Choose wisely, oh mankind, the stories and secrets that we keep
For by our choices, we may awaken, or just die alone and asleep
—-Bruce Paullin
Our lives are like a story that we write to ourselves. Enhanced meaning and joy accompanies us when the sagas of others can be assimilated, and rewritten with love and compassion into our own chronicles. Today is always a good day to recognize the innate goodness in all of life, even when it appears that life is not heading in a good direction. Today is always a good day to recognize our own innate goodness, even if our own life is not quite measuring up to our highest standards.. Today is always a good day to celebrate the innate goodness in our family, in our friends, in our co-workers, in our pets, in the person in the checkout line at the grocery store, or even in that ever-present homeless person, in spite of first appearances that may indicate that they may not be deserving of our highest regards.. Today is always a good day to celebrate the story and recognize the ever-present miracle that is unfolding within our own lives
Some of the most difficult stories to tell are the narratives describing disease, dying, and death itself. Rarely would we characterize such topics as having the potential to be good stories, or to have much hope imbued within them. When I am trying to entertain myself, I typically gravitate towards tales that celebrate expressions of the innate higher potential of mankind, I like stories of perseverance and the overcoming of impossible odds in the process of accomplishing something great, or of an individual’s or group”s recovery from disease or dysfunction. I am not alone, and throughout our history, there have been myths, legends, and religious stories created about those who have attempted to overcome life”s greatest challenges, including death itself. Collectively, we appear to need stories that indicate that death is not the end of our story, but just another event that welcomes a new chapter of life to us, albeit in another mysterious realm. Yet, we still need to be present with our own reality of being embodied, of carrying this body of flesh around with us until we depart this earthly plane, as we continue to share this adventure with everybody, and everything, around us.
What stories do we offer to those who are actually diseased, suffering, and dying, and what might be the stories that these challenged people offer back to us? All of the considerations involved with assisting a family member or a friend who has a potentially terminal diagnosis can be daunting. Of course in the end, death of the body is one hundred percent certain for all of us. Yet for those who still have hope of continuation of life in the body, even in the face of poor survival probabilities, a sensitivity to the changing needs that each moment dictates requires an incredible nimbleness of spirit, love, and discernment. And, when that body becomes our own, we really have to learn the subtleties of letting go of everything that we know, or think that we know, on an incredibly intimate, profound level. What story do we want to tell around this experience, or what story do we want to hear from others, when life is fading?
We can all be on planet Earth to live as good of a life as is possible, and, hopefully not destroy ourselves, our neighbors, or our world in the process, We can all be on planet Earth to take a permanent vacation away from our ignorance and darkness. We can never get lost on the healing vacation, we can only find ourselves on challenging adventures, in newer, spiritually healthier places, if that remains our heart’s intention, even in the face of death or disease.
For me, living a full, spiritually fulfilled life with its constant companionship with death can be likened to a lifelong adventure hike, perhaps along the Appalachian or the Pacific Crest Trail of everyday life.. On one side of the trail we have the potential to witness 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, beauty, and mystery of the unknown. Yet, on the other side of the trail, a wicked forest fire eternally burns, and daily threatens to obscure our views, our safety and our freedom, and to take us out of the beauty and wonder of each new moment. As we inch closer to death, either the death of self, or of a loved one, death’s flames more than gently, lap 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 all cling to, and hold so dear.. When we search for names to characterize this process, I understand at the deepest level why it is hard characterizing the experience as good or perfect while being so painfully burned by aspects of it.
The Balance Of Life
I have a few stories from my life that have added much color and texture to my expanding view of the possibilities for human experience. With the intersection of family history and my birth in November of 1955, the potential for some interesting, and, at times, amazing stories were created for me to tell to the world, if I ever developed the capacity to overcome the “conspiracy of silence”, find my voice and be willing to share my experiences. The following vignettes are a few rather informal acknowledgements to some powerful and mysterious forces that have been woven through the fabric of my life since my youth.
1. My Great Uncle Worth died in February of 1955, 9 months in advance of my own birth. His photo is included here, along with his wonderful wife, Aunt Effie (who also died before I had any awareness, when I was less than a year old).
Uncle Worth and Aunt Effie (they would have been my great aunt and great uncle)
My grandparents dearly loved their Uncle Worth and Aunt Effie, as well as my mother (and I assume her brother, my uncle Wayne, as well). When I was 4 years old, my grandfather showed me the wooden rocking chair in the photographs. I immediately recognized it, and claimed it as my own. When I touched the chair, I had an amazing sequence of memories, like an internal abbreviated video, flood my consciousness. I could still see the outside world, yet, there was a concurrent stream of awareness and images running simultaneously on the inner screen of my mind.
Uncle Worth’s hand made chair, given to my grandpa, who gave it to me
Somehow, in my “altered state of consciousness” I saw something that was not immediately evident to my mother. I told my mother that “I remembered fashioning every piece by my own hands, and assembling it together myself”. How could I have possibly done that as a 4-year-old? Of course my mother guffawed, and stated that it was a store-bought chair that my grandfather had owned it since he was a young boy, though I “knew better”.
It is now known that Uncle Worth was the original owner of the chair, HAVING BUILT EACH PIECE BY HAND, AND ASSEMBLING IT HIMSELF, and that he passed it down to Grandpa when he was a boy, who then gave it to me.
I still sit down in the chair on occasion, and I feel a mysterious, beautiful peace and a sense of completion when I sit in the chair. To this day, the memory of the chair, and its actual presence in our home, both haunts, and comforts me.
