Text by Katie Kerl, Copyright 2021
.
Living Legacy
.
When life spins us full circle, we are finally able to see. We see our past mistakes, our newfound strengths, weaknesses, the way we express empathy, and our ability to have an impact on change around us.
I sat down and tried to write this many times and it ended in tears. I am not good at being in emotional limbo. Again, here we were again back and forth to cancer doctors that really had conflicting opinions on my father’s condition.
That is enough to make you lose your mind. As a family going through it, you just want to know what you are dealing with. I write a lot about personal things because it is real. Healing from traumas is also a necessary element in moving forward with your life.
My father has the top cancer team in the state taking care of him at Rittenhouse Oncology. Dr. Rene Rubin is a remarkable woman. There was never a time she did not answer her personal cell phone for any of the questions I had in the last three years. I used to think that was an awful job watching people deteriorate and be sick. I think much differently now. It is a gift to be allotted extra time here. If you give people days, weeks, months, years, or to cure them. There is no downside when all the people suffering can do is they’re best to fight every day. To all the cancer patients and families going through it. You are doing the best you can.
From these experiences, I do have a harder exterior now to guard my own energy. Yet going through this has brought me to a new level of empathy. Kind of an odd mix, but it seems to be working for me.
We were informed my father has stage two Pancreatic Cancer, and treatment is not an option. This time my life is completely different. I am balancing a new job and trying to be there for my father as much as I can. That is what you do for the people who not only gave you life, but the best life.
The freedom to be myself.
My father has endured so much in this time. He will never lose to cancer. He has WON no matter how you look at it. He went through treatments without complaint, he beat one of the deadliest cancers when doctors were counting him out and fighting to live with every fiber of his being.
I could not have been prouder at the end of that for my entire family. Lots of people told me I was doing too much. Those people are in the same sad places they were a year ago. I have had people wanting me to go to parties and not ask how my dad is. Do not let people who do not give you a true interpersonal friendship, or a relationship interfere with your family. You can fuck off!!
We all also got covid together last winter and LIVED. My father remarried my mother, and we have been making memories that I only wished to have when I was younger after their divorce.
My father has given me the greatest gift; my family back. He will be talked about for generations to come in this family, and that is a legacy. Now I get to give him the greatest gift. He only ever wanted me to be happy with what I was doing. Not with men, social norms, or babies.
Finding a career that lights your soul on fire and is on par with my intelligence level.
“It always makes you feel free,” he would say to me, and he was not wrong.
I found out what I was truly capable of while taking care of him. I’ll have that forever. Amid madness, I found my peace. Meditation and manifestation work, I swear by it now. There is not one thing I have written down that has yet to come true.
I am giving stock, crypto, and NFT information to people who want to learn where we are headed financially.
The funny thing is I saw an amazing inspirational video. The man in it looked at the producers face and said, “I can’t die I can’t die; I’ve tried…. twice. You will not leave here until you fulfill your purpose.”
My father always told me he lived for me. That is the greatest compliment someone can give you. I never need validation if I am good enough from anyone or wonder if someone likes me. I like me, I have been that way my entire life. I have him to thank for it.
My father wins because life is about experience and there is not a person that knows my family that would say my father missed one thing. He was a trailblazer, always defying rules, taking care of his friends/family, and was always inclusive to anyone he cared about, and loved what he did for 37 years.
I’d say that would be the real AMERICAN DREAM according to the era he was born into.
When you become our friends, you become family. Always followed with a funny nickname, but that was just what we did. Every person I have brought home to meet him has always called him Dad. I always loved that about him. I never felt like I had to hide who I was, or my friends. We are an odd, interesting bunch in the Kerl family, in the best way possible.
The thing he is most proud of now is the current job I started. I am the Vice President of Lifestyle & Client Clubs for a new electric vehicle lifestyle start up, Derek Automotive Technologies Inc. I get to wake up and do what I love every day for the rest of my life. I get to be myself every day! I do not have to hide who I am for an employer.
My crazy creativity and imagination are welcomed and respected. I am appreciated for having a deep understanding of interpersonal skills and can project someone else’s lifestyle onto the world. I have been back and forth to Atlanta a few times. This is the first of many experience centers to open across the country. Along with a plethora of other amazing things in the works.
I am creating private label lines from small businesses and artists. Sourcing American and local. I am even getting to take a few friends along with me that are good for this company and have helped me succeed as well.
