My Dad, Bob Myers

I didn’t expect that caring for the man who abandoned me would be the thing that finally softened my heart.

This is the story of my father—and the soul work, the karmic work, that existed between us.

My father, Bob Myers, married my mother, and together they had three children—my sister Terri, my brother David three years later, and then me, three years after that.

When we were young—eight, five, and two—my father divorced our mother.

The reasons he gave were superficial. He said she was too social.

 A “social butterfly.”

A “social climber.”

He criticized her for things like making fancy Jell-O salads.

What he didn’t tell her was that he was having an affair.

He had fallen in love with a local bartender—a woman named Marty, who also worked at the racetrack as a flagger (I can’t make this up lol)—and he was involved with her while my mother was pregnant with me.

And so, one day he calls her from work to say he is coming home for lunch and during said lunch, proceeded to read a list of all the reasons he wanted a divorce. And just like that, he left.

Back then, custody leaned heavily toward the mother, so we saw him one weekend a month and a couple of weeks in the summer. Most of those visits were spent at his home in Mansfield.

I remember a lot of time alone—wandering in cornfields, figuring out how to entertain myself.

But I also remember that he tried, in his own way.

He taught us how to fish.

Took us water skiing.

Introduced me to canoeing.

He made the time feel like something.

But he didn’t fight for more time.

And somewhere deep down, I believe he didn’t think he deserved it.

By the time I was in high school, he had divorced Marty and married Joyce—a kind, gentle woman he would stay with for the next 40 years.

They were nice people. But emotionally… unavailable.

They moved 35 times in 40 years. They never rooted themselves anywhere—or with anyone.

And they never built deep relationships with their children or grandchildren.

I remember, as an adult, finally finding the courage to tell him the truth:

That my anger toward him wasn’t really anger. It was hurt.

It was the feeling of wanting a relationship with him—only to have him come and go, over and over again, like a rug being pulled out from underneath me.

I told him my heart had hardened because of that. He didn’t do much with that information. And later in the same conversation, he criticized me.

Over time, I adjusted my expectations.

We saw him maybe once a year—holidays, birthdays. It was fine. Tolerable.

He and Joyce often struggled financially and carried a kind of martyr energy—“woe is me.”
And if I’m being honest, my siblings and I didn’t have much patience for it.

It took me years to move through the anger, the irritation, the disappointment.

And eventually, to arrive at something that looked like acceptance.

Asha helped with that, too.

Or I should say, my spirit team, including my mother, had helped me have better understanding of his human tendencies and the meaning behind them.

It wasn’t an excuse, but it took a little bit of the sting away from his insensitive and selfish behaviors.

In one reading, Asha kept bringing my dad into the conversation and mentioned multiple times that “time is ticking”.

I asked her if that meant he was going to die soon?

She explained that she was not in the business to predict how people die or provide a death date, but she sensed that his time was getting closer, maybe 3-5 years.

She wasn’t telling that to me as a “prediction” but more encouraging me to work on any relationship issues while he was still on earth.

We can continue to heal with our loved ones on the other side, but it’s more impactful for our soul’s growth if we can resolve things while we are still in the “living”.

From that reading, I began to try to accept my father for the way he was, be honest with him about my feelings, and no longer push my “agendas” on him.

Honestly, there were so many layers to working through my relationship with my father, and it wasn't easy.

But with time, I was able to tolerate being with him and Joyce while maintaining healthy emotional boundaries.

Then Joyce was diagnosed with cancer and everything changed.

We became more involved with their lives to help support them through her illness as our father was very confused and overwhelmed as a caregiver.

Joyce was diagnosed in August and died on Christmas Eve in a nursing home. I’m glad she didn’t suffer too long with her illness, but the last couple months of her life were pretty dim.

Once Joyce was gone, it became very clear that our father was struggling cognitively—early dementia—and suddenly we went from seeing him once a year, to managing his life.

We visited monthly. Then more. We coordinated calls—each of us assigned days. (My Virgo moon was fully activated.)

I became responsible for his medical care and my brother handled finances and Medicaid. My sister lived out of state and was there to support us emotionally, but my brother and I were carrying the weight of most everything.

We moved him into independent senior living so he wouldn’t be alone.

And there we were, caring for the man who had not cared for us.

I would show up feeling irritated and angry. Resentful. But also doing it anyway with a smile on my face.

I know my dad could sense my frustration at times, but it was mostly coming from a place of fear and worry that my dad would accidentally harm himself or others as he was still driving and living independently.

No one prepares you for taking care of your aging parents. It was quite an eye opening and overwhelming experience. It’s always good to find support.

Then came February 2024.

I had just returned from a yoga retreat in Panama.

I called him. No answer.
Called again. Nothing.

