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Alchemy
By Kurek Ashley
At the beginning of this year my father had open heart surgery. There was some doubt as to weather he would live through the surgery or not, and being the strong solid guy that I have always known he came through with flying colours. He was a little sore, which is understandable and yet he was alive and on his way to a full recovery. For the months that followed the surgery he stayed on a healthy eating and exercise regime reaping him great results from him doing so. In April Marie and I flew back to Chicago to spend some time with my dad. He looked great and in some ways better than ever.
I call my parents every other week and send them a post card every week. I’ve been doing this for the past 10 years. About a month ago I was talking with my father and he informed me that the doctors had found some cancerous tumors on his spine and in his liver. They said that with treatment he had a 97% of a full recovery so he immediately started the treatments. After only a week of treatment they stopped them telling him that there was nothing more that they could do and he now only had two weeks to 6 months to live. I quickly made arrangements to fly back to Chicago to spend some quality time with him. With my business schedule the quickest that I could get there would be about a week and a half from the time that I found out. He sounded strong on the phone and everyone said that he seemed to be doing quite good.
Three days later the phone rang in the middle of the night. It was my step mother telling me that the care nurses were at the house and they don’t think that my father will make it through the night. I asked if I could talk to him. The nurse said that he was too weak to speak back but that they would put the phone next to him so that I could talk to him. I told my father that I love him, that it is OK to stop fighting so that he can be peaceful and that I would always make him proud of me. The nurse on the phone said that my father acknowledged with a small grin that he knew that it was me on the phone and that he heard what I had said. My dad then drifted off to sleep and 15 minutes later passed away.
Alchemy is a process that people have tried to perfect for thousands of years. It’s the process of trying to turn base metals into gold. No one has ever been able to perfect it so far, yet we all have the ability to be powerful alchemists with in our own lives. We all have the power to turn the events of our lives into golden events. Remember that life doesn’t turn out the way that it should. It’s not always fair. It turns out the way that it does. It’s what you do with your life that makes it what it is.
The only thing sad about my fathers death is that people who love him will miss having him around. Everything else about his deaths is actually positive. First being that he didn’t suffer, he died peacefully in his sleep. I had a great relationship with him and the last words that we said to each other were “I love you” as we did at the end of every time we talked with each other. I also got the opportunity to be the last person to talk to him so that he died feeling the wonderful love and respect that we have for each other.
The way that you can become a powerful alchemist and turn all of the events of your life into golden events is by using the power of your perception. Ask yourself questions such as, “What’s great about this? How can I look at this in an empowering way?” And make sure that ever morning that you start off each day asking, “What am I grateful for?” When you fill your heart with gratitude every day it’s easy to have a golden life.
Instead of focusing on being sad about my fathers passing, I choose to celebrate his life and use his death to remind me to make every moment of my life count so that I can make my own life and every one’s life that I come in contact with better than it was before.
And there is one more thing that you’ll need to do in order to be a master of Alchemy and that is to make sure that you choose to love more and fight less. Patch up all of the squabbles that you have with some of the people that you care about and instead of wasting so much valuable time being stuck in the “Drama Glue” spend more time having fun and enjoying the time that you can have together. When would right now be a great time to call someone that you love and let them know how grateful you are to have them in your life and that you love them?
I’m grateful that you are in my life and honored to be a part of yours.
Have a most outstanding day!
Kurek Ashley
In loving memory of my father Joe, “I love you dad and I will always make you proud!”
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