[00:00:01] Luke: So here we go, Alyson. We've had some deep conversations on the podcast over the years. This one for me will likely be the deepest. Now, I can't say that for those listening or for you, but in light of the topic today, I have no idea what's going to happen. So it's a bit of a trust fall. What I do know is that my beloved dad left his body exactly three weeks ago.

[00:00:29] Alyson: Today.

[00:00:30] Luke: Three weeks ago today, 21 days ago. And so the past three weeks have been a process of learning how to celebrate that, grieve that, and--

[00:00:46] Alyson: Trust in that.

[00:00:47] Luke: Yeah, trust in that. It's a process of reconciliation, making sense of an even deeper aspect of the human experience and of my life. And things feel just different. It's a different world now.

[00:01:09] And so my intention with our chat today, and thank you for your ongoing willingness to support me and all the things, including this process, is to maybe just unpack some of what the experience has been like and what I hope it will continue to bring forth and unfold, hopefully, in an inspiring way for other people that have lost someone they deeply love, or those of us who have not yet, but certainly will.

[00:01:43] Alyson: It's also a very specific a parental crossing over, I think, obviously, brings with it a very unique texture that's potentially unlike other people crossing over. It's the lineage. It's one of the two people that brought you into this earth that are exiting out of the earth plane. And so it's a very specific type of journey that you've been on, for sure.

[00:02:15] Luke: Yeah, it's deep. And having only really experienced-- and I've experienced loss, I think the end of relationships of whatever variety have been some level of grief. But oftentimes the things that I determined to be grief is more maybe just a profound disappointment and you just have an idea about the way things were going to go.

[00:02:44] Whereas this is something I never doubted would go any other way. I just didn't know how or when. And to your point, yeah, knowing someone for 54 years since day one is a much different experience than losing a job or a friend or a dream that came into your life at one point and then left. This was like a beginning to the end.

[00:03:18] Alyson: Yeah. There will be a lot to unpack and a lot to explore and a lot to share. I can feel the beauty in all of it, and it has been--- truthfully, it's been a really beautiful experience overall. To me, it's already taught me so much. And I'm not at all trying to compare, but it's been interesting how just in a matter of months I was able to hold Jelly Bean Harry Gato, our 18-year-old cat as he crossed the rainbow bridge and held him in my arms.

[00:04:00] And he was such a teacher to me in very specific certain ways of what the death process can look like, does feel like, especially when you're holding them in your arms and then just a few short months later to have the honor to witness a human in that process and to be able to gain wisdom and experience from this other type of witnessing.

[00:04:34] It's so profound, and there is so much beauty in it. Yes, there's loss, but it's just a change of form. It's a change of the essence. It's a change of texture. That's why I don't like to call it-- what do they call it? What do most people say when--

[00:04:55] Luke: Passed away.

[00:04:56] Alyson: Passed away, passed away. To me, that doesn't resonate as the way of explaining it. I don't say Luke's dad passed away. I say Luke's dad crossed over. To me, they carry two very different feelings.

[00:05:12] Luke: Yeah. I guess there's a difference between going away and going over there.

[00:05:17] Alyson: Yeah.

[00:05:17] Luke: He's in a different place, but not gone. Yeah.

[00:05:24] Alyson: I would love, in a couple of moments, if you would share the beautiful obituary that you had the honor of writing for Alan Andrew Storey. But before we get into that, I would just love to hear, so far, you're three weeks in this portal of your father crossing over, and in terms of your grief process so far, what has surprised you?

[00:05:51] When I'm holding you and you're crying, has there been a main theme of those? Because typically I just hold you, and I'm just holding space. I don't ask you too often when you're in that experience, what are you crying about? What are the tears mostly over?

[00:06:13] Luke: Yeah, it's interesting. Oftentimes, when a wave of grief wants to move through, it's quite spontaneous and not necessarily associated with much thought or memory. It's more of a somatic experience. We were looking at some video content of him earlier, and that really hit home because I've never watched that before. It probably was the greatest idea before trying to have some level of composure for this episode. But sometimes it is spurned by a photo or a video or something like that.

[00:07:01] Alyson: Or hearing his voice.

[00:07:02] Luke: Yeah. Which I'm doing intentionally in a tempered way so I can still keep my life together and not completely get swallowed up in it. But yeah, it's a really deep sadness that's even beyond memories and things like that.

[00:07:29] Sometimes those spark it, but I think it's a part of me-- I don't want to say is gone because, as we just said, it's not like that part's gone because everything he instilled in me and all the gifts he bestowed upon me and all the wisdom and love and all of the things are still in my field.

[00:07:50] But yeah, it's just like a deep hurt that just stands on its own. And I've said this to a few people recently that I've shared this with that haven't lost their parents. And they say what I used to say for years, is like, man, I can only imagine what you're going through. I literally have no idea what that feels like.

[00:08:13] And I used to say that every time because what else are you going to say? Just, "Hey, I feel for you, but I can't have the empathy that I could, had I experienced that specific situation." So they've said that to me and it's like, wow, what a gift to now know, at least in a sense what that's like.

[00:08:36] I'll never again say when someone else loses their dad, "Well, I have no idea what you're going through." And it's, of course, very individual. But now I know, and what I know about it is that as I learn how to have a relationship with grief is that it's an energy that's on its own schedule. And I have very little, if any, control over how and when it chooses to move.

[00:09:11] Alyson: I remember speaking of exactly that when we were still in Florida, while this was more directly occurring and we were all in an Airbnb with your brothers and their wonderful wives and two of their kids, and we were in our bedroom and one of those said waves came over you pretty strongly.

[00:09:35] And I think we were just standing there in the bedroom or the bathroom and just hugging, and we had a brief conversation about, again, the beauty of grief and how it has its own intelligence. Because I think it would be all consuming if the grief just came on at once too intensely.

[00:09:57] And so it has its own divine orchestration of the precise wave, the precise size of the wave, what's held in the wave, the cadence of the waves. Yeah, there's just a really beautiful miracle in the grief medicine to allow you to process and integrate and adjust and assimilate, but to not have it completely consume you.

[00:10:21] Luke: Yeah, it's like dancing with a partner that chooses the steps and the song, and you're either willing to dance or not. Because I'm interested in full experience of life and healing whatever is calling to be healed, I'm willing to get on the dance floor. But yeah, it's funny. It's funny, it comes in waves.

[00:10:49] And something I'm really noticing too is how ill-equipped our culture is with death and grieving. And you have kind of two predominant ways that loved ones come together. One, a wake or a funeral where it tends to be very-- I've not been to many, but those that I have or seen in movies, it's very somber.

[00:11:15] And I think it's a space that's somewhat created for the grief. And then you have more of the celebration of life, which is what the consensus was to do for my dad this summer, which is, I guess, less about the grief and more about just appreciating the person for who they were when they were here and what they meant to you and things like that.

[00:11:40] But outside of that, and in Western culture, we don't have a very close, intimate relationship with the process. And so I think that's part of what's been interesting for me. I'm reading books. I called Aubrey. His dad died a couple years ago, and he recommended a book that I have written down somewhere. What is that book called? Do you have it in your--

[00:12:04] Alyson: It's called The Smell of Rain on Dust.

[00:12:07] Luke: Yes. The Smell of Rain on Dust. Beautiful, beautiful book. We'll put that in the show notes. lukestorey.com/589. lukestorey.com/589. So anything we talk about today of any relevance that's linkable we'll put in there, including that book.

[00:12:20] So in that book, this is someone that's had a lot of life experience in indigenous cultures and looks at these processes in a way that's very holistic and ancient and rooted in older cultures. So that's been really helpful. But it's like charting territory that's brand new, which, as you said, is really beautiful, and there's so much grace in that charting.

[00:12:55] It's just doing my best to not numb and deflect and hide from what's present, but also, because our culture and our lives aren't set up to take a long extended period of time of grieving and remove oneself from day-to-day life, I'm finding that I'm having to do it while life goes on. So I'm keeping commitments and things at a minimum and have no problem creating boundaries in work and personal life that give me as much space as I can.

[00:13:30] But I think if I had my way, I would-- next time this happens, I think I would set aside a very clear period of time and have friends over and create my own wake/celebration of life, which I intend to do soon anyway. But I think in the bardo, in the space where that person is-- the passed is still very present and their experience within me is still very present.

[00:14:02] There's a lot of juice to be had. And so it's a process of not wanting to miss the totality of the experience, but still having some boots on the ground and having things to do.

[00:14:17] Alyson: Yeah, it brings to mind the sacred 40 days after a woman gives birth, and thankfully that's circling back around. Obviously, that's a very ancient practice, but now it's more commonplace for women to take that time to heal and to be directly with baby and things.

[00:14:37] But yeah, my point is that when it comes to the ceremony of death and the ceremony of a soul crossing over, where is that designated ceremonial window in our culture? It doesn't exist unless you are able to create it yourself.

[00:14:55] Luke: Yeah. And in different traditions, of course, and different family systems have their own ways of doing it. But it just so happens that the way my family on my dad's side is doing it is a bit more detached and delayed in the sense of everyone coming together and all that.

[00:15:12] And there's not tons of family left, but to that point, we're taking a trip soon to work with some medicine and sit with some elders, and I'm very much looking forward to that. And I think my primary intention of that, that trip and that experience is to really allow the wisdom of the people with whom we'll be sharing time to come through and maybe seek some guidance and create some real space for that.

[00:15:41] And then, as I said, it's just been difficult logistically. I'm not in plan something mode, but I think I will have some trusted friends either over or maybe go out to some land and just tell stories about my pops and you look at some photos and just create the space for myself to be witnessed in my pain and witnessed in my gratitude.

[00:16:09] And just to have the experience of that vulnerability to just make room for whatever needs to move through. As I said, when we were watching the video this morning, it's like, I don't know. Before you walked in there, I wouldn't say I was detached or unemotional, but I wasn't getting hit really hard by watching my dad talk.

[00:16:29] And then when you came in, he started going into a couple really beautiful passages, and it just slammed me. So I realized when that happened, wow, I'd really like to sit down and watch this whole two and a half-hour interview about my dad's life and things like that, which I'll talk about later.

