Eulogy for Dr. Jorge

Dr. Jorge Mariano Cury died on Saturday and this is my attempt to commemorate his life.

I have had 3 "fathers" in my life:

A hopeless alcoholic we escaped from when I was 7;

A functioning but abusive alcoholic we lived with for the rest of my childhood;

and Dr. Jorge Cury, the only real father I have ever known.

I won a scholarship from AFS to be an exchange student in 1969, through some miracle where a screening committee somehow didn't see how messed up my home life actually was; or else they did see, and thought I deserved rescue.

I was sent to Birigui, a then-small town 700 miles inland from Sao Paulo in Brazil, to live for a year. It was like going to the end of the world, completely different in every way from the environment I had grown up in. A huge challenge with a truly life changing and wonderful outcome, thanks in part to Dr. Jorge, my AFS father.

Dr. Jorge was a real Dad in the family: hard working, steady, and interested in our lives. As we sat around the dining table, he would ask how things were going. Believe it or not, this was a new experience for me - someone you could count on to be there, to be the same, and to care about you the same, every single day.

Dr. Jorge had a degree in Pharmacology and a little business called "Laboratorio de Analises Clinicas" around the corner from our house. Among other things, he ran tests for the local hospital. My Brazilian Mom, Dona Iracema, would help him there in the afternoons when she was finished teaching elementary school. He also sometimes assisted with anaesthesia drugs for surgeries. When he learned I was interested in biology and had volunteered in a hospital, he got me in to watch an actual operation, standing right next to the surgeon (imagine that ever happening here!).

I learned from the local English teacher (the only person I could communicate with in the first month or so) that my placement in this family was in part an attempt to help Dr. Jorge handle the grief from the sudden and terrible accidental death of a 17-year-old nephew who was like his own son. At the time she told me this, she was trying (I think) to get me to realize how important my behavior was, since I was going through an adolescent "I hate this, I'm homesick, get me out of here" phase in those initial weeks. It kind of made things worse at the time (now I got to have guilt on top of everything) but now, looking back, I can only hope that with all my early teenage angst, my presence did end up being some help to him.

I always felt like he was a friend to me. He treated me like an equal, never like the dumbo American I usually felt in those early days. He never talked down to me, even though my Portuguese was initially a kind of dictionary-wielding pidgin based on French. I really appreciated his basic dignity, intelligence, and attention.

I last saw Dr. Jorge 11 years ago when I returned for a visit. I remember two things he said then: that he wished he'd had the opportunity to see the USA but didn't think it was going to happen in this lifetime; and that "that Paula Jones thing is just somebody setting Clinton up, don't you think?".

Dr. Jorge, I will miss you, and I am so sorry I didn't get to say goodbye.

Spiritual Brain Dump

(Sequel to the post that follows this, I forgot how blogs work.)

I'm basically a Buddhist-with-extras these days, notably Adyashanti, Cheri Huber, and ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) work. (Don't tell Cheri I called her an "extra", LOL). Here's a list of everything I have found especially useful lately.
(Note: I tried to do this with the "link" thingie but none of the links came out, so I'm just giving titles, you can search on your own).

Best all around spiritual book, the one I come back to again and again, and it's by some guy who hasn't written much else, has no group, or anything but wow, what a set of teachings: The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer.

Cheri Huber for Beginners: How to Get From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be, and Suffering is Optional.

Cheri Huber for Zen Students (and Others): Sweet Zen.

Adyashanti, one of the greatest teachers of all time (note he gives a talk in Palo Alto every couple of months, don't miss it if you live around here): http://www.adyashanti.org/

My favorite Adyashanti book: True Meditation

ACT:

The Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living by Russ Harris and Steven Hayes

Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life by Steven Hayes

And finally, one I'm currently reading that's a treasure trove of information about the human brain and why compassion practice is key to ending suffering and waking up: The Compassionate Mind by Paul Gilbert.

Spirtual Serendipity

So.  Today something happened that said  basically "ML, you have to start a blog about this stuff."  Therefore, I am starting one.

(Details about me will arise eventually but first I need to get this "on paper".)

Incident #1: Due to the various activities involved in preparations for my upcoming retirement-research trip to Brazil, I failed to go to bed early enough to get up at 4 AM and go to San Francisco to participate in a run/swim event I had planned to do at the South End Rowing Club, to which I have been dedicated for over a year now. What's up with that? Where'd my discipline go? Vague sense of "this isn't right".


Incident #2: In the night, I dreamed I was in an interview at Google along with a couple of my co-workers who were also interviewing.  We were given this test to do that involved finding a silhouette in a scrambled background.  Despite just knowing that I am surely one of the best technical writers on the planet, I could not solve the puzzle. So I stormed out of there, "I didn't want to work for friggin Google anyway, they're a stupid cult." Met another Google employee who said "Oh yeah, that's the Dr. Josephson test, it's totally ridiculous but we humor him." Felt conflicted. Maybe I should go back, I really need to be this tech writer person. Back in the room, everybody's eating a Google free lunch, but there's none for me because I've rebelled. I leave the building and start walking down the street back to my old job.


Incident #3: Get up kind of late, due to aforementioned sense of guilt and also a warm cat. Head out for a run at the San Antonio Baylands, much later than I ever go, 10:30 in the morning. As I'm beginning my run, I hear "Hi MaryLee" and who is it but...an old Zen buddy I haven't seen in months, who's a manager at...Google.

In the course of running along together he tells me all sorts of stuff about his life and how stressful it's gotten in management. I share some things I've been reading and thinking about along the lines of mid-life and what to do when things seem stuck, which for some reason seem to seriously help him! Promise to send him a little "spiritual brain dump" of useful sources.

OK, so, I'm really not into all that "supposed to happen, fate and karma" stuff, but what was up with that?.


Next:The spiritual brain dump.