their new world with the old world. Gibran was right: death is sort of like a denied poet or prophet. It is in our midst, but we have not ears to hear or eyes to see.
After a while, the newly dead begin to sense that something is different. At first, there is no real knowing, but there is a sensing that things are not the same. The “knowing” that they are dead, comes later. It happens when they meet another transformed person who comes to help, or it comes when they have attempted to talk to the living so many times that they can piece together why they fail to respond.
The living go through this same shift. We often see those who have died. They are just across the room. We see them at a distance in the mall. We are sure that they were in that meeting. We will eventually stop seeing the dead in our homes, and malls, and lives as well. We will get on with life and our minds will adjust. We tell ourselves it is over and they are gone. But the gap is not as cavernous as we had hoped.
We all have a period of adjustment to go through when death occurs. The living as well as the dead.
* * *
I have had patients meet up with me in my home. They are looking for someone they can openly confide in. They all live at least forty minutes away from me, and have no idea where I live, but they show up, wanting to connect. I mean dead ones meet me. The impressions of these patients meet me; their spirits meet me; the essence of who they are meets me. The newly dead seek out the familiar and will go at great lengths to feel comfortably familiar with their new life. And so, those who need me to help make sense out of what is going on have met up with me. If only in a dream.
I am not sure if this is a violation of patient privacy, other newly dead meeting me and seeding themselves into where I am going? But, at any rate, HIPAA violation or not, they seek out life because they don’t know it is missing. They follow me into my day. They hope I will not notice that they have shown up to the meeting late.
* * *
There was one MHMR patient I had visited for months while she was alive. She was—at first—unsure of why we were meeting, even though we were speaking about being sick and about death. Her parents would not allow any of us on the hospice staff to make the connection with her predicament and her dying. We could not talk about her death. I spoke about it tangentially for months.
I spoke about it tangentially because I believe that is all that is necessary for people to do the work themselves and make the inner connection. She did. Against her parents wishes she brought forth that which was within.
She showed up at my house one morning at two o’clock. She marched into my dream and waking all at once. She suddenly knew she was dying and her vaporous self tracked me down. She said to me, “I don’t know how to do this.” She wanted my help.
I explained it to her. I talked about transitions. I sat down, felt around my heart for an idea of what she was going through. When I felt/saw the scenario, I explained her way through it. I told her how to travel through the landscape of her dying.
When she arrived in my dream, I could smell her presence in my waking. It was the smell some dying people have mixed with her household odors. The smell was so strong that I knew she was coming to me before she actually appeared. I could smell her; in my sleeping and in my waking. I knew her in the shadows. The smell made my dream turn to lucidity.
We encounter these shadows in the land between waking and sleeping. We encounter the deeper mysteries in the lingering awareness that lacks domination by control: in the land of words and images, impressions and hunches. We can see and hear these things when we loosen our grip just a little bit. This ties dreaming to our wakefulness; dreaming is a part of the process of bringing forth that which is within to save us.
She was genuinely scared. She had no idea what to do. She remembered that I had told her if she had questions about what was happening, or needed help, that she should ask me. I would be honored and glad to help.
I felt into my heart to find out where we were; where she was. There had been a clear and deep-sapphire blue tunnel in front of us—as I felt around for impressions. From the center of the tunnel came a rich and scintillating gold light. It was so rich and dense; it looked like flowing or churning liquid gold. I knew this place well. It was the place people go to in meditation. I had been there before. It was then I realized that meditation builds a bridge to transformation.
The inner journey is a mirror of the outer. Meditation is tied to death. Meditation is tied to surrendering into the letting go that is death.
I told her about what I saw and told her that it was a good sign. It was the sign of peace and the unitive experience—good will and harmony. I told her people had sought this vision of God for thousands of years. Mystics strove to find this place. She had arrived at the Divine source and would be able to go on ahead. She had found the Pearl of Great Price.
She said she was scared. I told her how I had been at this place hundreds of times and it was a good place. This place was exactly where she needed to be. I assured her that the beauty of everything she saw around her was an important thing for her to focus on and concentrate on. She could trust this place.
She said she trusted me, and she would just look at the beauty of it all. I told her to go into the tunnel and enjoy her time there, that there would be friends for her to see. She left and went on her way. She trusted what we saw together, and that my having been there before was enough. She not only brought forth what was within, but she then entered into it.
When she was gone, the smell that had filled the room slowly disappeared as well. The smell was the distinct odor of dying, of household cleaners used to rid the home of the smell of death, and of cigarette smoke that had filled her home her last few months of life. It was in both the dream and in my waking nostrils. It faded after a few minutes of being awake.
It was gone. When I got to work that morning, I found out she had died in the early morning hours. I already knew that.
She must have been lonely, needed some more help—on the other side, or getting there—or been missed deeply. Two weeks after her death, her mother died—unexpectedly. I like to believe she took the journey for her daughter; she longed to go it together. Perhaps the reason the parents did not want to speak to the daughter about death was because the mother had sensed her own imminent demise. Who can say?
* * *
Sometimes when you feel the numbing presence of death it is one of Death’s spirits or angels coming to lure you onto the path. They don’t have any ability to bring you onto the path; they just randomly attempt to catch unsuspecting and weak victims. They hope you lose your focus just enough to steer off the road, or slip with the chainsaw. They hope they can surprise you into dying. Every close call you have had where you emerge knowing you almost died is a clear example. It may be that the minions have a bonus program for bringing in new members. If you have a sudden and traumatic end, they get a toaster or a sandwich grill. Who can say?
I was no fool. I wasn’t going that morning—that morning that I felt Death’s presence. I was not going to follow Him or them into my own death. But, I would certainly walk with them and find out who was getting ready to take the path. I would put on my socks and go off with Death to minister among the dying.
* * *
Working with the dying is like being in the underworld. It is all misty and hazy and you are not sure about what you are seeing or hearing. But, you learn to work with a deeper sense—intuition and discernment. You learn to listen for things, feel for things, look, taste, and touch for things with a more hyper-extended sense of understanding.
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