[00:16:49] And just go into the eye of the storm and really face whatever it is there because any grief that's left unfelt is going to ultimately manifest in my life in unhealthy ways and probably even get stuck in the collective. There's so much collective grief that humanity carries in general.

[00:17:13] And I think some of that has to do with our lack of context and lack of skill at moving through the grief that we experience in life. Just like anything we stuff, it's going to create distortions and get stuck in the pain body and come out in ways that don't serve us or other people. So I'm very interested.

[00:17:37] Yeah, like I said, the purpose of sitting down and doing these three weeks in, I don't want to do this. Shit is not fun for me. But I know that it's good for me and I know that it's-- well, I think it's good for you and anyone that's still listening 15, 20 minutes in. Maybe it'll be good for them.

[00:17:54] Alyson: Yeah. And lastly, I think the more that the essences of awe and the richness of the totality of earth experiences and beauty, the more that those essences of a crossing over and of a death are brought into the equation and into the conversation, the better. Because as it primarily has been, it's either not spoken about or the little bit that it might be, there's just a lot of scared or nervous energy around it in trepidation and mystery because it's not openly shared about.

[00:18:38] So I think just authentically, vulnerably, honestly, sharing, and speaking to the beauty that we have found in it, and the wisdom that has light in it is important. So, on that, let's talk about Alan, and I'd love to hear you share--

[00:18:57] Luke: I want to read the obituary. Is that what you mean?

[00:18:59] Alyson: Yes.

[00:19:00] Luke: Oh, okay.

[00:19:01] Alyson: Exactly.

[00:19:02] Luke: I don't know if I can read it without totally losing my shit, but I'll--

[00:19:05] Alyson: We're about to find out.

[00:19:06] Luke: I'll give it a shot. And if I do, then that's what I'm meant to do anyway. But yeah, my dad's now widow, May, is a really lovely lady with whom I had an incredible bonding experience while we were in Florida. It was really very meaningful to me. I think she sent me a text day after we got home or something. She asked me--

[00:19:31] Alyson: Was when we were down there.

[00:19:32] Luke: She asked me when we were there, "Would you write the obituary?" And I was thinking to myself, oh, sure. In a couple of weeks, I'll sit down and get that together when I can have the wherewithal to do so. And then she texted me a day or two after we got back. She's like, "Yeah, can you send that over?"

[00:19:45] And I was just like, "Dude, okay." So I did, and here it is. Alan Andrews Storey passed away on January 26th, 2025 in Naples, Florida, at the age of 81. Born in Chicago on August 31st, 1943. He lived a full and meaningful life, leaving behind a legacy of love, wisdom, and resilience.

[00:20:13] He lived his life as an avid outdoorsman, hunting and fishing in the vast Colorado Rocky Mountains, he called home. He was fascinated by the history of the old West and held a deep confession for the plight of the Native American peoples to whom the land once belonged.

[00:20:53] As a man who lived life to the fullest, Alan's many passions included racing stock cars and snowmobiles, riding bareback Broncos, team roping, working as a ski patrolman and instructor, guiding hunting and fishing expeditions, serving in Mountain Rescue in the Forest Service, teaching English as a second language, and volunteering for hospice care.

[00:21:20] Alan was also a successful and driven entrepreneur in ventures ranging from land excavation and development to real estate investment and brokering.

[00:21:31] Alan has survived by his wife, May Storey, his sons, Luke, Andy, and Cody; their wives, Alyson, Paula, and Emily; his grandsons, Bjorn and Weston; his stepsons, Erik and Kurt Bosson, and his sisters Carla and Jula.

[00:21:57] While his achievements in business and life were many, what truly defined Alan was his steadfast commitment to his own personal development and spiritual growth. Although he never experienced a lasting connection with a particular religion, he devoted the last 40 years of his life to seeking a higher power in ways that enriched both himself and those he loved.

[00:22:37] Oh man. Alan was a man of integrity, kindness, open-mindedness, humor, and unwavering moral character. He was truly one of a kind, and the world is a better place for having known him. May he find peace he sought in the wilderness now among the heavens.

[00:23:13] Alyson: Amen.

[00:23:15] Luke: Amen.

[00:23:17] Alyson: It was really beautiful, honey. Yeah.

[00:23:24] Luke: Seeing that printed in the Aspen Times. My brother was going to send me a copy of it, but he sent me a scan, and that, I don't know. It was different. It hit different when it was made in public.

[00:23:37] Alyson: And in print.

[00:23:38] Luke: So making it public again here also hits different, perhaps even more so.

[00:23:44] Alyson: Yeah. It lands it and grounds it. It anchors the experience of the reality of that happening more in different ways each time. And I've said it before, and we obviously all chatted about it when we were all together in Florida with his wife, May, but it stood out again. And listening to you read that, just the fullness and richness of Alan's life, that fella really lived the heck out of some earth life. Just the range, Alan's range

[00:24:20] Luke: The guy was a legend. I know everyone loves their dad, and all of our parents are meaningful and special to us in many ways, but apart from our relationship, just objectively, he really was a unique person. When I talked to my mom the night before we flew to Florida, she said something to that effect. She just said, "Man, your dad, he's a different kind of guy."

[00:24:52] Alyson: Yeah. He is. He was.

[00:24:54] Luke: Yeah.

[00:24:58] Alyson: Such medicine in hearing you share that. And I'd love in the spirit of just continuing to walk this journey, walk this story together, I think it would be supportive to go back just a few short weeks ago to the moment that it began.

[00:25:23] Luke: Yeah. Yeah, it's good. It's crazy because that day seems like it existed five minutes ago, and it seems like another lifetime at the same time. But yeah, that day I sat right here, and Elle MacPherson sat right there. We recorded a beautiful podcast, and I went downstairs and checked my phone when she left and got the message that we dread, which was, "Hey, your dad had a massive heart attack. He's in the ICU. It's not looking good. You need to get down here."

[00:26:04] And so that was the first wave of like, okay, this is really happening. Because maybe two years ago or so after he elected to take the mRNA gene therapy, he had a near-fatal brain aneurysm and fell down, and it was a whole situation, and I was about to get on a plane then, but they were able to stabilize him.

[00:26:33] He was airlifted to a hospital, and it was quite a thing. And that was the first time that I ever felt that kind of fear, like, wow, he could go. And then, thankfully, things calmed down for a while. But it brought me back to that moment and I thought, man, I just have to get there.

[00:26:48] I don't want to miss the experience for myself and just whatever it has to offer. But also, I just wanted so strongly just to be there with him, even though he was incapacitated in terms of brain function and physical form. I just felt very strongly that I just needed to be by his side until he decided to leave.

[00:27:15] Alyson: Yeah. I will say, from my experience, getting the information in the call a couple of years ago about the aneurysm felt very different than when you came out of your office over to me on the couch and you said to me that your dad had a heart attack and your voice and face was quivering. And then we headed straight into your office to just try to understand, both read the text together and try to, like, who can we reach out to?

[00:27:47] Who knows the most so far? And try to just unpack more details. But I vividly felt a difference in receiving this information than the information two years ago. Two years ago, like you said, we were waiting for a few hours to see, do we need to book a flight?

[00:28:08] And I think we both felt like a sense that he was going to pull through, and I don't want to speak for both of us, but from a pretty quick place, I think we both felt it was a situation that we needed to get a flight immediately and get there immediately, and it felt different.

[00:28:30] Luke: Yeah, yeah, yeah. There was no ambiguity in this urgent text. Yeah. And then real life kicks in and it's like, okay, how do we get a flight? And we had to prepare.

[00:28:47] Alyson: It also came at the time where we were still in the tail end or the middle to end of that winter storm, which so rarely happens down in the south, and all of the airports and the route that we needed to take to get to Southern Florida was going all the way through all the states that have no infrastructure for handling winter storms. The Houston airport--

[00:29:11] Luke: Including Florida. Yeah.

[00:29:12] Alyson: Yeah. Even temporarily closed down. So that brought in an unexpected--

[00:29:17] Luke: Yeah. It was impossible to book flights, which is pretty nerve wracking. So we tried that night, the next morning, and--

[00:29:25] Alyson: We literally could not get a flight.

[00:29:26] Luke: It was at a sweet spot window of time where we have time to prepare, but also time to get there in time. But there was a real sense of urgency. And so in the frustration and obvious futility of trying to get from Texas to Florida, which normally is a pretty easy thing to do, my best idea was to book a private flight, which I've never done.

[00:29:49] And for obvious reasons, it's 100 times more expensive than a commercial flight or something. But literally that was the only option. And I'm so grateful. It was obviously a little bit frivolous in some ways just in terms of what one can afford and not.

[00:30:09] But in hindsight-- and I knew this when I decided to do that too, it's like, I'm not going to be sitting here six months after my dad passes, or a year, or 10 years, going, "Oh, I wish I had that money. I just needed to get there, whatever it took."

[00:30:22] So I think that was definitely a smart move and one for which I'm glad I followed the intuition and just like, I don't care what it costs or how it happens. We just got to get there. And we did and it was a much more pleasant experience and helped us to arrive there with much more vitality and a much bigger capacity to hold what was happening, than having traveled nine hours and layovers and all of the drama inherent to commercial air travel.

[00:30:52] So I was very grateful that we ended up going that way. And at the same time, also, totally spoiled myself for the rest of my life on that. I'm going to have a really difficult time until I can someday do that all the time because it's just such a more pleasant experience in all the ways.

[00:31:14] Alyson: And so because we made that decision and were able to then get there much more efficiently, we landed still pretty late at night and then we just headed straight to-- we didn't even go to the rental house first. We just got in the car and headed straight to the hospital.

[00:31:39] Luke: Yeah, that was a moment I'll never forget. This stopped before we got to his room and took a breath. Hospitals have these strange rules about how many visitors can be in--

[00:31:51] Alyson: Especially in the ICU.

[00:31:52] Luke: Yeah, ICU. Visiting hours and all that. And they were somewhat lenient in terms of visiting hours because he was on life support and in really critical condition. And I think everyone understood that there wasn't going to be a miraculous turnaround. But yeah, I remember my stepbrother, Kurt, escorting me into the room and just stopping and taking a breath and just saying, "Man, put on your big boy pants, dude. Shit is about to get real." And it did.

