The following is a long ramble about the life of my father, and some of the views he bestowed upon me. My brother told me this came off as a bit pretentious, and if it sounds like I’m being preachy I am sorry! It hits on a handful of subjects and bounces around talking about his life, his death, and values. It touches on his cancer and my trip to Asia in 2019 and the connections we had during that journey. It also explains a little bit about why we did this particular funeral trip, and why I call him “Jim”. If you want to get straight into the adventures, you can head over to the index page for a list of the dates and places. Rest in Peace Jim, I miss you like crazy all the time.
My brother, Mark and I, set out to honor the life of our father this past December (2023). He was a complicated man in many ways, but he spent the last of his years on this earth traveling and experiencing life to the fullest of his abilities. He even passed in “the oldest city in the United States”, located next to the alleged “Fountain of Youth” in St. Augustine Florida. I’m sure he would have liked to pass away somewhere more exotic, but having to go to dialysis 3 times a week put a cork in some of his plans.
Mark is two years younger than I, and when he graduated from high school our father felt he had nothing tying him down to our Dallas/Fort Worth suburban house. He didn’t have many close friends he would regularly meet up with in person, and as people got older the times spent were even less. He decided to sell his house and store away a couple of things (that ended up being stolen) and hit the road. He moved to Panama for a little bit, had a house on a little island that you had to take a boat to get to from the “main” island, with all power provided by solar and all water provided by the rain. It was much more simple there as far as daily life went, however complications arose such as local pirates who would shoot and rob an establishment for sometimes as little as a couple hundred dollars USD. The number of ex-pats who moved to the area that found themselves partying until comatosed became a bit too much, as well as the fear of being left for dead in his house.. so he once again decided to get his things and head out.
This starts his final chapter of life, his “Homeless By Choice” phase. Over the next 10 years he would continue to move around, experience new things, and write about them on his blog. Sometimes he would find the cheapest plane ticket to a country he had never been to before and would journey on over. When he began this phase, the moniker “digital nomad” wasn’t a thing, and he was a trendsetter for this lifestyle. He would stay at places that barely had more than you would get camping, but if he could occasionally get some internet signal, he could keep pressing on. Many people don’t “travel”, instead “go on vacation”, probably due to the American work standards; people get so worn out from their daily lives that all they want is to be pampered and comfortable and just not think about the stresses of their daily lives for a couple of days.
It’s my personal belief that comfort dictates many people’s decisions, but it is in the state of discomfort that a human can truly grow the most. One might feel that because they have the financial stability to throw money at a situation until it is as comfortable as they would like it to be, doesn’t mean that they actually need to do so.
So our father, Jim, would continue to roam the earth, sometimes getting covered from head to toe in bug bites, sleeping in uncomfortable situations, eating questionable food, but was always living his life to the fullest. I think he did more in those 10 years of being Homeless By Choice than most humans will ever accomplish in their whole lives. Although it’s understandable that many people cannot go down these certain avenues, copious people would still choose comfort over adventure. Everywhere he went he carried around all of his stories and experiences with him, able to connect to so many people, with only a handful of friends but limitless numbers of acquaintances.
He taught us that material things don’t really provide as much happiness as one imagines they will, and you won’t take those things with you when you pass. His spirit still lives on in many parts of the world, touching far more people than I’ll ever be able to understand.
In 2019, while in South Africa, Jim was hospitalized with Hepatitis, and was able to help self diagnose that something else was going wrong with his body. Anyone that remembers him knew that his intelligence could be a bit overwhelming sometimes, even to the point of insisting that he knew more than the medically trained doctors. He found out he had multiple myeloma, a type of blood cancer that would take out his kidneys and end his traveling days. Honestly I would have guessed the beers or the cigarettes would have been a key to his demise, but seemingly was not the case. Him finding out he had cancer put a sudden stop on my life as I knew it for that time being, and we united in Japan where my brother was working so we could get the whole family together, potentially for the last time.
Fast forward a little bit to him trying to return to the United States to begin his cancer treatment, but did not have an American health care plan at that time. They wanted a $250,000 deposit to start his treatment without insurance, so he decided he would wait for January to come through so he would enroll. Before January could arrive, he was hospitalized in Malaga Spain with sepsis, where he would stay for about 6 months in agonizing pain. During that time period I would visit places that meant a lot to him, trying to connect with people he had affected and see things that he found awe inspiring. At this time in my life a lot of people thought I was running away from problems at home, due to a relationship dissolving, but really I was motivated to keep going for my pops. A drunk woman in Laos insisted that I should be at the hospital there by his side, and I was making the wrong decision by being so far away from him. I insisted to her that this was indeed what he actually would have preferred, that sitting next to him watching him in pain and playing cards would truly bring him very little happiness. I tried to live my life to the fullest every day I could, to have lots of stories and photos to send to the man who was bedridden. I looked forward to returning home and seeing my friends and riding my bike again, but all that seemed small compared to the task at hand, so I pressed on, always going to new places and experiencing new things.
