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Speaking of parents.
Today would be my dad’s 83rd birthday. But he died long ago in 1990 barely making age 60.
I think about him every year on this day, and many others. With immense gratitude.
He came to me immediately just now, after I woke up. I was sitting in a chair with a dark misty early morning all around through the windows, damp and green and very quiet, as it is often in the Pacific Northwest.
I can see him in my mind standing near the front door, with his walking stick, his flat wool cap, his wire-rimmed glasses and gray speckled beard, asking “shall we go on a little walk?”
But the gratitude used to be all mixed up with despair, loss and missing him.
That was before doing The Work. Before time passed.
One of my very first realizations after beginning the questioning of my deep-seated beliefs was finding a sense of peace with death.
One of my sisters had already attended The School for The Work. She shared with me two important things she learned from her experience there.
- Our dad did not actually die (say what?)
- A total stranger, another participant at the event, had accidentally caused the death of his own two year old child….and it didn’t kill HIM, emotionally
These two pieces of information jet-propelled me to the next School.
I wanted to understand, and face, death. So terrifying!
What on earth could this idea mean, that our dad did not actually die? I mean, I sat with him as he took his last breath. I felt his hand grow cold.
His body is no longer around. I haven’t seen him in over two decades.
The most profound awareness came over time, gently investigating a pretty simple belief.
What I mean by belief is something I repeated over and over to myself in my mind: my dad died.
Is it true?
Yes. I was there. He’s gone. He never got older than sixty.
Right at this point is when I used to cry, feel such sadness I felt my throat close and my heart break. It felt horrible.
But I kept going anyway, with this process of inquiry.
Can I absolutely know that it’s true that my dad died?
It may sound odd, but can I absolutely know….beyond a shadow of a doubt….that he is gone, forever, that there is nothing at all left of him, anywhere?
No. I can’t know this at all. I remember him. This memory alone shows there is something here of him.
I can have a conversation with my dad and get a real solid sense of what he’d tell me, how he’d answer a question I asked. I can see him in my mind vividly.
And as for physically, where bodies go, where cells and life and energy move, I definitely can’t know that this is dead.
In fact, it’s unlikely, scientifically.
So, no, strangely enough….I can’t absolutely know it’s true that my dad died.
How did I always react when I believed that thought?
Devastated. Wishing he was here. Frightened. Wondering why it’s set up like this on planet earth, with such loss.
How did I treat myself, internally, when I believed my dad died?
Like something was missing that I couldn’t quite have, without him. Like I couldn’t make it as well in life. Like I was smaller somehow.
Then the great question: Who was I without the belief that my dad died?
Or, without the belief that I was missing something because he died, that it was devastating or terrible?
Walking down the street, driving my car, doing laundry, reading a book, going to the gym, playing with my kids, buying groceries….hadn’t I actually done all these things hundreds of times WITHOUT my dad?
I mean, I had moved out of my parents house about 8 years before he “died”.
I had done a lot on my own. Without sadness. Without thinking “oh this is so so so terrible and devastating that my dad isn’t here right now.”
That’s what it would be like without the thought. I already knew what that was like.
I would smile as his memory and image entered my mind.
Or, I might sob and weep with love, feeling the bittersweet grief pouring out. All mixed with happiness.
“I love to say, ‘No one can leave me. They don’t have that power.'” ~ Byron Katie
Turning the thought around, I find my dad lived, my dad is alive.
It seems as true or truer, even if his body is no longer here.
(Everyone’s body is eventually no longer here. What did I expect?)
I see his back go around a corner ahead of me down the block. He just drove by in a car. I saw him gardening at the pea patch from the bus window. My son just sounded exactly the same as my father, although they never met. Little glimpses.
I don’t know any way to be with this than being with it.
The final turnaround to my belief: I died (when my dad died).
Something did die, but maybe that’s not so terrible. A dependence died. A clinging died. An expectation that I must have my dad.
I’ve now had to stand on my own two feet, without having a father in this world.
“If you’ve been up all night and cried till you have no more tears left in you — you will know that there comes in the end a sort of quietness. You feel as if nothing was ever going to happen again.” ~ C.S. Lewis
If you’d like to explore pain, sickness and death in a small telegroup, we begin on Tuesday, October 29th, 5:15-6:45 pm pacific time. Register Here. As always, ask me if you have concerns about the fee grace@workwithgrace.com.
Love, Grace