Life of the World * Vita Mundi

Picture from Mom's bedroom, been there since before any of us. It was in a wooden frame with no glass on the front. Perhaps the glass broke one year or maybe it never had one. The darker colors and background show how it has aged over the years.


Another version found on the internet. The background seems to be more blue than Mom's. Makes me appreciate how much she really liked her picture to keep it up on her wall all these years, positioned in a place that she could see it every time she was laying in her bed.

"More people have seen the paintings of Margaret Mary Nealis than are aware of the identity of the artist who produced them. A Religious of the Sacred Heart, for four decades Mother Nealis painted religious subjects in and around Montreal. Her output was prodigious and she fulfilled many major commissions. Her paintings were reproduced in large quantities and distributed world-wide through the efforts of the Montreal commercial photographer, J.F.Topp."

Second reference:
"Mother Margaret Mary Nealis painted "Vita Mundi" around 1932. One day she answered the doorbell at the Montreal convent and found a young mother with two small children asking for help. She was so taken with the beauty of the youngest child that she quickly sketched him and this sketch became the basis for her painting."

Mom's story:

She had this picture in her bedroom since any of us can remember. It was in her first room at the house, and was moved to her last one. When she passed on July 9th last year, she was alone in the house with my two young nephews. My sister had brought them over, as she always did, and they laid down on the sofas to go back to sleep until they were ready to wake up. The routine was that my sister would call Mom later to see if she needed anything, and by then, everyone was awake, breakfasts over, and the day started.

On this particular day, everything changed. The boys, who were almost 5 and 8, had gone into Mom's room and found her laying down, as if she were sleeping. She never responded to them, so they thought she really was sleeping. They tried talking to her a few times for the several hours they were there with her. The youngest one went back in later to ask Mom if he could have some banana bread. At was this point, he told his mother later that night, that he saw a little boy in the room with Mom. The boy was dressed in white, "kind of floated" in such a way he didn't see any feet on him, and it was not clear about any other specifics. The next time they came to the house, my sister took him back into the room and asked him if he saw the little boy again. He looked all around and when he got to this picture on the wall, where it was hanging to the right of the door as you enter the bedroom, he told his mother that "it's him!"

Later, when I talked to a spiritual life coach that I have known and done work with for years, I asked him about the figure that my young nephew saw. Onada told me that "it was the father figure. He was with her for about a 7 day period before she transitioned, to help her with the transition." He indicated that Mom knew about 48 hours before she passed that this was going to be her time. When I asked him about why she didn't call any of us to say goodbye, he said that when she realized what was happening, she turned inwards and talked to God. Given her strong spiritual beliefs, that is something I can see her doing. In recounting how Mom spent her last few days, it was told by several that "she said she didn't feel good and she was just going to go lay down." And that is pretty much how she spent most of her last two days, resting but not sleeping much.

Upon thinking about it later, it is probably more true that she did say goodbye to each of us in her own way. She knew she didn't feel good, and while she may not have known the exact moment her spirit was going to take the journey, she was prepared to go.

So here we have this picture as a reminder of the link between the spirit world and that in which we live every day. What is real and what is not?

More on the "messages" that Mom has been sending to each of us later. They are pretty special, showing up at the oddest of moments!