(All photos in this post taken by my dad)
December was a really challenging month for me, full of loss, illness, grieving and bed rest.
My dad passed away at the beginning of last month, very suddenly though not unexpectedly. Just two weeks after that, I came down with the worst cold I’ve had in years which then turned into bronchitis, keeping me sick for weeks. I spent the month of December more or less in bed, putting a hold on all work and clients, just focusing all my energy on recovering and healing.
To top it all off, the trip to FL I had planned at the end of the month to see my family (the trip I had been looking forward to for so long!) I had to cancel as I wasn’t feeling well enough for travel.
And now the new year is here. I’m finally on the mend, albeit nursing a sore rib from coughing fits, but nevertheless finally feeling able to breathe, to sleep, to move about and start picking up the pieces of the past month’s shock and trauma.
The loss of a parent – what can I even begin to say about this? I knew I wanted to blog and yet had no idea what to say, no idea where my thoughts even stood, no idea what direction I wanted this post to even go in. How do I feel? Just about every emotion under the sun. Not just today but every day since it happened.
And instead of trying to force figure it all out or write something that doesn’t feel aligned with where I’m at, I thought I’d just honestly share with you some of my thoughts as they are right now – incomplete, random, mish-mashed and raw. The death of my dad has triggered something in me, many things that I’m still trying to flesh out, so bear with me if some of these thoughts seem all over the map.. they basically are. But this is where I’m at and we can only ever be authentically ourselves by embracing where we’re at.
I’ve been thinking a lot about what happens when we die, about connecting with those who have passed and the power of raising our energetic state…
The day that my dad died, I so deeply wanted to connect with him and to just know that he was ok. He died so suddenly, the last moments of his life being rushed to the ER in tremendous pain, and I felt so tortured knowing this was how he had left the earth. I desperately wanted to know how he was.
I’ve often heard that it’s possible for us to connect with those who have passed but that it really depends on our willingness to work on our own vibrational state and raise it to a much higher level of love and joy – energetic levels that we don’t typically operate from consistently as humans. But if we can maintain this high vibrational state, this is the energetic frequency that those who have passed are operating at now- and we will be able to connect with them in this state if we desire to.
Does that sound totally hokey? Lol I imagine it does to many people! Let me just say, I have never connected with a dead person before in my life. I have not EVER wanted to! But I have spent a ton of time working on raising my own vibrations and energetic state over the years and just experimenting on myself. I’ve spent many years helping others to raise their vibrations through meditation and have seen the huge shifts that take place. I’ve experienced time and time again the feeling of total bliss that comes when you can maintain an energetic state of joy. I believe in the power of raising vibrations wholeheartedly. And.. I just wanted to see what would happen. I desperately wanted to hear from my dad in some way. What would happen if I tried shifting my energy and putting out a heartfelt desire to connect with my dad? I needed to try.
So that morning after my dad passed, I sat on my bed, closed my eyes and took myself through a meditation to expand my energetic state – and I asked for him. And that’s when I felt it. I’ll try my best to explain this in words although it’s difficult for me to find words for this experience.
I felt a presence in my bedroom – but it wasn’t like it was a single presence in front of me or next to me or anything like that. It felt all around me, all encompassing, filling the room. My body felt completely electrified with light and pulsing from this presence – there was something so tangible about it that I could feel on my skin and yet I knew it was an energy, not anything physical that I could grab onto or hold. It was much too big and expansive to possibly be contained. I sat there just taking it all in and this feeling of absolute pure love just washed over me. It was so big, this outpouring of love and adoration that flowed into my being and enveloped my cells. I cannot even fully describe this feeling of love and light that flooded me – there are no words that I can think of right now that do justice to the sheer magnitude of it all. I have done this meditation thousands of times before in the past; it’s been my daily practice for years and I don’t remember it ever resulting in something quite like this before.
And without really understanding any of it, I just knew with every fiber of my being… this is my dad. I am totally and completely loved. My dad is here, his presence is all around me, showering and enveloping me in such a deep expansive field of light and love and this feeling that I have – this is what he is feeling right now. His state of being is flowing into me and onto me and through me and it feels so incredibly wonderful! At this point tears were streaming down my face but there was no sadness present, I just felt so overjoyed that I could sense my dad and there was no pain or regret or anger in him, just immense love and happiness. It was such a strange feeling at the same time because it was like everything I knew of him as who he was, that had all been shed and now he was just this pure state of loving consciousness.
It was such an incredible and hard to explain experience but I’ll never forget the feeling in my body from it all. I’ve since connected with my dad a few more times these past weeks – I always have to get in a high vibrational state before I can access him which means it’s a little bit of work in order to be in contact. But I’m just glad that something like this is even possible! This entire experience has made me realise, in dying we never truly cease to exist. We can never cease to exist. Our bodies will die, yes… but our soul and consciousness is eternal, everlasting. It’s like when we die, we’re no longer physically present but we’re still here, just in different form. This brings so much peace of mind to me, knowing that my dad can still be accessed. Knowing the total love he now feels.