[00:32:25] Alyson: Yeah.

[00:32:25] Luke: Man. Anyone that that knew my dad, he's just such a tough guy. And to see his life force still animating his body in terms of a heartbeat, but not much else, it wasn't like I'm walking in to see my dad. It was like I was walking in to find a part of my dad, and part of him was somewhere else, and part of him was there.

[00:33:01] Alyson: Very much.

[00:33:02] Luke: And so it was a matter of grasping the tether to whatever parts of him could be aware that I was there with him and what I wanted to communicate. And so immediately I went to him and held his hand. He's on a ventilator. The sounds are really scary. The sound of the forced breathing and the medical equipment, as anyone knows, it's not the most harmonious environment in general.

[00:33:38] God bless hospitals for doing what they do, but if I was a hospital designer, there's a lot of changes I would make day one. But thankfully, I just knew what I needed and wanted to say. And I don't remember exactly what it was, but it was just, of course, expressing my gratitude for my life and all of the wisdom he shared with me and everything I learned from him.

[00:34:10] And also something interesting that came up, again, because how do you plan what needs to be said or what you feel called to say? But I expressed to him how deeply he had hurt me as a kid. And that he has been and continues to be unconditionally forgiven for that.

[00:34:39] And that was interesting because he and I had a lot of deep conversations about our past and had made amends to one another a number of times because I hurt him in many ways as well early in life. We had a really challenging and tense relationship for the first half of my life, especially prior to my getting sober because everything in my life was tense and chaotic.

[00:35:07] But I never really felt the need to explicitly express to him while he was here in detail what he did and how it affected me because he had changed, because both of us in our own ecosystems, within our own lives put in so much work to evolve that I feel as if he hadn't changed as dramatically as he had over all of those years, that I would've felt it more important to express to him exactly how he had hurt me.

[00:35:56] But it just was something that didn't need to be said in that way. But for whatever reason, sitting by his side, I needed to acknowledge that. And I think the purpose of that was really to let him know, if there was any part of his spirit that was holding onto any guilt or shame in regard to his behavior, that he would be able to leave without carrying that with him.

[00:36:22] And so there was a lot of forgiveness and just so much tenderness. It's weird. It was even weirder after he left his body to touch him, to pat his head and hold his hand. It's strange when someone's not all there. He was essentially in a coma. I guess that would be the best way to describe his physical state.

[00:36:54] But there was just a lot of sweetness and tenderness in that interaction. There were things that I shared with him, and again, just hoping that he was in the room hearing me, not in his body, but in spirit. Like when you hear people have near-death experiences and so on, they almost exclusively or universally rather report that they saw everyone in the room. They heard everything that was being said. There's an omnipresence that halfway in and halfway out people experience.

[00:37:31] So I was just relying on that and holding my faith in that, that he could hear me. But one of the things that I shared with him that I felt was really important, in case he didn't know it, and maybe he did-- I don't know if we ever talked about this-- but I reminded him that when he gets out there, wherever out there is, that he doesn't have to come back here unless he chooses to continue the cycle of birth and rebirth and death and that karmic loop.

[00:37:59] And I don't know why I was compelled to tell him that. And then also there was a lot of suggestions about, not like go toward the light, but just set your sails toward love and toward--

[00:38:18] Alyson: Pure love, God.

[00:38:19] Luke: Pure love, God. Ignore any distractions along the way as you pass through the astro planes or any other dimensions and just set your fucking target for where you want to go. And again, he might've known that. I don't know. But for whatever reason, I--

[00:38:37] Alyson: Can't hurt to remind.

[00:38:38] Luke: I felt it important to share that with him. And so I did. It's weird. Everything I had to say to him really came out in the first five minutes when I walked in the room. And the rest of the 48 hours that I spent with him in there were mostly spent in silence, just feeling for him, trying to find him. But it's like there was just a torrent of communication that came out very naturally in a very fluid way.

[00:39:08] And then I was just done. There wasn't anything else to be said. And I think as a takeaway, I never tell anyone what to do unless they ask me, but for anyone listening, I can just share that I'm so grateful. Oh, my God. This would be so much more difficult had there been meaningful things left unsaid. Everything I ever needed to tell him, except the things that I just mentioned, I'd shared.

[00:39:45] There weren't skeletons in our closet. There wasn't unfinished business. There weren't unforgiven grievances on either of our behalf. There was just complete simpatico peace between us. And I know that's not always possible for some people because one or more parties isn't capable or willing to allow for that sort of reconciliation.

[00:40:07] And sometimes very firm boundaries are necessary if somebody's harming you or if it's just not someone that's healthy for you to interact with, despite the fact that they might be one of your parents and and so on. Everyone's situation is unique, but I'm just so grateful that when I walked in that room, I already felt quite complete.

[00:40:32] And to back up a little bit, another really beautiful gift was the night before we flew out, I felt very compelled to call my mom, who's been divorced from my dad for 50 years or so. And they weren't really in communication. They didn't need to be, and so on. But I don't know. I just felt like I need to call my mom.

[00:40:56] And part of it was just out of a courtesy to let her know, "Hey, your ex-husband from ages ago, and the dad of your kid is moving on soon." But a big part of it too is just sharing with her that I didn't want anything left unsaid whenever she graduates. And that I'd love to talk to her more. And just some of the closeness and experiences I've been able to have with my dad over the past few years have not been as close to my mom, and I really, really want to be.

[00:41:36] So it was a beautiful opportunity to share that with her vulnerably. And she really held such supportive space for me and was just so compassionate and understanding and was super strong. My mom's also super strong. She just had my back in that moment, which was really beautiful, and unified us in a new way that was really, really meaningful to me too.

[00:42:02] So it's just like all of it is just such a reminder of how important it is to share how we feel with the people we love, and to not leave anything undone. There were a couple regrets that I had. And when we first arrived and I got to sit down with my dad's wife, I think, yeah, it was just the two of us in the room for some time.

[00:42:27] And we've always gotten along and we've had some great talks. I think just more of the intellectual variety. Some great and sometimes deep conversations, but not necessarily very emotionally centered and bonding conversations because she's with my dad. They've got their own thing, and I got my own thing, but now he's gone and it's just the two of us sitting there, and she held my hand.

[00:42:50] And the couple of things that I did regret, I was called to share with her, and I knew that they weren't really significant, but they were still in my heart. And she was so helpful in absolving me of any guilt that I felt. And one of them was, it was pretty common that he would text me and call me a lot. He wanted to be in touch with me a lot.

[00:43:22] And sometimes it would take me a while to get back to him. Just caught up in life in my own self-centered, day-to-day existence sometimes. And I felt guilty about that. And she, of course, eased my concerns and said, "Yeah, he knew that. It never bothered him. He knew you're just busy, and you always did get back to him. He knew that it would take a while." But these little things sometimes, I think, in a moment like that, that can seem huge because, God, if I could go back and do it differently.

[00:43:57] Alyson: It's also healthy to let that stuff arise in you and to just be honest with yourself and express it.

[00:44:03] Luke: Yeah, yeah. And the other one was-- and I know this did bother him or hurt him to some degree, but a couple of years ago, he gave me his custom-made, prized hunting rifle that's a super badass machine. And he gave it to me of the three sons, and I'm maybe the least likely of the three of us to take up hunting as a hobby.

[00:44:30] But I'd moved to Texas, and I did go hunting, and after that I shared the experience with him and he shipped me that gun. And every few months he'd ask me, "Hey, did you shoot the gun yet?" And he'd be all excited. And I'm like, "No, dad, it's too cold or it's too hot, or the range is too far." It's a long-range rifle with the scope.

[00:44:47] And so you can't go shoot it at your little indoor 50-yard range or whatever, where you would shoot a pistol or shotgun or something. So I never got around to it. And I felt bad when he would ask me that, and that's one of the things that I shared with May. And she's just like, "Dude, don't worry about it. It's not a big deal."

[00:45:07] Luke: But it needed to be said, so I said it. And then when I got back, in terms of like integration, I did text my friend Jesse Elder, who people might know from a recent episode here. He knows his firearms and stuff like that, so he'd be a good partner to go share that experience.

[00:45:23] I was like, "Dude, I need some friend support here. Will you go shoot this damn gun with me?" And so we've got that in the works. But other than that, there weren't really a lot of regrets. The only other one, which I think I just solved today was, I had always wanted to record a podcast with my dad as the guest because he just had so much life experience and wisdom, and he is just such an interesting person.

[00:45:49] And I'd go out there and then I wouldn't have one of my cameras or the wrong mics and just finding time to do it. We were always very active when I went to see him. There wasn't a lot of time just sitting around, so I never got it done. So I was bummed about that. But what I did do, thankfully, was in 2018, recorded that video that we were watching a bit of earlier, and I've never watched it.

[00:46:12] I just did it for prosperity, in case I ever had kids or my brother had kids. He's the wisdom and lineage keeper of the family. And so I don't know what he knows about his upbringing and our family history and whatnot. So I did that interview, and when I started to watch it today, it's two and a half hours, and the little bits that I watched are really good.

[00:46:35] So I think what I'll be able to do, because it's not just all about our family-- just his life experiences and some incredible stories that are just bananas-- I'm going to give that a watch and just see if there's anything that's so personal that he wouldn't have wanted it shared publicly.

[00:46:52] But I'm going to turn that into a podcast, even though you just hear me asking the questions and it's just him on camera. But I think it would be a really beautiful way to honor him in his 81-year life with other people.

[00:47:09] Alyson: And one other thing that I recall that seemed to make you a little sad was right before this happened, you were about to call him for some life advice. And there's not that many people that you feel you can do that with, just in terms of like people you can wholeheartedly trust and people who have more life experience than you.

[00:47:39] And your dad was also a really trusted friend. Because you guys had made amends so many years ago, you guys had developed a very close bond. And like you shared, he has a lot of integrity, and so you would go to him for advice. And so I know that was one other piece that I observed you being really sad and sometimes you would weep and you would say, "I was just going to call him and ask him about such and such."

