Today is a special anniversary. Two years ago today, Mom and I underwent our miraculous living donor liver transplant surgery.
The other day, on the 21st, Tina and I visited University Hospital, where the surgery - and all else efter it, both encouraging and devastating - took place. We went specifically because I had to. I am part of a long-term research study on living liver donors; so I have to go in once a year for blood tests and questionnaires regarding my overall physical health, and mental and emotional well-being, since the surgery. Also, though, we went to visit with some very special people in the hepatology department. These are people who played such an important role in our lives; and in Mom's life...and transition into the afterlife. In fact, the way I perceive it, Mom's doctors, and some of the other members of the transplant team, played virtually ANGELIC roles in the most sacred rite of passage of her life. They were also central to our support network throughout the whole time Mom was ill, going through surgery, and moving toward that ethereal light at the end of the dark tunnel of her declining health afterward. In some respect, that group of people knew better than anyone else in the world what we were going through. They not only knew...they empathized. They cared. They went through it with us. And they still care.
We visited with Michael Talamantes, the transplant team social worker, whose heart is genuine and sweet, and whose presence and support have always been so very comforting to our family. We also had the chance to see Dr. Wachs, who was one of the three doctors central to Mom's care from the point of surgery to the last breath.
It is certainly hard to go back to that place. The smells...The smell of rubber gloves, the cafeteria buffet, and antiseptic hospital cleansers intermingle, and jab directly through the olfactory sense into the most primal center of memory and emotion. That part of it is terribly painful. But - as always - there is the side of the situation that is the GIFT in it all. And after honoring my tears for what deep pain we all went through in that hospital, I chose to focus on the beauty that transpired there...all of which transpired out of LOVE...the miracle of Human Life...and the brilliant hope of the Spiritual Afterlife!
As we talked with Michael and Dr. Wachs, I brought up the fact that I would be really interested in SEEING a living donor liver transplant. I told them I am terribly intrigued by such an amazing procedure, and as I talked, I reveled even more in just how awesome it is that I get to be a part of this ongoing research in such a revolutionary field of medicine.
Later that afternoon, Tina dropped me off at my old house, where Micah and Josh still live. It has been wonderful to see both of them, and to be back at the "old homestead" on Delaware st. again. Micah and I headed out for the BODY WORLDS exhibit at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. This was something I had heard of upon returning home, and was DYING (no pun intended) to see! In case you haven't heard of it, Body Worlds is a traveling science center exhibit that showcases REAL HUMAN BODIES and body parts, through a process of tissue preservation called plastination.
Anyway...as we arrived, Micah reminded me that it was both the summer solstice...and National Skateboarding Day! This may not mean anything to most people, but was a cool bit of information to me :) I also noted that it happened to be the day resting smack dab in the middle between Mom's birthday and (today) the two-year anniversary of our surgery. This whole five-day period would prove to be very strange and special, in that "way" that I am coming to know as "MOM'S WAY"...the way of her spirit's working and communicating.
We stepped into the exhibit hall, noticing first the display contract, signed by one of the body donors. It struck me...hard. What an awesome thing to do with one's body: donate it to science! And what a HUGE choice we each have the blessed right to make...that which determines what will become of our physical vehicles once our spirits break free to fly on their own! It hit me like a shining stone: THAT WILL BE MY CHOICE: I will donate my body to science. My first thought was to donate it to the actual Body Worlds Project...my next was to donate it to the University of Colorado Hospital research center. I am going to look into both options. After seeing the mind-blowing similarity between coral reef, and human organ systems covered in cappilaries, Micah decided he would like for his body to be used in making nifty saltwater aquariums :)
The whole exhibit was boggling and incredible. One of the models that I really appreciated was the "Dancer". On the placard explaining her positioning, etc., it said that "Dance and balance are possible due to the harmonization of the brain and the muscles". I really liked that. It made me think about the fact that A BALANCED person is the result of the cohesion between the brain and the heart...and such is why exhibits like Body Worlds are so important and advanced; because they are the objective portrayal of accurate science through the emotionally-effective vehicle of Art. As I walked through the exhibit hall, it struck me that LIFE is both so simple, and so profound. Simple, in the sense that every physical piece of every body can be detached from its machine, displayed, and explained with fairly basic language. The whole working system of which each part is a part can be explained. But where it becomes PROFOUND is the incomprehensibility of our own spiritual nature. Looking at these bodies cemented my belief that the spirit is something that lives independently of the brain and musculature, skin and bone.
