His Spirit Near, Yet Free

To everyone who has extended their respects in the wake of my father’s passing, thank you for making the transition, in part, curiously magical.

Fear of “finding him” had faded when his body still lay warm, his spirit near yet free. Remarkably, his purest presence was able to provide comfort more than his earthly self could have offered in his previously pained state.

Artists are too rarely taken seriously for their pain. Deep feelers frighten the forces attempting to weaken the human capacity for love, for passion, for authenticity. This is a flaw in the failing, disintegrative system being replaced by a courageously integrative spiritual order in every individual. An intuitive wisdom breathes in birthing groans, in restorative healing, in soothing freedom — the liberation of burdens not meant to be kept secret by blameless souls.

My father’s last few months were very healing. Through my dad’s final reflections, a parting of regret, as many often have, revealed a surprising serenity as we began to remember my childhood — or what I sometimes call “our childhood” — when we played, created, mused, and made life as best as we could, however flawed.

Playful and still serious in tone, my dad Walter Ivan Heath called my mom and me “scary women.” Near the end, his soul grew to admire feminine strength and gravitated toward its power, encouraging me to remember my worth and how much I deserve — we all deserve — in this fleeting life. And it was as if his words, seeking the spiritual realm as its veil feathered faintly, manifested more than I could ever imagine, leaving the qualities I thought I would be left yearning for — one being the power of a sharpened intuition.

Months ago, I had imagined this period to be one of the saddest times of my life and yet, while occasionally tears do flow, there is a gift of renewal in my belief in God’s love and divine justice. Earthly death is but a mirage. Our material lives, perhaps, are but a sliver of the soul’s capacity for growth. And I believe my dad’s soul is flying beyond the planes of his father and his father before him.

Death is, in fact, a messenger of joy.

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Thank you, also, to Aeh Jay Chuenjit Hollenbeck for continuously sharing his grieving process of his mother. When I started reading his writings, I hoped that my family’s process would be meaningful in its own distinct way and am now grateful to be experiencing the unity in diversity of deaths as we all are born into this world noble and if we’re lucky, leave with as much grace as humanly possible.