By: Henry Quesada
An ear-piercing scream followed by a loud slam reverberated from our home office. Startled, I sprang from the patio during my meditation and ran inside the house to see what the commotion was. As I entered the office, I confronted a crazed man who seemed to be at the height of his madness. It was my dad. He looked distraught and exhausted with tears that ran down his aging face. Papers, books, and office materials were littered everywhere. “I want to kill myself” he shouted defeatedly.
was Father’s Day morning four years ago, and his Alzheimer’s disease and depression had progressed rapidly. By this time, I had been his caregiver for six years and I was fully knowledgeable of the stages and behaviors that accompanied these “disorders.” Yet, on that day, my life changed forever.
Right after he uttered those dreadful words, a miracle happened. A powerful question flashed into my awareness that asked: “what’s the highest wisdom seeking to express itself right now?” Instantly, I felt unconditional love flood my body. While in his rage, I swiftly walked over to him, and as best as I could I hugged him. I somehow managed to place my heart over his and I calmly repeated in his ear “please stop… I love you.” Within a minute, I felt his anger diminish and his heart open. In the midst of the chaos, we held each other crying in gratitude for one another.
What appears to be the darkest moments contain the greatest wisdom for the spirit. Helping my dad taught me the true power of unconditional love. Something I couldn’t learn in a book or in school. I understood beyond theory that I have the power to generate unconditional love within me no matter what the condition. I realized that by “choosing” to find the highest wisdom from any given difficulty, I can transform emotions like despair into hope. In other words, I understood that I held the power to experience reality based on what I focused on. On Father’s Day, my dad taught me my first lessons in alchemy.