Psychometry is a psychic ability in which a person can sense or “read” the history of an object by touching it. Such a person can receive impressions from an object by holding it in his/her hands or, alternatively, touching it to the forehead. As a child, psychometry may have been the “source” for the information that I tried to give to my world about the chair.
Looking at my history, I remain firmly seated in the Mystery.
2. Bob and Dorothy Fero were friends that my parents had, from the time I can first remember my parents having friends. They shared the Oakey Doaks square dance group with my parents, and about twenty other local couples. We frequently camped with them in travel trailers during the summers from 1962-1970, and my sister and I spent many nights over at their home, staying with their children Michael and Robby, while my parents went out to dance and party with them on weekends. When I learned how to play golf as an twelve-year old, Dad and Bob would frequently take me with them, and I got to see both men on a different level than just my elders. I really grew to love and respect Bob, and I always assumed that he would be around forever.
Dorothy Fero (left) Bob Fero (center) at yet another party for the Oakey Doaks square dancing group.
Mom, Dad, and Dorothy (Bob taking picture) in one of the travel trailers on one of our frequent camping trips in the 1960’s
Bob had anger issues, and it was best not to get Bob too riled up, or someone was going to feel the wrath. On the car driving trip home from Reno with Dorothy, in 1972, Bob’s anger came to a head. I do not know if he had been drinking, or what, but in a fit of anger at Dorothy, he recklessly passed cars on the way home, and took all sorts of suicidal chances with his driving. Finally, his risky behavior caught up with him, and he slammed his car head-on into an oncoming vehicle, killing Bob, and critically injuring Dorothy. Dorothy was to recover eventually, though her crushed hip remained an issue for the rest of her life.
Bob had his funeral in Milwaukie at the Catholic Church. My father refused to attend, as he was so averse to funerals, and his grief over the loss of his friendship with Bob was just too overwhelming for Dad. I attended the funeral, not having the same aversion to death that my father had. Two nights later, I had a dream, where Bob came to me in the dream. He told me not to fear death, that is was beautiful and peaceful where he was, and that death was not the enemy. My father was not consoled by that dream from me, and it would have been much better for him had he received the insight, or the dream, himself.
3. In 1984, during my period of sobriety immediately following my discharge from the Care Unit, I became lovers with a woman by the name of Diane (Di Di) McCloud. I was so inspired by my relationship with Di Di, that I wrote my first love poem. She was to become the first person that I felt I had ever truly loved, but we had to let each other go after a short period of time. I relapsed about one month after her exit from my life. The next time I was to see DiDi was while I was in my full descent into hell, in February 1986. At that meeting, she told me that the poem was the most beautiful gift that anybody had ever given her, and that she was sorry that she did not find the spot in her life for me. We both cried, and parted company on rather sad terms. She died one year later, when she was killed in a drunken driving related automobile wreck in Lake Oswego.
Di Di became a part of myself and my consciousness, and I had one profound dream with her in it, shortly after her death. In the dream, I am confronted by a man exhibiting aggressive, unkind, abusive behavior. In the dream, I am appalled, disgusted, and threatened by his manner. I call out to a policeman, imploring him to arrest that man, and protect all of us from his violence. Di Di then walks up to me in the dream, taking the policeman’s place, and states quite plainly that for love to reappear in my life, in all of its fullness, I must first “arrest” all of these negative qualities within myself, and rehabilitate my own passions, then love will reappear. The dream ends, but Di Di lives within me, and the journey continues.
Though hibernating for oh so long
And hiding from the deep pain of winters’ chill
Love reawakens to sing its special song
So for how much longer can we be still?
With eyes that melt winters’ deepest snow
A tender touch that always seem to say
That all we will ever need to know
Will be learned along Love’s way
Two minds that were brought together
Two hearts that seek to share,
Two bodies that need no tether
Two become one, though still a pair
Heavenly nights and rapturous mornings,
Love promises through all of our years,
The sweet, stirring music of love sings
For two souls who now have the ears to hear.
True love can be the source of dreams
For two hearts continuing to awaken.
I pray that we are all each other seems
And share in Love’s next journey taken.
Looking at my history, I see love guiding me through the mystery.
4. In 1985, my grandfather “died” on the operating table. The attending surgeon, Dr. Belknap, had all but given up during a surgery, where grandpa “coded”, and he was ready to be pronounced dead. Suddenly, grandpa “returned” to his body, and resumed life in his old frail body on the operating table. Later, he thanked Dr. Belknap for bringing him back to life, yet Dr. Belknap balked, claiming that he had NOTHING to do with it. Grandpa remembers a “great being of light, whom I called the Lord, extending his hand to mine. I was just about to accept his hand, and I was yanked back into my body”. As grandpa told me the story later, he had never been more disappointed in his life, to have to come back to his old, broken body. Death was his perfect release, and there was nothing on this planet that could even remotely compare to it.
Grandpa Henry and Bruce 1988
My grandfather’s health gradually deteriorated from that point. On several occasions, he asked both my wife Sharon, and myself, for a pill that would allow him to make his transition. Life in the body was punishing towards the end of his life, and he became wheelchair bound, and we all felt helpless as to what to do. My parents, my grandma (who could no longer support a wheelchair bound grandpa in his home), and my uncle and aunt would not supply support to grandpa within his home, so he was sent to a horrible local nursing home. At this point in my life, I was in no position to provide support for his body, and I did not have the capacity to provide extra spiritual support, as well. He was to die alone and in some pain, in early 1990, in that smelly nursing home. I felt like I had betrayed my grandfather, and I also judged my parents pretty harshly, as well. This experience helped me with future challenges, however, and provided a foundation for how to provide support for my dying grandmother six years later.
