Daddy & Sabby, one of our pet ocelots

My dad died on Father’s Day 1987. This is only a sad story if we believe there is only one life and this is it. I KNOW IT IS NOT. This is not a sad story to me. This is a success story of someone who made a hard decision and chose his own way out, in his own time. Today marks 37 years since my dad committed suicide age 62. He could be psychologically abusive. He smacked us at times. He was what they now call bi-polar. He used to drink Canadian Club. As teens, none of us got along with him, the typical syndrome when you think you hate your father.

He was strict and controlling. He had a 6th grade education, worked construction. I know now that he did a long hard job and came home to kids who smart mouthed him. That couldn’t have been easy. He mellowed after my youngest brother, Bobby, committed suicide in 1976 at the age of 22.
Daddy took massive amounts — up to 80+ a day at the end (that’s like 3 an hour, he seldom slept) — of Tylenol 4 with codeine due to a back injury that left him partially disabled. Pain controlled his life. Years of drinking and Rx had taken its toll on his judgment and he could see no way out. In 1987, he shot himself, as my brother did 11 years earlier.

My father was a troubled soul, a shell shocked (PTSD) veteran, alcoholic, addicted to painkillers from an injury. After he shot himself, he was in a coma for almost 2 weeks before he dropped his body. The night nurse would tell me that he was “marching” in his sleep. Even in sleep he was working out his stuff. I left dad’s bedside at Baptist Hospital in Miami where I’d signed for him to be taken off life support and it was a cathartic 3 hours drive home north along highway AIA, the ocean drive. Mom held a lot of guilt that dad kept so many secrets and estranged his family, yet her choice was to stay or leave. She stayed as long as she could.

When loved ones are passing, know that our consciousness links up with theirs and we are able to send them love and comfort and have the final conversations we could never have in waking life. Know that nothing unsaid ever needs to remain unresolved.
He died on Father’s Day. Free at last, Daddy.

How to forgive and find closure if the other is unwilling, absent or dead
The End of Death As We Know It
If you could see where I have gone
Revisiting the childhood father energy

Laundry has never been an issue. No kids, I’ve always done my own and my mates do their own. I’ll wear something until I sweat in it. Lately I’ve been working in the yard a few times a day = more laundry. Working out every day = more laundry. Thus, Sunday morning has become laundry day. The past year I’ve been staying home Sunday mornings, taking a break from church to catch up on personal time. I like having nowhere I have to be and no one to answer to. I’ve found that doing the laundry is a valid spiritual path. Keeping my own home clean and cleared of unnecessary items has become a great metaphor for keeping my life clear and uncluttered. When I find things piling up, that reveals my state of mind.   Continue reading →

If one door, whether it be relationship or a stream of dollars, is beginning to close and momentum seems to be slowing down, that’s your signal to look around because another is staring you in the face, waiting to be discovered. Trust me, the Universe is waiting to delight you. You’ve just got to get into the vibe of allowing it. How do you get into the vibe? By looking for it.  Look for something to interest and excite you. By expecting it.  Expect that any moment you may have opportunity staring you in the face, possibly disguised as the most unimportant, mundane nothingness ever. Look at everything around you as though you expect it to whisper the answer to you, and it will begin to.  How do you allow it? You allow it by dropping all resistance; resistance to anything, since it’s all related.  You clear up the past and forgive anything you’ve left unforgiven. Then stand back and watch the floodgates open in ways you never thought possible.  Continue reading →

Spiritual brother Wayne Wirs writes: “Personally, I don’t want to live my life as a hypocrite—or worse, die as one—so I strive for transparency in my blog. I don’t want to preach A while living B. If you consider yourself a spiritual student or authority, even if you have no interest in becoming a teacher, I strongly urge you to start a blog, or if you have one, to intersperse your “teaching posts” with personal posts. You’ll be amazed at how humbling and eye opening the experience can be. Become transparent. Show the world you walk your talk—and when you don’t, what went wrong. Show the world your flaws. The most powerful aspect about blogging about your personal life is that it throws your actions right back in your face. Personal blogging makes you very conscious of the difference between your theories… and your actions. Personal blogging forces you to live true. And to live true—isn’t that what a spiritual life is all about?”