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Dancing with Death – The Tom Boyington Braveheart Story
Tom Braveheart….I only
started calling him that toward the end. I think if I would have added anything
to his name before that it would have been Tom Sweetheart, that was always how
he was with me. That's Tom on the right with me in the accompanying
photo.
It was maybe 5 years ago,
after a Dance in SLC, that this slender fellow appeared in front of me for a
hug. After the hug he reached in his pocket and gave me a small rose-quartz
crystal heart. I still have it. Little did I know that it was the beginning of
a wonderful friendship and journey. I saw a lot of Tom
after that and it was at a Wilderness Dance Camp that he told me he had colon
cancer. I hugged him again since I had nothing to say. Then we went back to the
Dance.
Tom was interested in a lot
of spiritual things and continued to deepen in the Dances. He started to attend
all the Oneness Council meetings and worked with the financial committee so we
connected again. I think here is where I discovered some other aspects of
personality; he had a tendency to procrastinate but when he did work on a task
he was very thorough. Like any quality or tendency they can work for or against
us. His procrastination may have shortened his time here with us but his
thoroughness, applied to his friends even more than his tasks, turned into a
care-fullness that filled and lengthened the Moment. I very much enjoyed being
with Tom, he really listened and thought about what I said and his responses
were well thought out.
As his health declined
Tom’s dancing increased. During the last couple of years I would see him at
every retreat. It was sometime in late 1998 that he told me the cancer was
spreading and he wanted to do only the "important" things. For him
that meant even more Dancing, but also on the list was a Space Shuttle launch
and seeing the new Star Wars movie. Oftentimes, Tom would wait til the last moment to decide what to do. Our family was
planning a big trip to New
Zealand for both Dancing and vacationing.
While traveling previous to flying across the world I got an email from Tom
(then in Florida)
saying he had signed up for the NZ Dance retreat and was jumping on a series of
airplanes to get there.
The NZ experience was
wonderful for all of us….eight dancing days at the Mana Retreat
Center on the beautiful Coromandel peninsula (not to mention the weeks of
body-surfing hiking and biking!). In the course of a deeply spiritual and
transformative retreat Tom met and fell in love with Vilasini,
a very wonderful and volatile woman from Australia. I was flabbergasted when
Tom asked me if I would marry them then and there, which, though amazed by the
rapidity, but considering Tom’s situation, I did. After the retreat we all
jammed into our small station wagon; Ginger and I, our kids, Sam and Miriel, Tom and Vilasini, one
guitar, 2 drums, etc., etc.. Tom’s health took a rapid
turn for the worst and we had to take him to the nearest hospital emergency
room. It was there, after various tests and xrays, that the doctors said
the cancer had spread to Tom’s lungs and other places. The doctors inserted a
catheter in Tom and his current crisis stabilized. We had heard fabulous
reports of a woman sufi
saint living a short distance away and decided to swing by and drop Tom and Vilasini off there (they were heading to Australia shortly). We ended up
spending 3 days with Halima at her Sharda Center. Halima’s
life (she’s 84), vision and service are documented in a video produced by Anahata called "The Hidden Jewel of New Zealand".
A wonderful, unassumng, no-nonsense spirit radiated
from Halima and infused us all. We went our separate
ways and shortly after Tom and Vilasini got to Melbourne they had a big
blowup….I could feel it all the way from NZ. About 3 weeks later on our way home,
we had a brief layover in Fiji;
and surprise!, up walks Tom. He was returning home,
somewhat shell-shocked from his experience with Vilasini.
It was at this point that we reconfirmed with Tom our invitation to stay with
us if he felt that was the best spot for him.
After bouncing around for
about a month (filled, of course, with Dancing) Tom landed in Bozeman. One of Tom’s wishes was to be with
his extended Dance family again. This was answered in a sizable fashion at the
140 strong Easter Oneness retreat at Lava Hot Springs. Tom was having a lot of
pain in his neck and when we got back to Bozeman
x-rays had confirmed there was a tumor on his upper spine. The doctors said it
would continue to deteriorate and become more unstable and that his neck could actually
break and, because of where it was, it could stop his breathing. Tom told me
that it was like knowing that he was going to be in a possibly fatal car wreck
soon, but not exactly when. Tom went off with a friend to see his parents in Spokane and his 17 and 19 year-old sons in Idaho Falls. We got a
call a few days later that Tom’s neck had destabilized and he was breathing OK
but unable to stand or even sit for long. We jumped in the van and went down
and brought him back to Bozeman.
He was checked over at the hospital and the next day he came home with us, not
to leave again, at least not in this earth-body. The oncologists gave him a
couple of weeks to live. We made arrangements with the fantastic Hospice people
in Bozeman for
backup help. There was an unceasing support during Tom’s last two months. Do
not fail to contact your local hospice group in a similar situation….they were
a wonderful comfort and help to Tom and the rest of us.
A constant flow of
Blessings, or call them miracles, streamed into us in the ensuing weeks. The
Sunday after Tom first moved into my bedroom (I moved into my office) we had
the first of several public Dances in our living room rather than in our normal
rented meeting space. We couldn’t move Tom to the Dances so we moved the Dances
to him! Sort of a new wrinkle on the mountain to Mohammed’s
adage. There were approximately 30 folks with out-of-town visitors as
well at this first Dance. We circled up around Tom’s hospital bed for the
Toward the One Invocation. As Tom was literally leading the Way he
appropriately led us in the Invocation. We started by singing some Dances
around him and then proceeded into the living room for Dancing. Maybe it was
the second or third Dance, right in the middle of it,
we formed a snake and Danced right back into Tom’s room and around his bed.