ONLY ONE of the body models still had its hair...
As Micah and shuffled through the exhibit hall, I reminded him that this very place – known back when as the Denver Museum of Natural History – was where my Mom, Mark and Marci all met some 30 years ago. If you don’t know who Mark and Marci are, it’s a long (though awesome) story. But suffice it to say, they are two people that I love with all my heart and soul, whom I was most absolutely meant to meet, and who have been a crucially integral part of my adult life.
Anyway…Thinking about Mom...about the profoundity of life, and its properties that outlive its physicality...and about Mom's and my awesome experience of having joint surgery...I fixed my gaze upon this model; she was posed as if ballet dancing in Heaven, and had a full head of beautiful red hair. Not only was she dancing; and not only was her hair red. But it so much resembled Mom's hair, I choked up. I was stunned. Her hair was even pulled back in a sort of disheveled pony tail, just like Mom's was much of the time during the last three or four years of her life, and held in place with a sparkly butterfly pendant/clip. We always associate butterflies and butterfly symbolism with Mom and her freely-fluttering spirit. As if all that wasn't enough, the woman was poised just outisde the entrance to the display of Birth and Motherhood, wherein a model of a pregnant woman showed her five-month old fetus inside of her womb...AND...the name they had given her...was ANGEL.
Need I say more?
I think Mom pretty much said it all.
29.6.06
20.6.06
JUNE 19, 2006
Today, June 19th, 2006, Mom would have been 59 years old. But time and years and ages are not a concern where she lives "today". As she now exists – eternally ALIVE – every day is her birthday.
* * *
A couple of noteworthy stories/communications surrounding the day of Mom's physical birth:
TODAY, I was visiting with my friend, Joanne, at her house. We were standing in the kitchen making sandwiches when the phone rang. Joanne decided to screen the call, so we waited to hear a voice over the (sort of "old school") answering machine (you know, as opposed to voice mail). At the tone, we heard a man's voice...He sang, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU (one week late), HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU..." (and so on). Turns out, it was Joanne and Alex's friend, Brian, calling to wish Joanne a happy birthday. The interesting thing is, (besides the fact that I happened to be standing in her kitchen at that moment), today is not Joanne's birthday. It is not even one week later than her birthday. Joanne's birthday is July 12. Brian got mixed up, and was thinking it was June 12, and hence, the "Happy Birthday...one week late".
A while later, I went outside with Joanne's daughter, Aurora, for a bit so that Joanne could finish up some chores she had been trying to do all morning. As I was sitting on the front step of the house, watching Aurora play, a little boy came riding up to us on his bike. I asked him his name. He said "Landon. I said, "How old are you, Landon?" He said, "five". I said, "When's your birthday?" Well, he didn't actually answer my question, but instead offered the bizarrely synchronistic information, "TODAY IS MY MOM'S BIRTHDAY". I was amazed. I then said, "Today is my mom's birthday too...What is your mom's name?" He said..."Mommy".
* * *
The following story took place a few nights ago, on the 16th. But this one TRULY BLEW MY MIND...still does, and does even more every time I tell it:
Friday night, Micah and Shawn's band, Zebra Junction, had a really important gig. They played at the Fox Theater in Boulder, which is a big deal! I had been telling Micah for weeks that I was glad I was going to be in town for it, and definitely wanted to come.
When Shawn's wife, Patricia, and I arrived, we were happily surprised to find dear friends, Josh and Yuko! I had no idea they were going to be there, but was so glad they turned up!
