How I Became a Writer. My Dear Friend and Our Shared Resistance To Self-Expression
In November of 2016, We invited Sheila Hamilton over to our house for a book club meeting, where we discussed her book All The Things We Never Knew. Sheila Hamilton is a five-time Emmy Award-winning journalist, author, and mental health advocate. Her book is a deeply personal memoir that explores her late husband’s battle with bipolar disorder and his eventual suicide. As I listened to Sheila tell her compelling story to our book club, I had a realization that much of what her husband experienced I understood at a level far deeper than most.
After hearing of Sheila’s husband’s often traumatized upbringing and his eventual life response, the similarities to my own life were too obvious for me not to want to offer my perspective on these troubling issues. I made a commitment to bring my perspective to the world, yet I was not a writer, but I began to write anyway. I secured a blog site and also began posting my writing to Facebook. My writings were usually ignored or met with indifference by the few that read them. A few people even unfriended me or turned off notifications of my new posts.
My friend of twenty-one years, Marty C., a member of the same book club, did begin to show great interest in my Facebook posts about toxic masculinity and its deadly spawn, toxic religion, and toxic capitalism. My new writings opened the door to a different level of sharing between the two of us. Together, Marty and I shared over twenty years in a couple’s group, many weekend trips, plays, shows, and comedy club visits, hiking and camping trips, nights out for dinner and entertainment, and then the book club that we also shared for the last several years of his life.
Marty and I were quite friendly with each other, yet rarely spoke at great length or depth, or showed extraordinary interest in developing a deeper friendship apart from our wives. I noted how his wife organized and often appeared to dominate his life over the years that I had known him, and how she would often speak for him, and even verbally run over him in some group meetings. It was common knowledge that when his wife was present, Marty would not consistently reveal himself and his own story, as he would instead defer to his wife through his silence.
In this respect, his wife Eddy was to Marty what society appeared to me as, a poor listener, less than collaborative and often incapable of offering a consistent forum for the mutual exchange of knowledge. My experience of his wife was that she was usually quite willing to listen to what I had to say initially, then she would often fill whatever empty space appeared during any pause I made with herself, rather than wait for me to finish my story and whatever message I might be trying to deliver. At this point, much like Marty, all further talk from me would end, and I would just listen to her, no matter what important items I felt I might have to share with her or the group that we might be attending together.
We all need to be heard, yet society, and many relationships we form within its boundaries, do not always offer a sufficient opportunity to share who we are, and whatever unique talents or gifts that we have. The interconnectedness of individual consciousness, societal development, and spiritual health cannot be overstated. The profound impact of oppression and repression even those of unintentional nature, on physical, emotional, and social wellbeing must be acknowledged and addressed.
Traditional systems—whether medical, economic, religious, cultural, or political—have failed in their understanding of humanity’s fundamental needs. To move forward, we must realize that both victims and perpetrators of oppression must seek healing and understanding. This realization leads to a collective responsibility for change. We need a new approach that integrates mental, emotional, and spiritual care to address these deep-seated issues.
The Encounter with a Dark and Light Presence
Personal experiences often shape our understanding of life, death, and the unknown realms that lie in between. Today, I share a story that opened my eyes to the profound mysteries of human consciousness and the spiritual dimensions we may unknowingly traverse.
Over the years, I have become deeply disturbed by the developments within our shared world, within my individual consciousness, and the points of connection between self and other, through language, religion, and philosophy, that have created oppression, repression, and the resultant physical, emotional, and social disease. Starting within myself, I have seen how a lifetime of oppression, and repression, had brought about a sequence of serious illnesses, physiological as well as spiritual. I saw how a dark force, common to all of humanity, lived, moved, and had its being enshrined within my own heart and soul. I also saw how the medical, economic, religious, cultural, political, and spiritual traditions had failed in their understanding of humanity, and it’s basic, innermost needs of being valued and listened to.
Virtually all men and women have experienced oppression, repression, and the resultant diseases of the spirit at some point in their lives, and we have been both the victims, and the conscious and unconscious perpetrators, of this behavior. We have all attempted to manage our symptoms in our own unique, yet all too often broken and dysfunctional ways. I have wanted to help myself, my father and several of my male friends, to develop greater insight into these issues over the years, but I did not find a consistent interest being expressed by others in exploring these issues with me. But my friend Marty did begin to show great interest in my Facebook posts beginning late in 2016, and this opened the door to a different level of sharing between the two of us. Concurrently, by this point in time, all other women and men had either ceased responding to my Facebook posts, save my wife and my friend Jim H., or had stopped following or unfriended me.
