My dad was my superhero. He died in 2009 and I miss him every day. This morning I was finishing up a two hour project, about to hit the last keystroke on an email when I got a whiff of something I hadn't smelled for years. It took me a half second to place what it was. My dad's pipe tobacco.
It's not a smell that is mimicked by anything else, and as I sit in the very same spot that I was hours ago, there isn't even a hint of it. It was very, very strong, as if someone were smoking a pipe right next to me.
My natural instinct would be to simply be moved by the visit from my dad, send him love, and then go on with my work. But, I have been working on the very important superpower that you will read about in my new book "Superhero of Love" which is Super Hearing. Super Hearing doesn't just happen when there is noise around you. It happens on many levels.
Something said: Stop. Listen. He's giving you a dramatic sign he wants to talk.
I stopped and immediately went into a meditative calm, as if I'd been meditating for a while already, complete stillness. In that calm I knew my dad had a huge smile on his face. He was so proud of me for knowing to stop. He was so glad his clue worked. And, then his message came. He was beaming with pride at what I had done yesterday.
Yesterday was a very intense day for me. I was about to pay more for a workshop than I had paid for anything in my life (other than a car!). It was an enormous chunk of money that will actually keep me a little short of funds this whole month. My dad told me that were he alive he would have encouraged me to do what I did, and further, would have gone with me to the workshop if he were around.
I had a lot of fear leading up to wiring the money, as there are many things I could have done with it that seemed perhaps more necessary, but I still knew it was the right thing to do. Once I wired the money I was exhilarated, completely and utterly exhilarated because that is when the course began.
Yet, I have very few people in my life who would consider this choice a sane one. My dad was a soul mate. We were on the same spiritual path. I know he will be with me at this event -- in spirit -- peacefully in the background smoking a pipe.
My dad smoked cigarettes from the time he was 13. He had three lung diseases: interstitial pulmonary fibrosis came first, then emphysema, and finally lung cancer. He beat lung cancer, having a piece of his lung removed, but a combination of all of these took him out. He stopped smoking when he was diagnosed with lung cancer -- finally! I'd been begging him, of course, for years.
Over the years he moved from cigarettes to pipes. He smoked cigarettes when tense and pipes when calm and happy. I always loved the smell of that pipe and I loved how he was when he was smoking it. It was like a "pipe meditation" and it affected everyone around him. Nothing could fluff his feathers when he smoked a pipe. I loved the whole ritual he had of cleaning it, filling it. The way he sat down in his big recliner when he was about to have a pipe was even different. It was lovely. And he really got a twinkle in his eye when he smoked it.
The portrait here doesn't capture that twinkle, it looks a little sad actually, but it's the picture I have out all the time next to where I meditate and I love it because of that pipe.
I'm very happy I stopped today. It proves to me that I'm getting somewhere in my life-long pursuit to develop my Super Hearing and therefore to be a better Superhero of Love.
