My Father’s Passing (written in 2007)

I would often leave the nursing home unfulfilled. Though I had done my duty: I had visited my aging father to make sure he had clean clothes, enough toiletries, and was taken care of,  yet, I didn’t feel I had been able to truly connect with him. This had been going on for a few years.

As dementia set in, his senses had faded one by one. The first stroke made it hard to find the words that he used to eloquently use to express himself and describe the world around him. Along with his hearing loss, his understanding of the words he did hear was gone.

Words were his only true friends. He had been a writer, and yes, he was lonely, difficult to get along with, and spent much of his time living in a small apartment in a country where he didn’t know the language.

Glaucoma clouded his vision and eventually made it hard for him to identify people and shapes and the space around him. He couldn’t remain steady enough to walk. He was a faded version of the wild and unusal man I grew up with in my earlier years.

Although he knew his name was Winston, he had stopped responding to being called Dad. It seemed that his roles had disappeared. He didn’t  recognize his children or his grandchildren’s names. He didn’t remember where he lived or what he used to do, what day it was, or any time or season. He didn’t remember what he had accomplished, or what dreams he had, and yet, he seemed peaceful most of the time. This was not the father I knew before dementia set in. He was angry, hateful, and sad.

Now, it was I who had a difficult time dealing with this new relationship.

There seemed to be nothing I could say to relate to him or to jar his memory or connect.

One day, I visited him in his dreary room at the assisted living center and sat with him and meditated. Sometime during my meditation, I had the thought to open my eyes to be sure he was alright. When I did, I was surprised to see him sitting up, alert, bright-eyed, and smiling. He looked blissful and joyous. I closed my eyes and continued to meditate with a smile on my face.

When I left that day, I felt as if I had connected with him, and he with me for the first time in years. As a meditation teacher, I was amazed that it had taken me this long to think to do this. I visited him a few more times in December and early January and meditated, feeling connected and fulfilled, again and again. There was no satisfaction in doing anything for him anymore, instead, it seemed he only responded to me being with him.

In the winter of the next year, Deepak Chopra came to Sedona, Arizona where I lived to give a weekend retreat: the SynchroDestiny course. I was asked to teach meditation to the attendees. I felt renewed by being a part of this beautiful program and seeing friends on the staff that I had known for years.

At the end of the course, I said goodbye to a dear friend that I had worked with as I dropped him at the airport shuttle. I went back home to catch up on correspondence. Suddenly, I felt compelled to move from my desk to the sofa and meditate. It was earlier than I usually meditated, but I did it anyway. A half an hour passed and I remember feeling that my meditation was extremely deep and peaceful.

Later that evening the phone call from the care home where my father lived. He had died.  I asked when it was, and it turned out that I had been meditating at the time of his death. We were connected again.  Dr. Bernie Siegel, author of 365 Prescriptions For The Soul, wrote, “Consciousness exists when our bodies do not.”  I know this is true.

At his memorial service, we read this poem by American poet, Mary Oliver (1935-2019), what seemed to be an ideal way to honor a man whose life was so difficult.

“You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.”