Together, Marty and I shared over twenty years in a couple’s group (three couples who were long term friends), many weekend trips, nights out for dinner and entertainment, and then the book club that we also shared together for the last several years, Marty and I were quite friendly with each other, yet rarely spoke at great length or depth, or showed extraordinary interest in developing a deeper friendship apart from our wives. I noted how his wife organized and dominated his life over the years that I had known him, and how she would all too often speak for him, or even verbally run over him in group meetings. It was common knowledge that when his wife was present, Marty would not consistently reveal himself and his own story, and he would instead defer to his wife through his silence. My own experience of his wife was that she was usually quite willing to listen to what I had to say initially, then she would often fill whatever empty space appeared with herself, rather than wait for me to finish my story and whatever message I might be trying to deliver. At this point, much like Marty, all further talk from me would end, and I would just listen to her, no matter what important items I might have to share with her or the group that we might be attending together.
This brings me to January 11th of 2017, when I had my first ‘seizure’. I awoke at 2:45 in the morning and went into my office and sat down. Suddenly, I lost all ability to move, and to even think, though I remained quite aware during this approximately one-minute process. It was then that I became aware of a “black mass”, almost the size of a golf ball, in the left portion of the brain area of my inner field of body awareness. This was the first time that I had awareness of the energy field of my body since July of 1987, when I had my first, and only, experience of detecting my own “life energy field”. I became quite concerned by this whole experience, though I kept it to myself initially. Every subsequent time I looked internally, I could still see the dark mass. In February, I had yet another seizure, this time much milder, and in a public setting, while playing cards at Jim’s, who was a mutual friend of both of us (and another member of the couple’s group).
I did not talk about the seizures, or the black mass, initially, because I thought that I might be losing my mind. I later began talking about it with my wife, and two friends, and it was theorized that it might be related to something spiritual or psychic in nature. But I came to know it as “death”, at least in a spiritual sense. I saw that there was no negotiating with it. Prayers, meditations, affirmations, reading, talking with others, nothing seemed to have any impact upon the dark mass. I knew that some sort of death was coming my way, though I felt little need to discuss it with a doctor. I did tell my family doctor that I feared that my own death might precede my father’s, when I took my ill father to see her about January 4th of 2017..
On March 5, 2017 Marty suffered a major seizure and was hospitalized at OHSU. , Marty had been in a four year recovery phase from malignant melanoma, a process first diagnosed in late 2012. He appeared to have been successfully treated with Interleuken II therapy, a powerful immunotherapy regimen. Now, he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. My wife Sharon and I visited him two days prior to its surgical removal. Marty and I talked about our seizures, and I was struck by the similarity of his seizures with my own, though mine were relatively tame by comparison. I told Marty that my perception was that Death was making itself known to me, through the dark mass that I could “see” in my own energy field. I was also beginning to see a relationship between our problems, but I was hesitant to tell Marty about it, though I told him that I hoped that his brain mass did not indicate a death for him.
That next day, Wednesday, at noon, I had another episode of such intensity, and duration, that I dared not even attempt to get up from the couch. I had previously arisen from the couch, and briefly lost consciousness, so I was all shook up, yet I still had no desire to get a doctor involved. Sharon came home later that afternoon from her creative writing class and found me quite compromised. She listened to my story and accepted my decision not to seek further medical attention, since this was perceived as a spiritual crisis, while she offered her own love and care. She monitored my blood pressure, and when she noted when my breathing became shallow, to offer me a paper bag to breathe into, lest I sink into a panic attack.
Each time I tried to get off the couch, I became quite dizzy. I continued feeling quite physically subdued, and some sort of anxiety reaction was also happening with my body/mind. I was also losing my ability to talk. It took all of the power that I could muster to force words out. It was reminiscent of a time 31 years before, when for two days I had an event that prevented me from speaking during a portion of my trip through the underworld. I lost my voice for two days when confronted with the reality that there were dangerous people I was associating with, and this fact had finally, and powerfully, struck home with me.