I’ve been thinking about the future…
and truthfully a lot of fear and uncertainty has come up around this topic. During one of the last conversations I had with my dad, he asked me how my career was going. I told him I was not yet where I wanted to be money-wise or career-wise but I was currently able to live the kind of lifestyle I had desperately wanted, working from home, having the freedom to create my own schedule. That had always been the most important thing to me and I was really happy to have made it happen. “I think you should go back to managing yoga studios,” my dad said. “You were making close to 6 figures at your old job. With that kind of salary, plus your boyfriend’s salary, you could easily save 300k in a few years. Then you can buy a condo or co-op.”
“But I don’t want a condo or co-op” I protested. “I don’t even want to stay in NYC. It makes literally no sense for me to be working a job I don’t want to save up for a home I don’t want to live in, in a city I don’t love. Where does happiness factor into any of this?” But deep down I knew what my dad was saying between the lines. I want to make sure you’re going to be ok. I want to know you’re going to be taken care of.
This conversation with my dad has been echoing in my mind a lot lately. And for the first time in 2 years, I find myself toying with the idea of going back to work at a “traditional” full-time job. Not because I necessarily want to and not because my dad wanted me to but because that conversation with him has gotten me thinking a lot about what I do want for myself in the future. There are some big things I want in life and I have to be honest – where will the money for them come? What’s my plan of action for achieving them? How will the money get saved?
If I’m being brutally honest (and I mean so so freakin brutally honest that it scares me), in the next 5-8 years, I’d like to be living in a warm climate full of nature, own a cute little house with a yard and garden and fruit trees. And maybe even start a family. (That feels really scary to say!) But knowing these dreams for the future absolutely affects what I’m doing now. I love the carefree life I’ve carved out for myself these days where I work just enough to live simply and comfortably but is it in my best interest to continue this way, knowing the big dreams I have for myself in 5-8 years time?
Deep down I know the answer is no. There is a lot more thought to give this issue but I suspect this year will see some transitions happen with work, along with where I live..
At the same time, I’ve been thinking about missed opportunity and the importance of taking the leap while we still have the chance…
In all my grief, oddly enough what I find myself feeling most sad about is not the fact that my dad died (because I know he’s in a better place now and I know he’s feeling wonderful) but the fact that he never got to fully live his dream.
He had plans for the rest of his life before he got cancer. Big plans. Ever since I was born, my dad had spent his life working in an office, at a job that he did not love but one that more than paid the bills. His dream was to be a freelance nature photographer but he put this dream of making art professionally on the backburner in order to make a good living, support his family, buy a house, have savings for retirement. He sacrificed what he dreamed of doing in favor of what he felt he had to do but he was finally going to retire last year at the age of 68 and live his dreams.
He had told me at the start of 2018 how excited he was to be starting his professional photography business, what he had wanted to do his whole life. He finally didn’t have to hold back anymore. He had a pension, everything was in place, he could pursue this full force. He was going to travel the world in his retirement, experience living in different countries, lead professional photography retreats full of excitement and adventure for others wanting to learn how to get the epic shots they always dreamed of. I remember him telling me last January how he was feeling this great zest for life come back from focusing on his art. I was so happy for him, buzzing with passion and aliveness in a way that I had never seen from him before. “It’s about time,” I thought. It’s about time that he do this.
But he never got to enjoy it.
He set up his first professional photography retreat for last spring: a 13 day tour of the American Southwest, the trip that was going to kick off his new career.
And then a month before he was set to leave, he was diagnosed with cancer. All those big dreams and plans knocked down in one fell swoop. Eight months of radiation and chemo later and he was gone.
This is what makes me feel so sad and what I haven’t been able to get out of my mind since my dad’s passing. All that work for the savings and pension and retirement fund… and he never got to even use it. All those years spent thinking, “When I retire, I’ll do it then.” He waited and waited and waited.. and I know there are people out there who say it’s never too late to follow your dream but the thing is… sometimes it IS too late. If we get sick, sometimes we don’t get another chance. Things happen in life and we never know how much time we have left.
I find myself asking, “If my dad had known he would never make it to retirement age, would he have lived his life differently? Would he have kept his office job all those years… or would he have taken more risks, taken more chances?” Similar to what happened with my not being able to walk in 2013, I feel like my dad’s death has shaken me and woken me up to the realization: the time to do what you dream of is now. If I knew I had only a few more months left to live, what would I regret not doing? What would I wish I had done? If I knew a family member only had a few more months left to live, what would I regret not doing?