5. In the spring of 1992, while Sharon and I were living in Rock Creek, I had a most amazing dream, and it is the miracle of love, and trust and innocence that enables me to share it (only Sharon has ever heard it , and she had no choice-she woke me up from it). In this dream, I was in my grandfather’s home, sleeping in the bedroom that i always slept in as a child. A “fierce, fiery cluster, or orb, of pure light and love” hovered over me, and though it did not have human form, I knew it to be my grandfather. I was being drawn into his love light, and I knew that, for me to continue, this energy would destroy my body because my body was too weak to support this “fire of love” that came to me. I did not care, for I had finally found what I was looking for, and I began to rise up, and attempt to join with it, knowing my “body” would be destroyed in the process.
Now, in real-time, in the physical world, my body was shaking and almost convulsing, and, to Sharon, my “crying and distress” showed that I was having a nightmare. In her concern, she woke me up, and I had never felt so disappointed to have to wake up, as it ripped me away from this most remarkable inner experience. It is also remarkable how absolutely parallel this inner experience in the dream was to my own grandfather’s experience on the operating table, when he was “ripped back into this world” against his will.
But the dream carried many fruits with it into the world that our bodies inhabit (Also, the prayer of gratitude-Grandfather, Great Spirit, Thank You, appeared in my mind and heart back then, as well). I knew that if I wanted to entertain, or to even host, the higher vibrations of love, my body (both physical body and the body of thought constituting myself), must become much stronger, and more open to the powerful energies of Love’s universe. I came to realize that I must improve my physical conditioning and my dietary choices, and continue to be engaged with like-minded individuals and groups of people, where energy can be exchanged.
6. My grandmother came to live with us in July of 1995, after being discharged from the hospital for terminal lymphoma. Sharon and I wanted to provide a loving home and setting for my grandmother, and be available to support her for the final three months of her life, rather than having her cared for by those she was unfamiliar with in a nursing home or adult foster care setting. Initially, my grandmother stayed in bed in our third bedroom, not arising for any reason other than to go to the bathroom. We anticipated that she might die shortly, without really regaining her sharp mind and consciousness prior to her death. One evening, she called us into her room, and she was distressed. A band of Indians were dancing around her, wearing their ceremonial clothes, chanting, and singing. Grandmother was semi-conscious and seeing a “vision” at the time, and did not know what to make out of it. Part of her own “conspiracy of silence” revolved around her own shame of being one-fourth American Indian. In the early part of the twentieth century, that fact was nothing to be proud of, and many Americans hid their heritage in shame. The Indian dance may well have been her subconscious mind, reminding her of who she is in her wholeness, and to help her with her healing.
My grandmother “rallied” for a couple of months after that, and continued to live with us. It was an honor and a pleasure to listen to her stories about her life, show me how to make her cinnamon rolls, which I loved my entire life, and support her, emotionally, to the days near her death. We did not undertake any great attempts at maintaining her life in her body, nor did she have any desire to do so either. Five days prior to her death, we relocated Grandma to the Hopewell House, a hospice home known for its loving, spiritually oriented care of the dying, when we determined that we could not provide around-the-clock care for her in her final days. She died at peace with herself, knowing that she was loved by her family.
Grandpa and Grandma Henry-center
7. In 1987, I began practicing the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. I began the amends making process, as suggested in steps eight and nine, which are the following:
step 8: Made a list of all people that we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
step 9: Made direct amends wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
I made out my list, and, as it turned out, it was quite long. I began with Dan Dietz, whom I had not seen since 1980. He was now living in Pacific City, in the beach home of his parents, George and Joan Dietz. For a time, I was considered like a fourth son to Joanie, and when Dan and I parted ways, it impacted his mother, as well.
I had heard that Dan was living with a woman, and that he might even be a father. I drove all the way to the beach, and knocked on his door, not knowing what to expect. A younger, red-headed woman answered, with a red-headed boy in tow. I was told that Dan was not available (this is during the time before cell phones were ubiquitous). I wrote an amends letter to Dan, acknowledging my own mistakes, without making any reference whatsoever to his own. I wished him well, and asked for his forgiveness. I left that day, not really expecting Dan to ever contact me back, but it would have been nice had he done so.
I never heard back from Dan. In 1996, Dan died of a heart attack. I was called to attend his funeral by “friends” that I had not heard from since I was twenty years old. I felt like I had already finished business with Dan, so I justified my own absence from his funeral. After all, I had not seen Dan in over sixteen years. As I was driving home from work at Blue Heron Paper Mill in Oregon City the day after Dan’s death, I felt his presence in my car. All of a sudden, it felt like I was “dying” or leaving my body, and I could hear Dan laugh. I almost swerved off I-205 at sixty miles per hour, but I regained my composure. I was to later hear that Joanie (Dan’s mother) was heartbroken that I did not attend Dan’s funeral. I have felt both justified, and ashamed, by my choice to be absent from his funeral. Several times in several locations I saw his older brother Tom, who did not recognize me, but I recognized him, and I chose to pretend to not know him. My social insecurities and shame still motivate me from time to time, for sure.
8. I invited my lifelong friend, Randy Olson over to my parent’s home, where I was living,on March 13 of 1987. I was just about ready to stop drinking and drugging at that time, but the beginning of recovery from a three-year relapse into suicidal addiction and alcoholism was still one week away for me He came over, and he, and his girlfriend and I proceeded to down an inordinate amount of my father’s booze and wine. My parents were still “snow birding” in Arizona, and would not be home until the end of the month, so I was still able to keep my dysfunctional momentum going. Well, after partying with Randy until about 10:00 PM, Randy had to go home, so I was left alone with my horrible problems.