The present time, I actually felt like my consciousness was trying to escape, and it took all of my resources just to hold it together. I characterized this present event to Sharon White as almost losing my mind, while having an almost neurotoxic component to it. I did not want anything to do with another neurological exam, having been through that horror several years before, when I had experienced excruciating headaches. I tried to go about my normal activities, while being grateful that I did not have to provide care for my disabled father, whose care that week was taken over by others.
Thursday came, and I had not improved much. It also was the day that Marty’s tumor was being removed. I had dual concerns, for Marty, and for myself. I went about my limited daily activities as best I could, but I became quite conscious of my own fear and anxiety around Death, both of self, and of other. I continued to listen to the occasional taped “spiritual wisdom” tapes of some of my past teachers, hoping to hear something that might bring me comfort. Well, I listened to Jack Boland, a nationally renowned speaker and master of the recovery process. I owned a tape where he referred to me personally, said he knew me, probably better than I knew myself. He then stated that he wished pain, not peace of mind, to all who had not yet fulfilled their interior spiritual obligation to cleanse their hearts, as this is the great precursor to any lasting spiritual progress. Those who understand this statement UNDERSTAND.
And here I thought that I had already performed that process!
How wrong I was.
Thursday evening came, and after yet another nearly sleepless night, I got up and sat in the family room and waited for Sharon to join me. My life’s message was bubbling up within me, and I felt a compulsion to share it with my world. Yet I also knew that there were few, if any, people presently in my life who had the time, or even the interest, in listening to what Spirit was trying to “pour through me”. As I lay out on the couch, feeling my own emotional/spiritual death about to overtake me, I cried out in despair to Sharon, to please share my message, since I didn’t believe that I had the capacity to deliver it in a way that others could hear, or understand.
Sharon looked at me with acceptance, love, and compassion. Sharon had been listening to my story for close to thirty years, and she had witnessed me sitting on my voice for most of that time.
She then stated unequivocally
“Your message is your own to deliver, my beloved Bruce. It must be spoken through you, or it will not carry the fulness of your energy.”
Even my tears, and begging, would not change her mind. I was in such pain and agony, that I knew that I could not go on with my life in any kind of healthy way, and I did not know what to do.
I had the experience of a lifetime of people experiencing me as less of a human being than I am, starting with my own diseased father, followed by a steady progression of angry, sometimes hateful, judgmental male and female power figures, with a few very notable exceptions, and I did not know how to act or feel differently. My voice had been silenced by myself and others, even in many settings where spiritually aware, conscious people gathered to celebrate ‘connection’.
This loving act on Sharon’s part by refusing to speak for me was instrumental in the recovery of any enhanced ability to speak and to write. I could not let myself die again emotionally and spiritually, so I asked my Spirit how to best deliver my message. A prayer from my past, first created from a dream in 1992, formed in my mind and began with
“Grandfather, Great Spirit, Thank You”.
All of a sudden, I was COMPELLED to write, and I did not stop the process until fifteen pages of a story poured through me. My Spirit chose the format of a parable, perhaps knowing that it would be discarded, without reading, by those who already believed that they knew me. But the curious ones, the ones who had an inner Spirit that had not been yet stymied, would read, and appreciate, this aspect of the message that I now felt compelled to give to my world.
It took less than two days to write, and it was the first story I have ever written. I was never a writer, and before recovery from alcoholism and drug addiction, most of the insight that I had was irrelevant to recovery and healing and certainly was not worth “writing home about”. While hospitalized for a month in 1984 for alcoholism, the journal that I was required to write about my daily insights seemed to be written by our society asking for permission to continue to be dysfunctional, rather than me getting in touch with my pain, and making progress with healing. People pleasing stories may be easier to read and write, but they sure lose their allure when one finally decides to move into the neighborhood of truth and real insight into self.
I have finally learned that I need to listen to myself, more than just listening to other so-called authorities.
