Synopsis

I had recently retired after almost three decades as an NFL agent and was in the middle of making plans to relocate to Costa Rica when I found out my oldest child was dying. Hannah was more than a daughter to me; in fact, she was what I would call my soulmate, the only person I knew who somehow truly knew me at the deepest level. She was literally being eaten alive by cancer and given very little time to live.

The next 100 days were a frantic, desperate attempt to heal Hannah through natural means, while begging the God that I had always believed in, the God of Christianity, to heal her. But each day was worse than the one before as she deteriorated before our eyes, never once complaining, only concerned for those around her. As we had already sold our home, Meg, my wife, and I, moved Hannah around from home to home, including different hospital stays, as we fought to stave off the inevitable.

Hannah died October 22, 2015, while I held her hand. I then began a journey that no parent wants, that of contemplating the rest of my life without my child. Furious at the God I had always prayed to, I decided to put all that I had ever believed in on the proverbial shelf and begin a journey of searching for truth while mired in an almost debilitating pain.

Meg and I travelled to Costa Rica less than a month after Hannah’s funeral, mainly to escape the states for the holidays, with all of the accompanying memories, and soon began to find a touch of mystical healing while traversing the Caribbean beaches and tropical rain forest. We purchased a weathered homestead in the jungle within the first few weeks and I dove into a world I had previously considered evil, or at least taboo. My interests shifted from fully adhering to the belief system of Christianity to one of mysticism (a misunderstood term), to a realm of openness to whatever the universe might offer. This included immersing myself into a wide array of potentially healing modalities such as meditation, different types of breath work, and even experimenting with plant medicines, and beyond. My experiences have only strengthened my resolve to continue this exploration into the world beyond our five senses, willing to push the envelope, convinced that not doing so is simply not an option.

I am a grieving, but joyous father, who has embraced life and pushed hard against the edges of my former ingrained paradigms, convinced that our cultural belief systems have held us hostage for too long. The journey continues…