Beyond Recovery Journal

2 weeks ago

A chapter from my book, grab a cuppa and enjoy 🙂This morning's chapter was about the night my father died. The release that followed. The path that opened for me.

I didn't realise it at the time but that night set me on a journey that I'd no idea I'd be going on. It's shown me that we really never know what is unfolding in front of us, we just have to keep taking the steps.

Here's the chapter:
March 2009 Dear Diary, it’s over. He’s gone. I’ve tried my best in these past four months. I’ve tried to be a good daughter. To find a way of forgiving him. It’s been hard. One of the three girlfriends called me last weekend and told me she thought Dad was going. I drove straight up to Derby. “You’re not looking so good Dad” I said. I stood in the doorway of his bedroom in his little terraced house and looked at his broken body on the bed. Unable to move, he was pale and skinny, a mere shadow of the scary man he used to be. The double bed seemed huge under his bony body, crumpled sweaty sheets, abandoned hopes. The room hid behind drawn curtains, the air was perfumed with rotting flesh and lost dreams. “The paramedics are on their way” I said. I’d switched on my internal project manager and started to sort shit out.

The weekend passed in a blur of hospitals, doctors, paperwork, visitors, and ghosts from Christmas past. Family crawled out of the woodwork; someone tried to contact my sister, Susan; girlfriends wiped his mouth and declared undying love. His ex-wife turned up to stake her claim. I was patient and dealt with them all. I answered all their questions. I fetched and carried. And I kept my beady eye on his progress. A paused breath, in this whirlwind of activity, was when the doctors asked me to sign the ‘do not resuscitate forms’. This man I didn’t know had his life in my hands. This man who had tormented me was now to be killed by me. This man I didn’t love hung his breath on my ability to be strong. I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t think it was right. I didn’t know enough.

I signed the forms.
He just lay there.
They moved him to a ward on his own, on a bed that undulated to prevent bedsores.
He just lay there.
They strapped him up to tubes that would keep him pain-free and hydrated but not fed.
He just lay there.
They told me I could go home that nothing much would happen for a while.
He just lay there.
I read aloud from a book⁠ (Wayne Dyer's Tao Te Ching) that had been on his bedside table at his house.
He just lay there.
I took his hand in mine and read him to die.
He just lay there.

“Kick one of the patients out of bed and get some sleep.” Darren texted me. I read it out loud.
Dad laughed.

“What?” I told Darren he’d laughed, and he texted back “He won’t laugh when he finds out it’s him you are going to kick out of bed,” I told Dad.
He laughed again!

“You can hear me, can’t you, you old bugger?” I said.
He just lay there.

The sound of his raspy breath from his open mouth synchronised with the sound of the undulating air bed. A harmony of dying. His face was shallow and grey, his hair white and his body as frail as a frail thing. He lay in that single hospital bed with the cot sides up like a child. There was a dim light coming from the overhead fluorescents, turned to night mode for those who could, to sleep. The bedside table was empty of flowers or gifts or framed pictures. The door to the adjoining bathroom was ajar for quick functional visits should I need to leave his side. I had been in that hospital for 72 hours at that point. My unwashed hair and washed off make-up, told the story of a woman at the end of her vigil. Wearing my blue jeans and pink jumper with the sleeves rolled up, I felt the grime of three days beginning to stick. I sat with my left hand in his right hand and the book on the bed. “Well, I’m going to keep reading until you go” I declared.
He just lay there.

Sadness drenched my body with its heavy perfume. It weighed down my limbs and pulled at the corners of my mouth. It filled my eyes with its watery doom. It dimmed my heart. Sadness for the life not lived, things not said, the father not had. Sadness for the child not loved, the misguided man, the wasted chance. “I’m sorry,” I said.

He said nothing but in a slow and deliberate movement, he raised his right hand, the one with mine in it, and lay it on his chest. “Me too,” I thought I heard him whisper.

The light in my heart shone bright and dried all the sad away. A whoosh of peace coursed through my veins and lifted my spirit. That was it but that was enough. I kept reading, he kept lying there.

A few hours later, before the sun was awake, before the visitors, before the bustle of the day, I decided to wash up a little and to clean my teeth. I stood and looked at the girl in the mirror. I was surprised at what I saw. The most beautiful face gazed back at me with a kindness that filled her eyes. Gentle and light, she seemed to stare right into my soul and fill it with love. “Who are you?” I whispered. She just kept loving me with her serene gaze.

That moment when I’d looked into the mirror after spending 72 hours in the hospital, taking care of things but not taking care of myself. That moment when instead of seeing a tired, girl with bags under her eyes, and lank hair, and no make-up, I saw someone beautiful. I saw someone kind. I saw someone loved. I saw someone loving. I didn’t know what that was or who that was. Later on, when I had time to process I realised that in that moment of connection between us, that moment of forgiveness, that moment of simple sweet understanding, a peace had swept through me that cleared my mind of all thought; all judgment; all pain; all ego. Freedom from holding onto who was wrong and who was right cleared my heart from painful memories of what should have been to accept what was. I didn’t know it at the time, but freedom dropped the scales from my eyes and allowed me to see my essence. The essence we all have beyond the pain of thought. The essence that cannot be broken. The essence of love.

It’s only now in 2020, during the COVID Pandemic, while writing about the incredible journey of Beyond Recovery, do I realise just how much that experience of freedom impacted the next few years. I’m not sure I could’ve done what I’ve done without that realisation. By getting a glimpse of the true nature of my soul in that mirror, I got a glimpse of the true nature of all souls. I didn’t know it then, but it was the surreal experience of forgiveness towards my Dad and myself that opened my heart to see the essence in people regardless of their circumstances.
I had no clue where it would lead me, or even that it was significant, but looking back I can see how a new path opened up for me in that moment. After my Dad died I ended up with the responsibility of clearing out his house. There was a lot of angst with various family members and ex-wives but one thing that stands out to me now is a random paper I found in his desk drawer.

“What’s this” I wondered. Dad’s little home office was the back bedroom of his terraced house. The bedroom window looked out over his long narrow garden, filled with stone statues of naked nymphs and dark green ivy. The garden was flanked by the turret of a 12th-century church on one side and a tall graceful birch tree on the other. The light from the blue cloudless sky filled all corners of the office. “Looks interesting,” I said. I was holding in my hands a printed copy of a training program called Supercoach, run by Michael Neill. I’d never heard of this guy or the training program but something stood out to me. I picked up a spiritual undertone to his high energy words.

The next door was open. I followed that path through the door and ended up on Supercoach. I kept following that path. The path that led me to uncover that true nature for people in prison. ... See MoreSee Less

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