What Bob Would Have Wanted- My Account of a True Story of Love and Loss Through Cancer

He was given two weeks to live. I was confused by the lack of urgency to confirm his first appointment with me. The deep voice on the phone evoked the years of a long-lived life.  

"I know everyone wants me to come to see you, but I have to practice for my gigs in England and won't have time," Bob explained.

"Time!?" I exclaimed.  I was confused by the lack of urgency to confirm his first appointment with me. "You just finished telling me the doctors are giving you about two weeks to live. At the end of the day, it is up to you to decide whether you chance it, or at the very least come in to discuss dietary changes, and possible remedies to take while on the road." I was astonished that a group of two hundred people had raised money for Bob's sessions with me.  

Our conversation felt like a tennis match, we went back and forth for a while until he finally gave in. I was beyond annoyed, and wondered if the tone of the phone call would be a strong indication of how our working relationship might evolve. 

I was living in Winter Park, Florida contained by the dedicated and subdued lifestyle I'd built for myself. I focused on helping as many people as I could. As a child from the ages of six to eleven, I could hear and see things that my religious family members couldn’t. I would  try to share excitedly what the non-physical vibration, energy, and frequencies would say. When I predicted something that came true, my family would be horrified and tell me the devil was coming to get me. I prayed to the sun, moon, stars, and Mother Earth, no matter how many times my grandfather punished me, failing at all attempts to make me stop my “weirdness.”

I accumulated every degree and certification within the holistic naturopathic field. Certificates and diplomas from my polymathic endeavors now decorated the light blue painted walls of my office that my sister had redecorated to display a few of them in perfectly chosen glass frames. My business was solely word of mouth; if someone had a condition that was similar to my previous client, then my clients or their family members would sing my praises. I never had to do any advertising; therefore the deciding factor for my next client was only the phone call between when his first session would take place and if he was ready to release all prior belief systems. I was sought out mostly as a person's last hope.  By working over and over again with people around the world, I learned to see patterns in everything they did.  A sudden shock, childhood trauma, or other issues would leave them stuck in their current life condition and illness, filled with an array of pent up emotions, lack of spirituality, or unwillingness to see what psychological traumas they had suffered. 

I earned a very good reputation and was dubbed  “the healer of healers.” My daily prayer and meditations led me to trust in blind faith (or as the Western medical community calls it “the placebo effect.”) I was able to clearly see how our human bodies desperately want to regain homeostasis. We mistreat our bodies, and yet I knew it is repairable with the correct knowledge. 

I spent every waking hour in the research and development of understanding why the sixty-four DNA codon molecular structure was connected to the sixty-four hexagrams in the I-ching of Chinese medicine, how they interacted with the amino chains related to that particular person's birth and stage of life. I stayed up nights digging into western medical, naturopathic, chiropractic, orthopedic and Eastern Chinese medical journals. I hungered for knowledge of all things pertaining to the human spirit, mind and body, why we are here, and what we are here to do. My days flew by as I traveled around the USA and Canada to learn to master Western and Eastern herbal and homeopathic remedies, nutritional considerations and lifestyle changes. With a wonderful mentor on hand, Dr. Gueniot, quality remedy suppliers, and an array of practitioner friends I could count on for advice, I had helped more people regain not only their health but also contribute greatly in their day to day life. There was no problem I couldn't handle, or so I thought.

I suppose I had no expectations of what Bob might look like. However, based on the fact that people spoke of how amazing and spiritual his music was, I constructed this saint-like Buddhist man that glided, not walked, spoke in poetic Rumi verses, and carried himself with the demeanor of Mother Theresa.  As I opened the door, an angry voice mumbled on about being late because of traffic. I could hear him telepathically, "wow, she's pretty." I paid no mind to this comment as it always entertained me to ‘hear’ what someone might think of me when we first met, not knowing what and who to expect as their healer. An annoyed,  tall thin-framed man worn out by the surgeries and chemo sessions he’d endured in the last few years, slowly walked into my office. He wore Shaun Cassidy hair, the soft shiny bangs waved gently as the blond was infiltrated with the graying thinning out of his aging days. Tall and slender, he walked as if his joints hurt with each step of the pains one might develop entering into his ‘third stage of life.’  