My siblings hadn’t heard from him either.

A neighbor finally called the police.

They broke down his door and found him on the floor—where he had been for two and a half days.

Dehydrated. Bruised. Covered in urine and feces. Confused.

And somehow still alive.

I drove to Mansfield and sat with him in the hospital for 2 days.

I hadn’t even unpacked yet from my trip, but thankfully, a week of yoga and the rainforest kept me grounded.

He needed to go to rehab and I had to help coordinate his transfer to a rehab in Columbus.

Closer to Cincinnati, but far enough away that I would not feel burdened. Ha!  The whole thing was burdening!

My siblings and I had no desire to live in the same city with him, so we tried to find something in the middle.

And when I left the hospital that afternoon he was being transferred to Columbus, feeling relieved to be going home to get some rest…I lost it.

Standing in the parking lot, I sobbed.

But what shocked me wasn’t the tears.

It was the feeling underneath them.

Compassion.

Real, undeniable compassion for my father.

I remember thinking, What is this?

I don’t think I had felt that for him since I was twelve years old.

And in that moment, I saw him differently.

Not as “my father”—the role he failed in.

But as a human being.

Fragile. Broken. Vulnerable.

And something in me opened.

I also knew—on a deeper level—that this was part of something bigger.

A year prior, someone had told me that my father and I shared karmic ties. That we had lived other lifetimes together, working things out.

I laughed when I first heard it.

Of course we were.

That made more sense than anything else.

A few days later, I went to a women’s circle focused on Human Design.

We did a meditation, and I chose to focus on my father.

When it came time to share, I spoke—honestly, vulnerably—about what I was feeling.

Why was I, the most overlooked child, the most emotional?

Why did I care this much?

The facilitator paused.

She said, “I need to step out of the training for a moment… I’m also intuitive, and I can’t ignore this.”

Then she looked at me and said:

“They are telling me that you have had many past lives with your father. In one of them, you were his mother and he died at a very young age.”

I felt it immediately.

Chills. Tears. A full-body knowing.

Truth.

And that shifted everything.

I still cared for him for the next eight months—through hospitals, rehab, and eventually moving him to Cincinnati so I could be closer.

But I cared for him differently.

Through a new lens.

The irritation softened.

The resentment loosened.

And in its place came compassion, patience… even something maternal.

During that time, I also became trained in Reiki.

And I was able to offer him something we had never had before—a connection beyond words.

Because words were never going to be the thing that healed us.

He was never going to apologize.

Never going to take responsibility.

And for the first time… I didn’t need him to.

He spent the last three months of his life in a nursing facility in Cincinnati.

And in a twist I still can’t fully explain, my father—who could never be alone—ended up with a girlfriend.

Sharon.

She sat with him every day. Held his hand.
Told me they had known each other since they were four years old.

At the time, I thought… that’s a little crazy.

But now? Well, I still do realize the woman had dementia, but after everything I’ve come to believe about soul contracts and lifetimes, maybe it wasn’t crazy at all.

Maybe she was part of his story long before this lifetime.

Maybe she came back so he wouldn’t have to leave this world alone. Who knows?

And me?

I got something I never thought I would.

A small break in the caregiving. It was a relief to know that my dad was not sitting by himself staring out a window for the last few months of his life.

Not a repaired relationship.

But something deeper.

Understanding.

Compassion.

Closure.

He died alone early on Thanksgiving morning.

I always had a sense that my dad would choose to die alone.

You hear stories like that about death.

Some people seem to hold on until they can see one last family member before they let go.

Others wait until their loved ones step out of the room for just a few moments, and then they quietly pass.

I don't know why people make those choices, or if they even are choices.

But I couldn't help wondering if, for my dad, being alone felt familiar.

He spent much of his life emotionally alone.

He never seemed comfortable letting people see the deeper parts of himself, and he and Joyce lived very much in their own little world.

They weren't people who developed deep, intimate relationships, even with those closest to them.

As I've reflected on his life, I've also wondered if there was an unconscious sense of shame he carried.

Not because he was a bad man, but because somewhere deep inside he knew there were relationships he hadn't fully shown up for.

I don't know if that's true, and I never will.

It's simply something I've found myself wondering as I've tried to make sense of both his life and his death.

Whatever the reason, he left this world the same way he had often lived it—quietly and alone.

One last ironic observation...

My siblings and I used to joke that Dad and Joyce always needed attention.

Then they both died on major holidays.

If there is such a thing as cosmic humor... that one wasn't lost on me.

Six months after my dad passed, I received a reading from Asha and spent an hour talking with him, receiving answers I never thought I'd get.

It brought a level of healing and resolution I didn't know was possible.

But that... is a story for the next blog.