Before my husband died he laid on his death bed waiting for the life support to be removed. He knew he would be dead within hours upon the removal of the machines keeping him alive. He told me that he wanted me to have a good life. He told me to trust Brigham Christianson at Fidelity to help with the finances and he told me to trust Andrew Miguel Mesa to help me care take our property and he encouraged me to trust him to help my body heal from the stress of grief. After his death Bob continued to communicate to both myself and Miguel. Bob had arranged payment for me to have 80 sessions with Miguel! Not only is Miguel helping me heal he is also writing a book about the journey. Here is Miguel’s website; the person that my husband set up to help me get my life back together again.
www.apushasta.com
Here is Andrew Miguel Mesa’s first chapter of his book
HEALING A HEALER/copyright 2026
I dedicate this book to the People of firmly established practices which have cultivated true authenticity, making for a better present moment & unhinged spontaneity. Good humor and the key to happiness; Love and Generosity.
WHAT EXACTLY IS GETTING BETTER ?
I have to tell you I wouldn’t be thinking this question at all had it not been for my own interests in being better at things. Not in the sense of better than others at doing a thing, but rather to improve on myself. To get better at whatever it is that I am capable of growing into. Simply put,I am good at a lot of things, but how is it that I can get better?
Since I was a kid building model rockets, model cars and planes and scale trains, with my dad or putting together my first skateboard it always engaged my mind to be building things. From Shop class in high school to my first job after high school as a construction laborer. For most of my life, as far back as I can remember, I’ve loved taking things apart and putting them back together, Ilove fixing things. I fix my own car, bathroom remodels, hang doors, renovations of all kinds from rooftops to kitchens, you name it and I’ve probably fixed it one time or another or took it apart, rebuilt it and put it back together, renewed and running again. From resurfacing snowboards and skis to resurfacing decks and railings, I’ve built dining room tables with leaves and converted a school bus into a cabin twice. I’ve turned Natural rock into fine jewelry. Transformed front yard dirt patches, into perennial flower gardens and giant stone labyrinths. I’ve been involved in construction from my first job after high school, to still now in my fourties’ being in the handyman, home improvement business. I’m also an apprentice, member in the Laborers International Union of Northern America. I’ve been doing some jobs lately to makea whole bunch of things “ better”.. To make things better for my clients and friends, in and around the home, has got me thinking…, It’s continued to amaze me that so many people would hire me to fix there things around the house, but very rare did they hire me to fix there aches, pains, headaches, indigestion, stiff joints and backs, stuck energy, pain in their belly or tightness in their muscles, maybe because they never knew I could, I mean, I rarely mention to people that I’m a trained bodywork therapist. Or that I have a degree from The international School of Shiatsu. As a trained Asian Bodywork therapist, specifically in Shiatsu, a 5000+ year system from which acupuncture is based on, I plan to do what Bob did, value his gifts, namely talent, what he saw in me..
That’s what brings us to our story, a story about working with the hands, not to fix things or houses or engines or anything else in the way a laborers or mechanic or carpenter, but to help a person get better.
CHAPTER 1
WHO’S BOB?
Our story begins with a promise, that after we have completed this journey, we will all be a changed. This quest, may have never been possible without the life & death of a friend of mine. His name was Bob. Truthfully, I barely knew him, we only spent a few hours together. Bob didn’t get along with too many folks and far less got along with him, yet somehow he and I got along good and he hired me for some small projects around the house and paid me well. We were able to make a solid connection. I didn’t see it at the time, nor did I act on the fact that Bob did want to spend some time together with me. We all had lunch together one Sunday but Life had me all tied up to a pattern that gave me little, to no freedom and a co-dependency relationship. I’ll tell you now, he may have seen something in me that I had not yet recognized, and therefore I couldn’t see in him, what he saw in me. Bob saw something, and what he saw may have been more from a feeling than with his eyes. He didn’t have the best eye sight and the glasses that he wore, they were very thick, coke bottles with darkening lenses. He was short and stout, and even though he spent much of his life on the west coast sounded like he could have been from and Italian neighborhood in Queens New York. He had a keen sense of style from his checkered Alpaca sweater, to his cherry red Mazda Miata, a classic 1991 convertible roadster. Although this story is not about Bob, or me, it’s more about what Bob left for us to look after in his absence. Which brings us to the main character in this Novel, Robin. Bob’s now Widow and heroine of this journey. Courageous and brave her story of recovery and becoming after the departure of her dear husband and best friend Bob.
What I am hoping to share in this story is what happens to his wife Robin, during the course of receiving 80 Shiatsu sessions over the course of about two years time. It’s a story about her journey with Shiatsu as the medium, that she will receive over the course of about two years, that’s our commitment.
This is a story of life after death, To become closer with this inevitable future that we all share, to die one day. Until that day comes I want to live as best as possible, working to better my health and lifestyle as best I can. To make as much positive change as possible for the good of my family, my daughter and my community. If there is one thing I can see that would truly be something that I can do to bring that change into being, the make things better, it’s Shiatsu.
In writing this journal of healing and discovering, a documentation of the process in giving 80 hours of Shiatsu sessions to one person, who has done so much to give to others, that now it’s her turn to receive. I hope to honor a man named Bob Bordonaro’s Legacy and venerate the success of his life. So for now I’ll put down my hammer and my saw to share with you a story of Shiatsu.
So let us begin our documentary of 80 Sessions….
Session number one.
I have really only been giving shiatsu for about twenty years. I have treated a few hundred people and most have been single, one time, treatments. One Reason why I’m so excited about this treatment schedule is that we plan tohave 80 sessions over the course of a year and a half, weekly.
Our first session was about an hour and a half, on aWednesday at 4 pm.it was a typical Mt. Shasta fall day. A bit rainy and the first of a short cold snap that is a clear indication the fall has begun, the first rain of the season. We got right into it, without too much chat, I appreciate that about this work. It requires a brief introduction and a check in, how things feel today or any priority we may want to address in the session. Set up the futon, put together the body cushions and she hoped down and stared by layingface up. As it was our first session I started a general whole body outline, knowing she had some neck issues I planned to spend a good amount of time focusing on that area. I moved around as I do, in a crawling, on my knees, with An upright body posture that is a fundamental of Shiatsu that gives the practitioner a good center of gravity and core strength, with my movements being guided by my navel , belly region, called the “ Hara” in Japanese, or lower “Dan Tuen” in Chinese.
When I moved to the area about her head and applied gentle traction on her neck, immediately her body twitched in a direction that showed be exactly where her stress was. Literally as soon as I engaged her fascia, the soft connective tissue of the body, she rippled like an electric shock had hit her, from her neck all the way down to her left foot. Her internal healing system is really active, making her own micro adjustments and corrections. Once given the freedom to do so, she got to it! Some people may not ever have that freedom in the body, or at least not for many many treatment. So it’s safe to say this is gonna be interesting and incredibly cathartic for Robin.
As we continued our session I moved around her in a clockwise rotation. Again when I applied traction on her ankles, with a slight pull, she went electric. Short twitch here and there looking in from the outside look tiny, but inside the body these kind of movements are gigantic electrical impulses that can make for some very strong changes. I think it’s clear to me now, Robin has a very active internal healing system. She’s a live wire and a powerful woman in her own 90lb way. I got back around to the place on the left side of the futon that I had begun and had Robin go ahead and turn over, to face down. Lots of activity here, her spine and central nervous system is truly online.
STAY TUNED FOR MORE……in chapter 2 of HEALING a HEALER