The music was phenomenal. I welled up with pride and happiness for Micah and Shawn's progress and new accomplishments. They have so obviously evolved, and are doing really well. They have hooked up with an awesome bluegrass, "Rusted Root-Style" band called Oakhurst, who they have been touring and collaborating with for the last several months. I had several feelings whirling around within me, all good ones. All ones founded in LOVE. I felt love and pride for Micah. Love for my friends - especially Josh, who I am also extraordinarily proud of! In case you don't yet know, Josh is in the final runnings on the hit TV show, "Last Comic Standing"!! Anyway, I also felt love for HOME...for Colorado. And just a lot of JOY surrounding DANCING and MUSIC.
I had been wanting so badly to DANCE for months and months, since before I left for Hawaii in November. While there are a couple of clubs and DJs there, there is nothing like the Denver music scene - or that of any big city. I have so missed that about being in Colorado - and about being around Micah. Josh and I have always shared a love for dancing, too. We always used to dance together at college parties, then at parties at our house in Denver over the last several years. Our "thing" was always to have "jumping contests", which we would do to high-energy songs, in place of dancing. We tied the other night, agreeing that if neither of us had stopped jumping up and down by the time the music stopped, we would both win. And we did. That had never happened before!
At any rate, we were all having a blast, and I was feeling almost elated. I felt the absolutely tangible charge of MOM around me. I knew she was there, and not just "with me", or only for me. But with and for and IN ALL of us. I said to Josh at one point, "Guess who's here right now?" And he said, "Who?" And I said, "My MOM!". I told both Patricia and Micah the same thing at various times throughout the evening.
Meanwhile, as Josh, Yuko and I danced, we were joined by a handful of others on the floor. One woman in particular caught my attention. She was probably around sixty years old, but totally radiant; a glowing aura about her. She was dancing her heart out, and at certain particularly brilliant twists of sound, she would close her eyes and tilt her face upward, as if to praise God for life's deliciousness and utter beauty. She - of course - reminded me of Mom. She didn't look like her, but she FELT like her. She radiated the same kind of LOVE in her dance steps, and oozed joy from her every pore.
I mentioned this to Patricia, and told her that I would like to talk to this woman before we left, and tell her of the connection I felt with her on the dance floor. At that, I looked around, but saw no sign of the dancing woman. I figured she had left, and that I had missed my window of opportunity. But, I decided, if I saw her once more before leaving, I would take that as a sign that I was supposed to have my moment of communication with her. If not, then it wasn't meant to happen.
About an hour later, Patricia and I started shuffling up the ramp toward the exit sign. We were ready to leave the theater and head home. Just then, one and only one person faced us on the path to the door. It was her. We were face to face. I put my hands on her shoulders, looked into her eyes as if I had known her for eternity, and said, "You remind me of my Mom".
Without an ounce of pause, hesitation, or thought, the woman pulled me close to her, hugged me deeply, kissed me on the cheek, and said into my ear, "I AM YOUR MOM."
It was not "weird". It didn't feel "strange" or abnormal or uncomfortable or odd. I was literally in the arms of a "complete stranger"...yet she wasn't a stranger at all. She was a messenger, and I knew it. Furthermore, she knew it.
When we separated from this incredible embrace, I told her that My Mom had died a year and a half ago; and that she had loved to dance, and was joyful about it in the same way I could see that she (the woman) was.
Once again, she just stared into my eyes, and I into hers. We looked through lifetimes, and beyond the supposed barriers of "reality" and "illusion" that plague us in this physical world. She poured LOVE into me like a waterfall pours water into the land beneath it. She SPOKE on behalf of Mom. Or maybe more truly, MOM SPOKE THROUGH HER. She put her hands on my cheeks and said, "ANGEL...You're and ANGEL", and hugged me one more time.
We parted ways, both looking back at each other until to do so would cause a trip or fall. And that was that. We had had our moment, and we both understood what it meant, on some wordless, nameless, energetically divine level.
