A Most Unconventional Guru

Some would say he is a man with no hope, others may turn and walk away when they see him in the street. Many still harbour fond memories of a friend they once knew, a friend that fought life’s most difficult battles and yet could not fight the desire to be numbed from it all. A man that was lost to those who loved him most, in efforts to escape himself. Although the tone of this essay may seem a little grim, please do not take it as a story of despair and delusion. My father is much more than that. He is a man of many mistakes, yet not one of them passed by without its lessons. Lessons, that he was sure to pass on to his children. He showed us what it means to be human, by walking the hard path one bare foot at a time, pulling each piece of glass and stone out of his soles, and showing us the scars left behind. I watch as others walk the same path, yet out of shame, they keep their bloody soles hidden. The fact of the matter is, the reason my dad’s lessons sunk in so deep, is because of the blunt force reality of their execution. No lesson was sugar coated, most of the time they were excruciating to learn, yet you could always rely on them being centred in absolute truth. I believe there is not enough of that in our world today. Truth seems to always be hidden in shame, and as a result we are all living in distorted, false realities. What a rare and valuable teacher I had, to have taught me to see this life for what it really is.

Life with my father was a series of erratic expressions, either singing at the top of his lungs, making strange noises, or quoting his favourite movies. His intelligence and creativity combined made for the swiftest puns and notably sensational dad jokes. His creative expressions were pure chaotic beauty. He would paint, craft, or build things that most people could not even conceptualise let alone bring into fruition. Pulling apart old furniture he found on the side of the road and recycling every little part to make something new. He has always grown vegetables in his yard, made inspiring art, written heart wrenching poetry and played outside in the dirt. I don’t think that I have ever seen him with clean hands, and very rarely with a pair of shoes on his feet. A man too intelligent to keep his sanity, dad would talk to me for hours on end about absolutely everything there is to know about the world. From politics, to religion, to scientific principals and philosophical theories. I can picture it now, the beaming smile he would hold across his face as he dumped out all the ideas that were rolling around in that gigantic brain of his. Many people would scoff at this dirty man, who always speaks his mind and doesn’t care for etiquette. I have always been curious about those people, where their priorities lie, their true values? The way I see it, I was raised knowing what was truly important. I ate organic vegetables grown in my own home, I learned the wonder and majesty of creation, and I stayed deeply connected to nature. I learned how powerful words can be, to speak my mind and go against the grain, and how to be a rebel in a time where the most admirable trait to have is agreeability.

My mother and father were never in a relationship, they were simply friends who got a little too close one night and ended up with an unexpected pregnancy at the difficult age of seventeen. Enter me, the first child. Dad had another child with a different woman one year later, before settling down and marrying a beautiful polish woman. One more child and two stepchildren completed dad’s happy little family, and we were that, happy, for a while. See, before me and my first sister were born, my father had a strong inclination for inebriation, a fact that our mothers new all too intimately. It was only under the conditions of a stint in rehab that he would be allowed to meet his baby girls. So that’s exactly what he did. Unlike a lot of unexpected pregnancies at such a young age, dad wanted deeply to be a father. I believe that man was proud of us simply for the act of existing inside our mothers womb, and that pride carried through every word, every step and every mistake we proceeded to make after birth. The day he chose to become a father, he became a teacher, and the biggest lesson he taught was the dark reality of addiction. Dad had his ups and downs throughout our childhood, yet always providing, loving, and caring for us to the best of his ability. He was always extremely open about his drug addled past. I vividly recall detailed descriptions of a literal alphabet of substances, how he consumed them, how it affected him, and how each one inevitably took control of him. Bedtime stories telling of paths he walked down that frankly, he can never come back from, no matter his efforts, nor how much time passes.

As I have grown up, I’ve watched this reality become all too true. Not only has my child like ignorance dissipated, I have also witnessed the cruel games that long term heavy drug use plays on the mind. Bouts of deep depression where there were some days that he would hardly get out of bed. Rage and confusion set in, relapse became more frequent, and his marriage began to fall apart. The day my stepmother left was the moment my father lost everything, including any reason to stay sober. She up and left in the middle of the night. She took the kids, the dogs and didn’t speak to him again for many years. It seemed like I was the only one left at that point, none of my sisters could bare it any longer. I always had forgiveness and compassion in my heart for dad, it’s difficult to articulate but I would describe it as a deeply painful understanding, that being human is hard, and for some of us, it is really hard. Soon even my visits became less frequent, as it became too difficult to watch my childhood home become a literal nightmare. Hoarding was added to dads long list of addictions, he had lost all motivation or spark to create, yet he kept on collecting. No gas or electricity, chickens and rats roamed the house freely, all the doors torn off the kitchen cupboards, old plates of food filled with maggots and cockroaches, and a mad man’s rantings scrawled across the walls. Decay. Decay of the house. Decay of the mind. Decay of the man.

I moved away not long after that, to another state. I still hold his words of encouragement in my heart. He was always the best at lifting me up, even when he was so far down. “You are intelligent, strong and beautiful and can do absolutely anything you want.” “You are ridiculously lucky, divinely guided and protected and you will get any job or house you apply for.” “I’m so proud of you girl. Go and be you!” When I left, I said my goodbyes, and in my heart, I knew they were my final goodbyes. I knew that if he did not die by the time I returned, he would never be the same man I left behind. Turns out I was right, but in a way I did not expect. One year after moving I hear he is in the hospital, drug induced psychosis they said. This was followed by a series of injections and parole visits. The episode and the injections had turned him into a shell of the man he once was. There was no singing, no outbursts of jokes, no artwork lining the walls. His hands were clean, and he wore sneakers and jeans. There was no smile brimming across his face and no words jumping out of his brain. I left that visit in ineffable pain, crying stunned, silent tears. Where had my father gone? I think I would have preferred him to be high. At least then he would have been the man that I knew, not this robot that stood before me. Not this empty metal shell which once was a man, now stripped of all his emotions, all his pain and all his crazy. At least then he would have been human. In all this confusion and grief, I want to fall into hopelessness. Yet as I mentioned in the beginning, my father is much more than despair and delusion. Instead, I will wait. The man I knew has died, but I know in truth, that with death there is always, rebirth.

My father was a man of chaos, and I deeply honour his journey. From him I learned that gratitude is essential, as nothing is permanent, and everything changes. That death manifests in our lives in a myriad of ways. I learned to be in control of my own mind before it takes control of me. To talk about concepts and ideas, and to express myself no matter what. To be an individual, and to not let anyone or any substance take that away from me. I learned to love myself, and others, boldly and unconditionally. I learned to see the darkness in the world, and where to find the light when I need it. I learned to be human. Being human is painful, messy, and confusing. All the adversity and challenges we are handed in this life can feel as though they will overcome us if we let them. To survive we must remember that this existence is also about strength and perseverance. That destruction is inevitable, yet we have the power to create and bring new life into being. One of the most important roles we take on as humans, is that of a teacher. We can guide others along their journey and teach them everything that we have learned along the way, so that they may have a better chance of coming out of their suffering. My father took on this role whole heartedly. He lived every experience to its absolute and shared all of it with me along the way, regardless of any shame he may have felt. I thank him for that every single day and keep his message alive in every path I choose to walk down, because I truly know some paths, you can never turn back from.