shoan hadn’t yet arrived from LA, so we kept her body for nearly 18 hours. Waiting. Even though Coco had hoped for a green burial, the reality of deeply frozen, iced-in ground in Montana made that impossible.

 

The predominant feelings for her adult sons, her older sister Margaret, and her many many friends were a mixture of sadness and relief.  She had suffered with this “gnarly” cancer (as one of her doctors put it) nearly two years. It was time to leave.

And as soon as her body was gone, I realized I too needed to leave and return to Puerto Vallarta the next morning, yesterday.

Which is where I’m writing now. Deeply grateful I was able to get there, talk with her, share gratitude for the great friendship we shared for more than 20 years, many Sufi camps, weekend retreats and road trips. The night I arrived she was still able to talk, she also ate her last food (peach yogurt) and drank her last real water.  Fairly soon afterward her complex surgical wound opened slightly, which we (sons, and a legion of friends) took as a sign. She had a few days of dwelling between the worlds, with a near-endless stream of friends. And then she was no longer. Sadness and relief.

 

Some of you knew Coco from Sufi camps (Inland Northwest and Northwest and Wilderness), many retreats (including Women’s and Wali Ali/Shabda and Atum) where she frequently ran the kitchen and from visits to Spokane (even coming to my book club), Priest Lake, and along the routes of our legendary road trips and meeting many of each other’s friends, children and grandchildren. Coco’s friends and spiritual community in Missoula and Hamilton were unbelievably constantly supportive for many many months.

 

 

Coco was indeed one of the most fun, adventuresome, steadfast and encouraging friends I’ve ever known. Her circle of friends was vast and included folks from Missoula and all over Montana, the whole Pacific Northwest into Canada, and also from the Southwest from her early years.

 

Coco took care of many people after surgeries and illnesses. (Like me, for 6 weeks post-hip replacement, when we cooked up the idea for our first road trip). Coco brought confidence (good for getting weary folks back into action) and competence (doing your PT with you; and your home would always look and feel better after a visit). Her very presence was calming and settling and organizing.

Coco could sing, play guitar and hoop drum (tar) and was a masterful leader of the Dances of Universal Peace. When she was teaching or leading she was “effaced” or out of her personality. When it was time to play or eat, she was fully engaged and hilarious.

Coco and I became grandmothers for the first time within a day of each other in 2002. We were both mothers of sons, and now each had a grandson. It was part of our Story of Friendship. We took four long road trips together (vowing after each one, “that was the last!”) and remained friends.

Coco was very strong with incredible endurance and yet her body had been tested many times: polio in childhood, Post-polio syndrome, chronic fatigue syndrome, a stroke at age 50, breast cancer (with all the treatments), and then a final cancer (related to breast cancer treatment.). Coco was supported through all this by her sons Max and Willard in Missoula and Shoan in LA. Hospice (through Partners in Health) accompanied her the whole journey and were a wonderful team: Butch, TerriLee, Chris, Alissa and others. The family felt surrounded once again by confidence and competence. Her medical doctor (Dr. Ravitz) understood her issues and needs. Her thoracic surgeons In Kalispell were steadfast and helped her through a health crisis in July that could have ended her life then; instead she got an additional fantastic number of months of being with friends and family, mostly enjoying herself and others until the last days.

 

Coco was blessed in life and she knew the downs as well as the ups; her brilliance was using the downs and the ups, integrating it all, leading her on a path of wholeness so she could inspire guide and  bless others.

She will always be remembered as a fantastic mother and friend and cook and musician and rehab/road trip companion and spiritual teacher and great encourager of the best in everyone!

Coco had her memorial service in October, attended by many from the region; she got to hear all the yummy stories shared by her friends and family and delight in them. She was happy to be able to attend her own service!

Ya Salaam, rest in great peace. Your life is fulfilled.

 

In gratitude, sadness, relief,

Lynne/Quan Yin