It was then, during a blackout, that I almost killed some innocent people, though through the experience, I had an amazing realization: That I was insane, that the people who I had been associating with were insane, and that there might be a different way to live life to potentially restore my sanity and bring a sense of well-being to me, perhaps for the first time in my life. After bouncing around almost two hundred AA and NA meetings over the next two months, I found a nationally known and revered speaker on AA recovery named Jack Boland, who helped facilitate a spiritual awakening with me, through a new interpretation of the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. I was so excited about the new possibilities for my life, that I decided to go visit Randy and tell him all about it, in May of 1987.
On May 22, 1987, as I was driving toward Beaverton to visit Randy, a wonderful vision came to me. It was the vision of a loving mother, holding a baby, and I felt the love of this wonderful UNIVERSE for the first time in my lifetime. There is the love we have for each other, for our friends, our pets, our children, our families, but this love that I felt flow into me, and though me, transported me into a heightened awareness, and an awe. The beauty was too great to talk about, the feeling so overwhelming, so healing, so resurrecting. I had to stop my car on Canyon Blvd, and I got down on my knees and prayed my thankfulness to a CREATIVE FORCE that finally had found me receptive, and open, to its presence.
I made it to Randy’s house, and I met with him for the first time since my blackout experience. Randy could not believe his eyes, he said
“Bruce, what has happened to you? You look different, you look happy. You look at peace. You have changed!!!”
Yes, I had changed. I started talking to Randy about my experience, and Randy started to get tingling sensations up and down his spine. The hairs on his arms starting sticking up straight off of his arms! Randy exclaimed
“Bruce, what is going on. When you talk, I start to tingle all over. What has happened?”
“Well, I think that I am having an experience with God, Randy.”, I said.
Randy then said that such an experience was not for him right now, but he sure was happy that I was having it, because I needed something different in my life really bad, and really quick. How right he was!
So, Randy was there at the beginning of so much of the important/ significant events in my life. And, he was there at their end, as well. I could not take Randy into my new-found world of love and happiness, I could only share, ever so briefly, my personal experience of it.
9. My nighttime world has always been populated with many interesting and challenging dreams.. In one 1987 dream, it was like the sky opened up, and “heaven” started singing a most beautiful song. The song spoke of Boston, Massachusetts. Then, I am flying in the dream, minus an airplane, and starting to go over what might be the Atlantic Ocean. The message comes to me that I will be leaving Randy Olson behind for this phase of my life. Well, OK, where did that come from, and what does it mean? All that I knew was that I needed to travel to “Boston, Massachusetts”, and that Randy was to become less of a presence in my life from this point forward.
I did fly to Boston, not knowing what the heck I was supposed to do there. One of my teachers, the mystic and healer Joel Goldsmith, had given me extensive teaching from Mary Baker Eddy’s work, in addition to his own, which is known as the Infinite Way. The Mother Church of the Church of Christian Scientists, is located in Boston and so I visited there. After an aide to the head minister noted my presence and had a conversation with me, I was escorted to Mary Baker Eddy’s private study, where I was allowed to read her notes, and to meditate in one of her “holy places”. Nobody else gets that privilege, so I may have been meant to visit there, but who knows for sure?
My future conversations with Randy while I enjoyed recovery became increasingly less productive, and I found that I was losing touch with Randy spiritually, emotionally, and, finally, physically. We had an almost six-year absence of connection, before sharing the thirty year Rex Putnam high school reunion experience with him. He also joined us for Thanksgiving dinner that same year. I did not see Randy at all , the last 8 years of his life.
The last time that I saw Randy, he was placing a 12 pack of beer into his car at a Fred Meyer’s store. He was hesitant to acknowledge me, and I felt as if he was trying to avoid me. He appeared sick, and bloated, and I wanted to say something to him about it. But I did not, thinking that it was not my right to intrude upon his life now. I had phone conversations with him three more times over the last eight years, with the last time being in 2010. Our friendship on the “outer plane” of life apparently was already dead. And then, my wife Sharon reads his obituary in the Oregonian newspaper, shocking me to my core. My lifelong friend, Randy, was dead, apparently of a heart attack. His body was discovered in his car in his driveway, having just returned from a Subway sandwich shop.
And yet, he lives within me. I am so grateful to have known Randy. I now know that I could not take him to the spiritual places that I was to visit. It would have been the least that I could do for Randy, if it were only possible. He only needed a little willingness to join with me, to experience some of the joys of being on the path of recovery, healing, and love.. Yet that willingness was something that none of us can give to another human being. I had pointed to the new direction, but he chose to look the other way.
His funeral was a shock to me, it was poorly attended (I only found out about it through chance, when Sharon happened to read the obituaries, and saw a listing for his funeral the day before). The most popular and friendly person that I had ever known died almost anonymously. He had, literally, thousands of friends and acquaintances through the years, but in the end, he was nearly forgotten. He died in isolation, but he deserved so much better than that.
You are still loved, my friend. I am grateful to have known you, and to have experienced the thousands of hours of life with you, the 48 years of life that we partially shared.
May you be at peace my dear friend, at the center of it all, from where you started, and to where you have finally returned. Save a place on your couch for me, will you please? I will know that I will be welcome in the Kingdom to come, if I see your apartment there.
