Last year I flew out to California for a wedding, one of my longest friends was finally marring the love of her life and I was honored to be in her wedding party. I had this horrible knot in my stomach leading up to it that I shouldn’t leave. I chalked it up to the fact that my bonus mom had just had emergency brain surgery brain surgery 2 weeks prior and I was just having anxiety leaving my children. The bride had even given me the option to stay back, and they would rearrange as needed. I didn’t want to let her down or cause any issues on her big dat. Little did I know I would anyway- regardless of my intentions NOT to.
On 5/9 we were in the church for the rehearsal ceremony, with phones off due to their rules. At the time we were kneeling and heads bowed. I started to weep, not truly understanding why. I felt a cold wash over me and a piercing pain in the center of my chest. I wiped my tears silently and tried to push it aside.
At the rehearsal dinner, I was very standoffish and didn’t feel well. I had this sense of impending doom and my heart ached in a way that I could not place but was slowly consuming me.
On the Afternoon of 5/10- 30 mins before we were to be at the church, I received a call from Good Samaritan Hospital here in Portland, OR. They told me that my aunt dropped my father off the day before, gave them a false number for contact and he later died of sepsis shock and heart complications from prolonged drug use. He passed, cold and alone in a hospital – which was his worst fear- at 2:38 pm on 5/9, matching the time when I was in the church weeping the day before.
Due to the events 2 years prior and his continued addiction to meth, we had very rarely spoken in those final months, only communicating through voicemail.
My father and I had a connection that can only be described as a soul tie. I could feel him through an energetic tether, and that day it snapped as I wept silently. The hole I felt in my chest was the absence of a soul tie, a contract cut too early and unfulfilled. I searched for the tether for days, even weeks – trying to find him on the other side of the veil. But this death was so very final.
I didn’t get to say goodbye and he died alone. I know it’s not my fault and I don’t blame myself, but it seems to make my grief heavier. I will say that no matter the circumstances of our relationship- had I been in town, nothing would have stopped me from rushing to his side and being there in his final moments. There is a little girl in me that still longs for her father’s love. I hold her extra tight when the grief feels too much to bear.
I learned that day to never discredit my intuition or gifts ever again.
I love and hate you, and they get to be true simultaneously. I can’t really forgive you, but I forgive myself.
The Chaos of Healing 