I only spent 9 months as a “Homeless By Choice” trainee, but I now carry with me some of the most amazing experiences, and got to connect with my father in a way I would never have thought possible. Before this, people would ask me where my father was, and I would tell them I didn’t know.. They would ask me how I could not know, and I would often reply that even though he was somewhere 24 hours ago that doesn’t mean he’s anywhere close to that now! No plan, no problem. Sharing that experience with him, even though he was far away, brought us closer together, and I understood why he did the things that he gave his life to.
I was so ready to come home in April and see my friends at a bike race in the woods that was already planned for my birthday. How great it would be to see all the faces I missed so dearly, but the world came to a halt in 2020. Jim and I lived together in Austin for the bulk of Covid-19 during 2020, which was difficult for many reasons as one might imagine, especially being with an immunocompromised individual. No need to focus on the negatives that we encountered at this time, but I felt grateful to know I was not alone in the world with the suffering, as many people were going through rough, and rougher times during the pandemic of 2020.
He would eventually head off on his own again, in search of what adventures he could have while being on dialysis 3 days a week, and his final stop was in St. Augustine, Florida. He passed away August 25th of 2022.
As soon as he passed I had made plans for what I wanted to do with his ashes. The first step was bringing containers full of his cremains to where his brothers and sisters lived, Michigan. Mark and I encouraged people to travel somewhere new, ideally out of the state of Michigan, to spread his ashes for the sake of his traveling spirit. Of course the family would have special places very dear to them where they might have shared memories as children, but we wanted people to go somewhere new and challenging, because that’s the life that he wanted everyone to live. I knew two places that were very dear to him, and had planned a trip almost instantly to where I wanted to spread some of his ashes. Mark’s schedule is extremely tight and we kept trying to figure out when we could make the journey. It was originally scheduled for April of 2024 but due to complications arising he had to push it back to April of 2025. I mentioned I could not wait that long, and Mark managed to find a couple of weeks off in December of 2023 when we could make the trip. It was pretty last minute and nobody else was able to join, but off we went.
Our destinations were Mt Batur in Bali, a location that he had said “I wouldn’t mind having my body thrown into that volcano”, and Apo Island in the Philippines, the location where he wanted to spend his final days. He wanted me to come back to Apo Island and film the celebration of his life as he passed, and document the whole thing. He tried hard to get his PD (peritoneal dialysis) so he could potentially do dialysis on such an island, but he ruptured it when we were living together in Austin. Apo was where he wanted to die, and it’s where I wanted to leave a headstone for the man.
I flew to Washington DC on December 9th so that Mark and I could land in Bali together, even if it meant going “the long way around the world.” We only had 3 weeks to do so much, but we made sure every day was extremely action packed and always maximum adventurous. We hiked to the top of Mt Batur before sunrise, and had a video conference call with some members of the family. We watched the sun pop over the clouds, and played “Wish You Were Here” by Pink Floyd over a dinky phone speaker. We sprinkled his ashes into the open, inactive, crater below, and emotions ran strong; even the tour guide had tears in his eyes during our little ceremony. We scootered around the island, even taking the ashes onto a ferry to visit Nusa Penida, where Mark got in a dive. We saw temples and natural wonders all throughout the island, tried to find remote places to eat, and struggled to communicate sometimes. Just how I like it. We got dumped on with rain, I froze, and we bickered, but overall the experiences were great and magical. Mark was a fantastic accomplice to the mission and was always strong and willing to keep going.
