“In death we are all yesterday’s people, trapped forever in the past tense.” —Salman Rushdie, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder
I didn’t know I would die that morning. Why would I? I’d only been 48 years old for eight days, still young in 1961.
A few weeks before, the doctor said everything looked good other than a hole in my belly, which caused the discomfort I’d been experiencing. Hole? I think he meant ulcer. Discomfort? Well, I’d call those sharp crushing stabs pain.
I’ve always had a quick temper, but the pain made it worse.
I woke up angry the morning I died. Rain poured in through the light fixture in our bedroom and I blamed my son, Richard, for not cleaning the leaves off the roof. I dressed in a hurry, all the time muttering and yelling about Richard. I forgot to notice my daughter, Ginni, only 12 and tall for her age, in the room frozen like a deer caught in headlights while she listened and watched.
I flew out of the bedroom like a storm, exited the house via the service porch backdoor. I’d almost reached the patio when a vice like pain crushed across my chest, throwing me to the ground as I grasped the thick gold necklace I wore and ripped it off my neck.
I laid on the wet ground, my body a curled ball, rain pouring and drenching my hair, my face, my clothes, my body.
My wife, Ruth, called my name from the window in our pink bathroom. “Bud…Bud…Bud,” her volume increasing each time she called out. I couldn’t answer. I think I was already gone, hovering above.
Ginni followed Ruth outside and when they reached me, Ruth spoke my name again as she rolled my body onto my back. Her voice caressed me like a gentle breeze, the sound of a woman trying to awaken her beloved from sleep. Maybe that’s how I heard it. Maybe her voice trembled, maybe it was a sharp demand to wake up. I heard love. She didn’t realize I was already gone because my chest continued to move up and down. I guess when life abruptly ends, a body still holds onto a lifetime habit of activity.
For a moment, Ruth pulled her attention away from me and told Ginni to wake Richard and tell him to bring a blanket.
Richard never came. Ginni brought the blanket and soon Harold Davis, our neighbor from across the street, appeared and began pushing on my chest. He didn’t notice his soaked suit or his tie drowning in the water on the ground.
Firemen arrived, moved me to another place in the yard but still in the rain, and worked on my body. I was in it again and for a moment opened my eyes and saw Ginni standing at my feet, looking at me. I wanted to apologize for yelling at her last night. I wanted to say, “I don’t want to leave you. I’m sorry,” but my body was no longer mine and I could only hope she could read the regret and love in my eyes.
Then I was gone, out of my body high above the yard. I struggled as an unseen force pulled to take me further up and away. I didn’t want to leave my family. Their pain took hold. Ruth stunned and frozen like a stone, Ginni in the living room in front of the fireplace, and Richard running up and down the driveway, wailing, his hands cupping his ears. I wanted to be there to comfort them.
“Stop it,” I yelled as the pulling continued. My anger, hot, burning coals fury, larger than ever because now I was being forced to leave my family, my wife, my daughter, and son when they needed me most.
Angry because I wasn’t ready to leave my body and my life behind. I’d always been in a charge—didn’t my anger prove that—and now there was something bigger, stronger than me. My will meant nothing. My desires and wishes meant nothing. I was impotent against what was happening.
I heard Ginni repeating, like a mantra, “Please don’t let my daddy die. Please don’t let my daddy be dead.” But dead I was and my wish that her wishes be granted went unheard, or, if heard, the answer was, “No.”
I raged against the injustice for years, stopping only for a brief time when Ruth died in 2005 and we drank and danced and laughed. When I couldn’t let go of my anger and outrage, Ruth left me and moved on, saying she still had a lot to learn and wouldn’t let me hold her back the way she had when she was alive.
The day I died wasn’t the end of my journey, although I’ve never walked the earth or held those I love in my arms. I wish I’d known when I was alive to choose love instead of anger. If I could do it again, I’d morph my volatility into passion and compassion for my children. I would have offered them more quality time and created memories that could hold them up in their darkest days.
I wish I’d said thank you more than should. I wish I’d spent weekends with my children instead of fishing with the guys. I realized, too late, that my friends had their lives and moved on while my daughter has carried her love for me throughout her life. I wish I’d given her more time. I wish I’d had more time.
If I’d known life would end without warning at a young age, maybe I would have done things differently. I can’t alter the past, but perhaps I can create a better future from all I’m learning from Ginni. I’ve been the beneficiary of her struggles, therapy, shamanic journeys, and especially her writing.
The past few years, I’ve felt something new. Ginni has awakened something in me. I think I may be ready to let go of the anger, to remember I was and am loved, and to remember I love. I think Ginni is healing us from a pain held onto long enough. I hope for her sake, she no longer must feel that ache in her heart, but maybe she needs it to guide her.
Perhaps there were gifts in my death after all.
For many years, I’ve written about the day my father died. The above writing came from a writing prompt during a writing group led by Ann Randolph. When she offered the prompt to write from someone else’s perspective, without giving it a thought, I wrote that day from my dad’s perspective.
Now it’s your turn: Write about anything you choose from another person’s perspective.
At first, I was confused and finally realized it wasn't YOU but your father!! After I read the paragraph at the end that explained everything, I went back and read it again. I hope your father's spirit saw himself after he died and was able to let go of his anger!
I just happened to finish a marathon of reading about Near-death studies and wonderful true stories written by Trudy Harris, a hospice nurse. It started when saw a DVD, "90 Minutes in Heaven," and then saw that I also had the book, and read that, and then I saw that I had about 7 books on that subject and read them all (I buy books at our library book sales and sometimes don't even know I have them until I spy them on the shelves).
Every single thing I've read tells me that when we die, we see our lives in retrospect, and we see and feel the pain we have caused others. Wow! I'm not looking forward to THAT! But supposedly, we don't let that stop us from entering the "Pearly Gates," since God forgives us. It US who have a hard time forgiving ourselves.
Your father died at a far too young age, Ginni. Maybe you could write about what it was that made so much anger in himself that it caused him to die so young.
And just maybe your writing in his voice about his sorrow and regret was an actual glimpse into the feelings he did experience as he saw his own "life review." Very possible, Ginni!
I'm not afraid of death. But I am afraid of dying if I get a stroke and have to be in a freaking "rest home!" THAT is a fate worse than death!
Have a nice day! (Sorry, couldn't resist that!)
This was a unique way to tell the story. It’s good to look at situations from a different perspective. You told it well.