HERE AND HEREAFTER

I have nothing to attribute the stories to (in which to attribute? Nope. Too formal.) that I am about to share. No hidden agenda, no expectation that the experiences have any significance past the witness I bear. For me, they are not solid evidence of some particular doctrine. I can’t tell you why, and frankly, in my mind- if it’s all the same to you- you can’t tell me why, either. Because, in all fairness, my guess would be every bit as good as yours, and vice versa. You may feel free to call your convictions “beliefs” or “faith” and I will understand. But for me, I find comfort in the notion that these occurrences happen, in whatever relative consciousness or perception I assume I possess, simply because they just “do.” 

And maybe my mind has the ability to weave these meanings together from the threads of memory, from leftover pieces of information, affection, energy- all earmarked in the person’s name. To create significance out of what others choose to call coincidence. Who knows? (Your guess or mine?)

So, enough preface. I will get to it: Whenever someone dies that I am close to, I feel like the conversation with them continues. Like a vague, nagging thought about them turns into a phrase, or an observation of exactly what they want me to know. In particular, this seems to apply to close relatives, although it has happened with friends who have died unexpectedly, or parents of close friends.

The night my Grandpa died (although I was unaware that he had died), I was sitting next to John in a giant arena after the theatre performance that had brought us together. We were holding hands, high with the excitement of new love. This was not something I could have verbalized at the time, (more of a looking back and understanding what it is that I understood) but at one point, I sensed my grandpa there with us, even said (somewhere in my mind to somewhere in his mind) “Here he is, Grandpa. This is the one.” Like I somehow introduced them. Got his approval. My mom waited until the next day to give me the news because she didn’t want to ruin all our hard work by making me sad. That was when it made sense. When I “knew” he really had been there, after all.  Visiting us in California, like he never had been able to when he was alive.

Things were slightly different when my Grandma died, because a good deal of our energy was focused on helping my Papa through the agony of losing his lifelong companion. I learned a lot about the social and communal aspects of death. How to help. What to say. What to do. How to lose someone, but also how to console the living.

After the funeral, I accompanied my aunt to the grocery store to get more supplies for the house full of guests and mourners. As we loaded items onto the belt, the ring my Grandma had given me on my 13^th birthday- that had been her mother’s, that I had worn ever since- got caught (I’m not even sure on what) and snapped at the base. I burst into tears, relieved that the pinch of the metal gave me an excuse. My heart was broken that such a special heirloom had to choose THIS particular moment to break. My aunt just looked at me and smiled. “ You know, that’s actually very special. They say that when someone dies, if something that they gave you breaks, it means that they are here with you.”

My Nana died during a bitter frozen winter in Upstate New York. She had been single and alone in her apartment for 26 years. The whole family was there for her funeral, but from the minute I crossed the threshold into her apartment, I knew in no uncertain terms exactly what she wanted. We had only one week to orchestrate the disassembly of her belongings- into boxes, to friends, to donation, to the post office- and that was exactly what we were to do.In frozen 2 degree weather, we huddled together at her graveside stunned silent by the new education of how cold could permeate layers of jacket like they weren’t even there. As the Rabbi began speaking, a chilling wind whipped up, and I felt my Nana pass through us. Lamenting things undone, unsaid. She couldn’t rest with dignity until her affairs were all settled.

As we combed through dishes, drawers, personal belongings, my brother found an old bag of cassette tapes. And (coincidentally??) he also found an old tape player. In my haste to complete the daunting task, I probably would have thrown them away. But as we took clothes off of hangers, pictures off of walls, my brother pushed play. And we listened to my Nana’s voice, young and clear, audio journaling her solo drive across the country-from New York to Riverside- to visit our family. She described each day’s drive, the people she met along the way, the landmarks she had always wanted to see. And the excitement (and exhaustion) grew as she neared her destination. Her voice a notch higher in Arizona, then filled with anticipation as she crossed the threshold into California. And as an unfathomable finale, she shouted into the tape recorder with excitement as she spotted our house. The car door opened, and the screams of our childhood selves shattered the room. Celebrating her arrival. “You’re HERE!! YOU’RE HERE!!!” She was there and we were here and it was then and now all at once.

My Papa couldn’t understand what was taking him so long to die. Once Grandma was gone, he engraved his own headstone next to hers and visited it regularly. The only nagging detail keeping them apart was the blank spot after the dash that would one day separate his birth from his death. It took ten years of Papa impatiently waiting to be with Grandma again. When he died, I felt sad for the obvious reasons, but also because it was the first time I just didn’t feel a thing. No energy at all. No trace. Gone. We packed up his belongings- he wasn’t there. Went to the temple services- still nothing. Like he finally got his dying wish, and never looked back.