I’ve no doubt these questions will push me to live more intentionally which is something I desperately want but I believe for anyone, asking yourself questions like this is extremely valuable. They force us to look within and get honest about the things we’re not doing, the things we want to be doing but are too scared/busy/distracted to do. When we ask the deep and hard questions and become willing to act on them, that’s when we start living full and meaningful lives.
I’ve been thinking about spirituality and the crazy connections we have to so many forces beyond what we can see…
I drew an oracle card the other day – something I have not done in a long time. I swear the messages these cards deliver are always eerily spot on for me. Whenever I draw a card, I always ask the same thing – what do I need to know? And this is what came up for me:
“The love you have shared is eternal, regardless of the situation.”
Among what was written in the card’s explanation… “Your deceased loved one is happy and sends you love.” The card also talked about healing from grief and recommended spending time among the forest and trees to revive your sense of spirit and mend the heart. I was totally bawling and felt like this message, on so many levels, was exactly what I needed to hear.
What are the odds that in a stack of 44 cards, I would be compelled to draw the very card that spoke of undying love from the deceased and healing from grief? It gives me chills! How amazing is it that we have this kind of connection to spiritual guidance available right at our fingertips? Like, we never have to feel lost and alone in the world – we only have to put out the genuine desire for help and for answers and if we keep asking, the universe will find a way to deliver to us. Ask and you shall receive.
I don’t know about you but I feel so supported knowing this. Little bits of guidance like this inspire me to stay committed and keep up with the daily work of going within and keeping my intuition strong. Yes it’s work and it takes discipline to stick with my spiritual practices for the long run so sometimes I fall off track. But then some little thing like this spot on oracle card message occurs and boom – I’m inspired again, I’m moved, and I want to recommit.
I’ve been thinking about what a unique person my dad was and how much I admire the way he lived…
He was an artist, incredibly talented at drawing and painting scenes from real life, a brilliant landscape photographer, a professional chef whose dishes had won awards. He excelled at the arts, had that seemingly magic touch when it came to anything creative.
He was a traveler, always taking the people in his life on trips to festivals and musicals, kayaking and hiking trips, state parks, beaches and museums, farms and exhibits. My childhood was a flurry of these weekend road trips all over the east coast and I know I get my love of travel completely from my dad. He loved to be on the go, was always in pursuit of beauty. Yet he was also very much a workhorse, with a level of intensity and focus that I recognize and have fought a lot in myself. I see so much of myself in my dad – more than any other person I’ve known, my dad and I have always shared parallel interests and passions and ways of being in the world.
He never failed to impress me with his epic parties and outings of 100+ friends (who even HAS 100+ friends to invite to things?!). He was the leader among those who knew him, always the one to bring people together, to organize the event, to handle all the nitty gritty details and be the one who holds it all together. He was immensely popular among his friends – even at his funeral, more people showed up than could even fit in the room.
There were all his weird funny quirks – his love of belting out karaoke ballads at the top of his lungs at 11pm through a mic in the living room (I always felt SO embarrassed and bad for the neighbors but that never stopped him). His ability to fall asleep at the drop of a hat literally anywhere in public. His mangled ways of jerry-rigging things to be functional which were laughably embarrassing but in the end always worked. He wanted to be an opera singer before I was born – I used to tease him about his vocals relentlessly when I was growing up; we all did because they were truly so awful😂 But he always thought he had the greatest voice.
And then there were his pictures. I always took them for granted because there were so many but honestly, my dad’s photographs were works of art. If you got him started talking about photography, he would never stop. Hours would go by. He would show you every picture he took and every picture had a story behind it. Most of us listening would indulge and humor him for a short period of time, knowing how much he wanted to be admired, how proud he was of his creations.
His Facebook was filled with photography adventures such as this…
This was my dad – passionate, intense, quirky, supremely unique. My mom called him a trailblazer. I think that’s accurate.
He may have spent his life working in an office but his life outside of work was far from mundane or boring. I want this for my own life, regardless of what I “do” to make money – I want more time spent taking in new experiences, having fun, having adventures, creating memories.
I was blessed to know such a talented and adventurous being, blessed to be able to call this person my father and I want to celebrate the life he had. I know his spirit lives on through me. There’s so much of him in me and when I feel sad about him being gone, I remember his spirit and know that I can always tap into this lifeforce. It is still very much alive.
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Everything is a blessing. I’ve never fully understood this phrase that I’ve heard countless times before in my life but I understand it clearly now. And in the midst of all these random thoughts and musings going on in my head, one thing I know for sure is: I want to live. I want to LIVE. I don’t want to sleepwalk through life. I don’t want the next year or 3 years to go by and think “where did it all go?” I don’t want to have a million regrets on my deathbed because I was too scared to take risks. I don’t want to be so busy getting by with the day-to-day that I forget to savour, to enjoy, to have fun.
I want to live, in the most conscious, beautiful, purposeful way possible.
How do I more consciously and intentionally make the most of this one wild and crazy life? That is my mission for 2019.
What is yours?
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