We are LIVING HISTORY at Derek Automotive. The first black EV start-up that is eco friendly, and has a mission of inclusion, and promoting building small business owners. Being a woman, I am so used to my ideas being shut down, no matter how good they were. That is not the case here.
I do not want to be your housewife.
I do not want to be your Trophy.
I do not want to be put on display at your parties.
I do not want to put an act on for your friends and hide who I am.
I do not accept bullshit from people anymore.
I have my own full life to live that I set myself up being in the right places at the right time, and started believing in my potential as much as other people did.
I did this work. I did not cheat the system.
I did not sleep for 9 months of my life caretaking and hustling a new life fully knowing I was never going back to where I was. That is not a complaint, that is what needs to be done.
When we think about life, how much of yours depends on someone else’s being? If you had to think about that for too long, find yourself and be happy. Get people out of the rat race they feel condemned to be in because you paid a lot of money for a piece of stamped paper.
Soooooo What?!?!?
Every three years we trade in cars if you are leasing. Look at jobs like you are leasing them with the option to walk away if it is not making you happy.
Stop caring about what everyone around you is doing and thinking, they are just as fucked up if not worse! This is not an enjoyable time in this country for most, but it is time to find the right people to be in your corner.
No one doing better than you is going to criticize you for trying to better yourself. Absolutely go after what you want. At the end of the day, we are all left alone.
You will have your memories, are you going to wish you had more exciting experiences?
I am so thankful for COVID, CANCER, and the struggle it took to get to this point of happiness.
I appreciate my life and everyone that I have encountered since writing for Tony Ward. Exactly three years ago I was the cover and started my writing journey that led me to an amazing career. I attended Tony’s Birthday at the Dupree Gallery in Queen Village, where his own work is hanging this month. Beautiful black and white photography. Tony has such a way of capturing people at the exact right moment.
I am lucky to have come across him, and he saw what he did in me. A genuine person and good friend.
I got to see all my favorite people in one night after getting that devastating news, which was really comforting. Then we went to HOT BED & The James Oliver Gallery.
Kate Boyle’s Exhibit it was moving. Such a strong female artist, I highly suggest it.
Being back in that gallery gave me some closure to my ex’s death. I met him there and it was such a fun night. We had broken up, I did not get to go to the funeral. I never for a second did not love Oliver, being there with my friends after getting my dad’s news was really a healing moment.
I spent the rest of the weekend still processing all of this. I have been micro dosing mushrooms, and pot so that I can balance all these emotions, and still be creative for my job. Mushrooms are like a spa for your brain. I do not go to parties and eat them.
I heal, after a few days my brain is rested, reset, and creativity flows.
This was the hardest piece I have written. I have always done this talked about my life in depth. All of the things’ people keep inside, but I never actually had to talk about losing my best friend. After eating mushrooms, I got up today and it was easy. If you are in a dark place stop drowning in alcohol. Believe me it is not fucking worth it. Go to D.C. for the weekend and get Purple Penthouse Delivery. There is delivery here, but it’s legal in D.C.
Ever wonder why the two mind healing drugs are legal in the state where some of most of the brilliant minds reside??
Get off your prescription meds and feel life again. If you take SSRI’s, do you remember what it’s like to feel like to just feel, and not be numb? Just because you had a few hard months you do not need years of medicine to fix it!!
People who say, “oh that’s so hard,” just are not capable of what you are. I have now repeated it twice in this piece. Along with a few other things because miserable people will try to keep you in a place, they are comfortable seeing you in.
They cannot find other ways to heal, to progress, are unhappy, and need to find a reason to live.
IT’S SUPPOSED TO BE HARD. Dreams do not come easy.
Not the life you work for and deserve.
You change your habits, you take care of your family, you get rituals & habits, and be positive.
I have had 37 amazing years with my father (hopefully a bit more time) and got my family back. I do not know what world I have dropped into, but I am going to stay here a while.
Find what sets your soul on fire and be thankful.
To all my real friends who have ridden these last three years out with me, I love all of you!
You are the reason I am thriving from your tireless SUPPORT.
.
.
.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Katie Kerl was raised in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania. She is currently living in Northern Liberties, Philadelphia. Katie has a background in Psychology from Drexel University. She is a manager in the commercial/residential design field . Katie can be reached on Instagram @kerlupwithkate
For collaboration e-mail: Kate.kerl32@gmail.com
To access additional article by Katie Kerl, click here:https://tonyward.com/katie-kerl-philly-reloaded-life-after-lockdown/