And that is exactly what this blog has turned out to be. I just finished re-reading all the 95 posts. From diagnosis to death, I chronicled. I had my computer in hospitals, at restaurants, in airports, in my bed. Tears fell on the keyboard. At times I'd sit and stare into the sky for minutes or an hour before I wrote a single word. Sometimes words poured out like champagne on New Year's Eve. This blog's been a way for me to process, grieve, share and remember. It might seem like something we'd want to forget. But death has a funny way of bringing people together and shining a spotlight on the joy in your life -- even when the joy seems to be like a needle in a haystack.
The themes in the blog have been simple and straightforward -- love, loyalty, family, humor. Also illness. Struggle and suffering. Change. I didn't set out with any expectations, and we weren't sure how the story would end. I feel good just knowing that I was able to keep writing throughout my Dad's battle with brain cancer and record our family's experience. I feel good not necessarily because we'll go back someday and read this blog. But because the act of writing helped me more fully live in the fleeting moments I had with my Father. It's that simple. What a gift.
A few months ago I started reading about Buddhism. My dear friend Jenny loaned me a book called The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, by Sogyal Rinpoche, and I've read various other articles and stories. I'm a novice in Eastern religions, but it seems to me they have a healthy attitude about this collective life we lead. We are all inextricably connected -- to each other and to the natural world around us. As most people, I can buy into that.
Perhaps a more difficult concept to accept: impermanence. Look around you at the trees, your mini-van, your dog, your house, the coffee shop, your bicycle, even your family -- none of this will last. Every single one of these and all other concrete physical things will fade. They all lack a lasting, inherent, stable existence.
This sounds sad. But if you look deeper into both impermanence and interconnectedness , you find a great hope and, as Rinpoche said, "you will find ... (a message) that opens your eyes to the fundamental nature of the universe, and our extraordinary relationship to it."
Rinpoche goes on,
Think of a wave in the sea. Seen in one way, it seems to have a distinct identity, an end and a beginning, a birth and a death. Seen in another way, the wave itself doesn't really exist but is just the behavior of water, "empty" of any separate identity but "full" of water. So when you really think about the wave, you come to realize that it is something made temporarily possible by wind and water, and is dependent on a set of constantly changing circumstances. You also realize every wave is related to every other wave.
I think this is a beautiful metaphor. I smile at its simplicity and profound meaning. It confirms my hunch that my Dad is with us. Everyone we lose is still here. Plus, its about water and waves, reminding me of Bill and his Beech Buoy.
I don't mean to get bogged down in any one perspective , but I know many religions have this same string of thought. And I feel I've summoned my own personal spiritual perspective . I've watched two parents die of cancer. Bodies, I know, deteriorate. We lose weight, we stop eating, our organs quit, our eyes sink into our faces, we curl up and die. Then people around us -- with bodies still intact, movable limbs, six senses -- feel that incredible sense of loss. We feel it in our core. We're hit with the reality of impermanence like a punch in the gut. But our core holds intense feelings for the core of the person we "lost." Our core is shaken, but our core endures. It does not die. Buddhists call this core "nature of mind," Christians call it God. I'll just call it the bridge to my parents.
So, Dad, I love you. Thank you for everything. I know on some level you still hear my words. I am happy to have spent so many good years with you, with our family. You've armed me with a way to live a good life.
My first blog entry was also called "Waves." This blog, like a wave, will end. But your story, like the wind and water, will not.