When Darkness Fades: A Journey of Healing Through Story and Empathy
The dark mass in my body of energy disappeared upon completion of my story. To this day, I remain healed of that darkness, while continuing to write frequently. I have finally learned that I need to listen to myself, more than just listening to other “authorities”. This process has led to an insight that is extremely difficult to discuss, an insight about my relationship with Marty and his disease in the final year of his life. I realized that I had become attuned to Marty on a psychic level. Some call this connection radical empathy, some call it telepathy, and some dismiss it as mystical thinking. For me, this is a natural outcome of “prayer” as I defined it earlier in my life following a remarkable and mysterious experience with the late Gary Johnson of my electrical apprenticeship program.
Somehow, through my openness, Marty’s sense of self had been transmitted to me, or I resonated with him, and I felt his presence within my own sensitive, susceptible consciousness through my love, compassion, and concern for him. This is how I was able to sense the dark, golf ball-sized mass in my brain. It was not my cancer; it was Marty’s. I was also finally able to articulate the forces of oppression and repression within both of us for the first time. Through the mapping of Marty onto my peace of mind, a bridge of words was created to describe the vast matrix that had eluded me for years. The light of my awareness, shown through Marty’s matrix of consciousness, created the shadows, or words, that ached to connect the unknown to the known parts of myself.
Storytelling is a profound tool for personal healing. When we share our stories, we open a channel for deep introspection and transformation. By narrating our experiences, we not only make sense of our past but also unearth hidden truths about ourselves. My own narrative, a blend of personal struggle and spiritual awakening, serves as a testament to this power. Through storytelling, we venture into the depths of our psyche, unraveling the layers that constitute our being.
Empathy emerges as a potent force during this process. As we narrate our stories, we begin to see ourselves in others and others in ourselves. This interconnectedness fosters a sense of belonging and understanding, crucial for personal growth. We start to recognize that our individual journeys, though unique, are threads in the larger tapestry of human experience. Storytelling bridges the gap between isolation and connection, healing the fractures within our soul.
Through empathy and storytelling, I found a pathway to articulate my complex emotions and experiences. The act of sharing my story became a healing ritual, shedding light on the dark corners of my consciousness. In doing so, I discovered a profound connection between my story and Marty’s, unveiling insights that were both therapeutic and enlightening.
The art of listening to oneself is a vital aspect of personal growth and self-discovery. For years, I ignored my inner voice, drowning it in the noise of societal expectations and external authorities. It wasn’t until I began honoring that quiet whisper within that I experienced significant changes in my life. Listening to oneself means acknowledging and validating our own feelings, thoughts, and experiences.
Ignoring this inner voice often leads to internal conflict and unrest. We become strangers to our own selves, navigating life through a fog of confusion and discontent. On the other hand, tuning into our inner dialogue brings clarity and alignment. It’s a process of reacquainting ourselves with our true essence, fostering authenticity and self-respect.
My own awakening came when I started paying attention to my inner voice. The drive to write at odd hours was not a mere compulsion but a call from within, urging me to articulate my thoughts and emotions. This practice of self-listening transformed my life, bringing about profound insights and a deeper understanding of myself. Through this, I learned that our inner voice holds the key to our true potential and happiness.
Radical Empathy and the Bridge to Shared Consciousness
In the final year of Marty’s life, I discovered a profound, and often bewildering, connection between us—an insight that transcends conventional understanding and touches on the deepest aspects of human interaction. This connection, which some have termed radical empathy, revealed itself through our shared experiences and my own deep, spiritual practice.
Radical empathy is a concept that extends beyond mere emotional understanding. It involves a deep, almost psychic attunement to another’s inner world. In my case, this connection manifested as a profound sense of Marty’s presence within my own consciousness. Over the twenty-one years I knew him, I gradually increased my presence in his life caring for him and his wife in new ways. In 2017 I even began to sense some of his thoughts, feelings, and even his physical ailments. This level of empathy occasionally blurred the lines between our individual selves, creating a shared experience that was both enlightening and unsettling.
The phenomenon I experienced raises intriguing questions about the nature of empathy and its potential overlap with telepathy. Traditionally, empathy is understood as the ability to emotionally resonate with another person’s feelings. Telepathy, on the other hand, implies a direct transmission of thoughts or sensations between individuals. My experience suggests that these two concepts might not be as distinct as we once thought. Through our deep emotional bond, Marty’s consciousness seemed to transmit aspects of his being directly into mine, creating a shared mental landscape.