Randy with my parents and me, during Thanksgiving of 1993
Randy Richard Olson, Jan 21, 1955 – June 3, 2013
10 (3 stories about pets). My sister found an abandoned, or lost, eight month old white German Shepherd dog in the Clackamas wilderness area near her home in 2001. Sharon and I ended up with the beautiful “spirit dog” as we would come to know her. Iris was gentle with all people, small dogs and children, and she really knew how to read people, and situations almost miraculously well. She became a devoted companion to Sharon and I, and she accompanied both of us together, and as individuals, on numerous hiking and running adventures over the seven years that she lived. She took an immediate liking to the puppy Rocky, the rambunctious Siberian Husky that my dad got in late 2005, to replace Peaches, which he had to put down earlier in the year.
In 2007, we had two cottonwood trees fall across the center of our home. They caused extensive damage, but to document those details is not the intent of this paragraph. Our wonderful spirit dog Iris, endeared herself to me in a way that will forever hold a special place in my heart. While the tree removal service tended to the fallen trees above our home, Iris and I entered into the home, and walked through the living room towards the hallway into the bedrooms. Suddenly, Iris, who was walking behind me, started feverishly barking, and I turned back to her, to see what her problem was. I took a couple of paces back to her, and right then, a six-foot long, two hundred pound piece of the tree fell through the roof, and landed EXACTLY on the spot where I had been standing when Iris barked. It landed with such a thunder that the house shook, and then I trembled, as well.
The tree service man later said, in forty years working his trade, he had never before lost a load. Iris had saved my life. She was to die at the all too young age of seven, in December of that year, waking Sharon and I to a heart piercing death shriek and howl. We got up and held her to close to us, as her life force left her. Sharon and I felt like we had lost a precious child. And I felt an almost disabling guilt for a while. I felt as if my relapse into pain killer addiction after twenty sober years was somehow responsible for her own untimely death. A most amazing side story to this is that ONE YEAR TO THE DAY, AND TO THE MINUTE (3:45 am), after Iris’s death, my father’s dog Rocky woke up, and started howling for two minutes. Dad reported that Rocky had NEVER done that before, and he never did it again, until the day he died, June 23, 2016.
Looking at my life’s history, my heart has been broken by the Mystery.
On one of our many hikes, Iris was the greatest hiker ever
Iris in one of her many memorable poses in the great outdoors.
I secured another dog for our life in February of 2009 from a shelter in Washougal, Washington. Our dog Ginger had kidney disease, probably since the day that we brought her home from the rescue shelter. I was still working full-time for the Water Bureau at the time that we received her as a “rescue dog”, while Sharon had just retired as a hospice nurse from Willamette Falls Hospital. Ginger would get nauseous two or three times a year, necessitating trips to the veterinarian to get anti-vomiting medication. Her endurance was never as it should have been, yet we still took her most places that we liked to go while hiking or camping. It required extra patience, because she would overheat easily due to her kidney disease, and it was best to take hikes along creeks, or carry copious amounts of water.
Bryce Canyon, a month prior to her death
The last two years of her shortened life (died at eight years), we had to frequently take her to get subcutaneous injections of water from the vet, as Ginger could not successfully process water through her kidneys for extended periods of time, as they continued to fail. The water injections kept her going, yet we all knew that her time was limited, including Ginger. She was becoming due for yet another injection, when I sat with Ginger, in the middle of the night and I “contemplated with her” the idea of getting more fluids to sustain her life. There was almost a light that came in our living room, even though it was 2 a.m., and she held her paw out to me, and I SWEAR that I heard her say it was time to let go. At first, I thought that my dog was telling me that it was time for me to die, but the next week, she passed away. On her dying day, she staggered up from our creek, where she had laid beside, to perhaps die, and in the middle of the night, came into our bedroom, laid down, and died EXACTLY in the same spot that our previous dog Iris had died.
I still have tears whenever I think of our beloved dog, Ginger. We are blessed to have shared life with her, no matter how many challenges that she presented to us over the years.
Our cat Patches recently appeared to be near death. Sharon and I spent much time in contemplation of her life, and we have both spent much time praying and meditating around her dying experience. On Wednesday evening in mid October of 2018, Sharon had a powerful experience where she was enveloped in a “spiritual energy”, and she knew that all was well with our beloved cat, and that her death was appropriate, if it happened now. On Thursday evening, I spent several hours in prayer and meditation, and much physical engagement with our cat (I would place one hand on her head, another on her back, and visualize love and healing coming through her, with her eventually falling asleep with her head in my hand). Just as I started to fall asleep, I entered a “transcendent state of awareness” which I don’t even have words to describe. Something beautiful, infinite, and peaceful came upon me, and I have no explanation for it.
We had taken her to the vet, and the vet had given her fluids, anti-emetics, and pain-killer, which blunted the painful aspects of what looked like a process of dying, yet there seemed to be another component to this process. In a moment of insight, I saw that I may have been transferring my own fear and inaccurate assessments of the cat, its true nature, and its capacity for healing and wholeness. I “prayed” and meditated for many hours over this, and I was rewarded with a special “visitation of the Spirit”, where something totally beyond my capacity to understand took over my consciousness for a period of time, and gave me reassurance that all was well. Coincidence or not, Patches began a fairly rapid recovery from near death over the next three days, and is now eating and drinking and moving almost as well as she did prior to her deteriorating health experience.
11. My mother was always quite the independent person, and she tried hard at everything that .she attempted. It was tough watching her in the later years, as she gradually lost so much to the ravages of aspects of her aging, and then a disease process. Losing her knees, losing her smile when her face was tore open from a fall, losing her balance frequently and falling, bruising herself horribly, yet she was a determined woman, and was not defined by those limitations, but instead by what she continued to accomplish in life. She played golf almost to the end.