It’s not a big bedroom so we overflowed up on to my unused bed and filled every
bit of space. We continued to Dance in some fashion….though restricted in
external space the internal connection with Spirit soared. The whole evening
was beyond magical. Tom’s imminence with Death brought us all naturally into a
place of Presence that I for one rarely access with such completeness. I will
never forget that evening, it ranks on my personal
all-time best Dance events.
The following weeks settled
into some sort of routine. Tom’s folks were in contact with us. After about a
week they drove over in their RV and settled it in a Bozeman RV park. Tom’s
Dad, Jim, pretty much was with us every day for the duration. Tom’s Mom,
Bobbie, was also though it was harder for her to handle Tom’s deteriorating
physical condition. Nuria was around and did a lot for Tom during the days.
Since I work at home I was around a lot too. I pretty much had the night shift
with Tom to myself until Penny Lippincott started
driving 2hrs each way from ID to spend many nites
with him. She would often leave very late or very early to get back in time for
work. She was quite amazingly wonderful. Other of Tom’s friends started showing
up, sometimes staying for days. Tom’s boys, Scott, 19, and Andy, 17, showed up
and stayed for a week or so. Schooling and military service required them to
return to their normal lives. It was beautiful to see Tom and his boys
rediscover their love and respect for each other.
Tom was quite a computer
jock. We set up his laptop on a swing-over table that Hospice got us. Tom would
hammer away at various things from emails to fix-its
for any of his friends that came to him with technical problems. I would be up
late at night, working in my office, just on the other side of the wall from
him, and I would get emails and other electronic stuff from him. One time we
were emailing back and forth until I finally yelled, "Let’s cut it out!
I’m only 10 feet away," and walked into his room. Because of his technical
know-how I would go to him a lot and even though he was always in pain Tom was
continually working on solutions.
Tom’s Dad, Pappy, and his 2
brothers were, or still are, in the U.S. Air Force; jet pilots or support
personnel. Fighter pilots are not the usual DUP material but they got into it
every time we danced when they happened to be here at the house. And they
always sang, or tried to sing, even though I’m sure it was unfamiliar airspace
for them! Pappy, normally quite capable of crustiness, really seemed to take a
liking to it.
Just a couple of weeks
before Tom Danced onwards a really wonderful thing
happened. Shree Ma, a truly saintly bhajan singer from India
came to do some public kirtan in Bozeman. She and her group were staying at
dancers Tony & Kay’s house and
they had spoken of Tom’s situation. Toward the end of a public event Shree Ma was giving individual blessings with water from
the Ganges. I spoke to her main American
disciple, who I only know as Swamiji, about Tom and
asked if there was anything they could do. Lo and behold, the next morning Shree Ma and Swamiji show up
along with Tony & Kay. Everybody
(about 10 of us, including Pappy) piled into Tom’s room and Shree
Ma sat down next to Tom, took his hand and started to sing. Tom lit up like a
light bulb. Ma had more holy water and liberally used it on Tom. After a bit
(actually a Bit) the flow moved on. Before Ma left she hugged Nuria and I and
thanked us for doing what we were doing. And then she was gone. Pappy was one
of the first to speak, "well, I’ve been around some supposedly powerful
people, four star Generals and the like, but not a one of ‘em
can hold a candle to that little lady!"
Tom increasing weakened
physically and spent a lot of time out of his body. We would be talking and he
would stop in mid-sentence and go away for minutes or more at a stretch and
then come back and pick up right where he left off. Sometimes he would put the
most peculiar things together but if I relaxed and went with the flow they
often had a profound connection to them. He started to be less and less
interested in food and he was losing functionality in his arms and legs. We
also had to up his dosage of morphine and other drugs. Sometimes the drugs
would mask the pain but more often Tom would just go away. At this point both
Tom’s brothers and his Dad were staying with us and there was one of us with
him around the clock…..Tom liked that. I’m having a little trouble remembering
exactly how his last days were. We were all on a vigil, keeping strange hours,
and in somewhat of an altered state. One evening Tom suddenly seemed to rally,
he asked for the telephone and had us dial a few friends and his sons; either
he spoke for awhile if they were home or we left messages for him. That night
was very hard. There was a part of me that wished he would let go. I even spoke
to him of that and said I thought he had done and was doing a wonderful job.
The next day he slept a lot but we all stayed around. That evening, again he
was awake and in a lot of pain. It got very difficult so the only thing I could
think to do was sing and play to him, with Nuria
joining in and Bill and Mike and Pappy there, all sitting close. Tom was really
struggling; he couldn’t breathe or get into the chanting. I heard him say,
"I don’t understand," and I said I don’t either and then he said it
again and I said he didn’t have to understand. I tried a different sacred
phrase, "Om Nama Shivaya" and he began to be with that and then we did
some Zikr and he whispered and joined with that and
then flowed into unconsciousness. That affirmation of eternal Unity was the
last whispered words that Tom ever spoke. He ceased breathing a few hours
later.
Tom Boyington
became Tom Braveheart to me. And his life and his
death have made my heart braver too. Thank you my brother, my son, my father,
my friend. We Dance On.
Written in installments
over the last year of Tom's life by Narayan Eric Waldman
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