How in the world?

The number one thought on my mind was, "How in the world am I going to make it to the end of life after having my heart r-i-p-p-e-d o-u-t? It's horrendous beyond belief, but it just happened. It did happen. It's real. And it is so, so final—and so, so irreversible. I don't know if I can really live."

After returning to work, I remember going through the motions, but with not much zest for life. Ever so slowly, I learned the lesson of parallel worlds. Two worlds do exist with life in them. I continued to walk in the park, continued to pray, "My father who is in heaven," continued to realize that "in my father's compound are many houses," continued to say "I'll catch up to you soon," and added a new utterance, "Thank you, father, for the safekeeping of my precious son."

Talking to the dead is not something that I have ever done before. I did find it necessary to do, however, because there were some matters left untended. I had to try to make sure that a message was heard. I had to apologize for all my wrong moves. I had to relate all the plans that I had wanted to see him complete. The next life is such "an undiscovered territory," as Shakespeare put it, that it leads you to do things that might not be right or accurate, but on the outside chance that they are, you do it. I don't know if my son heard a single word, but I had to tell him.

And dreams... oh, I wanted to have a dream of communication from the next life. I had one all right, but it was not one that I could say was not the machinations of my own my mind. It wasn't clear that it was communication from that other world. But I heard so much from others about seeing angels at the time of death, or seeing a bright light as the spirit departed. I wanted that experience too. I received silence. I wanted to hear a voice. I received soundless space.

So, I worked... and tried to care about my work. But, I had to work at caring about work. How in the world was I going to make it after my heart had been R-I-P-P-E-D O-U-T?

Where to place my stakes

I had taken 2 weeks off from work. I have no idea how most of those days went. I do remember walking in the park that is close to the house every morning and evening. I would walk within 15 minutes of getting up and within 30 minutes of closing down for the night. I know it was my salvation, however.

There's a cement pathway near the primeter of the park. It's ringed by willows and pecans. When the day's first rays filter through the trees, something celestial dawns on the conscious awareness. I simply put one foot in front of the other and walk a mile. And that's the phrase I still remember most of that 2-week time period—one foot in front of the other. I didn't have a whole lot to think about except why I was in the condition I was in. It was not supposed to be the way it was. So, around the park I would go uttering the Lord's prayer. If anyone did watch me making the rounds of the park, they had to be wondering why or what I was constantly muttering under my breath. It was the only thing I could say. I knew better than to lash out to God. But, I still knew that I had to find my way in a forest of different thoughts. So, I staked my 2 weeks' recovery period before reporting back to work on 2 recitations. They flowed from my lips morning and evening. Beyond those 2 recitations, I knew nothing. So, my lips moved:

My father in heaven, your name is sacred.

I wish for the coming of your kingdom.

I wish for your will to be done on earth just like it is in heaven.

Give us today the bread we need,

and forgive us our wrongdoing as we have forgiven wrongdoings against us.

Do not lead us into temptation but deliver us from the evil one

because to you belongs the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. So it is.

Many times I would go line by line thinking through every word and how it applied to my new world without the flesh and blood member I had grown so used to seeing everyday and who represented my future. The 4th line I concentrated on. The 4th line the Maker delivered on. My days went by without a lapse into deep, dark depression.

In my father's compound are many, many houses. If it were not so, I wouldn't have told you it was. I am going to prepare a place for you. And if I go to prepare you a place, I will come again and take you to be with me so that you can be where I am.

The second sentence I repeated time and time again. I had to bank on either the reality of what I see is what I get or that life after death was both truth and reality. It helped me to address the one I loved and lost. It helped me adopt the phrase for my future, "I'll catch up to you soon." I can now actually look forward to the life after this one. If it were not true, the Son of Man would not have lied. He even said, "I wouldn't have told you it was true if it wasn't."

Even today I look upward and whisper, "I'll catch up to you soon."

The cold ground

Finally, the day arrives. It's been in the back of the mind since the afternoon that fate took its fatal twist. The day that finalizes the separation of body from planet. The day that inevitably rips what little root has been left in the heart completely from its dirt. The day in which the long last gaze upon the spiritless frame that represents the memories of years. The day finally arrives.

Yeah, there's a tribute ceremony, but it's not the same as a send-off or a time for bon voyage. The ceremony helps serves as the lock and key barring the ones who stay on this earth from the ones who are granted safe passage to the life after this one. The ceremony is a time to share with those outside the family's circle a circumstance or two that characterized the life of the one who left. The send-off happened days before.

The night immediately following the tributes given starts the really l-o-o-o-n-g journey without the person who so long has been a part of your essence. What does one do now? Life seems unimaginable any more. One of the reasons for living has been removed. Why must one go on without his presence? How does one move beyond this point that no one can believed just happened? Putting one foot in front of the other seems a little trite, but it is the only truth to the questions above.

Ah, there's a subject—truth! Bah humbug! Reality is the only game in town, not truth. Truth is lying in the cold ground.

A broken law

The morning broke without my attention to it. Somewhere in the light hours of morning I awoke to the breaking realization that something irreversible had happened the day before. I couldn't control it and disliked it with such great animostiy that to say I had an issue with its irreversibility would be a gross understatement.

The day's duties were clear cut. What happens at a funeral home is pretty standard around the states. Probably, so is what happens in one's mind, but a person's background governs his experience so that the thoughts become intensely personal. At first the disbelief is great. Each morning of 5 mornings the sun rose with the hope that matters would be different. But, they were not different. With strict uniformity the hope vanished because there would never be another conversation with the person I intensely loved. Visual communication had halted completely. It was a world with no picture.

Besides the normal dawning of this nether world of separation was the overwhelming thought that what happened was so, so wrong. Surely the Creator of life would never require that children precede their parents on the journey to the next life. Parents go first. It's written in stone. That is also irreversible. How could it be that that law has been overturned! It came into my conscious mind as voice so reverberatingly loud that I just shook my head over and over and over. The voice didn't leave nor did the thunder of its sound diminish.

All 5 days were as one. The routines were to eat and sleep mainly, and visit with family who had arrived for comfort. But the voice and its accompanying thunder were routine as well. All the intense care for a year suddenly and screechingly came to an immediate stop. And it was wrong, just plain wrong. The Healer had been implored a hundred times by many people. But His answer was that he would heal in His way, not ours-in His place, not ours. Did he not care that one of the inviolable rules had been broken. Parents take the journey home before their children. Always. It's written in stone! No-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o!

Black hole

Dusk appeared outside. But, the night that it announced wouldn't be cozy. In fact, it would lead to the worst nightfall one can experience. Even one's own death could not be worse.

I don't even remember how or why I came home. Habit I suppose. I was numb after having wrung every emotional ounce of tears onto the hospital floor just 3 hours before. Since 7:00 I had been alone. I wish I could think of what pulsed through my mind. That's a blackness. I had uttered words based on what a nurse had done for physical comfort months ago. She repeated the soothing refrain, "Think of a blue room. What you love is in the middle of the room. It's so pleasant." I never rehearsed what I would say at the appointed time because I didn't want to be a non-believer in the awsome power of the Healer. But, at the appointed time my lips moved with sound, "Think of a white room. Think of a throne in the center. Think of the golden crown you are wearing." I never made it past that point in speaking. I just repeated the three-phrase utterance.






In my blackness, I hope I recounted every good memory, every word of love given out. I do know that I knew why I was alone. The reason was a demon all its own. It only added to the blackness. Somewhere around midnight, figuratively and literally, and very real on either level, I slept. As did someone I loved. But, I would wake again. The one I loved did too, just not in the world he left behind the evening before.