In the year 2000, The Parents’ Fiftieth Wedding Anniversary Luau on Maui
Her continued participation in water aerobics, though, was the source of the MRSA infection that cost her life, have taken an unhealed wound to the pool. On her last healthy day of living, one week prior to her death she still made it to her volunteer job with the Portland Visitor’s Center, a job that she had worked at for years and enjoyed immensely, along with the friendships she developed there. It was an amazing, excruciatingly rapid decent unto death the next week from that Friday afternoon return from her job.
The following Sunday evening, my mother had taken extremely ill, and I feared for her life. Sharon and I visited with her, and I brought her foods that might better agree with her nauseous feelings. I told my mother that I feared that she might die, and I wanted to take her to the hospital. She refused to go, stating that she was scheduled to go in the next morning anyway, and that she could make it one more night. Well, she couldn’t make it, and collapsed on the floor next to her bed sometime in the middle of the night. My father was totally incompetent as to how to handle it, yelling at mom to get up, throughout the night and she could not. He was too incompetent to even call us to come up and help. Sharon called early the next morning, and, upon hearing what had happened, called the ambulance, after driving up first thing. Sharon stayed to assist, and I was counseled to go to work, and meet up with Mom in the hospital when I got off from work.
My mother was admitted into the hospital, desperately ill from a systemic infection. The doctors frantically searched for the cause, yet did not determine that Mom had MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), until too late. MRSA is one of the bigger killers in hospitals. I made it to the hospital in time to tell my mother that I loved her. She held my hand, and then the doctors injected her with something to dull her consciousness for yet another procedure.
They “needed” to take her for yet one more test, so I gave her a kiss, and she did not want to let go of my hand. I never talked to her again, she was placed in a medically induced coma, from which she never awoke. We turned off her life support machines three days later, after all hope was dashed for recovery. I felt guilt and grief of such immense proportions that I was almost buried by it. I felt like I had betrayed my mother, and I was inconsolable. The family physician counseled me that I needed antidepressants, in addition to the opiate addiction recovery medicine that I was already taking since February of that year. I was quite messed up, and sadness was my companion for quite a while. I never could quite forgive myself for choosing to go to work that Monday, rather than being by my mother’s side at the hospital.
I so wanted to be a better son, and help her towards healing, if possible, her last week, but my insouciance around her dying process humbled me, and left me grieving at levels I have never even before touched. Being part of the family decision-making process around turning off my mother’s life support machines left me devastated and depressed. She had left an advanced directive indicating that no extraordinary medical measures were to be undertaken to maintain her life, so at least we honored her living requests. Yet, I was left with the question in my mind, had I really honored her spiritual needs, and intentions.
I still await a happier ending for this story of my mother. I know that I could put a more positive spin on it, yet, at this moment, this is how I remember the end of her life. There is a better story to be told that represents a higher understanding and more compassionate truth about my mother’s death. Right now, I just continue to plug along with my prolonged grief process, and continued gratitude for her presence in my life up to her death, and for the positive memories that I have for her even in her absence.
11. It was tough watching my father deteriorate, which began in earnest after his radiation treatment for prostate cancer in 2005. After mom died in 2009, Sharon and I had him over for dinner every evening. He was anxious, and suffered horribly from grief, and deteriorating cognitive health. I took him to the doctor’s office for treatment for depression in late 2009, and the doctor ending up prescribing antidepressants for me instead. He continued to threaten to kill himself, and I had to locate all of his guns, and empty them. In the process of emptying his rifle, I almost shot myself in the foot, sending a bullet through his bedroom floor.
Within three more years, late in 2012, Sharon insisted that Dad have his driving competency evaluated, as he appeared to no longer be capable of driving safely. When the doctor confirmed that Dad should no longer drive, my life as I knew it came to an end. The loss of his independence also became my own loss, as well. I became responsible for 100 percent of Dad’s life, health, nutrition, meals, baths, finances, home and lawn care, and spiritual support. Dad no longer managed his life, other than dressing himself, going to the bathroom (mostly), smoking his cigars, and eating the food placed in front of him
The family up at High Rock,in Clackamas County wilderness area watching the total solar eclipse in August of 2017
Some of my father’s statements about death and dying are as follows:
Gone but not forgotten
It’s hard to grow old gracefully. But, it sure beats the alternative!
When I get to heaven, I am going to have a talk with the Old Man. The wife is supposed to outlive the husband!
I am in no hurry to die, as Nobody has ever come back from death and told us how good it is there.
The good books says that we will all meet again. What do you say about that, son?.
Oh, those rich men. They have all of the money in the world, and they still die just like the rest of us.
I found a way to love that man on deeper and more profound levels, as I continued to release my own expectations of how he should be, and how he should live. His sole concerns became his love for his dog, Rocky, and maintaining residence in his own home until his own death. He had lost all short-term memory, and was basically unteachable the last 5 years of his life, though he maintained his dignity, his sense of self, his recognition of his family, and his love for his children, including my wife Sharon. At the beginning of 2016, I finally hired a support person to help me with Dad’s care, a loving young woman by the name of Madison. She helped for about 15 hours per week, which went a long way to take some of the burden off of Sharon and me.
