It’s an easy 15min drive through the caffeinated, early morning suburbs and even though it’s only the third day we’ve done the drive we’ve already begun developing our daily rituals of routine.
On the first day we made the drive I comment that there seems to be an inordinate amount of yellow-painted houses on our “road to recovery”. He agrees and this triggers a delightful camaraderie where we flagrantly ridicule each neighbors choice of yellow while also marveling at the infinity of yellow-hued paints available to home owners. One shade of yellow seems to inspire visions of dog poop and impressionistic art. Another yellow harkens images of bird song and Disney movies. A third yields suspicions of CIA involvement in social media and quickly mushrooms into global-scale conspiracy theory. I relish every moment of our inconspicuous division and classification of yellows as we slowly meander to our medical destination.
On day two we are ecstatic when the monotony of puritan gray houses is disrupted by the sight of a slate-colored house with a magical, canary-yellow door; eureka! We explode into exclamations of joy and disbelief as traditional New England convention is replaced by the absurdity of a sun-colored threshold. It is a bright-eyed blessing in the din of our cloudy commute.
Being the son of my father, who is by trade an artist and creative visionary, I am compelled internally to view this door as a symbol of hope; a beacon of sunshine piercing through the rainy reality of cancer in my 81 year old father. I see this door and cannot help thinking, “He needs for there to be hope in this process. He needs to believe that a full recovery is possible.”
But that’s bullshit. For all I know he may have already mobilized an entire army of angels who are gracefully shepherding him through this experience with ease and confidence. In reality, it is me who needs to reach into the jelly bean jar of emotional colors to pull the sunny bean of hope into clear view. In fact, it is me who needs to tell myself that my dad is going to make it through this experience without too much suffering and without being compromised in his ability to suspect government involvement in all things mundane. It’s me who needs the arbitrary rituals of neighborly condemnation and in-depth discussion of consciousness vs non-duality to continue uninterrupted so my personal life can go on in relative peace.
But what good is non-dual theory if my dad has cancer? Indeed, what the fuck am I doing with my life when my dad recovers from cancer? Without cancer, then I’m just a 43 year-old Masshole living at my parents house spank’n the bologna to various shades of yellow! When Sri Ramana Maharshi (one of the greatest spiritual sages ever to grace the planet) was apparently dying of cancer and was asked what he was going to do about it, he simply replied, “What does cancer have to do with me?”
Yes, exactly; What does cancer have to do with me? And you know what the answer is?
Nothing.
Nothing, because similar to Ramana, cancer is not my business. And guess what, the specific form of treatment my dad chooses is not my business. And my dads body is not my business. And whether or not the CIA is monitoring how many lemon-scented shits I take every day is also not my business…
What, then is my business?
To love my dad. That is the only business I need concern myself with. It’s my job to get the fuck out of bed every day and drive my dad to the hospital for his treatments. To support him in the form of treatment he has chosen for himself and stand by his side as he goes through it. I don’t give a crap what color people paint their houses and it really doesn’t matter if my dad believes in aliens or eats too much sugar. It’s my job to be here because it’s what he needs, and right now what he needs is the exact shade of gold that I need.
I look outside the window of the car as we’re driving and Nature reflects a deep teaching to me: There is never only one leaf on the ground; they always fall together… They always grow together, live together, and are ultimately absorbed back into the huge Flaming-But-Hole-in-the-Sky together. That’s the way life is. Nothing is ever done alone. Nothing is ever separate from anything else. Driving with my dad every day for 44 days to get radiation treatment is not special, it’s natural. It’s what people do for each other. I don’t get in the way of Nature, and I don’t resist my role in the Great Conspiritor’s plan. I don’t add my own ketchup-colored narrative to the crystal translucence of Reality.
It’s my job to support my dad. It’s my job to know exactly how many yellow houses are on our daily healing path. To be always watchful for the ridiculous flaxen vestibule of hope and to exclaim at exactly the precise moment, “Yellow door!”
As we approach the hospital I am intently concluding my analysis of hope, “…41, …42, …43…”. Yes, I choose this. I choose to be with my dad. I choose to engage in these daily, mundane rituals so that we can chuckle and shake our heads in mirthful maligning of other peoples choices, that mirth flowing from the unconscious but poignant fact that we still possess the ability to choose…
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