In the past the Impermanence in my life has brought me mostly suffering and sorrow. I have struggled to see things as meditational teachers of impermanence have spoken. I had almost come to the point of seeing a meditation on impermanence as an ideal, impossible to be reached by most humans. However, tonight as I tried to sleep but couldn't I finally found peace. I would like to share what brought me to peace. However, I have to start where it all began, with sorrow.
I was going to start with my father's passing but to make real sense I think I need to start with the passing of my 16 year old male cousin in a car accident when I was 8 years old. I sat in my room stunned that someone I knew who was a cousin had died of a broken neck in a car accident. I felt very vulnerable and alone sitting there contemplating my cousins death. In 1956 people were much different than now. We didn't escape into games and into computers. Instead we felt more the pain of life. We believed feeling the pain made one sane and whole unlike the escapist attitudes so prevalent today.
Flash forward to 1978. My grandmother "Nana" who had lived with my parents and I was dying in Seattle. I rushed from San Diego to Seattle in my work truck, a 1976 Toyota longbed truck SR5. I was 5 hours too late. At first I thought I was going crazy 5 hours before I arrived because I felt the most intense joy and sadness of my life. When I found out the time of my Grandmother's death I knew I had experienced her passing with her. She was so very happy to be free of her earthly coil at 90. But also so sad not to say goodbye to my mother in another car and I in my truck on our way to her as fast as we could safely drive there before she passed.
Next, my father passed on in 1985 in August in the Deserts of Southern California. It eventually cost me my marriage 9 years later, so unprepared for my father's passing was I. I knew it was only time before my wife and I separated the day my father died. I knew there was no way we would be together for life that day and I felt lost.
Flash forward to 2001. 2 weeks after 9-11 my male cousin died who was 5 years older than I. He had molested me at age 8 and at my age 29 we had had a disagreement about it. I had hoped he and I could speak again and come to terms but he died 2 weeks after 9-11-01. He had helped build the planes at Boeing that went into the towers that day. He couldn't survive that because he was an alcoholic already.
That same year in December I had to put my mother in a senile dementia facility because she almost burned down her place. She prayed for 24 hours while watching a tupperware plastic bowl run down the stove on fire. We had no choice. 7 years later she's physically gone and all that's left of her is ashes but she had 50 different personalities of people I never met before during those last 7 years, none of them my mother.
I have one in-law at 90 who is still driving a car and healthy. His girlfriend just had a cancer removed so I think they will be fine again. Other than him there is no one left still alive and functioning. All the rest are peers no more than 9 years older than I. No one is left that raised me. All their friends are gone too, for the most part. There is no one left to look up to really but God. There are peers who are equals but no leaders above me. I am the patriarch of my family. They all come here for Christmas now.
Recently, another cousin called to tell me she will be passing on soon and going into hospice care.
So, 2 blood relatives have passed on since June and another called to say she was leaving too. My wife's father passed this summer as well.
As I went through all this in my mind tonight as I tried to sleep I felt peace about it all. I wondered why I felt that and realized that I didn't have to look forward to working 45 years supporting a family like I did at age 18 or 20. I felt peace because I had done the best I could, helped all the people I could and knew I would die at peace. There were many things I wanted to do that I couldn't or wouldn't do but still I felt I had lived a good life and done the best I could and I felt peace about it all. Not a perfect life but still a life worthwhile. For me, the most important thing of all besides helping everyone I could has been being there for my kids. Being a good father has always been much more important than being a good husband. Being a good friend to ones mate is more important than being a good husband. It's easy to be faithful to ones best friend. Though I've lost everything that was important to me as a child still I feel at peace in a life well lived. I thank life for that.
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