Dad and Rocky, Kerr Island 2015
When Rocky died in June of 2016, ten days after our own dog Ginger’s death, Dad’s final thread of love and companionship with his past was snapped. He asked me over 5000 times where Rocky had disappeared to, after his dog’s death. I watch my father call out 30 times or more, Every Day, to his deceased dog, Rocky. We made up a sign for him, so that he can see, in writing, that his dog is dead, that it died of old age, and that he is ‘in heaven’. But, he never truly got it, because his short-term memory was gone. At times, I felt compelled to set him straight, and tell him he is neglecting this moment, where Sharon White and i lived, and instead he was worshiping the dead,, where all of his grief and losses reside, but of course he quickly lost that. My heart broke for him, and for all of us
One of our last two dinners out with Dad, August 2017. This one was at Stone Creek Inn at Carver, Oregon
Our presences were just not quite enough to make all OK with Dad. But, we made him as comfortable as we could until his last days. He never took one medication, nor was I about to force one onto him. Dad’s final four years were a real labor of love for me, forcing me into early retirement from work, and the experience almost tanked me. But I learned how to love another human being unconditionally and completely, though the lesson plan exacted a price from me. I am only just now coming out from under the spells of anxiety and stress around the experience of care giving for my Dad, as well as being fully present for my friend Marty for the several months prior to his own death, which occurred five days prior to Dad’s death.
The last conversation that I had with my father was 6 hours before his death.
This is what we exchanged with each other:
Dad, you are still in bed, and its 2:30 in the afternoon, what’s up, it’s such a beautiful day outside.
You know son, I am always tired now, but I am about to get up.
Well, Dad, this might be the last sunny day in a long time, so why don’t you get up, and go out on the porch and have a cigar? I’ll put a chocolate bar on your table, and a drink for you.
I’ll get right up son. By the way, who is caring for me this evening?
Well, Dad, Madison is caring for you this evening.
Oh, poor Madison!
Dad, Madison benefits by being with you, as you do with her.
I will be with you beginning this Sunday morning, and I will be with you for the next three weeks as usual. You know we are planning one final trip to Hawaii with you, right?
Oh son, I am happy just staying at home. I have everything that I need here.
Well, OK dad. I am going to leave now, as I need to prepare for Marty’s funeral tomorrow.
When will I see you again, son?
Dad, it will be Sunday morning, OK?
OK, son, you know that I am dependent on you. Please take care of yourself.
Oh, dad, you know that I am dependent on you, too. You be careful too!
I love you, son.
I love you too, Dad.
I leave his room, not knowing this is to be our last exchange.
The next day, at 10:58am, as I stand in back of the hearse, as a pall bearer in Marty Crouch’s funeral, I prepare to receive Marty’s body to place into the hearse. I receive a call from Madison, which I cannot take, so I hand the phone to Sharon. Sharon is informed that my father is deceased. Sharon has to leave the service for our friend, and tend to my fathers’ body.
Oh, father, you really knew how to place your unique stamp on my life, didn’t you?
My father died on September 15, 2017. Dad died in his own bedroom on a Friday evening, and had the look of awe and wonder in his eyes and face. He had found his promised land, where loneliness, depression, and dementia disappears, and where ‘bums’ are converted back into the saints and angels that they always were, but were rarely recognized by others as being so. It took nearly my entire life to release my own misunderstanding and judgement towards my father, and allow for him to express himself in the only way that he knew how to, while still providing a loving protection for him in his time of greatest need.
12. Recently I had a dream, where I was trapped between the toilet and the bathroom wall. I screamed out in pain, and Sharon White woke me up, and I told her what I was experiencing. The next day, Sharon talked with June Thomas on the phone, and June, who was visiting her ailing brother, told Sharon that Dale (her brother) just the night before had fallen, and become trapped between the toilet and the wall. COINCIDENCE? Are dreams really just fantasies? Do we have the capacity to extend our awareness beyond the limits of our five senses? Well, I know the answers to those questions.
13. In 2017, our friend Marty C. had a recurrence of metastatic melanoma, with a golf ball sized cancer node appearing in the left hemisphere of his brain. While visiting Marty in the hospital, Sharon and I asked Marty if he would rather bypass the surgery to remove the tumor, and just live out his life. I had even mentioned to him that an insight that I had revealed that this type of cancer was intractable, was not to be negotiated with, and would probably lead into death for him. He had the blessing of his wife, and he already had the surgery scheduled, and his perception was that it was a worthwhile risk to continue treatment, so he went ahead with the surgery, full well knowing that other metastasis might appear, even within the brain.
Marty, Sharon, and Me on a hike during healthier times
The greatest challenge for me, as a friend, and eventual spiritual advisor to Marty, was when we pursued my approach to “spiritual healing” together. I had a series of dreams, psychic connections, and insights which indicated a path to healing for Marty. Though he initially deteriorated, started to have trouble separating his dream state from his waking state upon getting up every morning, and he felt quite threatened by his loss of feeling in his left side, I held much hope that there was some sort of healing to be in his future. Yet, while hope and expectation remained within me, and, in fact, burned within me, Marty chose the Death with Dignity process, even as he regained use of his left arm in the days leading up to his death. It was more important for Marty to remain in control, and choose his day of death, than to allow the potential for the cancer to dictate when and how he died. It was quite a shock to me emotionally and spiritually, and a part of me felt betrayed, and traumatized by his decision. So, the balance of life, between supporting life in the body, and life in the spirit, can get a little confusing to those attached to one outcome or another.
Last night, October 27, 2018 I had a dream with Marty in it. Marty came to me, and told me that nobody else could see him but me. From this point forward, he was to be my “secret guide and friend”, and help me continue on my journey of healing and love. He brought out a book of “therapies and treatments”, and pointed to line item number three, which I started to read. I almost recoiled, and I recognized this as an issue that I already had confronted before. The issues were a sense of isolation, depression, and the sense of anxiety around the unknown, or, the very issues that I was saddled with as a boy, as a young man., and even now, when I am not experiencing optimal spiritual health I was given a view into how theses issues distorted the spiritual countenance of healthy people, almost into caricatures of themselves. The dream ended with me feeling very much at peace with my relationship with Marty, his death, and my hope for further spiritual evolution.
