In Remembrance

Lyrics: Waking skies at sunrise/ Every sunset too/ Seems to be bringing me/ Memories of you.

The Rose Man, 1935 -2012

It’s been four years today since you left this dimension for parts unknown.  Some believe that their loved ones look down on them from the celestial realm and thus know all about our earthly activities.  That might be true or it might be what some want, even need to be true.  My personal feeling is that once this life is over, it’s over as we know it here on earth.    Consciousness lives on but is uninterested in the material and is directed toward the spiritual.  People who report on their Near Death Experiences commonly notes that the love they feel in that cosmic dimension is unlike anything experienced in this material world and many aren’t keen on returning.

Dr. Mary C. Neal experienced a “pop” when her soul separated from her body after her kayak tipped over and pinned her under water for over eleven minutes.  She “shot” above the river into another realm.  “A feeling of absolute love pierced me, a feeling greater and so different from anything I’d ever known.”  (Her book is To Heaven and Back.)  I related this story to the Rose Man’s neurologist in the hospital and he responded, “It must have been very cold water.”  I had the opportunity to meet Dr. Neal and tell her what he’d said and she commented, “That’s what he needs to believe.”  In her book, Dying to Be Me, Anita Moorjani writes about her cure from cancer following a NDE.  “I had the choice to come back or not.  I chose to return when I realized that ‘heaven’ is a state, not a place. . .”  A newspaper reported on the death of a well-known comedian, a former Pentecostal minister, from a car crash.  The friend with him recounted that the man didn’t appear to have life endangering injuries but kept repeating, “I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die.”  He then heard him say, “But why?”  And just before his last breath, the friend heard him go, “OK, OK, OK,” as if he was having a conversation with someone on the other side.

Like so many others who have lost their loved ones, I wondered what death was like for the Rose Man; who was there to welcome him to the other side, did he know peace as he made his transition, does he follow our comings and goings, will be he there to welcome us when our times comes, did our dog, Poppins, connect with him after her transition?  My husband didn’t want to die.  He told a dialysis nurse once that he wanted to live at least long enough to see his grandchildren graduate from high school.  Was he watching from upstairs when his grandson graduated in 2015, and his granddaughter this June?  Did he know that they carried the diamond pins earned for years of service to United Airlines during their commencement?  More important than the material items, did he know that they carried him their hearts and will always because love doesn’t die with death?

Naturally I miss him when he’s not here to fix a problem or help with an important decision.  But I miss him more for the little things we shared; how the community is rapidly changing with every new building, how the roses bloomed early this year, about my perfect day on the Greek Island of Mykonos, how his sister and brother-in-law were here to visit in June, that his eldest son and family are back in the country after three years in Germany, that his youngest son and daughter-in-law are moving to Oregon, that our middle son is staying ahead of the cancer that threatened his life a few years ago?  So many things to share with my partner of 55 years.  So many questions.  So many unknowns.

I’m reminded of Dr. Brugh Joy’s admonition to energy healing practitioners, “Delete your need to understand.”  He was referring to the scientific mechanism operating in the energy field that has yet to reveal it’s secrets.  He was saying that you don’t need to understand it to manifest it’s gifts.  In regard to deleting our need to understand the Big Mystery, I wonder, is that possible?

Lyrics: Here and there, everywhere/ Scenes that we once knew/ And they all just recall/ Memories of you.  Lyrics by Andy Razaf and music by Eubie Blakes, 1930.