But then we got to the graveside. In a Jewish funeral, they lower the coffin into the ground, and every person takes a turn returning the loved one to the earth- scooping a shovel of dirt into the grave, but holding the shovel upside down as a symbol of regret for the action. My Papa had thrown himself, wailing, onto my Grandma’s coffin when it was her turn to be lowered, and I expected to feel similarly solemn about the experience the second time around. To my surprise, it was quite the opposite. As soon his coffin hit its long awaited resting spot, I felt a burst of happiness that spun high into the air. My grandparents together again, twirling in a spirited dance of joy! I had to suppress a giggle, and assumed it was the inappropriate reaction that nervousness sometimes brings. But my brother Geoff caught my eye, and he asked me (out loud, in actual verbal language) if I had felt that. We laughed together, in knowing celebration.

It took me my entire life- and especially the three years of illness leading up to the end of my dad’s life- to become strong enough to handle losing him. The night my father died, I was sitting at his side, holding his hand.  Our whole family surrounded him, and our breathing was his breathing. We were one in the way that ancient texts describe everyone being connected. And my dad was carried along through our current of love.  I don’t know how and I don’t know why, and I don’t know if it really happened or if I imagined it, but I felt him travel through me on his way out. And it was every emotion you could imagine, all at once. Of course sadness, and a touch of fear, but also support and encouragement, and exhilaration, and a surprising component of outright joyousness. Of freedom and light and movement and color and sound and transformation. From where to where? I don’t know.

In his final breath, his final descent, I felt the cool tingle of his energy as it left through my fingers. And we all knew he was gone.

Gone isn’t the right word, though. Not here? Not him? Not in his body?

It took a little time to settle into whatever form of consciousness (for lack of a better term) he took on, or perhaps returned to, in death.  Like those crazy Magic Eye posters we all used to stare at- not sure what we were trying to look for, how it would appear- I had to blur my realistic focus and recognize that what I was seeing had to be perceived in a different way than I was used to.

The colors, same as the ones I had seen when he died, were the easiest for me to comprehend. I know what I have seen before, and I know what I haven’t. These colors seemed to be more than one thing at a time, and never stopped changing. They were not the static forms of energy we are accustom to calling a table, or a vase of flowers. Closer to the notion of a sunset.

I “heard” him telling me things. Insistent things. Omniscient things. Not in words, exactly. More like I had thought the words, but they weren’t mine. Like there is a big story and a lot of answers and he wanted to share them with me, but we suddenly had a language gap. Or perhaps there isn’t language to explain what we have tried, in every configuration, to manifest.

The most surprising sensation I experienced was physical, and lasted for days, if not weeks, after his death. My upper body felt the queasy, non-specific uneasiness you feel when your finger accidentally gets in-between the plug and the socket and you get zapped. I attributed it to the unfamiliar level of grief, or to being tense, (or perhaps the absence of being tense) until one day, the sensation was so pervasive that I actually mentioned it out loud to someone. “It is odd. I don’t feel it in my head or neck, or lower arms, just right around my upper arms and back. Almost like I could draw a line around me… almost like a………hug.”

There are too many stories to fit them all here. Songs, influences, reparations, phrases that I hear until I have to say, “OK, OK, already!” and repeat the message out loud, so he knows I heard. And over time, the sharpness, the rawness of our connection has mellowed. Sort of like a song you have heard so many times, you feel like you almost can’t hear it anymore.  

I can tell you that from my experience, what is “here” and what is “there” has become a whole lot more interesting. I try to listen the best I can. I want to get the whole story. But, similar to the bits that are lost in translation when a book written in one language is told in another, there are pieces missing. Subtle nuances that change the entire meaning. Ones that can’t quite be replaced.

It has been nearly two years since my dad died, and on what would have been his 69^th birthday, I find myself thinking about him. Reminiscing. It still feels like an odd dream, like I haven’t talked to him in a while and owe him a phone call. Like he’s perfectly content sitting in a comfortable chair overlooking the view, pouring over his medical and law journals, or blissed-out , following his fingers on the piano. He’s busy somewhere living his life and we are busy living ours. Which is largely true, for the most part. Only his forwarding address is to parts unknown. At least for now, I suppose.

How strange it is, typing into the night and then sending my thoughts into the stratosphere. It’s a one-way ticket. I never know where they land. I wonder if you’re skeptical. Searching for tangible explanations, excuses. Or you might have a perfectly good answer for why these things happen. Or maybe you really couldn’t care less either way. But if you have read this far, then perhaps you ponder the bigger meaning, the deeper connection. If so, then maybe sharing my experience will at least give you some form of peace, fill in a few pieces of the puzzle you are trying to solve. (Or you may just get a good chuckle at the latest confirmation that I am a whack job!!) At the very least, I hope you will find some comfort in the thought that there is comfort to be found. Why? How? I will leave those questions and their answers up to you.