Our consciousness plays a pivotal role in this process. It serves as the medium through which such profound connections can occur. Marty’s ego mind, his sense of self, somehow intertwined with my own consciousness, allowing me to access hidden truths about both him and me. This connection was not merely emotional; it was a temporary melding of our very beings, facilitated by love, compassion, concern, and the pursuit of spiritual, if not physiological, healing.
Compassion has the power to transcend conventional barriers of communication. Through my empathetic bond with Marty, I was able to articulate thoughts and feelings that had previously eluded me. This newfound capacity for expression was not just about understanding Marty’s experience but also about uncovering repressed aspects of my own consciousness. The compassion I felt for him acted as a bridge, enabling me to communicate around the metaphorical if not actual “black mass” in my psyche.
One of the most startling aspects of our connection was the way Marty’s illness seemed to manifest within my own consciousness. I sensed a dark, golf ball-sized mass in my brain—not as my own cancer, but as Marty’s. This experience challenges conventional views of illness as an isolated, individual affliction. It suggests that through deep empathetic connections, caregivers can share the burden of illness, potentially aiding in the healing process, or, in the negative, sharing directly in a deteriorating health outcome.
Empathy and shared consciousness have the power to reveal personal and shared repressions. Through my connection with Marty, I was finally able to confront and articulate the forces of oppression and repression within both of us. This process was not just about understanding Marty’s struggles but also about illuminating the dark corners of my own mind. The light of my awareness, filtered through Marty’s consciousness, cast shadows that formed words—words that bridged the gap between the unknown and the known parts of my being.
The transformative potential of such deep connections is profound. By sharing consciousness with another person, we can illuminate personal growth and understanding in ways that traditional methods cannot achieve. This process encourages self-discovery and spiritual growth, challenging us to redefine our understanding of empathy, consciousness, and human connection. It also is a potentially dangerous shared path to traverse, bouncing between the guardrails of spiritual attunement on one side, and the loss of life and/or sanity on the other.
The spiritual dimensions of empathy are vast and deeply impactful. My experience with Marty highlighted the role of empathy in achieving personal peace and spiritual enlightenment. By opening ourselves to such profound connections, we can transcend the limitations of individual consciousness and access a deeper, more unified understanding of existence.
My experience with Marty was a powerful testament to the potential of radical empathy and shared consciousness. It challenges conventional thinking about empathy, illness, and human connection, offering a novel perspective that can transform our approach to caregiving, self-awareness, and spiritual growth.
Dying, death, and transformation continued to be a subject of interest to Marty, but now it took on a special urgency. Because of the complications of the medicine, Marty lost much of his treasured independence. He lost the desire to scan Facebook for any insight into his friends or the concerns of the day, as all of his energy became devoted to just getting through the day with as much peace of mind, and with as little chaos, as is possible under the absolutely overwhelming conditions of his declining life. We all gave up on the idea of hiking, lest he somehow regain his physical function again. He was prescribed anti-inflammatory medicine to help reduce the brain swelling which had caused his disability, and he continued on anti-seizure medicine, just in case.
Marty communicated to me his sense of being inarticulate, in relation to the new experiences of his deteriorating state brought about by metastatic melanoma, and the encroachment upon his critical brain centers which had already begun. A life transitioning from being
highly engaged with the culture and the world, and immensely supportive of his wife while doing so,
physically healthy and active,
spiritually, intellectually and technologically stimulating and expressive,
at times exciting and challenging,
occasionally joyous, and,
regularly immersed in family and social interaction,
to one that is
physically inactive, and almost home bound,
threatened with the loss of intellectual competence,
challenging in anxiety producing ways, and
humiliating, depressing, and emotionally painful, and
without normal joy and hope for the future, and
devoid of physical intimacy with the wife,
immersed in family connections, but now not under the old rules, and
a myriad of other less than happy adjectives,
And, then attempting to describe the changing experience, while still in the middle of it, is a most difficult proposition.”