And I went to bed that night simply Thanking God...over and over and over again...for my deliciously blessed life.
* * *
A couple of noteworthy stories/communications surrounding the day of Mom's physical birth:
TODAY, I was visiting with my friend, Joanne, at her house. We were standing in the kitchen making sandwiches when the phone rang. Joanne decided to screen the call, so we waited to hear a voice over the (sort of "old school") answering machine (you know, as opposed to voice mail). At the tone, we heard a man's voice...He sang, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU (one week late), HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU..." (and so on). Turns out, it was Joanne and Alex's friend, Brian, calling to wish Joanne a happy birthday. The interesting thing is, (besides the fact that I happened to be standing in her kitchen at that moment), today is not Joanne's birthday. It is not even one week later than her birthday. Joanne's birthday is July 12. Brian got mixed up, and was thinking it was June 12, and hence, the "Happy Birthday...one week late".
A while later, I went outside with Joanne's daughter, Aurora, for a bit so that Joanne could finish up some chores she had been trying to do all morning. As I was sitting on the front step of the house, watching Aurora play, a little boy came riding up to us on his bike. I asked him his name. He said "Landon. I said, "How old are you, Landon?" He said, "five". I said, "When's your birthday?" Well, he didn't actually answer my question, but instead offered the bizarrely synchronistic information, "TODAY IS MY MOM'S BIRTHDAY". I was amazed. I then said, "Today is my mom's birthday too...What is your mom's name?" He said..."Mommy".
* * *
The following story took place a few nights ago, on the 16th. But this one TRULY BLEW MY MIND...still does, and does even more every time I tell it:
Friday night, Micah and Shawn's band, Zebra Junction, had a really important gig. They played at the Fox Theater in Boulder, which is a big deal! I had been telling Micah for weeks that I was glad I was going to be in town for it, and definitely wanted to come.
When Shawn's wife, Patricia, and I arrived, we were happily surprised to find dear friends, Josh and Yuko! I had no idea they were going to be there, but was so glad they turned up!
The music was phenomenal. I welled up with pride and happiness for Micah and Shawn's progress and new accomplishments. They have so obviously evolved, and are doing really well. They have hooked up with an awesome bluegrass, "Rusted Root-Style" band called Oakhurst, who they have been touring and collaborating with for the last several months. I had several feelings whirling around within me, all good ones. All ones founded in LOVE. I felt love and pride for Micah. Love for my friends - especially Josh, who I am also extraordinarily proud of! In case you don't yet know, Josh is in the final runnings on the hit TV show, "Last Comic Standing"!! Anyway, I also felt love for HOME...for Colorado. And just a lot of JOY surrounding DANCING and MUSIC.
I had been wanting so badly to DANCE for months and months, since before I left for Hawaii in November. While there are a couple of clubs and DJs there, there is nothing like the Denver music scene - or that of any big city. I have so missed that about being in Colorado - and about being around Micah. Josh and I have always shared a love for dancing, too. We always used to dance together at college parties, then at parties at our house in Denver over the last several years. Our "thing" was always to have "jumping contests", which we would do to high-energy songs, in place of dancing. We tied the other night, agreeing that if neither of us had stopped jumping up and down by the time the music stopped, we would both win. And we did. That had never happened before!
At any rate, we were all having a blast, and I was feeling almost elated. I felt the absolutely tangible charge of MOM around me. I knew she was there, and not just "with me", or only for me. But with and for and IN ALL of us. I said to Josh at one point, "Guess who's here right now?" And he said, "Who?" And I said, "My MOM!". I told both Patricia and Micah the same thing at various times throughout the evening.
Meanwhile, as Josh, Yuko and I danced, we were joined by a handful of others on the floor. One woman in particular caught my attention. She was probably around sixty years old, but totally radiant; a glowing aura about her. She was dancing her heart out, and at certain particularly brilliant twists of sound, she would close her eyes and tilt her face upward, as if to praise God for life's deliciousness and utter beauty. She - of course - reminded me of Mom. She didn't look like her, but she FELT like her. She radiated the same kind of LOVE in her dance steps, and oozed joy from her every pore.
