Remembering the final year of Francis Brabazons’ life is not to most people a glorious event as he was totally plagued with Alzheimer’s disease and bedridden. Yet my most cherished and altruistically condensed moment of awareness of Francis’ total abnegation before his Beloved’s will was displayed to me in a fashion which I will not forget.

For the last year of his life I would visit Francis once per week to mainly just be with him. A roster system was in place to attend to his bodily needs and function and I was part of the system.

I would sit with Francis and hold his hand and speak only of his and my Beloved Avatar Meher Baba. From the depth of my heart I would let Francis know how fortunate we were to have the supreme advantage of being His disciples and lovers and I spoke of the Beloved’s compassion and mercy in our lives and of our great good fortune to have met and been with Him.

In these moments of great feeling I would actually and most naturally reach down into the depths of Francis’ dear heart and through his total dementia and non-responsiveness to any external stimuli he would squeeze my hand very tightly letting me know that even though he could not respond in kind he was not only hearing me but feeling what I was telling him in a way which I cannot bring myself to conjecture.

(Author: Peter Rowan)