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- Walking My Father Home pt. 03
Soon, I’ll write about those last 48 days walking my father home as his death doula. It was the most difficult and most honorable, impacting journey of my life (outside of welcoming my children into this world).
But first, I want to remember more of him and share it with you.
Dad was a constant student. I get that from him. We love to dive deep, learn, and expand our minds' antipodes (as Huxley would say). We want to “suck the marrow out of life” (Thoreau) and “carpe diem”.
Dad was always so great about loving what is, and finding the beauty and wonder and awe in everything, while simultaneously working to continually evolve and expand his thinking and his experience. His drive for a deeper experience in no way implied he wasn’t profoundly grateful for what he had.
I, too am grateful for what I have, and also driven to learn and grow and expand and to “live my life in moments, rather than minutes”. That’s become a family mantra. We are “seekers of awe and wonder” in each moment.
Dad and I love to study and did a lot of it together. We studied the great sages and gurus and masters. We discussed the teachings of Martin Luther, Thomas Merton, Rob Bell, and Richard Rohr. We expanded our minds and our hearts through the teachings of Ram Dass (his favorite in the end), Wayne Dyer, Alan Watts, MLK, Yogananda, Thich Nat Hahn, and the ancient teachings of the Tao Te Ching, Buddhism, Judaism, and the Hebrew Bible.
And we studied the modern influencers that we see living out the principles that moved us in all those teachings. Super philanthropists like Bono, Nelson Mandela, Angelina Jolie, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Dad and I have always appreciated the celebrities who use their power for good.
Dad was also genuinely intrigued by my work with Indigenous elders over the past 30 years and my plant medicine journeys of more recent years. He’d listen to me relay those experiences for hours, then lean in and ask more questions. That always meant so much to me. It made my heart smile.
We read Bono’s “Surrender” (book & audio versions) together as soon as it came out. It was a spiritual experience for us, together. My father’s spirit is profoundly intertwined with Bono’s. I do not say this lightly. They share some magical spark that has woven itself into my life, so perfectly.
Dad taught me to appreciate the nuances of life. We live for those moments of awe, wonder, and deep connection.
Dad could find the awe in a burrito from Taco Bell (his favorite restaurant). He was enamored by nature. He loved the majesty of an eagle in flight or a new little sampling springing up from the soil. He was a Noticer. He pointed out the wonder of the world, and people listened. He tuned them into that frequency, just through his presence.
He was also enamored with my work in the space exploration world, working with NASA, SpaceX, and Blue Origin, training astronauts to integrate their experience upon their return to Earth, working with Space for Humanity, and directing the Human Space Program. He was particularly interested in my work with Frank White, space philosopher and author of The Overview Effect: Space Exploration and Human Evolution.
I still have an email draft where I was introducing Dad to my friend Dr. Sian Proctor who piloted the Inspiration4 mission (they did a Netflix documentary on her journey called Countdown). I was with Sian at Spaceport America for the launch of Virgin Galactic’s, Galactic04 mission on October 5th, 2023. I haven’t been able to delete that draft, yet…
Interestingly, when Sian was in space, she got to talk to Bono for 20 minutes on the phone! I got to listen to some of the recording with her. And just yesterday, Bono gave her a shout-out from the Sphere concert! Dad would have been so stoked about that!
Dad and I loved it when we got to some sort of experience that we deemed “ineffable”. We loved that it was just too profound to put into words.
Dad taught me to find the wonder in each moment and to lean into the mystery of it all. He didn’t need a resolution or the perfect answer. He was happy to just be in awe of it all.
He had a reputation for always finding the light in every situation, no matter how challenging, including his own death. Once he got the diagnosis, he immediately began studying death with the same passion he had for life.
I’m so grateful that my father helped foster a perspective that enables me to see the wonder and awe of even the most nuanced aspects of life. It’s like he left me with a pair of “wonder glasses” in which to view and experience the world. For that I am grateful, and so are my children.
I’m also grateful that my children reflect so much of him and for the thousands of humans across the planet who carry part of him in them because he inspired them to live deeply and truly experience the wonder and awe of our existence.
Thank you, Dad, for all the wonder and awe you brought into my life and so many others (and still do).
I’ve got quite a bit more coming in this series. I hope you’ll continue to follow the journey.
My Mother, Brother, and Sister have been posting journal updates on the family since all of this started. Visit our CarringBridge Site →
As I continue to integrate my journey with my father, I’m taking some bigger leaps, and reinventing myself. As he often did. I just launched my new website, and it conveys a lot of where I’m at these days. Visit my website →
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