As we watch the parade of life, and death that walks as eternal companions together, we are all impacted through witnessing, and participating, in its grand movement. We help where we can, let go of our fantasies, let go of the thought and behavior controls over others that keep us separate from the truth being revealed, hurt while we must, and keep our hearts open to the mystery and majesty of living life on life’s terms, and, finally, dying on its terms, as well. There are the blessed few that even get to witness the sacred energy of life itself, as it lives, communicates, and then passes to the next experience of a new expression. The spirit and the flesh, life and death, are all co-conspirators in this mysterious, divine plot of life.
How do we balance the “spirit and the flesh”? Just remember, all that we see, and experience with our five senses, is only the “flesh”, and represents the smallest part of who we are, it is only an image in our mind. It is the “spirit” which animates the flesh, and will remain forever invisible to the human eye. We cannot have the one, without the other, so remember that the “body is the temple of the living God”. Joel Goldsmith, the mystic and healer, would instruct his students to “impersonalize and nothing-ize” that which is being witnessed. In his explanation, all is God, all that is not God is nothing, therefore see the perfection that is present, and ignore all the temptations to believe in a “self-hood apart from God”. For, ALL IS GOD. That is the beginning, the middle, and the ending, to THE STORY. Your story, my story, and the story of mankind, and all of this Earth’s animals. and all life in all other places in the Universe, all share in a fundamental truth, “he that sees me, sees the “Father”, for I and the “Father” are One”. This is not a statement only for Jesus, this is a statement for mankind.
It is healthy to acknowledge that we all need each other, and our collective, and our individual, stories should reflect this eternal truth. I can’t do this life alone, nor would I ever want that for myself. We are here to help each other, and to love each other. Each moment can either be a new beginning, or just the continuation of a painful past where all of human suffering arises from. It is our choice as to how we will experience this moment. I must be willing to travel new paths of consciousness, and never to become too attached to any particular memory, or teacher and their teachings, as it is up to me to work out my own “salvation”. When I let go of the controls, including my own internalized forms of institutionalized thoughts, when I let go of time based thoughts and expectations, when I respect the truth that many times the presence and wisdom of the Great Unknown, rather than just more memories from the past, or information and knowledge, is what I am best fed with, that is when I am truly trusting the life force which has always supported me, whether I have recognized its presence or not.
While incarnated into human form, with our poorly illuminated human minds, we can only witness the projections of our minds. All that we will ever see, unto whatever eternity that we can possibly conceive of, is our self, so the most important question for each day is “how will I see myself today?” The answer to that question determines whether I can see through the eyes of the truth of this moment, or just the limited eyes of the past. Each person that I meet either is one of the infinite manifestations of God, deserving ultimate respect and love, or they become just another dead illusion of my aging, conditioned mind. The insight gained through mindful self-examination can erase the blocks to Love’s awareness, and imbue life with a new meaning. This is the foundation for all great stories of healing and forgiveness.
The ultimate truth is that “you can’t be real”. For in God’s eyes, there is only one self, one love, one existence, with an infinitude of manifestations. There is no room for “you and me” in ultimate truth, though we must continue to make room for that “illusion” in the relative truth of this world, through practicing forgiveness and letting go, until the final ascension into “enlightenment” or complete spiritual understanding. Finding the true connecting link is the journey into wholeness that our human race must undertake, if it is to survive. When we see our brother and sister as our own self, then we are home. This connecting link is not to be found through our digital devices, or through our “best thinking” or philosophies. It will unfold when we learn how to no longer think time based thoughts, but, instead, eternity based thoughts. That is the only place where Unity will ever be experienced.
Finally, forms of mysticism are at the core of all epic. mythological, and religious stories. Each of us is a mystic, should we shed the oppressive and repressive energies of familial, cultural and religious conditioning. Each one of us should become the leader of our own internal movement towards truth, beauty, love, intelligence, awe, wonder, grace, and miracles. What is the difference between the “mind of God” and the “mind of man”? Ah, the answer is there, for you to discover for yourself. You should never just accept my answers, without your own deepest inquiries into your own personal truth.
I can’t wait to hear your own story!
I have some final thoughts about Life (well, for this moment):
In the end, we need not fear that our stories will never be heard by the world The closer we get to “truth” or to “God” , the more unitive our stories become, and the more the personal self and its story gets united with the collective in the telling of the Great Story.
We live on, because we are part of the Great Story. We need not fear anonymity, and we now celebrate it because we are part of the wholeness and light of life, and no longer just another black hole in life.
If it is a desire from the Heart, never stop seeking that which seems unattainable.
To see eternity, is to first witness the self without fear and judgement, and then see through the illusions of self with its time-based thoughts to the Heart of Truth. Our bodies will never enter into this space, for here is where immortality resides. We may not be immortal, yet we may drink at its fountains, for as long as we live.
Our world view determines the life that we live, the life that we share with others, and our hope for the future of our world.
There will always be people not living up to their potential. That is never an excuse for us not to live up to our own.
Let’s celebrate life, love, peace, and goodness, today.
Let’s all live life to the fullest until it is time to say goodbye.
The question from my father should be changed from
“Son, will we see each other on the other side?”,
to
“Son, will we see each other for what we really are, in truth and love ?”
With that answer given in the affirmative, even the fear of death can be overcome
Namaste!