[00:48:05] Luke: I forgot about that. Yeah, yeah. As a grown ass man, in the past 10 years or so, I'd say there have been fewer situations about which I am confused and just lost. But yeah, there were a couple of things that I just couldn't think of anyone better to ask than my dad. And yeah, it is unfortunate that I didn't have the opportunity to get his advice on those.

[00:48:41] But I'm hopeful that I'll find someone. I think now there's a bit of a void in terms of an elder in my life. I don't know that I have anyone on speed dial that has a lot more life experience than I do. I do have many friends and people that sit where you're sitting and do this podcast that are incredibly wise and resourceful in their own ways. But there's something about someone being quite a bit older that just hits different.

[00:49:15] There's a perspective, the eagle, the condor. It's like they're able to see things with a bit more distance and hindsight. And so that's something that I already miss about him. And the beautiful thing about that guy now was that he was so humble that I would teach him a lot.

[00:49:48] He was so open to being teachers and students and swapping those roles at will. And it's one of the things I really appreciated about him, I think, as we got older, that increased more and more. Because there's things that I've explored in my life and things that I've learned that he hadn't and vice versa.

[00:50:14] In fact, the last phone call that we had, and this occurred to me when I was in his room in his last couple hours, oftentimes he would watch or listen to the podcast and then that's how he would keep up with my life and I guess just learn things about, which he was curious that I was covering on the show.

[00:50:37] But he called and he started asking me all about plant medicines. And I was sitting out in the backyard and I was like, "Huh, this is interesting." And of course, when I've had transformative experiences with medicine, the things I think about are people I love. Oh man, I wish my dad could have this experience and so on.

[00:50:54] But he is older, and culturally, I don't know that it would've been a fit for him or that his wife would've felt safe with him doing that and so on. So I would never push it on anyone, but it wasn't like ever tried to set him up with a journey or something.

[00:51:11] Even though I wanted to, I resisted that. But he was asking me about it. And still, I don't think he was asking me because he wanted the experience. He's just a really curious and open-minded person. And a couple of years ago, he made a similar call, or a few years ago now, but it was more out of concern because of my sobriety.

[00:51:31] And that's when we first moved here, and he is like, "Hey, what's going on with this? You're taking drugs again. Are you all right?" I was like, "Oh, God. Here we go." So I have to have whole conversation about the difference between drugs and the intentional use of psychedelics and plant medicines.

[00:51:45] It's a different world. And I think eventually he got that. And also he can see the fruits of my actions are ever improving life by every measurable metric, relationship, career, health. Everything gets better and better. Whereas if I was doing the kind of drugs in the way that I used to do, things would get dramatically worse very quickly.

[00:52:08] But this time he was like, "Okay, what's up with this ayahuasca?" I tell him about ayahuasca. "How's that different than mushrooms? What about peyote?" He starts asking me about all these medicines, and we had a really fun conversation, but it just speaks, again, to his humility and his open-mindedness. He's going to call his kooky ass son in Texas and allow me to school him on something about which I'm not even an expert.

[00:52:31] Alyson: And he had also been having sessions with that psychic medium.

[00:52:35] Luke: Right.

[00:52:36] Alyson: And he went with us to the advanced Joe Dispenza five-day retreat. Yeah, he was very exploratory.

[00:52:46] Luke: He was a seeker.

[00:52:47] Alyson: Yeah.

[00:52:48] Luke: I never heard him say that he was seeking God per se, but I know that's what he was seeking, whether he knew it or not.

[00:52:58] Alyson: And just how interesting though that your last conversation was all about the spiritual realms and the difference of the realms and the medicines. I haven't like sat with that, but there's something very intriguing that that was your final conversation with your father.

[00:53:16] Luke: Yeah. What occurred to me sitting in his room, trying to find him in the in-between, like what levels of veil are separating us? I thought about that conversation and I was talking to him. I said, "Man, you know more than I do now. I'm going to learn from you someday when I meet you again what it's really like."

[00:53:47] Because these medicines, as beautiful and profound as they can be, are just a glimpse into that other realm. And so I was having a bit of a chuckle. I said, "Now you know, dad. You're tripping hardcore wherever you are right now."

[00:54:01] Alyson: Yeah. The teaching and the learning of the crossing over portal, oh my gosh. Can't even begin to put words to it. It's something that you just have to experience the profundity of that. It's such an honor. And for me, it was so beautiful when we sang some medicine songs to him.

[00:54:28] I had brought a few tools, spiritual tools along for the ride, and I had brought a rattle and a couple of other things into the room, and there were times where it was just you and I and Alan. And this first night, that was the case. It was just the three of us in the ICU room. And so yeah, it was such an honor and such a beautiful experience for me to stand by his side with a rattle and you and I to sing Cuatro Vientos to him and sing about the mountains and the nature, everything he saw--

[00:55:09] Luke: Yeah, it was a perfect song for him. I remember when you were singing, and thank you so much for listening to the call to do that. But I remember when you were singing that song, it was just melting me. But I remember thinking, oh God, now this song for the rest of my life is going to remind me at this moment.

[00:55:30] But it was, as most fears are, an irrational fear because we've been singing that song again at home, and it's beautiful, but thank you. I thank you a lot, but I'll thank you again for just the way that you did and continue to hold space for me through the experience.

[00:55:48] I can't imagine going through that without you by my side and just being so solid and at the same time just wearing it all loosely in a really beautiful way. I think there's an opportunity for finding a calibration in these deep life experiences where it is deep and it is heavy, yet at the same time, there's a grace and a beauty and a lightness, and there's--

[00:56:19] Alyson: There's a smile in there too.

[00:56:21] Luke: Mm-hmm. And that's why you're sitting there singing him songs. You weren't sitting there crying and grieving. You're happy. You're communicating with my dad, and again, singing songs. And he spoke Spanish, so wherever he was hopefully hearing you sing, he would've understood those lyrics and the meaning of that whole scene.

[00:56:43] Yeah, it was so beautiful to see you be able to work some of your magic and to be able to apply your gifts to him in that room. I'm curious-- I think at one point, I forget if I was in the room with you or if it's just you, but you were tuning into him during a meditation. I'm curious what that was like for you.

[00:57:04] Alyson: Each day was different. So that was also really intriguing. Every day that we would head over to the hospital and sit in there, it was different for a lot of different reasons. Like I said, sometimes it was just you and I with him. Sometimes we were sharing space with May and your brothers, and sometimes there'd be a small group of us in there, immediate family.

[00:57:26] And so for various reasons, the energetic experience and where Alan was at, where he was at spiritually, where he was at within his own body, that was also every evolving and changing minute by minute, day by day. And yeah, I think the one piece I'll share that was so incredible for me, we were sitting in chairs next to each other, and it wasn't-- I didn't set out on a quest to have a shamanic journey with Alan soul and to go into a conversation with him.

[00:58:06] I just was in there and I closed my eyes and there we were. There I was, and there Alan was. And we were just having such beautiful conversations. And I think I'll keep a lot of it sacred, but there was an aspect of him seeking forgiveness for an aspect of his life that felt really important and meaningful for him to gain before he crossed over further.

[00:58:39] And so I was able to be witness and to hold space for him in that forgiveness that his soul really needed. Let me see if I can find-- because there was some really specific-- oh, I remember. Yeah, a horse was present in there. A hummingbird came in. So there were a couple of animal allies who came in to support him as well.

[00:59:06] And I know without a shadow of a doubt he heard everything that was shared with him by everyone in that room. And I know he heard the songs. It was just really powerful to track where I got the sense of where his soul was at, and then to simultaneously be witnessing where his physical vessel was at. Very different places. You know what I'm trying to say?

[00:59:37] Luke: 100%. Yeah.

[00:59:39] Alyson: Yeah.

[00:59:40] Luke: He's in the bardo man. It's like everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

[00:59:47] Alyson: Yeah. Again, I'm just speaking from my own perception and experience, but the vast majority of our time spent with him in the room, his soul was not inhabiting his physical vessel. He was already on his way in these other places and tending to some aspects that he needed to tend to before he crossed further over. But yeah, it was powerful to communicate with him in that way and to hold space for him in the way that I could. And then it was also really powerful.

[01:00:25] I'll let you open this experience, but when that decision time came, which by the way, was such another beautiful, powerful honoring, witnessing of you and May, and your brothers and your stepbrothers all coming together to unify and harmonize, thankfully, that you were all on the same page with the decision, pretty much in the same moment, that it's time to take your father off life support.

[01:00:57] Sit around and have to have that conversation is huge. To see where everybody was at was also really powerful. And you guys were all on the same page. And then to witness May, who I know we both had so much, we continue to have so much deep, deep compassion and empathy for, they were so in love, so in love, married for a very long time.

[01:01:21] Luke: 25 years.

[01:01:23] Alyson: Yeah. The love they had was always so evident. And after that conversation was had, to watch her then head back to the ICU to let the doctors and nurses know that that decision had been made. Like, woo. I even feel like waves of power of all of that right now.

[01:01:44] And then once that decision was conveyed and hospice care was brought in-- I'll let you take it from here, but we all then headed back in, the immediate family that was decided and allowed to be in the room. And whoa, this portion of the experience was, woof.

[01:02:06] Luke: This is when it gets hardcore.

[01:02:08] Alyson: And so with that note, I don't know, for your listeners, it's about to get hardcore.

[01:02:15] Luke: So yeah, I feel like we've already gone to some depth here, but this truly is where--

[01:02:25] Alyson: Goes to another level.

[01:02:26] Luke: The rubber hits the road, as they say. So yeah, and this is, again, my first experience of this whole process. But essentially, what happens is there's a change of the guard in the hospital when you decide to take someone off life support.

[01:02:45] Alyson: I think it can go either way. I think May, and you all opted to bring hospice care in, but you don't have to opt for it.

[01:02:52] Luke: Oh, okay. Got it. And so then there's a different jurisdiction happening. So now more people can be in the room and the rules all change. Basically, the hospital staff gets booted and this other team comes in who are more suited for that particular experience.

[01:03:09] But I think all of us held the expectation that because it was only the technology that was keeping him alive and helping him breathe, that when they came in and removed that, which by the way were also his wishes, do not resuscitate, was very firm in his will, and knowing him-- I have the same thing in my will too. He was not interested in being in a body if that body couldn't go do stuff.

