Death and Beyond.
A time to move on.
This week holds a HUGE significance for me. It marks the 30th anniversary of my father’s passing at the young age of 42, and we are also having the celebration of life for my grandmother. This week, I am reflecting on the significance of loss and how to move forward without attachments.
Growing up, I never knew my father. He was this mythical cool guy who lived out in California. When we played games as kids and chose names for our characters, I would choose my father’s name, Tom. Not Ponch or John from CHIPS or Michael from Knight Rider.
When I moved to Santa Barbara to live with my father, our relationship was quite odd and distant. He was raised by very conservative Midwestern Catholics, and that DNA strain of repression and being reserved with our emotions was passed down to me and my half-siblings. He never expressed his emotions or thoughts much to me. I was this reminder of his Midwest upbringing that showed up at his doorstep as a 16-year-old lost soul, looking for some guidance and a feeling of being wanted.
I was 21 when he passed away. I had five years to get to know him, which is not a long time, especially with the tension of a ticking clock due to his cancer. The doctors gave him around six months to live, but with an experimental drug called 714-X, he was able to live another seven years.
Once a month, Jose, the foreman at his construction company, would drive down to Mexico to pick up this experimental drug from Europe that was not available in the US. From what I remember, it was shark fin-based. Reading the description now, that was not true.
His cancer took a significant turn for the worse when I was 20. At that time, I was attending Santa Barbara Community College, working at a coffee shop, and living with my friend Gon. The strain and toll on my stepmother DM became apparent as she was the sole breadwinner in the family, unable to juggle all the responsibilities of being a new mother, a dying lover, and running a business. I decided to quit school, quit my job, and move back in with my father and DM to help alleviate some of the stress and spend more time with my father.
Looking back, it is quite similar to moving back to Wisconsin to help my grandparents as they aged and needed assistance.
As the cancer worsened, his skin and hair lost pigmentation, and he had to have the lymph nodes in his leg removed, causing it to swell to twice its normal size. I would drive him to his doctor appointments and assist in any way I could. I learned the seriousness of his health and how little time he had left.
My father was a bit of a free spirit and hippie. He had a stack of self-help tapes and went to an Anthony Robbins retreat to walk on fire. He was always looking for a way to reverse and change his situation, as anyone would. When his cancer took it’s first turn for the worse, his doctor advised him to do a 10-day cleanse—no solid food, only smoothies and fresh-squeezed juice, with colonics twice a week or more.
He volunteered me to join him on this cleanse, saying if he had to do it, so did I. I was game—why not? Perhaps this could be a bridge to building our relationship. At that moment in my life, I was dating AG, who was a few years younger than me and supportive of the situation. The first few days of fasting were very difficult; I’ve always had a sweet tooth and love to snack. After about four days, I got into the groove, and we had our first colonic appointment. Wow, that was a new experience. I had no idea what I was getting into. It was quite a sterile environment, which helped. I truly had no idea they were going to stick a tube up my butt, shoot water up there, and then suck it back out. The good points were that they lubed me up and the water was warm. It was quite an odd sensation to have a tube sticking out of my butt, sloshing warm water into me.
The nurse was very nice and made the situation calm and not too embarrassing. The best part was the clear tube—seeing what was inside me and how it gets digested.
My conversation with my father was quite interesting and a bit of a WTF moment. I had no idea what this whole cleanse process entailed, and now I was having a woman lube up my butt and stick hoses in it. A little heads-up would have been nice. He was a strange man. After that first session and going deeper into the fasting, I was feeling amazing. I felt lighter and clearer—no pun intended.
Then AG broke me. She was a huge fan of raw cookie dough. I had told her I didn’t want any treats or unhealthy food in the house. She had a rough day at school and got herself a tube of cookie dough before coming over.
I caved. Just a spoonful. OMG, was it FNK delicious. The next day, we had another colonic appointment. I was feeling more at ease now that I knew what I was in for. The nurse lubed me up and plugged in the hose. The warm water was cleansing, and I wasn’t constricting my anal muscles as much as the warm water sloshed my insides. A few minutes in, the nurse asked if I was sticking to my diet and if I had eaten anything. I said no, that I was on a pure liquid diet.
She said, “That’s interesting. Look at that.”
I lifted my head from the donut-shaped headrest and looked at the clear tube between my butt and the machine. There was a single chocolate chip floating gently in the warm water.
I’ver decided to let go of the past, the trauma, the death and move forward.
Love and Light;
MM
EYE HOLES:
EAR HOLES:
I hope this isn’t inappropriate but all that colonic talk kinda got me frisky.