Life Will Be the Death of Me: . . . and You Too!(42)

Shana had just gotten a call from a man claiming to be my father’s son. His story was that my dad got his mother pregnant right before my father met my mother, and that when said woman came to tell my father she was pregnant, my dad told her he was getting married and to back off. The son was interested in my father’s medical history for the purpose of his and his children’s genetic inheritance. My sister told our new brother that our dad had a lot of health issues. That he was alive, but in decline.

    Our new brother told Shana that, ideally, he’d like to talk to my father, to which she responded, “You’re going to be disappointed. He’s old, and he’s not completely with it. He’s a real piece of work.”

Shana conveyed all of this to me in an email with a photo of our so-called brother attached. He looked more like my father than any of us.

I remember that the very act of her sending that information via email made me laugh so hard that I ran to the bathroom when I read it.

Now I was sitting in Peru, laughing again. Her treatment of such serious news in the form of an email tells you everything there is to say about my father; nothing surprised any of us anymore. We had all had it with him, but for Shana to throw her hands up was particularly amusing. It was like a priest finally declaring, “Yes, I do want a hit of that joint. Enough is enough.”

Later, when Shana and I spoke on the phone, she filled in some details of how she confronted my father about his illegitimate son. This was the scene that played out for me word for word, in a real-time pace, during the ayahuasca trip. It was like watching a play.

“So, Dad, I got a call from Anthony,” Shana said.

“Who’s that?”

Shana was walking with the pizza that had just been delivered and plopped it on my father’s lap as he sat on the beach towel.

“Your son. The son you had before you married Mom. The woman you told to take a hike when she came to you to tell you she was pregnant? Anthony?”

    “Oh, Tony,” he said, as if they spoke about him regularly. Then he opened the pizza box and asked, “Why is it full pepperoni, when I asked for half mushroom, half pepperoni?”

“Pepperoni, Dad? I got a call from your son Anthony today. Do you know who that is?”

“Ah, Anthony. What did he say?”

“What did he say?” she screamed at him. “What did he say?!”

My sister doesn’t have one iota of incredulity in her day-to-day life. She never screams or yells or throws fits. She never loses her temper. She’s a nurse, and she’s soft and nice and sweet, just like my mother was.

“What do you have to say, Dad? What do you have to say for yourself?” Shana screamed at him. “You have another son whose mother came to you and told you she was pregnant and you blew her off, and this kid has grown up with a father who raised six other children, without ever acknowledging him? How do you think that made him feel? How could you not care about your own son? What is wrong with you, and how many other Anthonys are out there?”

“What else did he say?” my dad asked, unperturbed, trying to angle two stuck-together pieces of pizza into his piehole.

“Who?”

“Anthony,” he clarified, recovering one of the pieces of pizza that had fallen on the beach towel. “What else did Anthony say?”

    “No, Dad. My question is: What do you have to say? What do you have to say for yourself?!”

This was one of my favorite moments for Shana. She was finally standing up for something. She was fighting. She had had enough, and she was fierce. She had outrage. I sat there in my hut in Peru, beaming. And then—it hit me.

The realization that I liked my sister the most when she acted the way I would have. Oh, my God.

My sister had my outrage; she just used it more sparingly. My way wasn’t the only way and it wasn’t the right way. There are many ways.

As soon as that clicked in, the images stopped and reshuffled.

The next thoughts in my head were telling me that it was okay to be by myself. That I didn’t need so many people around me all the time. That I was enough on my own, and that more time alone would be good for me. That there was too much clatter, too many people always swirling in and around my life—that happiness can come without all that noise, and that I can choose to find that happiness alone.

Ironically, this was happening at the same time I was contemplating going downstairs to tell the crew and Molly what had just happened. I was hearing that I had a choice to stay and see where this would take me or to default to my comfort zone, which has always been and most likely always will be socializing. The voice was my own subconscious, telling me, It’s okay to be alone, it’s a choice you can make, while the other part of me was thinking, But I really want to go downstairs and hang out with my friends.

I had made a huge discovery, and for me that was enough.

    “I’m good,” I said, opening my eyes. Then I got up, wiped the tears off my face, went downstairs, ordered a vodka on the rocks, and told everyone what had happened.



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I loved my experience with ayahuasca. Ayahuasca doesn’t make you feel euphoric. It’s not like Ecstasy, where you feel sexual and open and you love everyone. It isn’t a social drug; it is a solitary experience. I remember every minute of it. I had this overwhelming feeling of love, and a feeling of looking at my life outside of my life. A total shift in perspective. It’s a wake-up call, and I can see how it saves people. Ayahuasca isn’t a drug I would recommend for everyone. If you have dark thoughts, it could take you down a dark path, but if you don’t have a fearful disposition and are fairly open-minded, there’s a chance you could get something giant out of it. A metanoia.