[01:03:47] Alyson: I think we all spoke to how you had your conversation with him. Andy and Paula arrived. They had their time with them. May had already been there, obviously. And we felt the sense how much Alan was just waiting for Cody and Emily and the two grandsons to arrive. And once those conversations like that-- and then he would feel really complete.

[01:04:10] Luke: Yeah, totally. And also, to his wife's credit, I don't know that I talked about this with her, but she bent the rule a little bit in our favor, and I think ultimately in the highest good of everyone involved, and I don't know exactly how the details of his do not resuscitate, but he was kept alive, at least as you said, long enough for all of us to get there and to be able to be present for him leaving, which I think was really beautiful because someone else might have just said, "Hey, that's what he said." Boom. "Sorry, guys, you didn't make it in time."

[01:04:48] And we wouldn't have had that opportunity. So I thought that was really wise and generous of her. So yeah, the hospice team comes in, they give you the run of show, and they're say, "Is everyone ready?" Yeah, we're ready. And we all gather around the bed.

[01:05:08] It's not a pretty situation. There's tubes being removed, and it's a very quick. Two or three people unhooking everything because they just want to get out of your way and just let the family have their moment. But I'm pretty certain that all of us had the expectation that it would be a matter of seconds, if not minutes, when he left his body.

[01:05:31] And he didn't, which I guess sometimes happens, I've learned since from sharing this with other people. But they take these tubes out. There's kind of strange odors involved in that. I can handle some shit. It was a bit much for me because it just kept dragging on minutes after minutes.

[01:05:56] I don't even know. Time disappears and moments like that. But I remember at one point just not really being able to stand. I think at first I was standing and holding his hand and just talking to him, and May, his wife, kept reminding him like, "Okay, honey. You can go now." And that was just so beautiful and moving just to see her do that. I literally can't imagine how you can even--

[01:06:26] Alyson: She handled it with such grace.

[01:06:27] Luke: Yeah. How you can muster the strength and courage to hold space in a moment like that when your beloved is checking out. But anyway, she was constantly reminding him. And my brother, Andy, put on his Joe Dispenza music that he loved and put it on the pillow. I remember having the thought too. I was like, "Dude, don't put a cell phone next to his head." And I'm like, "Oh, we're past the point--"

[01:06:55] Alyson: Past that.

[01:06:55] Luke: "Of EMF mitigation at this point."

[01:06:58] Alyson: Still thoughtful of you.

[01:06:59] Luke: Yeah. I'm so hypervigilant about that stuff. But yeah, we're listening to this beautiful meditation music, and I just couldn't stand up, so I just kneeled next to the bed and I'm just crying. I'm just like, "Dude, my knees do not have the stamina to stand here." And then after some time, I think we each found our threshold of how long we could stay.

[01:07:29] Alyson: First, it was a shifting of positions. Like you said, when everything was being removed, you were standing there and holding his hands. And then people found a chair and then maybe someone would take a water break or a bathroom break and come back in.

[01:07:51] Just even right now, reliving it, because it was my first time also being in the room witnessing to anyone go through this process, I think even if someone had maybe described it to me before, it's obviously going to be different than when you're actually in there. And yeah, it was a wild experience as not just minutes, but then an hour went by and then two hours. I was also glad we were able to text my sister.

[01:08:30] Luke: Oh, yeah. Shout out to Aaron, the nurse.

[01:08:33] Alyson: Yeah. She has worked in these exact ICUs for, I don't know, 20, 30 years, I don't know. Very, very long time. And certain curiosities would arise about certain sounds that were happening. And wanting to make sure that he was not feeling anything or feeling any pain, we were able to text my sister and get those answers right away.

[01:08:58] And one thing that I found intriguing-- and it's obviously not the most important part of all of this, and maybe we missed the memo, but I found it fascinating that no one better prepped us for what to possibly expect.

[01:09:14] There was no one on the hospice team or no medical professional that came to us and said like, "Okay, in five minutes a few people are going to come in. They're going to do this. And then after that happens, one of a few things are probably going to happen next, avenue A, B, and C." But no one told us that his body death journey could take 10-plus hours, which it did.

[01:09:43] We were not told that that was even a possibility. And so it turned into this very mystifying voyage of witnessing Alan's physical vessel slowly, but in a very prolonged way, arrive to a completion. It was not the immediacy that we thought.

[01:10:08] Luke: Yeah. I think because of the way he looked, sometimes his eyes would be open, which was really confronting, and the sound. When he was on the ventilator, it was really loud. And for some reason I thought when they removed that, that everything would kind of get still.

[01:10:35] But he had fluid in his lungs, I guess, and his body was not letting go. True to form, he was just a tough guy. But the sound took a bit of getting used to, to understand like, okay, it really sounds like somebody's really suffering physically and struggling.

[01:10:51] And just to know that his nervous system was not online in a way that would've allowed him to feel as badly as it sounded. And that sound persisted for a long time. Just very labored breathing and elevated heart rate and low oxygen. Looking at his vitals on the monitors and just going like, "How is this guy still here?"

[01:11:20] But yeah, it was very helpful to get some coaching from Aaron in terms of knowing what's going on and also just to have cues to be able to talk to the medical staff and be like, "Hey, is this kind of normal? You guys need to--" because they'd have to come in and vacuum out some of the fluid and give him different drugs to settle things down. And she was very helpful and supportive in that way. Yeah.

[01:11:42] Alyson: Also, how about the moment where the hoagies arrived?

[01:11:51] Luke: Oh, my God. Dude.

[01:11:54] Alyson: That was the weirdest.

[01:11:57] Luke: I don't have to tell anyone listening to this podcast how bizarre hospitals are with that. When we walked in, in the first place, I'm like, "Cool, Wi-Fi router right above the bed. Each night, massive flickering, blue, fluorescent light." Of course, because the nurses need to walk by in the hall and see the patient. But blue light right above his face blasted him right in the face, which he didn't know or feel.

[01:12:22] Alyson: You're putting FLFE on in the other realm.

[01:12:24] Luke: Yeah, activated FLFE, which is a beautiful remote energy that you can assign to a location. Quantum Upgrade is another one that listeners might be familiar with. The first one that came to mind was FLFE, so I put that on also to just mitigate the EMF and the energy for those of us holding space. But yeah, so after a little while of us all sitting there and he's still hanging on, they roll in a cart with--

[01:12:50] Alyson: Snacks.

[01:12:51] Luke: Yeah.

[01:12:52] Alyson: It was a snack tray

[01:12:52] Luke: It was a full buffet tray, which--

[01:12:56] Alyson: Of chips and sandwiches.

[01:12:59] Luke: And of course, all full-blown cancer-causing, just the most horrible slop [Inaudible].

[01:13:04] Alyson: It was literally like a scene out of a movie, though. It was the most bizarre. Again, we were not told that this snack tray would be wheeled in. You had to be there, but it was just so bizarre to be witnessing a literal, most profound sacred passageway of a human being completing their time here on earth and witnessing these most sacred moments of their physical body coming to completion this lifetime, and simultaneously a tray of hoagie sandwiches and Lays potato chips are being wheeled in for people to have snacks while witnessing this?

[01:13:52] I can't properly explain the oddity of that happening. When that happened, I literally thought-- I was having it in such a surreal space. I thought, this isn't real. Is this actually happening? I couldn't believe it, and I thought to myself the last thing I have interest in right now is going to the snack tray and getting a sandwich and sitting down and snacking while this is happening. It was so strange.

[01:14:31] Luke: Yeah. It was a trippy moment of many.

[01:14:35] Alyson: But then that subsided and then people did get hungry because hours started to pass.

[01:14:42] Luke: Yeah. So I guess that takes us to, after some time, people felt, each in their own timeline, that it was time for them to go home for the day. People are exhausted. Especially, May was there all the way since he had the heart attack.

[01:15:04] Alyson: And I think some people, and I don't want to speak for anyone else, so I'm not speaking about anyone specifically, but in these situations, you know when you're complete.

[01:15:14] Luke: Yeah.

[01:15:15] Alyson: You, very clearly, on the deepest soul level, inherently know when you're complete and where your role is and where your time and space is meant to be. And so I'll just speak for myself personally. It was probably two or three hours into that process at least. And then I just knew. There was a completion for me. I had the conversations and shamanic journeys with him. I had been by your side. We had woven together as a family so beautifully.

[01:15:50] And I was just like, I'm complete, and I'm going to create more space in this room, because that was another thing. It was pretty tight quarters in there. And I knew when it was my time to head back to the Airbnb. So yeah, slowly but surely each person, aside from you and Andy ended up staying there all night.

[01:16:12] Luke: Wild horses couldn't just drag me out of that room. There was no fucking way I was going to miss any of that. I don't know why. As you said, you have your inner knowing, and there was a divine orchestration to who was meant to be present when. And so I assumed I would probably be the only one that ended up staying there and my brother Andy, thankfully felt compelled to join me. And so fast forward quite a few hours, during that time, as I was referring to before, I'd already said everything that needed to be said, but I don't know if curiosity is almost too shallow of a word for it, but I can't think of a better one.

[01:17:02] I was very intrigued and interested to try to know or experience where he was in space and time and to be able to be there with him. So on that last night, I took some wachuma one point, took some mushrooms, and did a lot of meditating for many hours at a time. I'm talking about microdose medicine.

[01:17:33] I wouldn't want to be journeying anywhere in a hospital. Had we been somewhere else, I probably would have. But I wanted to get into that field where he was and meet him there. And I knew he was somewhere, and the closest place he probably ever got to being there was when he was doing ketamine therapy over the past couple of years.

[01:17:55] We talked about that at length, and he was definitely familiar with that quantum realm outside of form. And so I knew he was somewhere on that spectrum, but I didn't know how much of him was there and how much of him wasn't. And I felt just through fierce presence and just opening my awareness as much as I could through meditation that that's as close as I could get to him. And that's where I wanted to be. And so that's where I stayed.

