"Heaven isn't a destination. Heaven's a state of being and exists all around you...all the time. It's not a secret club that's meant for some and it's not separate."
Through medium and automatic writer, Kimberly Quezada, Paul Walker gives his account of life, death and Heaven and how he sees it, now, through the eyes of spirit. Always supportive of personal journeys, Paul uses humor, retrospect, sensitivity and his good nature to share how he sees what was, what is and what could be with his "bird's eye view". "Keepin' it real", Paul tells it like it is and keeps a place, like Heaven, and everyone there...including him, within arms reach.
Excerpt:
When I look back at the life that I lived, there’s not one word that I could summarize it with. How could I? Even if I had no clue at the time, at the end of it, I realized how well taken care of I was. I want everyone to know how well taken care of they are even if they have trouble seeing that. I couldn’t be a loner. I needed to surround myself with people. I needed people. I needed to make people laugh and I needed people that could make me laugh.
Laughter. One of the things that people take for granted. When you laugh, everything just shakes right off. So to open, I guess surround yourself with people that make you laugh because it makes all the difference. Don’t surround yourself with people that need the drama or the fight. Some people get off on that but the first thing that I guess I could…impart to you is to surround yourself with people that make you laugh.
Another word that I could use to summarize how my life went would be timing. Timing was everything even when I had no clue that it was working for my benefit. Looking back, I could see how it was everywhere. Did I understand that timing was in my favor every day? No. But I think the key to timing is just allowing it. I would want something and I would sit and wonder just how it would happen but if a person constantly sits and wonders how something’s going to happen, they’ll keep sitting in that place of daydreaming. The first step is to make people aware about what you’re wondering about and let it just sort of ripple from there. When you make connection; when you surround yourself with people that will work on your behalf, just because you’re a likeable guy and you know how to respect those relationships, you got it and you have that support team to add to that timing to create life. People will always open doors for you because that’s why people are put in your path and sometimes we don’t understand why something’s happening or the process of it but it doesn’t matter. When you sit back and trust that you’re well taken care of, the process just happens and the timing opens doors.
I think the moment I was born, I was aware of what happiness was. I think that having the family that I have, paved the way for me to be something. I wasn’t raised with a silver spoon in my mouth. What I was raised with was an appreciation about what every day could give. I was raised with the fact that every day was a blessing and that if it didn’t look that way, it would show itself. I just had to be patient.
I didn’t have an idea about what I wanted to do with my life. My mom, she’s the most beautiful woman and she put her life or her dreams on that backburner because she saw something, in me, which she personally started but felt I could finish. I acted. I had those gigs as a young kid and the opportunities of those opened windows that I wasn’t exactly sure that I wanted. At the time…I guess you could consider me an old soul. I wasn’t in it for any sort of fame. That whole famous thing was so foreign but my dad, you know, he instilled something in me that I think even surprised him. He told me once that it didn’t matter what I did…it’s what I would do with it. It stuck and I think I surprised a lot of people with that one piece of advice. I lived by that a lot but I didn’t really get it until much older. When I was young, I just did what young kids did. I wanted to have fun. I wanted to be active. I wanted to show off a little on a surfboard in front of the girls and then later, I wanted to be with the girls. I was a young kid and like every kid, I didn’t take life too seriously. But there came a point when I had to.
My brothers, Cody and Caleb, I mean, for years we were the dream team. Brothers…that word has such a definition for me but being here, I know how much strength that word has. I could be protective of them. I really could. So much so that I kept a stance in two worlds trying to keep them separate because I needed, for me, to keep that dream team, that brotherhood, sacred. That was my constant. That family unit was my constant and I could see how Hollywood or fame could have that potential to break that constant and keep a person separate from them (family) if you let it. I said no to that early on. I had a soft spot for Cody and I sort of took him under my wing. I never felt like I needed to prove anything to him because as a family, we were so close that nothing had to be proven, it was only loved. It was just what it was and I don’t think a lot of families can say that it was just love between them. I think, with Cody, I just needed to show him how life was done. I think I just wanted to be an example of how far a person could go when you just want to do good but I also wanted to show him that with any sort of crazy fucked up life that’s breezin’ by…you have ultimate control of that and you direct that to where you want it to go…for you. With anyone, I think it’s a great example but with Cody, the baby brother, I felt it especially.
