I want, make that need, to share something about the randomness of life and how my mind got reversed on that. I was much about we are nothing more than organisms colliding with each other and there is no mysterious plan at work. But some things, and it is those very things, cannot be explained away as randomness when they happen to us.
This may get long but I have been thinking about this for quite some time and need to share this.
First off, let me share something that only one other person ever knew about me. I wasn't just an unhappy kid, I went through some night terrors and emotional problems and was so scared and without another option that I stood in the bathroom at the age of 11 with my father's 22 pistol pointed at my temple and squeezed the trigger. It wasn't loaded and there wasn't a bullet in the chamber so nothing happened except this awakening within me. This is how my life would end and since I had unsuccessfully tried to carry that out, when the time came, it would be easy. I could pull the trigger. I had my way out and would not hesitate to use it when the time arrived.
Fast forward to my wife being diagnosed and she wasn't just the love of my life, she looked beneath all of the anger for what was within and stood beside me when a lot of women would not. I was not physically abusive but I was verbally abusive to the most loving creature I had ever known. If she didn't make it, the time I has been waiting for all of my life would finally arrive and I would finally be free....from myself.
But something happened before she was to meet her end, a sign was revealed to me and I had never had a spiritual experience in my life but this was so strong that it caused me to alter my plan. And open my mind.
I had lost my father 16 months prior to losing her and then 5 years later, I lose my mother to a sudden stroke. I was reeling in confusion and all I know is that I had to get away from where I was or I would carry out that plan. I was running out of options.
So, I end up here, not where I intended to be. I was planning on Marble Falls, not Horseshoe Bay, the nest of millionaires and billionaires and my most hated sport...golf, that had robbed me of my father when I needed him the most. How in the hell did I end up here? Why in the hell did I end up here? Every person in Dallas and OK that knows me was asking the same question.
In 2019, I end up with this lady named Carla as the one who cleans my house twice a month. She is a very unusual woman and the picture of health for a 75 year old woman and bored the hell out of me for two years with her knowledge of holistic medicine and her distrust of the Western medical practitioners. She's always telling me what I should be doing and even goes so far to drop stuff off. All of this before I would ever explore this mysterious and unknown form of healing.
October 5, 2021, the death sentence is delivered, "you have 6 months, maybe less without chemo and 6-12 months with it". Not an option but I am prepared for alternative action, all of those times listening to Carla about Hill Country Health and the holistic approach to healing and health came to the forefront and after meeting with two oncologists I decide I will take the holistic road even though it is as foreign to me as calculus, this coming Thursday, it will be 15 months. Had I taken the other road, I do not think I would be here today. But, just where am I? And why am I still here?
But wait a minute, weren't you the guy ready to end it all? Why not just let nature takes its course? Because something had happened within me, a sense of purpose arose that I'd never had in my life. What purpose? I had no idea at the time, I just knew this was the path I needed to take and I have never looked back or had one regret.
Is life great? No, it is not but strangely, the emotional and mental problems that had troubled me all of my life weakened and my closest family and friends noticed a change in me. For the first time in my life, I have a positive attitude and I am terminally ill. The ultimate irony of my life is not lost on me.
So, is it random that I ended up here, a place no one who knows me would think I would live, and met this woman that would serve as my first guide and that I would connect with the people at Hill Country Health and the others such as my acupuncturist that specializes in cancer or the others that support me and most of all, care about and for me? Did all of this happen by coincidence?
I have discovered my possible purpose and why this has taken place. The man who tried to shut out the world and most people in it is supposed to share this journey but the most important part of that is how I got on this path. Once a closed mind is opened, it is meant for that to be shared for there are many like I was. And if I was the old me, I would read this and go "yeah, yeah, yeah, preach it, brother" but that old me is gone, replaced with a dying one but hopefully wiser.
I used to be the probability guy because that was easier to wrap my head around. To consider the possible is too mind bending because once you accept that possibilities exist, it causes one to rethink everything and when you really compare what we know to what we don't know, it's a grain of sand to a mountain. And as long as the unexplained exists, possibilities are the rule.
I know reading some of this can be uncomfortable, particularly that 3rd para draws some disturbing visions. But I have been carrying that secret, known to only one, for over 60 years and that afternoon in the bathroom has haunted me and even though you do not really know me, it is cathartic just sharing it.
Another thing, I just didn't happen onto this thread, I was meant to be here but I didn't realize that until 15 months ago. A thread honoring a very good man has been a lifeline to me. Things that I can lay bare that have troubled me all of my life have only happened here. Just randomness that I happened in here one day and kept coming back? Not when I consider the possibilities.
Happy New Year, my friends, one I never thought I would see.