[01:18:28] And eventually at some point into the night-- at a time you're like, "Okay, I've already meditated for three hours. What am I going to do?" So a couple of times I went on X and I'm like, "This doesn't feel good. Stay off social media." There's the temptation to try to escape for a minute and just go, wait, I need another reality.

[01:18:48] And so I caught that. I'm like, "No, you have to be brave here, Luke, and just really be with this once-in-a-lifetime experience. And then late in the morning, after midnight, between midnight and 2:00 AM or so, I started to notice that his vitals on the monitors were looking a little different.

[01:19:12] And at times his breathing was a little quieter, which was soothing. And I had to listen to something because the sound of him breathing was so loud. It was hard, again, as I said, to divorce my feeling of him suffering because that's what it sounds like.

[01:19:33] So 2:00 AM or so, it's funny, I'll never forget the episode I was listening to. I was listening to Ram Dass and Timothy Leary lecture that I just randomly selected. And it wasn't even that deep. They were just shooting the shit. It wasn't like one of Ram Dass's lectures on death where it's this profound teaching. It's just the one I happened to click on.

[01:19:58] And I'm listening to that, just vibing, and I'm about to fall asleep. And then I pulled the earphones off and I go, "Wait, it is really quiet." And then I saw that his blood oxygen and heart rate started to go lower and lower, and then they just nose dive. And I was like, "Oh, shit. This is it. This is the moment. And Andy had fallen asleep, my brother. And I said, "Andy, wake up, man. And by the time we stood up it, everything went to zero.

[01:20:30] Alyson: Wow.

[01:20:39] Luke: And I was so grateful that I got to be there with my little brother.

[01:20:42] Alyson: Mm-hmm.

[01:20:44] Luke: It's my half-brother, but between the two of them, he is the one I spent the most time with when he was a little baby and a kid.

[01:20:51] Alyson: Mm-hmm.

[01:20:53] Luke: We had diff different moms, obviously, and it was just so perfect. Cody, my other brother, he's at home with his kids, which he should be, and was just like, I don't know. It just felt really good to be there with Andy. And he was so close to my dad too. So to be able to be his big brother, to comfort him, and to be able to-- the capacity I was finding within myself to hold that moment was pretty strong. And I really felt like I was there for him in a meaningful way. And of course, he was there for me too, but a lot of that moment was about that, just like, I got you.

[01:21:45] Alyson: Yeah. And not to get too much into this, but they had both also recently lost their mom. So it's been a robust journey for both them, and to be confronted with this again not too long after their mom's crossing over. So yeah, I will say, in the brief hindsight that we have in the three weeks since this, one of my favorite parts about it is, yeah, just the witnessing of the family weaving. Just watching you with your brothers and how magnificent that was. I don't know.

[01:22:29] Just watching three brothers unite and cry together and hold space together and move through your own cadence of emotions and waves and processes individually, but together and checking in on one another-- because we all stayed at the same house together, so we were all in it. We were all in this portal together as a family. And you had to just watch how the three of you maneuvered your way so gloriously and such a gentle, kind, love for yourselves and for one another. It was so magnificent to watch you guys.

[01:23:11] Luke: Yeah. Yeah, it's true. That was one of the-- or has continued to be one of the things about which I'm most grateful for my dad. I don't know that I'd ever contextualized that gift in this way, but just, wow. You gave me two brothers. I didn't grow up with siblings. I'm 12 and eight years their senior.

[01:23:33] So when I was really young, I was an only child. I still feel like I was an only child because our relationships really developed later in life. But man, I was like, "Wow, thank you." Thank you. I'm not only child anymore.

[01:23:46] Alyson: Mm-hmm. And you guys are so close, genuinely. You check in on one another and you all have so much love for each other. Yeah. It's been so cool to watch three siblings be the way that you, Andy, and Cody are with each other.

[01:24:07] Luke: And that in the same way that what's behind this experience being ultimately positive, because of all the work that my dad and I did individually and together, it's the same way with my brother Cody too. We had some serious issues in the past, and we've both, in the same way, been on our own journey of maturity and healing and awakening.

[01:24:48] With Andy, it's always been easy because he is just such a chill guy. It'd be hard to not get along with my brother Andy. But Cody and I, in the past, we definitely had some conflict, and it makes it so worth putting in that work and each of us humbling ourselves at different times and allowing for grace and forgiveness and accepting one another for who we are despite our differences and things like that.

[01:25:21] And that that brotherly bond that you felt and experienced would not be possible had we not both been willing to put in some work over the course of many years. And now it doesn't require any work. Now we're cool. When there's conflict and people are working out their own childhood trauma and things like that, that isn't just an automatic manifestation of time passing. Time can only make wounds worse if they're left unaddressed.

[01:25:58] So it's a real affirmation to the value in really making those reconciliations a priority. Because the thing is too, we all know, any one of us could go at any moment. That could be true of me or my brothers. And so the experience I have of very few things left undone, unsaid, very few regrets, I can say that for pretty much every relationship in my life that I've ever had, inclusive of my brothers. We're solid. And that I'm so grateful.

[01:26:40] Alyson: Yeah. And it was also really beautiful to witness the three of us wives. Again, this is my first time navigating this. And I really appreciated my capacity and my bandwidth.

[01:26:59] Luke: For real, dude.

[01:27:04] Alyson: I don't know how or why, but there was never a moment where any of it felt too much or scary. I just reveled in the awe and the magnificence of the honor of the witnessing and the honor of the being able to be present. And I was just saying, when I was with a couple of friends yesterday, I just thanked Alan because, what a gift he gave to me to allow me to be witness to his crossing over. There's no more vulnerable and yet powerful state for a human to be in.

[01:27:51] And I got to watch him cross over. And yeah, that was very deeply meaningful for me to be able to feel that and to see that in myself of like, in all of those different parts from the moment you told me what was going on when we were still here at home, to getting everything together for us to quickly exit, to us spending countless hours there and all the different colors and shapes and form of his crossing over. I was there for it.

[01:28:22] There was never a second where I felt a need to, yeah, get on my phone and get on social media or leave the hospital early. I don't know. I was just fully there for it, and so were Paula and Emily. And again, I don't want to speak to anyone's experience, but I really felt Alan and Paula had a lovely bond because Paula was learning English. She comes from Columbia, and your dad's taught English as a second language. And so they shared lessons together.

[01:28:59] Luke: Yeah. They were buds. They were tight.

[01:29:01] Alyson: They were buds.

[01:29:02] Luke: And were both Dispenza devotees.

[01:29:04] Alyson: Yeah, yeah. And so to witness her devotion and her presence in the room and her care and love that she had for your dad and Emily too, it was such an enriching family voyage.

[01:29:21] Luke:  Yeah, I agree. It really speaks to one's character in terms of how we respond in challenging times like that. It's like the essence of who someone really is shows up when the chips are down.

[01:29:44] Alyson:  It cannot.

[01:29:45] Luke:  Yeah. It's funny thinking about that, just how lighthearted and, at the same time, empathetic you were and continue to be through this process. But I see you get more flustered just with day-to-day life sitting around the house.

[01:30:01] Alyson: It's so true.

[01:30:02] Luke: You get more upset about just, I don't know.

[01:30:05] Alyson: Having to get my new laptop activated or whatever you even it.

[01:30:09] Luke: Yes, exactly.

[01:30:10] Alyson: What do you call when you do the thing to your old laptop or you get everything organized?

[01:30:16] Luke: Transferring or something? I don't know.

[01:30:18] Alyson: Yeah. That stuff, forget about it. Watching Alan crossover, no problem.

[01:30:22] Luke: Yeah, yeah. I agree. And also, I spent time with my brother's wives, of course, as we have together. But yeah, just so much gratitude and knowing that out of the three of us, no one had to even carry it alone.

[01:30:40] We had our beloved ladies with us too. And just the balance and the energy in the house, something, again, unsolicited advice for people listening. But yeah, the nature was so key and being able to be with our nephews.

[01:30:59] Alyson: Yeah, little Weston and Bjorn. Weston's only two months old, so he is still a sweet, chubby, little newborn, healthy, juicy baby.

[01:31:05] Luke: Yeah, the presence of new life and the lineage and being able to touch the ocean and just to be in the earth's tear duct and just experience and release all of that together, and being in the sun and just grounding.

[01:31:27] Alyson: Singing medicine songs with Bjorn, channeling-- truly channeling. So special.

[01:31:34] Luke: Yeah. That's the thing. It's everything. And so this is the context of what I didn't know when I would tell someone, "Wow, I really don't know what you're going through." Because what you're going through, depending on how you hold it, is all the things. So much beauty and so much gratitude and appreciation and so much intimacy and connection with the people with whom you're sharing the experience. Aside from the fact that I just miss my dad so much, everything else about it has been beautiful.

[01:32:13] Alyson: Mm-hmm.

[01:32:14] Luke: It's like if I could change one thing about it, I could just call him later today, just to hear his laugh and his corny Boomer jokes and to get his Boomer email chains with memes ragging on the Democrats.

[01:32:35] Alyson: What about when he would call and say, "Luther Lee, it's your dad, Alan Lee?"

[01:32:39] Luke: Yeah. He called me Luther Lee from Tennessee. My whole life, he called me that from the time I was a little kid. Yeah. He was such a funny dude. He just had these weird idiosyncrasies. But when I was a kid and I'd be tagging along with him, he'd introduce me to people. They'd say, "Oh, Al, is that your--" They call him Al, "Al, is that your son? What's his name?" He'd say, "Well, the girls call him handsome, but his real name's Luke." He used to say that all the time. He is just like corny dad joke guy.

[01:33:10] Alyson: He would chat with everyone. When we would go to hot springs or wherever we would go, he's the friendliest. He had the sweetest heart, a genuine sweetheart. It was not an ounce of a facade in that. And he would just chat up whoever he was standing next to him, strike up conversation. Just so friendly.

[01:33:30] Luke: Yeah. Very, I don't know-- extroverted is not necessarily the word.

[01:33:35] Alyson: I think he just--

[01:33:37] Luke: Because some extroverts feed on attention, and he wasn't looking for attention.

[01:33:42] Alyson: Connection.

[01:33:43] Luke: Yeah, connection. There you go.

[01:33:44] Alyson: Not attention. Connection.

