Category: Death

2025 Day 20: RIP Carmel

2025-0120M-2219 Austin, TX

Monday night before 10:19pm, I got a call from the one good friend who knew me when I met Carmel.

“Have you heard from Carmel?”, V asked. “I saw a post that she died.”

In that moment, I felt myself in between realities. One in which the post was true and the other in which it wasn’t. I found it difficult to accept that Carmel was dead. I had just exchanged birthday greetings with her a few months ago.

It’s now Tuesday as I write this. I have had time to verify from her son D that Carmel decided to leave this world. I am both in shock now and also in acceptance. Carmel impacted my life greatly during the time that I spent time with her. I met her a couple of months after my divorce in Santa Cruz. The first page of my Surfing the Multiverse book (https://surfingtheuniverse.com/2015/11/23/surfing-the-multiverse-increasing-your-happiness-one-universe-at-a-time/) was written while I was with her at UCSC. On my birthday in 2015, I wrote about her father’s death (https://surfingtheuniverse.com/2015/11/27/page-56-death-in-the-multiverse/).

Carmel at Big Sur, Dec. 4, 2016

Carmel summarized herself as “too complex and whimsical to summarize”. She loved variety, spontaneity, new adventures, learning new things, physical activity, fresh air, and meeting new people everywhere she went. She was best when improvising in the moment. She had an almost obsessive drive to squeeze the juice out of life and live life to its fullest. I just imagined Will Ferrell playing Gene Freckle in the famous SNL skit, More Cowbell.

Carmel loved to remember funny parts of a movie “just cuz I love to laugh”, she said. One of her favorite movies was Get Him to the Greek. This was guaranteed to satisfy her love of laughing.

Carmel, I’m grateful for all of the adventures we shared and happy memories we created. You continue to inspire me to live life to its fullest. RIP Carmel.

Santa Cruz Lighthouse, 6:53am, Dec. 8, 2015 (Photo Credit: surfingtheuniverse.com)

2025 Day 1: Five Year Anniversary of Waking up in a New Universe – RIP Buddy Ollie

2025-0101W-2020 Austin, TX

On the first day of 2020 I decided to try blogging daily beginning with https://surfingtheuniverse.com/2020/01/01/2020-day-1-seeing-is-believing-good-morning-new-universe/. I purposely chose that day to start. I felt a strong urge to do so. I also believed my chances of daily blogging were higher. Starting on a date well known for people trying to change their life and adopt new habits seemed strategic. I still believe in trusting instincts. It’s also important to take advantage of the new year to form new habits. Today, I noticed a very strong urge to restart blogging again, not necessarily daily, but consistently. Let’s see how things play out this time.

Today I definitely woke up in a new universe as well. My friend’s dog passed away last night. I sometimes called him Buddy Ollie. He was in my bathroom this morning until just an hour ago. I didn’t grow up with a pet and so never went through the death of a pet. I’m not including the eight aquariums that my Dad bought and filled with a mixture of fish. Counting the dead fish was a regular morning occurrence for the few weeks afterwards. Today felt strange. I tried to live my life as I normally would. In the background, my mind kept remembering there is a dead dog in my bathroom. His death seemed near the last few days and much closer yesterday. My friend and I were with him as he took his last few spaced out breaths. A couple hours later, the fireworks exploded in the night sky. They burst over the back fence as everyone celebrated the coming of the new year. The loud noises frightened my friend’s two puppies and their bodies trembled as we held them to calm them down.

Being with Buddy Ollie as he passed on reminded me of being with my Uncle when he was near death. I was with my Uncle a few minutes before he died. It was difficult to watch him struggle – he had requested a natural death at home. I left to walk around his house and when I returned, he had taken his last breath. For me, both deaths felt similar. My friend felt an energy move behind her shortly after her dog’s death. It seemed to move to one of her new puppies. While I still ponder the existence of a spirit world, I don’t imagine it being exclusive to humanity.