I knew what it was like to have a best friend be a girl when I look at the relationship with my sisters. At the core of my relationship with my sisters was always…I mean, I could be an asshole of a brother. But when I looked at them, I could only see my mom and what an influence she had on me and my heart…they had that with me too. I didn’t always respect relationships with women. I wasn’t always the best guy to know. I could be young and stupid and not think about feelings. But the women in my life, that core family unit would always be that big reminder…especially when it was so obvious how a young girl’s or a young woman’s heart could be broken and take a lot to be healed.
My family…especially my brothers and sisters gave me a stability that I relied on to not fly off the handle. Yeah, I could be stupid. I could forget my head sometimes but that core of my life was what I went back to when I needed a reminder of what love really was. They were there when I needed a reminder about what was real and what was fake and I did need that reminder. I wasn’t immune to being swept away on a current of fame. I was a young kid. We all had a little bit of acting or modelling under our belts, some more than others…some, maybe you could say, they wised up enough to know there was more out there but for some reason, the roles and the opportunities found me and I didn’t really understand, at the time, why. Why was it me? I was stuck on what I really wanted to do with my life. I was grateful for the cash because I knew, when the time was right for me, I wanted to go to school. People I knew…I had a little jealousy because they could go to school because their parents could send them there. I wanted the school but I had to find out ways to pay for it and along the way things just kept happening…dropping into my lap. I had a lot of opportunities to get swept up in that and sometimes, I did. But that’s when I would go home and experience the core…that calm in the storm that was my mom, my dad, Caleb, Cody, Amie, Ashlie (Ash)…that was my go-to place to experience the calm. All that outside noise was drowned out when I went home and reconnected with my roots, my values, with family. All that other stuff just didn’t exist when I was in the presence of these people because to them, I was just Paul and to me, they were real life.
I really tried to self-sabotage myself a few times. I knew that I had the opportunity to be that star that everyone dreams about. I knew I had the opportunity to be in that world but the idea of that…there was no freedom for me there. I thought…I had the mentality that that wasn’t a free life. That I would always be looped into some sort of fantasy world and my feet were hittin’ the ground daily to try and maintain that stability. I liked the good times and I liked the parties but I didn’t like fake. I didn’t like pretend. I considered myself a pretty upfront and honest guy. I had to learn that but I still had a tendency to gravitate between being honest with myself or being honest with everyone around me and just doing something because it gave me a bit of extra cash. I needed the cash so what’s wrong with playing pretend a little bit? It sat in my gut like a huge question mark of what am I doing? My heart wasn’t in it. I felt like I was missing a big piece to some sort of puzzle that I was just handed but didn’t especially feel drawn to. But time and again…Hollywood kept calling my name. I’d push it away, work some odd jobs then an opportunity would come my way and those dollar signs would convince me that it was my ticket to do what I really wanted to do. It was little stuff…stuff that I could do in a week or a month; a guest stint or a one episode thing. That was cool. That’s the way it happened. I’d break, come back and break again. Have some fun, get serious, have some fun again. I don’t think that I considered myself to be lost. I knew what my gut told me…I just didn’t know how to get there and the acting, I mean, it was coming to a point where it was just too good to pass up.
And then I was going to be a dad. Shit just got real. Welcome Meadow Rain.
I have a lot of “one things” that I’ll probably try to impart on the reader. So, when I say one thing I probably mean and another thing but the one thing that I realized about life…is that the most unexpected events or things that happen in someone’s life are the ones that are most meant to be. Whatever takes you by surprise and pulls you in a direction that you never intended to go down or it wasn’t a thought at that time…when it happens, it’s that blueprint that builds on itself to create that personal core for you as you continue to live and experience the world around you. At some point in your life, you start making your own that is separate from the one you were living. That’s becoming an adult. That’s becoming an individual after all the lessons and experiences of your childhood. And it smacked me between the eyes like a two by four would. When I heard I was going to be a dad it was one of those cartoon scenarios where those anvils fall on a guy and they wake up with all those birds flying around the head. That was me. In all honesty, I didn’t think it was real. I lived in a state of stunned for a while and I had trouble connecting, right away, with the idea of being a father. But, in saying that, it wasn’t something that I could walk away from either. From the moment that I heard I was having a baby there was a connection that was created that I couldn’t explain. Not even now. As fast as I can snap my fingers, a connection was made and it wasn’t something that I was ever going to walk away from. Now, from the viewpoint I have now, I understand what was meant to be. I understand that the big and unexpected were actually always intended to be a gift even if it was in disguise. I heard I was going to be a dad and with that came the acceptance that even if I wasn’t fully committed to acting, I was now because there was something way bigger that I was being committed to even if I couldn’t wrap my head around it at first.