[01:33:44] Luke: Exactly. Yeah. It would be embarrassing because, I don't know, I don't find it that easy to just start talking to people. But yeah, he is very much that way. So it's those things. There's a sadness in that. There's a yearning in the form of him and all its expression. But if you extract that part of it, it's just positive.

[01:34:13] It's all beauty and it's all perfection. Those are the sticky parts of the human experience, that attachment to form that it's meant to be. We're built that way. We're designed that way. Because we are playing in the world of form, and we are temporarily form. So of course we're going to cling to form, so I don't fight that, but that is the part that hurts.

[01:34:43] Alyson: Mm-hmm. Do you want to share at all about the consciousness?

[01:34:49] Luke: Oh, so cool. Yeah. So one of the things that I did say to my dad too when I first walked in the room, and I think something that I just conveyed to him, and if I ever said anything else after that in the subsequent time I spent with him, was just, I was just so stoked for him and so proud of him and inspired by him that he just squeezed so much juice out of this incarnation in terms of where he started, the family of his origin, the dysfunction, the trauma, the alcoholism, the violence.

[01:35:27] Alyson: Abuse.

[01:35:28] Luke: All forms of abuse, the level of consciousness from which he emerged as a kid was exceedingly low. God bless them all.

[01:35:38] Alyson: And when you share the interview in another podcast episode, you'll hear some of those stories.

[01:35:44] Luke: Yeah. And so from where he came from to where he arrived by the end of his life is truly phenomenal. And so I was so curious in that space of trying to reach him and just understand where he was in those moments and what his experience was. I reached out to my friend Clayten from one of the creators of FLFE, Focused Life Force Energy.

[01:36:14] And Clayten and I are both longtime huge fans and students of Dr. David R. Hawkins. And some listeners will be familiar because it's something I've referred to a lot. But David Hawkins was a spiritual teacher and a psychiatrist, and he created something called the map of consciousness and created using muscle testing or kinesiology, a way by which to determine the level of consciousness of anything, anyone, anytime, any idea, any person.

[01:36:44] Alyson: Any place.

[01:35:45] Luke: Yeah. And it's a logarithmic scale from one to 1,000, one being the absence of life and 1,000 being Christ consciousness, Buddhahood, etc. The highest level one can achieve and still hold onto a body. And so my worldview and the way I see my life's purpose is to continue to elevate and let go of anything in my life that's keeping me down in those lower levels and to get as close as I can to sainthood while still accepting my imperfection.

[01:37:26] And so I was curious about my dad's level of consciousness. So I sent Clayten Stedmann a text because he's a master kinesiologist in this particular realm and is very accurate and has been doing this testing for 25, 30 years in probably hundreds of thousands of calibrations.

[01:37:48] So he is accurate, and I really trust his judgment. So I sent him a text, "Hey, here's what's going on, if you have the space for this." Because I want to ask him stuff every day. And I resist unless it's really important because I don't pay him. But I sent him a text and so he calibrated my dad, and he said that this average level of consciousness over the past five years was 500, which you won the game. You got that. You're good.

[01:38:19] Alyson: Can I read what 500 is?

[01:38:21] Luke: Let's do it. Sure.

[01:38:21] Alyson: 500 is the level of love, the level of unconditional love, compassion, and emotional healing. It transcends self-interest. It focuses on the wellbeing of others. Love at this level isn't just an emotion, but a state of being, consistent, forgiving, and unwavering, even in the face of adversity. People at this level radiate joy, kindness, and acceptance.

[01:38:48] Luke: Beautiful. So if his average was 500 over the course of five years, that would, of course, mean there were fluctuations based on mood, etc. So certain hours, days, times, and so on, he might've been higher at times. Sometimes he might've dipped down lower. I highly doubt he ever dipped down below the level of integrity at 200 because he's just a solid guy.

[01:39:09] He didn't have hate in his heart or dishonesty or dishonor or any kind of distortions that would ever manifest in that way. But the fact that he managed to stabilize himself at 500 was so meaningful to me. And I just felt so, proud isn't the right word, because pride isn't a very-- I don't know. It's a limited expression, but just grateful and inspired by the fact that he was able to do that from where he came from.

[01:39:37] And then more importantly, was that in the last 48 hours of his life, Clayten calibrated him at an average of 600, which is not only astonishing, but also confirmed to me that wherever he was, even though I'm not sure where that was or that I could completely be with him there, that he was in absolute peace.

[01:40:01] Alyson: And 600 is the level of exactly that peace. At this level, ego dissolves and deep inner peace prevails. The mind becomes silent, and perception shifts to an awareness of oneness and profound serenity. This is the realm of saints, mystics, and enlightened teachers. The world is seen as an expression of divine perfection beyond duality, suffering, and conflict.

[01:40:34] Luke: There you go.

[01:40:35] Alyson: So to know your father was living in that state, that's all you need to know.

[01:40:43] Luke: And in my dad's journey of healing and awakening, in my opinion and observation, the single most persistent obstacle to his enlightenment was the mind. He was terribly bothered by the fact that he could not stop the mind from thinking. And a lot of the frustration he experienced at times in his development was using the mind and tools of the mind to free himself from its clutches.

[01:41:27] And it was a cycle. Earlier, when I said he was seeking God, although I don't know that he ever knew that or that he expressed that, but something that I tried to convey to him based on my own experience for years was just that the obstacle can't be the tool you use to overcome the obstacle.

[01:41:51] And that what you're looking for, pop, is a spiritual experience. And the spiritual experience is what puts the mind at ease. So it was so beautiful to know that where he was in those last couple days was the place of no mind, a place that I've only touched on a couple of occasions, probably throughout my life.

[01:42:14] And that's what he always wanted. He got his wish. He got his intention, and he received the gift that he worked so hard to earn while he was here. What a beautiful sendoff from this earthbound experience, man. It's like he wanted enlightenment in his own way, and that's what he got.

[01:42:41] And also, it's interesting that he-- May shared this with me, and I didn't really know this-- his wife, again, is named May-- that he had no fear of death and that he wasn't concerned about living a long time. He felt complete in his life for a number of reasons. And I think his level of consciousness for those last few years and in his last few days speaks to why he held a sense of completion. Because he accomplished what he meant to do, which was to graduate up and out of mind.

[01:43:22] Alyson: Great work, Alan, Alan A.

[01:43:25] Luke: What a fucking legend, man. That's no easy task. Any of us that are on the path know that it's a formidable opponent.

[01:43:37] Alyson: Hmm.

[01:43:37] Luke: The mind is so tenacious.

[01:43:42] Alyson: That's a perfect word for it. Effing tenacious.

[01:43:45] Luke: I just like, "God." That's what I kept saying. I'm just like, "Dude, good job. Oh, my God. Just crushed it."

[01:43:54] Alyson: And that's what I mean about the awe and the beauty and the miracle and that portal.

[01:43:59] Luke: Yeah.

[01:44:00] Alyson: Even yesterday, I didn't share at all in depth, but they knew that Alan had crossed over. So a couple of friends were asking just how it was, how you are. And when I'm saying what I'm about to say, I'm not saying it-- and I know you know this, and just for anyone who doesn't know me, I'm not meaning it in any vulgar or weird way, but as I was sharing a bit about the experience, I was smiling and I wasn't fully aware.

[01:44:28] I knew I was, but one of my friends was like, she was like, "Oh my gosh, tell me more. Because how are you sharing about this and you have like a smile on your face." And it's like, that's what I mean. Wow. Wow.

[01:44:44] Luke: Yeah. Everything is context. There's an infinite number of perspectives with which we can hold any experience in life.

[01:44:57] Alyson: And she asked--

[01:44:58] Luke: Everything is held within that context.

[01:45:00] Alyson: And that perception, she asked. She was like, "Was his passing peaceful?" And I'm like, "It depends on who you would ask." You could probably ask all of us in the room and we would maybe have varying answers. From my perspective, it was very peaceful. It was completely peaceful.

[01:45:15] And I didn't even know-- I don't think that these consciousness scales, so I didn't know until today, until you told me that 600 level. But I was like, "From my perspective, it was completely peaceful."

[01:45:25] Luke: That's the energy you felt?

[01:45:26] Alyson: Yeah.

[01:45:27] Luke: Yeah. Well, that's is weird. It's hard to look past-- speaking of the content and context, in the content of the moment when you see the body and the body appears to be really struggling and clinging to life--

[01:45:42] Alyson: It could be perceived as fighting for life.

[01:45:43] Luke: Yeah. Right? So in the immediate superficial perspective, it could be traumatic even to some. But it takes a bit of aperture widening to see the context of like, oh, yeah. Okay. That's what the body's doing. But what is the spirit doing? Where is it, and how is it holding this whole thing?

[01:46:03] And I could only hope that the way he was holding it at 600 was seeing everyone in the room and just going like, "Wow, I'm so loved. I'm so loved. I was loved, and I'll continue to be loved." And to be able to move on to the higher realms with that awareness is leaving him with an incredible gift as well.

[01:46:25] Alyson: And one last note from me, it was so beautiful when you would be caring for him in the hospital, and you really gravitated a lot to his head and petting his head and his hair and stroking his head. And a lot of ancient cultures and traditions believe that when the soul exit, its exits through the head.

[01:46:48] And I don't know. When those dots connected for me, there's just something potentially in there on a deep soul level for you, that awareness, that knowingness, and going to his head and just giving the care and love to the portal through which the soul would be exiting.

[01:47:06] And who knows? As you were doing that, maybe one of those times was also, potentially, simultaneously the time that his soul was exiting, and your soul knew that, and you went to his head and comforted his head in that moment. Who knows?

[01:47:21] Luke: Mm-hmm.

[01:47:22] Alyson: Anything you want to close with around-- because I know that they'll be able to hear some of those fascinating stories when you air the next episode. But the chopper crash, the baby bears.

[01:47:36] Luke: The guy just had such an interesting and rich life, and I feel like we've gone on for a while. And I'm sure this conversation will have held value for some people and others won't be listening anymore at this point. But I think due to the fact that I realized I have such a rich document of his story, that I'm pretty sure that most of the stories I would've shared today can be left for him to share in what will be a posthumous podcast interview with my dad, the one that I thought I didn't get to do.