A story came to my mind after our morning’s meditation, of which I sent to Marty in text message form, and I include parts of it here as a small record of our journey together. The message is as follows:
“Marty, all of your descriptors are perfect, and they will change, as you change. While in meditation, the following images came to my mind:
Life can be like a lifelong adventure hike (perhaps the Pacific Crest Trail of everyday life?). On one side of the trail, we are witnessing the unbroken beauty of nature and of our own wholeness and connection to it, and the joy of unfettered movement of an innocent mind and healthy body while walking through the magic and mystery of the unknown. Yet, on the other side of the trail, a wicked forest fire has erupted, obscuring our view, threatening our safety and freedom, and taking us out of the beauty and wonder of the new moment. Its flames are now, more than gently, lapping at our back side, burning away at our past, burning away at our clothing, at all of our hidings and holdings, and at all the knowledge and memories that we cling to, and hold so dear. When you search for names to characterize this process, I understand at the deepest level why it is hard giving it a new name or calling it “good” or perfect while still being so painfully “burned” by one aspect of it.
Losing independence in life and in decision making is a most difficult proposition.
Losing the ability to get out of bed and go to the bathroom in the middle of the night by oneself can be demoralizing.
Losing the ability to plan for the day-to-day exigencies of life can make one feel less than empowered.
Losing the sense of intimacy with one’s partner, who is now more or less the primary caregiver, and not the lover, feels a bit like love has abandoned us for now.
Losing strength and mobility and being dependent on another for all movement around the house, and now, around all of life, feels like life is almost stripping us of our dignity.
Losing control of one’s bladder and bowels, and wearing supplemental underwear, and the insertion of pads onto our beds to trap our incontinence, can feel like adding insult to injury.
Losing the use of the left arm and leg, and then not having others respect one’s sense of loss, feels like the world has become insensitive to all suffering individuals.
Losing the desire to keep living on dying’s terms, while all of the other losses kept accumulating and accelerating, can make the thought and actions related to Death with Dignity an attractive option.
Yet, your journey, with this measure of suffering becoming folded into it, is part of humanity’s unbroken wholeness, of which we all remain a most treasured, though challenged, part of. Can you begin to trust that Love itself is always guiding, and coming out in its many new, challenging forms? Love is soon to become your new and only garment, and any holding back will only increase your pain.
Marty, our hike on the path continues, and the “forest fire” always burns (it burns for all of us). Hope and expectancy tell us to keep walking, because the “view ahead is always changing”. But what was our past continuing to burn away in uncertain and many times anxiety producing ways. Around one of those next bends in the trail, there is only the unknown, bringing whatever is to come. And, also around that same bend, the “fire” will have burned away all that is unlike your true nature, revealing who you were “in the beginning, before the World was”. Giving it a name is the challenge unique to all of us. The articulate ones write great books and attract lots of attention to their words. You don’t need that.
There are already many fine works available for the curious to read on the subject of death and dying, but your life is now your greatest teacher. Now that we finally have realized that facts and knowledge alone are not enough support to make all of life’s decisions with, we can willingly enter through the doorways to a new spiritual awakening, populated by creativity, intuition, and insight, where transcending many of the troubling aspects of the ego, and finally accepting the inevitable deaths of our bodies, becomes more likely.
Transformation, and death, can be so closely related that many people have profound spiritual experiences on the final stretch of their life’s path. Yes, I had a “death” 31 years ago, and people who knew me before the change, and then afterward (and who were not my direct family members) witnessed them. I was accused of being a “walk-in” by a friend from the 90’s (one of those “new age friends” I met in one of our men’s group meetings from Living Enrichment Center), and I too was at a loss of words to articulately describe the death and dying process that I went through, let alone this subsequent “resurrection” that I am currently living through.
Thank you for reaching out to me in your time of greatest need. I am honored that you regard me as “the best thing you have done recently” when you got me to become involved in the OHSU Men’s Cancer Survivor’s Writing Class with you. To have a published author and Dr. in Philosophy, a highly intelligent and sensitive facilitator and several others over the past few years giving mutually positive, life affirming feedback on all of our creative writings, rather than the mixed bag that many have grown accustomed to receiving in our normal life experiences, is a revelation of sorts. Thank you for honoring and respecting the words that we all write, and the words that we directly speak to each other. Thank you for involving me in a process where I can listen with my heart and mind at the deepest level to those creative urges and surges that we all share in. Thank you for allowing me into a process where I can give you extra love and attention and draw you away from the trials and tribulation around the home long enough to give you a sense of release, and relief.
