Aloha everyone,

My dad had Alzheimer’s and I had arranged for hospice the day before I left for the mainland. I hurried home after  finishing the retreat in Sedona and was able to spend two days by his side as he transitioned. About an hour before he passed he opened his eyes and looked right at me. I could see the love and the gratitude. I know he knew I was there.  I spent hours talking to him and spent the night before he died listening to his breathing on the baby monitor. I read him the story of the Rainbow Bridge again and again as well as some of the stories from my book Mastering the Toltec Way.

I used to love the TV show Touched by an Angel. There was no Tess or Andrew or Monica by his side but the room was filled with angels none the less. Interestingly enough I had opened my angel book to Archangel Azrael who is the angel of death. One of his jobs is to make a person’s transition as easy and pleasant as possible. His name means ‘he who helps God’ and he helps people feel safe and loved. I could immediately feel his love and have no doubt he helped with some of my insights.

 I used to have a story about my childhood filled with abuse, anger and neglect but once I began to apply spiritual principles to my life all of that began to change. I was able to care for my dad in my home for the past nine months with love, compassion and a great deal of gratitude for the experience.

Over the years I spent a great deal of time forgiving and standing in a place of gratitude. While I sat beside my father as he approached death I understood that his only desire, all his life had been to feel loved. As a young boy he used to kill animals and yet I knew he was an animal lover. Sitting by his side I began to talk to him about that time in his life I realized he had to be cruel in order to survive so I told him I knew that he was really a very gentle soul.  I told him I understood his actions and realized how much pain that must have caused him. I saw his love and gentleness and as I shared that with him a tear trickled down his check.

After he passed I did some prayer and energy work, washed his body with rose water and got him all dressed him up. He was the head of a Masonic lodge when I was a young girl so I put his apron on him and got to see it for the first time. It was beautiful!

The men that came and took away his body were wonderful. They wrapped him in a shroud and then covered him in a velvet cloth. They treated his body with such gentleness and respect. His death was an incredible experience. This Father’s Day I will have a memorial service to honor the man who gave me life. I love that man and am so glad we had this time together.

What a gift life is. It has given me the opportunity to love my dad and understand his actions from the perspective of love. Life is too short to waste precious moments judging others and closing our hearts to the love that always surrounds us. As they say in a Course in Miracles, we have two choices love or fear and only the love is real.

I love you daddy. I know you are swimming in a sea of love reveling in the experience and looking back, seeing it all through the eyes of love and probably thinking that was quite a ride.

With love, aloha, gratitude and sadness,
Susan