Matters of the Heart

My Dad had a heart procedure last Friday. It was a hasty decision yet one that was postponed from last year. He was ready; it was time. I considered the possibilities of what could happen; my Dad is approaching 78 years of age. I spoke to him on the phone an hour before the procedure and could feel his anxiety. Pushing past years of tension between us, I felt him respond with love, gratitude, and even forgiveness to my phone call.

I found myself feeling grateful to the Angel of Death for all She has taught me in recent years...grateful and confident that when I die, I will surrender with openness and gratitude, peaceful in my heart that I am leaving a fairly clean path behind me. I recalled all the healing I've done in relation to the Angel of Death and to my Dad, and I fell into a place of complete allowing around his procedure. "I feel clean with him" I thought, "I've finally reached the place where I can be open and loving with him no matter where he is with me." I reflected on our past few visits and witnessed this to be true. That was a great feeling!

My Dad's not big on apologies and is, of course, always right, which makes me always wrong in his view (unless I agree with him). Yet I could almost hear an apology from him when I called; I could feel the "I'm sorry..." in his heart, sensing an awareness that he may not get a chance to change anything he might be regretting, and a desire to reach out and connect somehow in what may be his "final hour." Whether or not that's true, I don't know, but it is what I felt. He was present, gentle, open, and as loving as he could be on that call.

The beauty of the experience for me was the opportunity to notice that what's in my heart for him any more is gratitude - gratitude for all the things I've learned through him - that through him, I've deepened my experience of love, compassion, openness, forgiveness, and personal power.

And I noticed that I love him dearly... not from a place of attachment, but from a place of Divinity. What a beautiful thing to feel.