I get it Dad!

[AkashicWreckage]

Today, I am brought two decades back in time, to a day of pain, sprinkled with love and humor. It was the day I said goodbye to the first man in my life, my dad.

At the time, while I was prepared for the fact that he was leaving this world, a part of me went into hiding---the pain of him leaving took over. His greatest teaching/parenting began that day.


I would have told anyone around that time that I really had no clue what I should be when I grew up---never mind that I was 35. I know this, that from the time I was a little girl, he knew the truth of who I am. And, he was relentless in being who he was, and he was relentless in reminding us, his children, that we should be who we came here to be.

In the days following his death, people whose lives my dad had helped to change, offered their stories to us. There were so many of those people who came to us, each contributing a part of my dad back to us, to ease our pain. My dad was a man who lived the words, "We are our Brothers' Keepers."

So, as I push the pain away today, and wipe the tears away that still spring out of my eyes, let me offer a piece of my dad back to the Universe.

My dad was a man who participated in life---he knew that if there was suffering that he could ease, he was being summoned to assist. He dedicated his life to his family, his church and those who needed help. Newsday did an obituary that filled a third of the page, titled: Champion of the Unemployed. He took his experiences being an unemployed 40 year old balding man, and turned it into a Mission for the Unemployed. The skills he acquired during that time of unemployment, without hesitation, he used to aid others. He was a spiritual, personal or career coach, before there was ever such a thing.

It didn't stop there. When he was diagnosed with cancer, and undergoing chemotherapy, it was his mission to transform the times waiting at doctors' offices into moments of love and caring that he offered to others waiting for their turn to be hooked up to the IV. It wasn't until my own times of waiting in doctors' offices, dreading the chemicals that would be entering my own body, that I realized what he had done for others!

Little did I know, that what I witnessed back then---my own dad's reaction to cancer, that it would provide me with a blue print for dealing with that reality as well. I learned that he had taken control of what most would believe couldn't be controlled. Thank you Dad.

Oh, and how did he know when I was lying? The bum----he once told me that people blink before they lie. Once he laid that seed, I'd struggle to keep from blinking when I lied to him about the most insane things! I laugh when I think about that, and how I know he helped to uncover my nefarious plots to meet up with my friends---with that single statement. "People blink before they lie." LOL, Dad!

The energy of truth was really the core of that lesson. I get it Dad! Thank you!

Well, it's taken me far too long to write this, as I've gone off in thought to times in the past, smiling, laughing and crying, this morning.

To you dad, thank you for my life and my lessons. I know we chose each other, before we came into being here---and I am in awe of that!

[AkashicWreckage]

Thank you so much Jeanne for your acknowledgment of the spirit of my father. It's a hard time of the year, each year, however---there's yet to be a this time of the year since his death that isn't filled with gifts of revelation of the power of our spirits. :-)

[Jeanne]

Hello AW,

Once again, your wonderful way with words brought tears and laughter as I read this touching salute to your father. I truly appreciate stories of the unsung heroes... the ones whose humble nobility is too often drowned out by mainstream celebrity obsession and other notorious forms of propaganda.

Thanks for sharing your heart-felt story and thanks to dad for for being a man whose inspiration continues to live and brighten lives. It made my morning...

Metta,
Jeanne