I mentioned this to Patricia, and told her that I would like to talk to this woman before we left, and tell her of the connection I felt with her on the dance floor. At that, I looked around, but saw no sign of the dancing woman. I figured she had left, and that I had missed my window of opportunity. But, I decided, if I saw her once more before leaving, I would take that as a sign that I was supposed to have my moment of communication with her. If not, then it wasn't meant to happen.
About an hour later, Patricia and I started shuffling up the ramp toward the exit sign. We were ready to leave the theater and head home. Just then, one and only one person faced us on the path to the door. It was her. We were face to face. I put my hands on her shoulders, looked into her eyes as if I had known her for eternity, and said, "You remind me of my Mom".
Without an ounce of pause, hesitation, or thought, the woman pulled me close to her, hugged me deeply, kissed me on the cheek, and said into my ear, "I AM YOUR MOM."
It was not "weird". It didn't feel "strange" or abnormal or uncomfortable or odd. I was literally in the arms of a "complete stranger"...yet she wasn't a stranger at all. She was a messenger, and I knew it. Furthermore, she knew it.
When we separated from this incredible embrace, I told her that My Mom had died a year and a half ago; and that she had loved to dance, and was joyful about it in the same way I could see that she (the woman) was.
Once again, she just stared into my eyes, and I into hers. We looked through lifetimes, and beyond the supposed barriers of "reality" and "illusion" that plague us in this physical world. She poured LOVE into me like a waterfall pours water into the land beneath it. She SPOKE on behalf of Mom. Or maybe more truly, MOM SPOKE THROUGH HER. She put her hands on my cheeks and said, "ANGEL...You're and ANGEL", and hugged me one more time.
We parted ways, both looking back at each other until to do so would cause a trip or fall. And that was that. We had had our moment, and we both understood what it meant, on some wordless, nameless, energetically divine level.
And I went to bed that night simply Thanking God...over and over and over again...for my deliciously blessed life.
3.6.06
FINALLY...The RIGHT TIME
It was the "eleventh hour", in the longest and most arduous of all "twelve hour days". It was the last minute. It was two hours before I was to board an airplane to the mainland, at the end of my initial 6 month trial run in Kona. It was the end of my thoughts as I knew them: Longing for the dream to awaken. It was about to become the beginning of the greatest awakening in the recorded history of my soul. It was the two-hour window in which my ultimate dream, passion, and purpose culminated over chocolate mousse cake and decaf with cream. It was my dinner with Dan McSweeny, and life's pre-dream-come-true-days now shift into the-dream-is-real-hazy-daze.
It is all too unbelievable. Too perfectly strung together. Too blatantly telling of a supposedly "mysterious" Divine Order. Too much evidence for the existence of God, and of Mom's angelic reign over our lives since her ascension. It is the most obvious orchestration of the Universe's plans for me. Finally. Finally...It appears that my ship has come in.
Beginning on July 5, one week after I return to Kona from Colorado, I will move into the renovated coffee shack on Dan's Hualalai property. Although I haven't seen the place yet, it sounds incredible. Hardwood floors, kitchen, bedrooms, sleeping loft, living room, outdoor cedar wood bath and shower, cable t.v. and internet. Chickens running around outside, birds singing in the morning, view of the ocean. No other noise, really. Nestled upon two sprawling acres of tropical farmland. I will pay nothing for rent, but rather exchange my time volunteering with Dan's organization, The WILD WHALE RESEARCH FOUNDATION. When Dan's fellow cetacean biologists are in town for research projects, they will stay in the coffee shack, thus surrounding me with their wisdom, experience, and knowledge of the subject deepest in my heart. People whose books I have read, whose work I admire. And when they go out on the research boat, I will go with them, and be an apprentice to their practice. I will learn to outfit whales with radio tags, take their photos for identification, and take research notes.
