Things that change us...
“Time
may change me, but I can't trace time.”
~
David Bowie
Today
began like any other I suppose. It is Thursday and I have the day off
work. I was able to wake without the sound of an alarm. But it was
also different. Today's date is one that changed me in so many ways.
But the actual day I'm referring to is one that happened 42 years
ago. I was just a kid. On this day, back then, I woke not to an
alarm, but to the sound of my mom and grandmother speaking in hushed
tones in the kitchen, which was just down the hall. They were also
crying, “Oh God, how will I tell the kids,” I heard my mother
whisper, “They won't understand.” But I did understand.
The
night prior my father was taken to the hospital with chest pains, and
I knew by the whispers and eerie silence that seemed to engulf
everything that I would never see him again, at lease not on this
physical plane.
I
didn't know it then, but I can see now what a pivotal moment this was
in my family’s lives...myself, a younger sister, two older sisters,
and my mom who joined my dad a mere five years later. Things shifted
in such a way that this day effects me still. This was also around
the time I had my first mystical experiences, though I wouldn't call
them that then; I wouldn't be able to name them until later.
For
so many years I mourned my parents deaths, carrying it around like
sealed bags. Baggage. But I've come to realize that this is no longer
the case. I no longer mourn them, but rather honor them, when I
remember them on their birthdays and death-days. And I do not use the
word death in the traditional sense because if we are eternal—which
I believe we are—then leaving these bodies is a transition, not
death. A transition into another consciousness.
But
it's odd, as I sit here in a coffee shop typing away...I am older
than both of them when they transitioned, but when I think of them I
am still their little boy. It's difficult for me to put it into
words, but somehow this has shaped me, shaped me into the man I've
become and in fact the person I am still growing into. Having the
lesson of being a child of parents who left this earth at such a
young age has guided me in so many ways. And I am only just beginning
to see this. And they guide me still. Because while they are now
longer here physically, they are in other ways. I know this.
The
life we are all currently living, I've come to believe, is really one
big lesson. An opportunity for growth or stagnation. I, personally,
choose growth. Every second of every day plants something in us that
can either grow or wither; some things effect us in such profound
ways that we may not be able to see for many years. And at that
pivotal point in my life, my very young self faced so many crossroads
in front of him. I could have taken so many different routes that
would've led to personal destruction. And I almost did for a while.
But I didn't. There was something that guided me from within, and in
fact still does.
And
now, as I sit here on this day so many years later, and think of my
parents, I honor them. But mostly, I know that in some indescribable
way they are with me still. Right now as I type these very words. And
that, my friends, not only comforts me, but makes me smile.
“He
guides me along right paths for his name's sake.”
~
Psalm 23:3
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