On Death & [Im]Mortality

 It’s 11 a.m. and I’m alone in my kitchen on a Sunday morning cleaning and listening to my first-ever concert, the Grateful Dead in Vegas 1994. I was with my dad, stepmom, their friend, and my 13-year-old brother. To say the least, I did not appreciate the significance of the experience! Today I can appreciate that the music is ecstatic and otherworldly but at the time it was just another experience I couldn’t relate to. 

Death and (im)mortality weigh heavily on my mind. The anniversary of my father-in-law’s death was three days past. It’s been a month since I picked up my step-father early after being unable to complete his final attempt at backpacking the Continental Divide Trail due to early onset Alzheimer’s Disease. The grief and feelings of loss remind me that there is so much to appreciate about my dad now. Listening to this music, it’s all coming back.

In 1994 I was 15 and a burgeoning workaholic looking for validation through school and accomplishments bent on saving the world. I have spent the last 30 years trying to heal the world and learn that it was all to heal myself. This mismatch between my dad’s version of joy and my own sent me on this journey. 

I thought the Grateful Dead was music for hasbeens, never realizing that I should have listened and learned. I made my brother stamp out a joint as it was passed to us down the line. While I don’t regret that (LOL), now not only can I laugh at the little do-gooder 15-year-old version of me, but I can love and be grateful for both that version of me and that version of my dad who inadvertently sent me on my spiritual journey– not by being the “perfect” father, but by being the father I needed. One whose foibles would cause me to seek healing again and again and again. 

It’s a heavy lift and not a lesson for the uninitiated. When Rom Doss was asked how one could know their soul mate, he said. “God is the only soulmate” but he went on to say that “the person who helps us grow is our soul mate.” And how do we grow? Through pain. The truest soul contract is one soul helping another soul to grow. 

I’m so grateful this wisdom is upon me. I’m so grateful that I’m learning to allow life to be just what it is. I’m so grateful for all of my experiences that have enabled me to heal my life, my body, and my line so that all others may do so with me.