I think with any birth, it changes someone. It makes them consider one’s actions and what could be done better and what could just be left behind. Having a kid brings with it the opportunity to see a world through the eyes of innocence and how we, as adults, have the opportunity to support that innocence. I was a very part time father. I had it made…I thought I did anyway. I would make a movie, take care of Meadow and then be off experiencing something as Paul. I mean, I literally had it all broken up into a way that was comfortable to me but at some point, I outgrew that and I craved that core. I craved that stability for me and that included the stability of my baby girl. Meadow was a teacher for me. She taught me how to be that unconditional force of love and forgiveness in a life but she also taught me how letting go and letting life could benefit a child as well. As she got older, that connection just grew into this thick cord and if I ever felt like I was on some sort of tipping point that cord that was my daughter, wrapped around me to protect me from any sort of fall I may have felt like I was experiencing. She also showed me how the world spins and did I like the direction the world was spinning in or was there something that I could do to make the world spin in a direction that would keep it beautiful so Meadow could experience the world how I did when I was young. I wanted to create a connection to the world for Meadow, that I had, through the experiences with my family as a child. I wanted to create a connection, for Meadow, to the biggest playground that she would ever be a part of. That gave me a different purpose. It gave me a purpose that trumped all that other stuff because with this…it was personal. That’s when I started to think, what was I creating that is making a difference. What was I doing with the gifts I was given? What would I create that would be a legacy…something with meaning that people would know Paul was here. I was in a position to do that. I could have started something back when I needed some sort of direction but I believe that Meadow came to me at a time where I needed to take a direction and do something that was more fulfilling than being that Hollywood star.
Being a dad took all the questions out of the day to day and brought, to the forefront, that responsibility of being a human being and what I was teaching and imprinting on my daughter. I had a lot of balls to juggle and it wasn’t always an easy place for me to be in. But every time I looked in the air at all these balls that I was juggling and every time I saw that view from the pedestal that I was on but didn’t consider that I asked for, I went back to the core. I went back to what was it all for and I never got that until later. I think of it as later because I lived life by the seat of my pants. I was constantly going where the wind took me. I was always going places where there were the biggest waves. But now, just like my parents and my siblings gave me that core…I had one of my own and it’s a place I constantly found myself going back to. My relationship with my daughter became one of learning. She taught me a lot of things; the most important being how to be a decent human being. She taught me a lot about what it means to be support but also to be supportive. When parents are willing to listen to their kid, there’s a lot we can learn about ourselves and how we sometimes compensate or over compensate in situations where we really don’t have to because if we trust in the job we’re doing with our kids, we can see them blossom and we can see that if we let that cord slack a little, the kids will pull on that cord to bring us closer to them.
Meadow and I had an opportunity to live together for a while. That time spent with my baby girl was a gift in my life; to be that full time dad. It was an opportunity to build on that foundation of core values even though I didn’t realize it was an opportunity of something that I would leave behind for her to continue in my supposed absence. She is my part two. Meadow and me…we ran that relay race together and I handed her the baton to take it all the way and she’s killin’ it. Meadow Rain is my proudest moment as a man. It was unexpected and it threw me a little but she was the best gift. She was my partner, a source of incredible strength, awe and an opportunity to see the world in a way that…we all share this place and when you leave a room, the idea or the hope is to leave it looking and feeling better than when you entered it in the first place. My daughter was me leaving a room better than when I found it.
In terms of family, I couldn’t have had it any better. It was my beginning and because we lived and practiced and respected that family unit as much as we could on any given day, it was my platform and my starting point to open myself up to my life that had, with all my push/pull and reservations, the red carpet rolled out…for me.