On December 19th we left Bali and headed to the Philippines, where at first Mark learned much about the country that many Americans do not know, especially the details of World War II, let alone the colonization attempt. On the 22nd we left Manila to fly to Dumagete, where we had a lapida, the Filipino word for a grave stone, made. It weighed about 30 kgs and I strapped it to my backpack and we were off to Apo Island.. a tricycle ride to the bus depot, followed by a painful bus ride where we had to stand for most of it holding the weight of the lapida, to booking a boat to take us to the island. After checking in, and leaving the lapida in the room, we trekked up the mountain to Parola to where the light house sits, and discussed what might be most ideal for the stone. Nicknick, a close friend of our father’s who is a legend on Apo Island, was busy in the mountain province where his wife’s family lived. Upon hearing of our arrival and when we had to depart, he took the long trip back and showed up on Apo on Christmas Day, the best gift we could have asked for. It’s still hard to express how grateful we are that he left behind his own children, daughter, and mother-in-law to come assist us with this mission for our father, and I will have to do my best to try and help repay the favor to the legend himself, as well as his family. Nicknick talked to the Captain of the island, and came back saying that we could install the lapida on his property up in Parola, right along the path that everyone takes to visit the lighthouse. We initially planned on putting it out of the way and possibly hidden, but now many people can see where his traveling spirit rests.
Many people asked why Apo Island, why the Philippines? Well the Filipino people were Jim’s favorites, he finally had a place where he could feel at home. With all the countries he traveled to and experienced, this little island was the most special to him. Someone asked me if it would be difficult to go back and visit his grave site.. to me, that was almost the point. He wouldn’t want to be somewhere that you could just drive your truck up to and go “oh hey there he is.” Getting to Apo Island is inevitably an adventurous one, even without climbing the mountain to get to the top. One cannot fly straight to Dumaguete, a tiny little airport with 2 gates. Then there’s the bus, and the boat, and last the mountain, when you can finally see his grave site. The lapida reads “Here rests the traveling spirit of James Joseph Schmidt, 06 May 1958 – 25 August 2022, “Homeless By Choice”.” We spread some more ashes in the concrete underneath the marker, forever to rest in his favorite spot.
The third location for his ashes on the trip was the hanging coffins in Sagada. He was very interested in the traditions these people held with their dead, including tying them to a chair inside of their house and people coming to that house and celebrating their life for over a week with the body bound to not fall out of the chair. They would then put the coffins up high in the rocks hanging off the limestone karst, in the belief that putting them up higher brought them closer to heaven. The first time I visited this location the woman who was my guide was sad to think that most of the bodies in the US are cremated, to which I replied we do have “open casket funerals” but didn’t go into the details how the body is closer to a Barbie doll than the physical human. A friend I met in Vietnam told me in India, since he was the oldest born son, he was to return home and be the person to burn the body of his mother, and one can really watch the body leave this physical realm. We are so detached from death in our society, of ourselves, of the food we eat, the whole thing. It is no wonder so many people struggle so much with their own mortality as we try to constantly shield ourselves from this inevitable fact.
We saw so much in our 3 weeks in these two countries, experiences that we will have for the entirety or brains being able to recall events, and even then other people will still possess these memories as well. The joy brought by material things can feel exciting, but will often be quickly replaced with the next purchase.. keeping that capitalism wheel grinding. Our father lived his life with a backpack of his possessions, often smelling bad, showing up underdressed to Mark’s wedding, and always ready for whatever was next. He would be frustrated when other people could not possess as much freedom with their time as he had, maybe it was all the years of flexibility and forgetting that other people have lives and schedules, or maybe he truly just wanted people to be able to break free of those things. I personally have a phrase that “comfort leads to stagnation.” Sure it’s nice to feel nice, but honestly it is boring to people like my father. Where is the struggle, the adventure, the real human experience? Humans aren’t made to have climate controlled boxes for everything they do, it’s only a recent thing and yet people immediately do not know how to live without this. Many people go to an all exclusive resort, where they can be served foods they are familiar with, and have people talk to them in the one language they know, just as a hope to try and escape their mundane existences of the daily grind. While I realize it’s certainly a privilege to be able to go and experience such things, it’s how you chose to spend that time and energy that he wishes people could understand. Not to name names but we hard a story of a guy who won’t rest until he has accumulated a BILLION dollars. He already has enough money he could do whatever he wanted, just relax for a minute, enjoy life, but for him the hustle is the pleasure. Jim always wanted to let people know there’s more to life than making money, rather than worrying about what you can do to try and leave a big mark of yourself so that you won’t be forgotten. It’s silly to think of ourselves as being anything that close to important, and even the biggest of changes is rather small in the grand scheme of things. Time is the most valuable resource we have, so how do you plan on spending it?
I was asked why I referred to him as Jim, and when I started doing that. It was probably during my travels in SE asia when he was in the hospital. I didn’t want to make it about me, by referring to him constantly as “MY father”, for he was known by many people, and would be missed by many people. I called him Jim, as he was a good friend of mine, and was a friend to the whole earth, and not just the person who donated DNA to put me here on this planet.