For pay, I will work as the naturalist on Dan's whale watching boat. During the off-season (spring/summer), I will go out three mornings per week, adventuring with guests to find pilot whales, false killer whales, melon-headed whales, beaked whales, spinner and bottlenose dolphins...even sperm whales, who happen to have the largest, heaviest brains of any living being in the history of the planet. During humpback season, two cruises a day will be packed, and the work will overflow!
I will also learn how things work in the office. And maybe...seeing as how the heights of the sky - and the deepest fathoms of the sea - appear to be the limit within the stipulations of this situation...I will be able to get all of my SCUBA certifications up through Divemaster; and will be trained in underwater photography and videography. Maybe someday I will produce my own documentary about whales, with my own words as script; my own eyes the lens; my own experience the window through which watchers can look into the eyes of whales, and see the vast, incredible beauty that has fueled my every action since I dreamt my first tale of swimming with the gentlest of giants ten years ago.
I will be immersed in the WHALE WORLD, and learn all aspects of the "business". The politics, the issues, the science, the people involved. Most importantly, the animals themselves...whose world will be brilliantly new for me each and every day, alive and changing; transforming me with it.
Yes...It will be a WHOLE NEW WORLD in one way...though in another, the world completely familiar to the entirety of WHO I AM, and who I am destined to become.
It is all too unbelievable. Too perfectly strung together. Too blatantly telling of a supposedly "mysterious" Divine Order. Too much evidence for the existence of God, and of Mom's angelic reign over our lives since her ascension. It is the most obvious orchestration of the Universe's plans for me. Finally. Finally...It appears that my ship has come in.
Beginning on July 5, one week after I return to Kona from Colorado, I will move into the renovated coffee shack on Dan's Hualalai property. Although I haven't seen the place yet, it sounds incredible. Hardwood floors, kitchen, bedrooms, sleeping loft, living room, outdoor cedar wood bath and shower, cable t.v. and internet. Chickens running around outside, birds singing in the morning, view of the ocean. No other noise, really. Nestled upon two sprawling acres of tropical farmland. I will pay nothing for rent, but rather exchange my time volunteering with Dan's organization, The WILD WHALE RESEARCH FOUNDATION. When Dan's fellow cetacean biologists are in town for research projects, they will stay in the coffee shack, thus surrounding me with their wisdom, experience, and knowledge of the subject deepest in my heart. People whose books I have read, whose work I admire. And when they go out on the research boat, I will go with them, and be an apprentice to their practice. I will learn to outfit whales with radio tags, take their photos for identification, and take research notes.
For pay, I will work as the naturalist on Dan's whale watching boat. During the off-season (spring/summer), I will go out three mornings per week, adventuring with guests to find pilot whales, false killer whales, melon-headed whales, beaked whales, spinner and bottlenose dolphins...even sperm whales, who happen to have the largest, heaviest brains of any living being in the history of the planet. During humpback season, two cruises a day will be packed, and the work will overflow!
I will also learn how things work in the office. And maybe...seeing as how the heights of the sky - and the deepest fathoms of the sea - appear to be the limit within the stipulations of this situation...I will be able to get all of my SCUBA certifications up through Divemaster; and will be trained in underwater photography and videography. Maybe someday I will produce my own documentary about whales, with my own words as script; my own eyes the lens; my own experience the window through which watchers can look into the eyes of whales, and see the vast, incredible beauty that has fueled my every action since I dreamt my first tale of swimming with the gentlest of giants ten years ago.
I will be immersed in the WHALE WORLD, and learn all aspects of the "business". The politics, the issues, the science, the people involved. Most importantly, the animals themselves...whose world will be brilliantly new for me each and every day, alive and changing; transforming me with it.
Yes...It will be a WHOLE NEW WORLD in one way...though in another, the world completely familiar to the entirety of WHO I AM, and who I am destined to become.
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