Happy Birthday Papa!

Today is my Papa's birthday. September 14th is a special day of the year for me. My Papa crossed over to the spirit world when I was 4 years old (Dec. 20, 1968). For so long it was a pain so deep, a void so deep I found every possible way to numb the pain ... to fill the hole and emptiness ... addictive behavior and avoidance became my survival strategies. Now, 50 years later, a life time of experiences that have been both incredibly painful and also incredibly beautiful and transformative, I am now at a very different place. I believe God/Creator called my Papa because it was his time. I believe he was needed elsewhere in the universe. It's not my place to question. There are many things in this life time I will not be able to make sense of ...

50 years ago my Papa's spirit left his body. What I imagine now is his spirit leaving in this most amazing and beautiful light .... this expansive veil of light that reaches out beyond the north star and galaxies that defy what my brain can even comprehend ... and his spirit sprinkles star dust all around me, and in me. I don't feel his presence at first. All I feel is emptiness. Yet he stays with me, watches over me, protects me ... I flail and I fumble. And at the age of 20 when I attempt to take my own life, he plucks me out of the water ...when by all logical and practical explanation, I should have died ... miraculously, someone, some being, some higher power pulled me out of the water after I had lost consciousness. I know it was my Papa. I imagine him saying to me, "it's not your time yet baby".

For many years, I called that moment 'my bottom'. It was an uphill climb through terrain that challenged me on so many levels. It was a journey that required facing my darkest shadows and wounds and scars I desperately wanted to forget and bury at the bottom of the ocean floor. This year, in just a couple weeks, I celebrate 30 years of sobriety ... 30 years since my last drink; 30 years since I made the choice to numb my pain with alcohol. Now I look back at that moment, as the moment of awakening as a caterpillar .... of shedding skin, of becoming a chrysalis, of resting and allowing the time needed for the various parts of myself to heal and to transform, and then when I was finally ready, to emerge and break through the protective case of the cocoon ... a butterfly. And this healing journey has been one of exploring different landscapes, both inner and outer; of stumbling, making mistakes, honoring the wounds and scars that have made me who I am today, celebrating reaching various summits of mountains I never imagined I could reach ... of listening to my Papa; of learning to still my mind and be with myself through meditation and a deeper connection to the spirit world. He was gracious and sent me a 4-legged beautiful being, my first dog, Splat, who is the reason I am now able to say, on October 1, 2018 I will be celebrating 30 years of sobriety. She saved my life. And then my Papa continued to send me more beautiful 4 legged beings ... Shadow, Shen, Mister, Missy, Legacy, Ahnung, Ishkode .... all have been, and continue to be, essential in my healing.

Miigwech Papa. Miigwech for watching over me. I celebrate You today. I celebrate your birthday. I celebrate and feel and embrace the veil of star dust you sprinkled over me when I was 4 years old.