My Spiritual Awakening: Part Three, Lessons

Well it’s now 2017 and if there’s a theme for the year, its definitely life lessons. Looking back at 2016 it was more about eye opening experiences. Those experiences were the first part of a process or awakening. If awakening is a shift in vibration, depending on the person and their experiences, that shift could be minor or major. In my case it was major and only because I had strayed so far away from my true self. So the next step in this process is lessons which will lead to change. Now lessons come in all different ways, shapes and forms. But for me the lessons in 2017 came with a punch to the gut!

Towards the end of January I received a call that my Dad had been taken to the hospital. He had a gallstone in his bile duct, stuck at the head of the pancreas. This stopped the pancreas from producing digestive juices and insulin, as well as other hormones to do with digestion. The pancreas then became infected and he had necrosis causing the body to go septic. This comes with a 90% mortality rate, in other words a less then 10% chance to live.

I was crushed, about two years prior, I had met with my Dad and reconciled everything. We had been hanging out and meeting up for drinks occasionally, I finally had a relationship with him. Then, boom this bomb was dropped, FUCK!

So he ends up in ICU where they put him in an induced coma. He then has two surgeries to scoop out the dead tissue. After those were a success a week later they had to reopen that wound. His liver had an air bubble and his bile duct was going into the wrong place in his intestines. Then they found more dead tissue in his intestines, which lead to bleeding and a coil put in his artery.

I could go on and on but basically every surgery lead to another problem. He ended up having eight major surgeries total, over a three month time period and survived every one. I can’t tell you how many times I sat with him and told him goodbye. There would be days were I would sit there talking to him and I had no idea if he knew what was going on. Then there were days were I didn’t want him to be in anymore pain and just make his transition home. Let me tell you that’s a fucked up feeling I hope I never have to revisit! It was so difficult watching someone you love fall apart, surgery after surgery! Like I said he survived but by no means would things ever be the same.

Sitting in the hospital I thought about all the regrets and missed opportunities with him. But it also made me cherish what I had with everyone in my life, especially my boys. The roller coaster ride of being in ICU with him five days of the week for three months beat me up. I was emotionally drained and exhausted but it changed something in me. I had been anxious, nervous, worried, irritated, sick to my stomach, overwhelmed, stressed, scared and sad. But I had also been thankful, proud, optimistic, inspired, lucky and loved. A part of me had changed, I was now looking at things in a different light. I could see how delicate life is and realized the importance of the relationships we have.

From all that had happened in 2016 and now my Dad, I had a new perspective. I wasn’t fixed or healed I just seen things differently. When the summer came things became even more difficult. My Uncle passed then my Grandmother (my Dad’s Mother) who I mentioned in Part One. She had lived a long life into her nineties but it was still tough for everyone. I didn’t even mention my Grandfather (my Dad’s Father) passed when my Dad was in the coma. So my Dad woke up to find out his Dad had passed and then his Mother shortly after.

Amongst all the death, I went on a trip to Chicago that resulted in an eleven hour bus ride from hell. The drive from Chicago to Toledo is a straight shot, four hour drive and we still got lost. I was hungover from a bachelor party and lost with a bunch of pissed off people. The worst part, there was no a/c or working windows. So that meant no fresh air on a bus full of stinky ass people, just terrible. I could go on and on but I’ll leave it at that.

A week after the bus ride and this is still embarrassing, I was arrested on drug charges. Now your probably saying I thought you were on this path of enlightenment or this spiritual awakening. Your right, I was but I needed to shed some old patterns. Between the bus ride and sitting in jail I learned a couple things.

I realized how important freedom is, by having it taken away again. I was also very proud of myself, and how I handled these situations. And lastly just how empathic I am. Being stuck with other people in such close quarters was when I really realized how much I picked up on other peoples feelings. I was locked up with one guy who was afraid he was going to have a seizure and die. Another dude had just found out he was going back to prison and was panicking. And this other guy, was really pissed yelling and screaming he wanted to kill everyone. I felt things inside of me that I had never felt. With both situations resulting in me wanting to sleep for days.

In September, my relationship of ten years with my kids mother came to an end. I’ll just say it wasn’t by my choice but was for the best. The breakup was difficult and hard for me to adjust. I was now a single dad coparenting 6 and 7 year old boys. But it wasn’t terribly difficult because we had always worked opposite work schedules. So I was use to taking care of them on my own, since they were born. It was still a major adjustment having to do everything on my own now. Not to mention being in a relationship for that long and getting back in the dating game was very weird.

Aside from learning how to use dating apps, I had to relearn how to be on my own. I had always been some what of a hermit but this was different. So I isolated myself from everyone except my siblings and stopped going to bars, just stayed home experimenting with my creativity.

Like I said in the previous blog, creativity gave me access to the imagination I had left behind in my adolescence. It allowed me to access parts of me I didn’t know existed. Then finding a balance within all of those aspects, well that’s still a struggle today. With my Dad, the bus, jail and the end of my relationship, I was free with a new appreciation for life! This would be the beginning of me truly finding myself with no distractions, at least for a little while.