A Song, a Poem, and a Farewell (The Death of My Father)
A Song, a Poem, and a Farewell (The Death of My Father)
As human beings, the relationships we form with each other - some chosen, and others seemingly un-chosen (like family) - have the most profound impact on us.
Most of the patterns we carry in our bodies - physically, emotionally, and of the nervous system based survival variety - are a result of these relationships, primarily emerging from the earliest and most intimate: the one(s) we form with our parent(s) and/or caregivers.
My dad, my papa, who has been on his deathbed for months now, left this world on the night of April 15th, 2023. After spending an hour laboring harder and harder for each breath without wanting physical contact or noise or anything that would distract him from the work of dying, he reached for his lover's hand (my mom, who has been by his side for 45 years), and for a few minutes they beheld each other in pure presence until he took one final breath, and died.
This relational event - of my dad's sudden decline in December and everything that happened just before, during and after his hospitalization in January - has forever changed me.
While I am typing this to you today, Monday April 17th, I am listening to this song by Loreena McKennitt, a song I played for my dad before he died, with a promise to always remember him.
Many of you have shared in the unfolding story between my dad and I, which I wrote to you about in February. Like a gift of divine grace from my dad's final act in the grand play that was his life, these 4 months have felt nothing short of miraculous.
My mom and I were talking yesterday morning about all of this when she noticed aloud that during the past 4 months she has become stronger, while I have become softer. That's exactly right, and exactly what we both needed. Thank you, dad.
If you're new here, or missed the two newsletters I sent back in February describing the events that catalyzed such big internal healing for me, this one tells the story of unexpected news from my dad's hospital stay that helped me understand the painful emotional disconnection between my father and I all these years, while this one follows up and dives even deeper into the extraordinarily beautiful experience of being fully present with my dad before he died.
I didn't lose my dad.
I finally got him.
I get him.
I see him, now, in his full and beautiful humanness, and I expect our relationship to grow even deeper, though he is no longer here on Earth.
The man that entered the hospital is not the same one who died Saturday night.
Since being released from his brutal hospital experience into the exquisite home care of his loving wife (my mama), my dad refused all medications, including painkillers. Though he was in extraordinary pain every day, he was resolute in his commitment to leave this world fully conscious. Never once did he waver in this commitment, which helped my mom grow her strength to meet pain - his, and hers - with the spirit of equanimity. As someone who has called myself a pain advocate for over 10 years, I could not be more surprisingly proud of my dad, who has modeled how to die with grace, pure presence and immense courage.
In honor of my dad, who planted gardens for butterflies (which he diligently raised and released for the past 45+ years); with his rosy cheeks and deep love for life; who taught me to appreciate the natural wonders of this Earth and instilled in me the power of imagination; who was a devout student of spiritual science; who gave generously to those in need when he could; and who struggled through an unknown inner deficit (a brain injury to his emotional processing center when he was nine years old) to reach out to people from all walks of life with his warmth and enthusiasm for being together:
Tell a wise person, or else keep silent,
because the mass man will mock it right away.
I praise what is truly alive,
what longs to be burned to death.
In the calm water of the love-nights,
where you were begotten, where you have begotten,
a strange feeling comes over you,
when you see the silent candle burning.
Now you are no longer caught in the obsession with darkness,
and a desire for higher love-making sweeps you upward.
Distance does not make you falter.
Now, arriving in magic, flying,
and finally, insane for the light,
you are the butterfly and you are gone.
And so long as you haven’t experienced this: to die and so to grow,
you are only a troubled guest on the dark earth.
Johann Wolfgang von Geothe
Dad, you did it!
You kept your promise to yourself and left this world on your terms, at exactly your time, fully conscious, and what a gift to us this was, your final act.
Fly free!
I love you.
Elisha
P.S. After my dad died, my mom washed his body, anointed him with essential oils and then wrapped his body like a beautiful chrysalis like the caterpillar before it emerges transformed as a butterfly. Lying this way in the home for 3 days, loved ones could come and say goodbye. He was cremated, and his ashes will be buried in the back yard of his home with butterfly gardens planted all around him.
