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| White Light of Death |
Once I
worked in the upstairs offices of a bank, located in the Dallas area. A
coworker was an older man who never married. He lived with his sisters and took
care of his mother. We will call him Lewis.
One day,
Lewis sat down on the chair next to my desk. He asked, “Do you believe in life
after death?”
Being quite
young, I hadn’t thought too much about it. I shrugged and said, “I guess. Why
do you ask?”
Then he
proceeded to tell me of his mother’s last day on this earth.
She had been
on her deathbed. Lewis’ father was already gone. His parents were young during
the Prohibition era and they loved to dance. As Lewis put it, “Every Saturday
night, they’d go out and shake a leg.”
He sat on a
chair by his mother’s bed. All of sudden, she raised her arms. “You come here
and let me help you.”
She faced
the other side of the bed and proceeded to attend to someone or something.
Lewis asked, “What are you doing, Mama? Who do you see?”
“Oh, I’m
just fixin’ this little boy’s collar. He’s dressed like they did at the turn of
the century. One side of his collar's tucked under his coat.” She patted what would have been
the little boy. “There now, fixed.”
She lay back
and closed her eyes. Lewis’ mind wandered, thinking of his youth and his
parents.
Mama said, “Do
you think they’re in heaven?”
Lewis jerked
awake. He must have drifted off. “Who Mama? Who do you see?”
“There, at
the end of the bed. The Jacksons are here.”
They were
the couple Lewis’ mama and daddy danced with on Saturday nights. Even though it
was Prohibition, they’d go honky-tonkin’, kick their feet and swing around.
Lewis couldn’t
see who mama saw, but he said, “I’m sure they are. They were good people.”
He no longer
allowed his mind to wander, to drift off to sleep. His mama was having
hallucinations. As the clock by her bed ticked away the afternoon, a little
girl dressed in frills came to her bedside, neighbors from her past, church
matrons and friends who had died in France during WW1.
“There are so
many crowdin’ in, Lewis. I’m afraid they’ll move the bed.”
Lewis couldn’t
see anyone or anything. All he saw was her lace covered chest-of-drawers. The lamp on
her bedside table, the clock that ticked away the day.
“They want
me to come with them,” she sighed heavily, “and I am tired.” Her voice
weakened. “So very tired.”
Later that afternoon, Lewis’ mother passed away.
* * *
I was with
my dad when he died. We were in a curtained room in the ER. An oxygen mask
covered his face. I stood beside the gurney, my husband off to the side. My dad
kept looking at where my husband stood. He pointed over and over, his glassy eyes wide. My
husband looked where he pointed but we didn't see anything.
My dad died
a few minutes later.
After the hospital’s
minister came and gave us condolences, the ER doctor and nurse, who had attended my
dad, came in. I asked, “Do you ever see the spirits of those who die?”
Without
hesitation, the doctor nodded. “Yes.”
With a great
deal of hesitation, the nurse finally nodded and said, “Yes, I have, too.”
~*~*~*~*~
