Walking into the Light

I have heard from two people recently - both people cared for aging parents as they were dying. Both people had extremely similar experiences.

And, you know, had I not heard both within weeks, I would have discounted both stories because it sort of flies in the face of what I believe.

Anyway, in the last couple of days of each of these peoples lives, they experienced talking with people who are dead. Let's call the first person ~Deb. Anyway, ~Deb was in her seventies and her heath was failing. And in the last few days, she started having conversations with her mother, a mother who died fairly young, and ~Deb always felt abandoned by her mother.

Her son and daughters each heard ~Deb carry on what they characterized as "sane conversations" with her dead mother. My first reaction was to discount this, asking if she was on any pain medications. Cold, heartless, but the words fell out of my mouth before I knew what I was saying. My friend grinned, not upset, almost knowing that it was something I would ask.

She said she thought Mom was loosing it at first, but then to see her calm face, a face that she really did not recognize. Her mother always got tight-jawed when talking about her mother, but now, in her final days, she seemed much more at peace with her mother. Sure, a preacher did ask if she needed to talk to anyone to resolve issues, but I am fairly sure he did not mean anyone who was no longer living.

She talked about seeing people who were not there, and I wonder now if this woman was caught between heaven and earth. Is that possible? I don't believe that people now dead can interact with us – it is not part of my beliefs as a Catholic, but when I hear about this and other stories, I sometimes wonder.

The other woman who was dying talked with her mother, her father and one sister the last two days of her life. She would ignore people by her bed when talking to them, and then as if something had changed, she weakly came back to the room, talking to people in the room after she regained her composure.

It reminds me a bit of the Movie Beatlejuice. Not the comedy, but something that the "dead handbook" said. The living usually do not see the deceased. Something like that. What if this trite little movie has a bit of truth in it? What if we are not in tune with those who have passed before us? I know that I believe that we sometimes do not pay attention to God. Part of my discernment process. But what if there is more to it than that. What if the dead can see us, and we can sense them?

Nah, I still don't believe it, but darned it, there are some things that are hard to explain. I blame the morphine, but were these two women on pain medications? I never got a straight answer in one case, and I learned my lesson and did not ask the second person.