My brother was on the phone.

"Lee, the ambulance is coming for Mom."

"I'm on my way."

It took me a minute to know my mother's journey was coming to an end.

My mother and I had a very special relationship. But Mother had 10 of us, and each one would testify that we all had a special relationship with her, in our own way.

I'd be working in my garden, and I suddenly would sense that my mother needed me. (She wasn't much on telephones.) She had a different way of communicating with her children. I would drop what I was doing and drive over to her place, as we all did when she called.

"Did you hear me?" Mom would say.

"Every time." I replied, watching as she finished her crossword puzzle.

Mom gave permission for her children to believe in dreams and visions, to sense things, like when she called her children. These " 'Ohana moments" are what the Hawaiians call huna, meaning secret. About every Hawaiian family has huna.

Now all 10 of us were gathered at the hospital.

"Your mother has cancer," we were told. "She has some time."

We took turns sitting with Mom in the time she had left. She diligently did her crossword puzzles.

I spent the next couple of weeks finding her all over again. I discovered Mom had a favorite color, blue. My mom had a favorite color! Wow!

She went to school up to the eighth grade. She had surgery in her teens.

Did I know that? Where was I? Mom and I shared a house until I was 18.

I realized that Mom had not taken an active role in our growing up. But she was never far from us. We always sensed her presence in our lives.

Mother held a "right of passage": She gave us the liberty to live our lives, with little influence from her ... yet she made sure that we were surrounded by a spiritual influence.

Huna.

Months passed since Mom crossed to the other side. I was driving my car, and sensed her presence.

I pulled off the road and waited, it was a clear day, and I saw a rainbow; in the rainbow was my Mom. She smiled and clapped her hands. I recognized that as her approval. She had done it many times before.

Tears rolled down my cheeks and a smile walked across my lips. I was grateful.

As a mother with 11 children, I have to give my kids what our mother gave us — the "right of passage."

Parents are the first role models that a child will see. In their lifetime a lot of doors must be opened. My children will be encouraged to walk through the doors that I have first walked through. Good or bad, these are the examples we leave our kids.

The right of passage is the inheritance that parents leave for their children, showing the way, without fear but always trusting that life will unfold the way it was meant to.

A. Lee Totten, mother of 11, has adopted seven foster children.

Reach A. Lee Totten at (Unknown address).