A DEATH WHILE STILL IN THE BODY

     Sometimes Death comes to us without killing the body. It just breaks our hearts. Death came to our family recently. Nobody died, but Death came.


      I thought I know where I was at, what I was going to do with the rest of my life. But recently, we found that Jake, our five-year-old son, has muscular dystrophy, a progressive and irreversible wasting of the muscles.

      Everything has changed now. At first, I forgot that I was a writer and a healer. I became only daddy, scared and very sad for my little boy.

      Then one day, while meditating, I remembered that I was a writer. I realized that the summer issue of The Caldron was due out in five days. I hadn't even thought about it for weeks! And I love publishing it. At first, when I finally did remember it, I didn't care. It didn't matter at all compared to what Jake will have to go through in his life, why bother with it anyway. But then, something came back to life in me, and I decided that I still had to be more than a grieving dad. I still had to write for and edit The Caldron. Once I made this decision, I began to feel somewhat better.

      I'm still a healer too. I can make a difference in Jake's life. When we first found out about him, my heart broke. I'm beginning to see now that it just broke open. I have so much more love to give now. Every day, I try to turn all this pain in my heart into love. Every day, I try to focus all my healing love energy upon Jake - and interestingly enough, I'm finding that it's getting out to the rest of my family, and beyond too. Every day, my heart opens wider and wider. The other boys, especially Callahan, need all the love they can get now. They know that something is seriously wrong in our family, even if they don't know what.

      I'm seeing that the death of my hopes for watching all my sons grow into strong and healthy young men is not the end of my life - nor Jake's either! In fact, the greatest thing I can do for Jake, that any of us can do for him really, is to be happy with and for him wherever he's at in his here and now. It's an incredibly difficult hand that life has dealt him, but I know that, with all our help, he'll live it beautifully and lovingly. He has so far.

     By Eugene Marks