[01:48:20] That I did in my own way. And so we'll maybe put that out in a month or so. And yeah, because there's so many stories. A couple that come to mind in case they're not in there that I'll share that are just like, oh, man. There was one that just speaks to his soft and sensitive core that existed underneath his just sometimes brutally tough exterior.

[01:48:49] And that was a story that I told in my very first podcast episode in 2016. And it was a memory that I had. One of our many hunting or fishing, horseback trips, when I was a kid wherein one of the horses was injured and couldn't make it down the mountain. And so he had to put it out of its misery by shooting it.

[01:49:12] And it was one of those memories where I've had it forever, but I don't remember the details of the experience. I just remember it as a thing that happened, but not how it happened, where it happened, when it happened. And so even after I put out that episode, I'm like, "Is that actually true, or did I have a dream when I was a kid? Or is it an implanted memory or false memory?"

[01:49:35] And I didn't want to be disingenuous or dishonest on my podcast because I really do my best to tell the truth here. I don't want to tell a story that's not true, but I felt that it was true enough to include. So anyway, over the years, I would ask my dad about that because I thought I might have to go back and edit that out if it didn't really happen. And I'd ask him about it and he's like, "I don't remember that. No, I don't know." And I'm like, "Ah." Just never got around to going back and editing the episode or stuff, whatever.

[01:50:03] It is what it is. No one's listening to that anyway. It's been years. Every couple years I ask him, "Are you sure, dad? Because I feel like I remember that." And then a couple of years ago I asked him about it again and he said, "You know what?" And he just had no memory of it. He was like, "I don't know what you're talking about."

[01:50:19] And a couple of years ago he said, "You know what, Luke? I ran into my old friend, Bill, or whatever his name was, a couple of months ago. And we sat down and had a talk. And he told me that same story. He was with us on that trip. So it did happen." I was like, "Holy shit." I said, "Dad, how could you have forgotten that?"

[01:50:43] And he said, "It was too traumatic. It hurt me so much to have to kill that horse." He was such a feeling sensitive guy. And as people will learn when he talks about his childhood, we're so much alike in that way. But how I was holding the story loosely in my memory all of these years was that that's how mean he was and how heartless and ruthless he was when I was a kid.

[01:51:18] That he could just shoot a horse point blank and just walk away like nothing happened. Because that's how I remember it. Just like, matter of fact, boom. All right, guys. Let's go. Come on, Luke. Get your ass up here. He was hard when I was a kid. So my memory of it and the reality of it, like many things in life that we hold as a painful memory or for which we blame someone else was actually not accurate.

[01:51:50] My recount of the story was more accurate than the meaning behind it. The meaning behind it was, he was so feeling that he had to compartmentalize that memory because it hurt him so badly. And that's just one of many, but that one's meaningful to me. And there's one more, just to speak to his integrity, and it's what an honorable person he was, which is astonishing to me because I've had to work so hard for so many years to become an integrous, honorable person.

[01:52:26] Because I didn't use to be. I never learned how to be that way through addiction and all those things. But many years ago, he was exploring the 12 steps as a teaching, even though he quit drinking when I was, I think maybe before I was born. But he was an alcoholic and then he just white knuckled it and just quit on his own and never went to any program or anything.

[01:52:49] He just did it by sheer willpower, which says a lot, again, about that guy's sticktoitiveness. But as a result, he had all these unresolved issues and anger and things that were underneath the alcoholism. But later in life, when he saw how much success I was having in my recovery, he got curious and inspired, and I shared a lot of my experience there.

[01:53:12] And so at some point, he set about to do his ninth step, which is where you make amends to the people you've harmed except when to do so would injure them or others. So this went on for years. That's how it goes. You start remembering things or your moral framework becomes more refined.

[01:53:32] And so you might have made amends for some of your more egregious errors early on. And then as you become more refined, you realize like, ah. Actually, you know what? I missed a few because things become unacceptable that would've been acceptable to you earlier on. So he was telling me one story about his process of making amends, and it was a really difficult one for him.

[01:53:53] He is really like bracing himself to do it, bracing himself to tell me about it. And he was so embarrassed and ashamed. So I'm thinking, oh man, maybe he murdered someone or something, which I wouldn't put past him the way he used to hold anger.

[01:54:09] But the story he told me was, at the time, it was 30 years ago, in one of his real estate deals, something he was selling this guy a property, some acreage, and he didn't disclose to the buyer who was an acquaintance or friend of his certain details about the water rights or mineral rights or something within the contractual specifics around this deal they had.

[01:54:42] And so he screwed the guy and sold it to him and just withheld some information, like a sin of omission rather than a sin of commission. And the guy never really knew. It didn't hurt the guy. It didn't harm their relationship. But the fact that that minor infraction bothered my dad that much for that long really speaks to how honest of a man he was. And when he told me that, I was deflated. I'm like, "That's it?"

[01:55:15] Oh, my God. You should see my list. And so that's just another one of those examples that showed a deeper level of his character that I was unaware of on the surface. I always knew he was just rigorously honest and a standup guy. Very, very high integrity. But I just got such a kick out of that. I thought it was so cute. As someone who had done such worse things myself in my former life, I was like, "Man, if that's all you got, you're doing pretty well, dad."

[01:55:48] Alyson: Mm-hmm.

[01:55:49] Luke: So good job, Alan.

[01:55:52] Alyson: Yeah. And maybe lastly, I know you shared that he learned how to love and helped you to learn.

[01:56:01] Luke: Yeah, to his parting level of consciousness. He really did overcome a tremendous amount of hurt, and the anger on the surface of that hurt and the rage and the way that he used to behave and treat himself and treat other people. And to go from that to someone who was very caring and kind and empathetic and compassionate, and ultimately that he won Earth School, the Earth School Olympics.

[01:56:47] That he eventually learned how to love himself, and as a result of loving himself, was able to unconditionally love all of us and everyone that he knew. And that's my goal. I'm making progress. I hope you could affirm that. I feel like I'm getting better at that. And so it is a beautiful knowing that we, in our own unique ways, shared the same life mission of remembering who we are.

[01:57:19] Alyson: That's beautiful.

[01:57:20] Luke: And remembering why we're here. And he did that, and knowing he did that helps me to know that it's possible that I could do the same.

[01:57:29] Alyson: Oh, you're definitely doing the same. Remember when God spoke through me a few years ago in LA, in our place in LA, about five years ago at this point, and God said, "Put my hand on your heart." And I think the only words I said was, "You did it." Learned how to love and that you just got blasted open. It wasn't me talking when I said that.

[01:57:53] Luke: Yeah.

[01:57:53] Alyson: It's God.

[01:57:54] Luke: I do remember that. I always remember that.

[01:57:57] Alyson: So honoring you. You've been navigating this so beautifully. It's been such a treasure to have the honor to hold you when you have the waves and those sweet tender, vulnerable, intimate moments as you find your way. And just adjusting to this shift, where your dad's presence is in the realms and hence forth presence in your life experience. It's just an adjustment, and you are riding the waves and adjusting so beautifully, honey.

[01:58:37] Luke: Thank you, dear. Thanks for being with me while I do it.

[01:58:41] Alyson: Yeah. And now for the grand finale, don't forget, I'm not going to let you forget.

[01:58:48] Luke: I was hoping you'd forget.

[01:58:49] Alyson: Oh, no way, Jose. From my perspective, maybe just because I'm your wife, I love when you sing. I love when we sing together. My top three favorite things that we do as a married couple are playing guitars and singing together.

[01:59:03] I love it, love it, love it. We do it here at the house all the time. And yet historically, when we would venture out, you might strum the guitar, but then you wouldn't sing. And I'd be like, "Sing with me." And then long story short, you recently unpacked this suppressed memory of a former band mate. And I won't tell that story for you, but this is a meaningful moment for various reasons, for one, just personally that you're allowing your singing be heard by someone other than me. And secondly, it's just perfect that this opening for yourself and your voice and your life is coming through the channel of your dad. You played in bands for 20, 30 years. You used to travel in Europe. Used to do this professionally. And yet you, believe it or not, said you've never memorized a song until now. And this song entered in right after we got back home after Alan crossed over. The song just arrived to you. And it's the first song that you've memorized and the first song that you're going to sing for anyone.

[02:00:15] Luke: To clarify, I have not memorized, I'm going to have to cheat with the lyrics, but it is the first song I've ever learned start to finish. Because when I was playing in bands, I was a bass player, so of course I knew dozens of songs, maybe hundreds in the course of those years. But I've memorized the bass part, but I've never sang publicly before, and I've never learned a whole song on guitar start to finish. And I think I learned this one, so I'm going to give it a shot.

[02:00:41] It's an homage to my dad in many ways, one of which being that he was a terrible singer. He could not sing a lick. So if I can sing any better than my dad could, I win. I'm going to be doing great. And also, as you said, it's something I'm really, for some reason, just super shy and insecure about. So I'm going to channel my dad's courageous nature and play a tribute to him. And it's a song by Bob Dylan called Death Is Not the End.

[Luke Singing]

[02:01:15] When you're sad and when you are lonely and you haven't got a friend, just remember that death is not the end. And all that you've held sacred falls down and does not, man, just remember that death is not the end. Not the end. Not the end. Just remember that death is not end.

[02:02:30] When you're standing on the crossroads that you cannot comprehend, just remember that death is not the end. And all your dreams have vanished and you don't know what's up the band, just remember that death is not the end. Not the end. Not the end. Just remember that death is not the end.

[02:03:11] When the storm clouds gather around you and heavy rains descend, just remember that death is not the end. And there's no one there to comfort you with the helping hand to lend, just remember that death is not the end. Not the end. Not the end. Just remember that death is not the end.

[02:03:51] Oh, the tree of life is growing where the spirit never dies. And the bright light of salvation shines in dark and empty skies. When the cities are on fire with the burning flesh of man, just remember that death is not the end. And you search in vain to find just one law abiding citizen, just remember that death is not the end.

[02:04:34] Not the end. Not the end. Just remember that death is not the end. Not the end. Not end. Just remember that death is not the end. Just remember that death is not the end. Just remember that death is not the end.