No Longer "Here"

On Thursday, August 13th, at 7:05pm, Denise Kajal Marie Cigliano passed away peacefully in the presence of friends and family at Sloan Kettering Memorial Hospital in Manhattan.

At Chuang Yen Monastery in Kent, NY.
 Left: March 19th, 2105; Right:August 18th, 2015

I would like to thank all of her friends and family for all the love, prayers, and healing they selflessly offered to her during her difficult and protracted stay in the hospital. While it did not defeat the physical disease, it lessened her suffering immensely and nourished her spirit and soul, giving her the courage first to make one last stand and fight, and then to make her final choice to greet her passing with hope and surrounded by love.

In keeping with her extraordinary life, a seeming chaos of rapidly developing events unfolded perfectly to grant her wish that she receive a final blessing by her beloved spiritual guide Gurudev (Yogi Amrit Desai) who spoke to her over the phone just minutes before she fell into a deep sleep. The expressions on her face as she lit up and nodded yes, yes, yes (after days of nodding no, no, no... no more!) as he spoke and sang to her will be forever etched into my mind and heart and assured me that she had transitioned painlessly and with perfect understanding and joy into the Pure Land where she belongs. We all now have another angel in heaven.

She did not wish to have traditional viewing, services, and burial. As she had attained the wisdom that perceives the underlying unity of religions and that the same God has been revealed throughout history under many names and guises, she did not wish to have a denominational service in which ANY religion or name of God was held as superior over another. She instead wished to be cremated and for her friends and family to hold a simple memorial in her honor, and that those who wish to speak at the gathering do so without imposing their truth on her or others. Given her vigorous love of life, I'm sure we all know that Denise would prefer that we assuage our mourning with a celebration of her remarkable being and life and of life itself.

-- From an announcement email sent to her friends and family on August 16th, 2015.

-- Written by Eric LaVigne