Even in that first face to face meeting, I could tell I was confronted with a huge challenge. “You know, I was famous way back in the day.”  He spoke coquettishly and quickly busied himself with a rundown resume of the great ones he'd played bass for. He spoke of stars like Joan Baez, The Byrds, Bob Dylan and so many other musicians, I had to ignore his words as I worked with closed  eyes to scan his body allowing my intuition to go into a neutral state, where time and space are non-existent.  As he settled into the soft, cream cloth chair in my office, I noticed a lot of damage to his colon and prostate. Sheepishly he unbuttoned the bottom of his shirt to show me he had a catheter for both bodily functions. His cancer had spread from his colon to his prostate and I could see it was also lodged in the bottom left lobe of his lung, and his brain. Since I am not allowed to diagnose, I recommended he go back to his doctor to run tests on those two areas. I did a thorough scan of homeopathics for him to take, that would immediately start to work out emotional, psychological and physical ailments.  We came up with a game plan, facilitating the purchase of vegetables and fruits he could easily access in England as he traveled from town to town.  Upon his return, he marveled at the sense of energy and better health he felt.  

And so the days turned into years. After going back to his doctor and receiving the update of my accuracy he became steadfast and committed to working together.  Bob was always on time, every Monday at eleven am. It seemed impossible to get him to stop having road rage as he'd come in yelling, cussing and outright complaining about everything and everyone. Our work was mostly concentrated on helping him work out his anger.  In Chinese medicine, the liver and gallbladder relate to anger and courage, both of which were his biggest obstacles in the entirety of his life choices. 

The challenge was to push him outside his comfort zone. "Bob, you must sell your most treasured possessions, just in case your wife and daughter need the money after you're gone!" I would argue.  

"Sixteen guitars, I worked hard to buy each one and there is no fucking way you're getting me to sell them!" But little by little, he did. 

Lastly, I gave him the homework to retain legal services and fight for the right to his most loved musical accomplishment. One of his top complaints was how a musical sensation band had never given him credit for writing a highly acclaimed money making song called 'Lazy Waters'. 

Suddenly, one day, eight years after his terminal diagnosis. Bob came into his session filled with a joy I'd never seen him wearing before. "Gloria, we did it! I got the rights to my song back, and I'm finally being compensated!" 

In my excitement, I failed to see he had accomplished all the goals we set out for him. Goals including getting his mom to put him back in her will.  She had  disowned him from the family for choosing to become Buddhist and turning his back on Judaism. As  ‘homework’, I had urged  him to attend synagogue to honor the family lineage.  His ancestors had guided me clairaudiently. Now, they stood around him awaiting his departure. 

One week later he announced, "Gloria, I'm done. I'm tired of watching everyone eat like shit, burgers, sodas, greasy foods and all the dead animals they want and they're fine." "I'm tired of putting wheatgrass shots up my ass just to stay alive." 

"Bob, but you're doing so well now," I naively asserted. "Think of your wife and daughter, what will they do without you?" 

"I have done everything you told me to do, I'm so grateful for you, but, I'm done.  I want to be home now and die."

A year passed by without a word from Bob. I thought of him often, wanting to reach out and call him, but my priority was to honor his wishes. Then one day I felt a tug in my heart. I knew.  Waiting to see if perhaps I was wrong, I called his cell phone. His wife answered, "Gloria, I knew you would find out, He passed four days ago, and I refuse to talk to anyone, except you. That's what Bob would have wanted." 

I cried uncontrollably alongside her tears, "I'm so sorry Kasha, but I had no choice a year ago when he declared he was done coming to see me and was now ready to go."

"What?!" Kasha startled me, He wasn't coming to see you every Monday?"

"No,” I answered confused, “he told me he was done with life. I thought you knew, I'm sorry I failed him, you and your daughter." I cried on the phone.

"Are you kidding! you gave us eight more years with him, fixed our financial concerns and got him to be happy again. We will always be grateful to you."  

It’s taken me these last four years to finally understand the impact Bob and I had in one another’s life. We were of two very different worlds colliding and creating infinite possibilities in one new world; as I, his teacher, learnt through the unfolding of his magnificent long lived life. I thought of a poem by Rumi: 

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.

Be melting snow. Wash yourself of yourself.

Only from the heart can you touch the sky.

Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion.

Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.” 

I tried to take heart from that poem when I thought of Bob.