Lee Rolland Smith

This post is only important to me and to my wife Ann on this date each year.

It is the memory of an extraordinary person.

I'm going to get personal and if you have a problem relating to death and dying you might not want to embrace the rest of this post.

I am going to talk about a personal sadness not because I choose to share personal grief, but because my son  who died twelve years ago today was a great teacher and some of the things he taught by being the evidence of them may be of value to you as it still is to us.

His name is Lee. He was diagnosed with brain cancer. He was 31 when he died. It was a five year struggle from diagnosis to his death.

Lee lived for the moment. To complain, he felt, wasted precious time and energy that he could use for healing. He chose to enjoy and embrace every minute of life and to gracefully enthuse everyone with whom he came in contact. His humor was infectious and he always chose to be positive even when another choice would be easier.

Lee knew he was on a short life line. Cancer tends to focus one's thinking on the finiteness of life, yet he never complained, despite three brain operations, chemotherapy and radiation and the debilitation that goes with those encounters.

When he was first diagnosed, I decided, as his Father, that I would try to accelerate conversations we might have over the course of a normal life time between a Father and Son.

Every few weeks, I sent him a letter in which he might respond by questions or dialogue or any discourse he would choose. Over the course of four years of letters we had many discussions. I once asked him if I might publicly share some letters with others if it seemed appropriate. He said yes and it does now.

Here is letter number one:

Dear Lee,

Since your cancer was diagnosed nothing has the importance it used to have. You are constantly in your Mother's and my thoughts. Wonderful memories compete for mind space and attention. If the spirit centers the thought then the memory looses the competition and we are comforted by a higher awareness. If the body needs to cry then the memory wins and we work through it; learning from the emotion, until the choice comes again.

It's something parents go through when their adult child is hurting and they can't make it go away. I imagine you are going through similar emotions in your private time with this experience and the choices it forces you to make.

I do know it's all right to do and to be both; to be spiritual at times, to be emotional at times. I also know to expect miracles, but remember that holding on to preconceived expectations can bring disappointments. Letting go, with love, will bring peace. Both are important in healing.

We are both physical and spiritual beings. When we perceive, through our physical bodies, via the intellect and instinct, each moment of being is mortally precious because we tie it to time.

Our spirit, however, the true essence of what we are, sees each moment as eternity and perfect, for linear time in spirit does not exist. If you accept that premise, the expression, "Live in the Moment," takes on a different meaning. You can live in the moment Lee, all it takes is the desire to do so and when you make that choice the result is love, for fear cannot exist in the moment.

The spirit is powerful. It controls the mind if we let it and empowers the mind by thought and visualization and then the mind controls the body. The meditation exercise I taught you using light will be very helpful if you practice it regularly. Remember that life is the illusion and the spirit is reality and we are co-creators of both.

Understanding the dichotomy of letting go, to always have, is the constant struggle of understanding the being of life. Implicit in this Truth is the understanding that we are not our bodies. Our bodies only house what we really are -- spirit!

The body is a beautiful mechanism brought into form that allows the spirit to exist in this environment. When the spirit is finished with what it came here to do, it discards the body and returns to the Source and the body returns to the earth.

The human heart embraces both the spirit and the body. It is, by design, the most important organ in the body, without it no other organ can exist. It's pith, however is more ethereal for it is attuned to the Divine and acknowledges that we participate in the Divine will.  It was a willing choice, prior to our birth, when omniscience was part of our being and we chose the experiences we call life with angelic guidance and without the ego's intervention.

When you go deep within your being Lee, you will remember this truth and much more. Awareness is an equal gift from God to all. It is the choice of remembering that is selective by each of us.

There are only two emotions available to humankind. Love and fear. All other emotions, are derivatives. You will remember more, love more, if you let go of fear. It may seem hard for you to comprehend this as you fight the cancer in your head, but it is very important.

I am going to end this for now. There are more letters to come as I share with you the beliefs of my soul as we both move toward Truth through the magnificent companionship of family.

I love you very much and send you healing light, use it as you will.

Dad