It’s almost one in the morning, and I just got home from dinner with a friend, which turned into drinks at their house afterwards. I had a lot of bread, a lot of carbs. I’m confessing that as it were some sort of sin and I blame the media for that, always telling us what we can and cannot eat and that our bodies need to look a certain way. It’s not a sin to eat bread, Marcus. It’s delicious. A couple days ago my doctor said she thought that I was “yeast dominant.” I don’t think she meant this as a compliment. Anyway, my doctor didn’t say the yeast in my body was a bread-hungry monster the size of a gerbil, but that’s how I’ve been picturing it, this miniature blob growing in the pit of my stomach, with fangs for teeth, seething, “Feed me–feed me white bread!” So even though I enjoyed my burger and dessert tonight, I worried I was giving the yeast gerbil fuel for takeover and thus killing myself.

Oh well, it’s been a good life. Certainly a tasty one.

For the last seven or eight years, I’ve off-and-on practiced a healing art called chi kung, which is sometimes spelled qigong. A form of meditation, it’s a bit like tai chi, in that there are soft movements. But whereas tai chi is a martial art, chi kung is not–it’s specifically for helping the body heal and encouraging the flow of chi, which is what the Chinese call a person’s vital life force. Anyway, chi kung can get pretty emotional. Sometimes I laugh during the practice, sometimes I even get angry. But for whatever reason, I never cry. Maybe once in all these years, but just a drop or two. That is until today.

This next part could get a little weird.

Also, I should probably back up a minute.

There’s another healing art I’ve studied called Johrei, pronounced Joe-Ray, as in Joe, Ray, Me, Fa, So, La, Ti, Doe. Anyway, it’s not really “my thing,” but Johrei makes a big deal about ancestors. They say that pain gets passed down from parent to child, and that healing requires healing the whole family. So people who really get into Johrei set up altars, say prayers for the dead, and make a point to send healing energy to those who came before them. Again, I’ve read about this theory but have never felt led to do anything about it. I figure it’s difficult enough to deal with family members who are alive, let alone those who have bought the heavenly farm. Like, if you don’t have a physical body, you’re just going to have to wait your turn.

Okay. So today during chi kung, I’m just standing in my room doing these gentle stretches with my eyes closed, and I think about my dead grandfather–my dad’s dad. You know how people pop into your head sometimes without explanation. Well, I didn’t think too much about it, but I also couldn’t think about anything else. I didn’t open my eyes, and I’m sure I wouldn’t have seen anything if I had, but it felt like he was right there, as if he’d just dropped by to say hello, about five feet in front of me. Now, y’all, I’m really (really) open to strange things happening, maybe more than I should be, but I’m also skeptical. So I kept trying to “move on,” to think about something else, like my grandmother or my father. I thought, They should be here too. But my gut kept bringing me back to my grandpa, saying this wasn’t about them, at least directly. This was about me and Papaw.

My intuition said that he’d “shown up” for healing. So I put one hand on my heart and stretched the other out in front of me “toward him.” Immediately, I began to cry. More accurately, I began to sob, something that rarely happens and almost never happens without warning. This went on for a while, and I kept getting the sense this had to do with the men in my family, with pain that went way back. I pictured scenes from my grandpa’s life–him being whipped by his father on their farm, him learning to smoke when he joined the navy, him being in the war. I always thought of Papaw as this big, strong ox of a man, but I realized today he hid a lot of hurt. Of course, when you hide your hurt, you can’t help but pass it on. It ends up seeping, sometimes exploding out. So I told Papaw today, “I’m sorry for what happened to you, and the pain stops here. The pain stops with me. As much as I’m able, I refuse to pass it on to anyone else.”

My grandpa was a good man, a really good man. Also, he made some mistakes, mistakes that affected my father and affected me. I can’t tell you whether his spirit actually showed up in my room today. I’m open to the idea that it did and I’m open to the idea that it didn’t. For me it’s not important, though personally I believe the veil is thinner than we realize. Today was about letting me know that he was doing the best he could and not blaming anyone who came before me. It was about forgiveness, love, and healing.

And if he really was there and listening, good. It’s been a while since we’ve talked. Lookin’ good, Papaw! But seriously, I’m out of the closet now, so let’s talk about those coveralls.

I’ve spent a lot of time lately “trying” to heal. Every morning I take vitamins, every afternoon I search the internet for answers, and every evening I do chi kung. And whereas I think it’s important to “unlock all your doors” and invite healing in, I also know we can’t decide what door healing walks through, should it accept our invitation. Maybe one day it’s the fewer carbs/less bread door. Maybe the next it’s the sobbing with your dead grandparent door. Either way, it shows up how it needs to, on its own terms. We don’t get to boss life around.

The mystics say we’re never hurt because of what someone else says or does, but rather because we disconnect from our own hearts. A parent takes a switch to your backside or you lose someone you love and you say, “I’ll never trust anyone else again. I’m done being vulnerable.” So you shut down–that’s the disconnect they’re talking about. If that’s true, then perhaps it’s the other way around. Perhaps healing is what invites us in, back inside ourselves where we can reconnect with our own kind hearts, hearts that are always ready to forgive and love again.