Goodbye Dad: Model Tweaking

Being religiously agnostic -- copying, I'll submit, my dad's approach -- and being highly analytical -- copying my dad again -- I actively study and develop models of human personality and development.

One of the models I've developed goes as follows:

• enlightenment = love + wisdom
• we're all born perfectly loving and wise
• all of our parents mess us up to one degree or another
• our 40s is the last train stop for "fixing ourselves" or at least for starting the process

The last means that if, by our 40s, we still have not figured out how and why we are messed up, and have not started working on it, then life closes the door and positive change in this way is unlikely, at best.

Anyway, that was my model before I experienced my dad's graceful walk towards death, discussed in the previous post. That event has caused me to tweak my model.

In the new model, the last bullet point is replaced with:

• our 40s is the second last train stop for "fixing ourselves" or at least for starting the process
• our deathbed is the last train stop for this

For nearly my entire life, my wonderful dad had harbored the following "flaw": he valued cold reason and de-valued "negative" emotion. That is, he normatively favored reason over emotion.

This normative bias of dad's did seem to have "messed up" us kids to one degree or another. But we all, in our 40s, seem to have made inroads toward un-doing these mess ups.

As for my dad, in the last 10 years of his life, this normative bias of his started receding.

Then, in the last month of his life, this bias disappeared altogether. During these glorious final weeks, my dad lived a balanced life in which reason and emotion each had their equal say. This was both in himself, and in his attitude toward others.

To put it simply, in October, he said: "I don't want anybody crying for me."

By November, it changed to: "Tears are good and healthy."

What a healing transformation for my dad. Not only for him, but also for everyone in his circle, especially for the highly emotional among us.

That transformation turned my dad into what I referred to in the last post as a "self-actualized dying man".

That is, in his final days, dad was emotionally transparent, and intellectually sharp. He was equally and maximally loving and wise. 

I believe that the prospect of his final days caused dad to transform in this wonderful way. Critically, I believe, it was important that dad was already moving in this direction over the previous years. So when his final days came, the change was modest.

He changed not as a leopard changing his spots. Instead, he was a leopard the spots of whom brightened and radiated for all to behold.

I believe our 40s is the second last train stop because by then, we have 30+ years of repetitive messed up data to analyze, while body and mind are still energetic enough to make dramatic changes.

Then, later on, when the death march comes, there is a final burst of clarity and energy, allowing the seekers to complete their life's work.

That was my dad. It was amazing to watch.

I don't really believe in an after life. But if I did, I would be certain that my dad was doing well in it. What sort of god would not reward the fellow for perfecting his life while still breathing?