You and me, we are both on the same path, though I experience it differently right now than you do. I “die daily to all that was myself”, through a process of personal inventory, mindfulness, and insight, though small parts of the old me pops up and reminds me that I am still human, and part of this glorious mess that we call humanity. Yet, right now, what seems to be different between us is that I have, more or less, a fairly secure sense of continuity between the past and the present, and I still experience the “illusion of control”. Of course, your fine engineering mind rebels at all thought of loss of control, even while personally witnessing the dramatic effects of that powerfully humbling experience.
It is really messed up to finally find ones place in life, one’s most healthy relationships with new and old friends and family, where healing and acceptance FINALLY reside, TO FEEL LIKE WE HAVE FINALLY BEEN INVITED TO LIFE’S PARTY, AND THAT WE TRULY BELONG, and then have a disease process creating conditions that feels like a rug is being yanked out from under us, the very rug that sustains our connections, and our future. It can feel, at times, like life itself is rejecting us, while our body continues the profound ejection process of our life force.
I parked myself on the outside of humanity for much of my early life, because I never saw or felt the welcome mat set out for me, by my early experiences of family, or many of my early relationships. And I was not skilled enough to create a welcome mat for myself among the diverse groups of people that I met through school and work in my “pre-30-year-old” life. Most relationships with males were troubled, and too many men seemed to be dominated by the aspect of the Common Knowledge Game that included judging all others unlike us as bad, ignorant, stupid, ugly, and undeserving of further positive regard, unless there was some obvious economic or personal power gain to be made from the relationship. I gravitated towards girls as friends, as a child, and then women as a maturing human, as they did not play the “put down” game so profoundly as my male peers and authority figures did (at least the women I met and befriended did not). I clung like a drowning swimmer to an inner tube to any male friendship where I was accepted, more or less, for who I was, without having to accomplish superhuman feats of accomplishment to just “fit in”.
Eulogy for my friend, Marty
I never knew what I was getting involved with when I offered to you all of my heart in friendship this year, having withheld so much of myself over the years. 2017 was the year when I finally learned how closely two male human beings could connect, and ultimately become “one” on a journey of exploration and discovery on the way to your own death this past Monday, at 1:24PM.
You are/were an important missing piece in my own journey of self discovery. I tried to bring you along on the journey into the Unknown, deep into the Mystery of Life. You introduced me to Death in a way that has changed me forever. We walked together while we still could, while you still had hope for your Miracle. Another definition for Miracle now lives in my heart, and Soul. When our human knowledge parading as Truth is unveiled for the lie that it really is, insight, intuition, and Love are finally enshrined in our Heart.
Through your death, I have been Destroyed, and I am now Renewed.
Rest in Peace, Marty.
I have included, below, one of Marty’s Last Creative Writing Stories below, from the OHSU Men’s Cancer Survivor’s Writing Group, August 25, 2017. I finally joined him in this group in July, after avoiding the commitment with him for 3 years. He called my acceptance of joining the group one of the best things that he did for the two of us.
He apparently died to me after the September 1st Writing Group meeting, obsessing with preparing his car’s GPS and OnStar system for his wife the whole drive home after the writing group. He was, basically, unresponsive to me on the day before his death.
Here is Marty’s final creative effort, what he felt was the culmination of his writing group experience, and the verbal gateway to his decision to choose his final day of life. This is a story of release from societal expectations, rigid attitudes, structure, repression, and the lifelong oppression of the human spirit into the infinite freedom of Spirit:
We visited the Riverview Cemetery last week, Doyle and I. Truth be told, I dragged Doyle there with me. I’m a green burial plot owner, and I wanted to see my plot and its surroundings in the morning sun from the East.
Although the hour was early, a couple of parties were already at the site, evidently an early graveside service and a couple visiting a recently- interred loved one with their dog. I was also looking for a sign of completion – a sign that Eddy and I had completed the arrangements for a “final rest” in a good way.
I looked up the hillside and remarked to Doyle, “Look, a coyote loping through the midst of the people and their pets with such obvious self-confidence. You can always recognize a coyote – even if you don’t think you have ever seen one before. They are never frightened – just there, immune to danger and above the fray.”
Yes, I recognized my sign, the age-old sign of the trickster, the shape-shifting presence of the coyote. May he safely inhabit this place forever. (end of story)
Marty, though I miss you, you are now safe, healed, and whole.
When we touch our Self with deep awareness, we touch everything
