The Other Side of Heaven (6 page)

I had been picked to be one of
history’s Named. A title given to the one randomly selected to die, to be a
beacon of hope and faith. To add some sort of rekindle of belief by proving
heaven was there. My reward was the gift to choose five people who could go to
the other side of heaven and spend another moment with a loved one they lost. Either
to resolve something, or get one more hug, I love you, something to carry with
them.

In the end it had been three
weeks since my death. Brad and I had put a year’s worth of miles on that RV.
Countess trips, meetings, phone calls. The media frenzy fizzled out. My team
was a motley one. A quiet accounting clerk, a teenage boy, a Christian nurse,
an aging real estate agent and a lost Catholic priest. Each of us in some way
would find peace within the mission. I felt that.

Fr. Craig especially. I was drawn
to him and his reluctance was driven by fear. Fear that would be released once
he saw success instead of failure. Of that I was certain and I was positive it
would be a success.

I had chosen the five with
confidence.

Each person’s loss and need were different
from the next. I felt bad for those I didn’t choose. But the mission had to
end. I was reaching my end. My decision couldn’t be made on physical and
spiritual exhaustion. One can only hear so many stories, so much heartache,
before it gets to them.

So the choices were finalized.

There comes a time in everyone’s
life, where they learn to cut the cord and separate. Like a child, letting go,
spreading his or her wings, so should the storyteller. Let the story tell
itself, or rather, those who are there, are the main part of it, be the ones to
tell their story.

More than me, this is their
story, their journey to the other side of heaven.

I suppose my grief and pain is no
different or more than anyone else who had lost a father. No grief can truly be
measured or compared. However, I believe my need for a resolution stood out.

Losing a parent is devastating.
Whether it is quick, slow, in the prime of their life, or in their twilight
years. A loss is a loss.

I wasn’t ready to lose my father.

Who really is?

I adored him. We had a special
bond. I was the only girl out of three children. The middle child. My father,
Gregory, was funny, full of life and the parent that said ‘yes’ when our mother
insisted ‘no’.

The standard, ‘wait until your
father gets home’ didn’t really faze us as kids, we knew our mother to be the
disciplinary figure. Dad was … dad. He was the best mechanic in town and he’d
come home, plop in the chair, wait for the fifteen minute warning on dinner,
then shower. Same routine, everyday, and Saturdays he would go fishing. My
father loved to fish. He used to take me fishing because my brothers didn’t
show any real interest. I did. It was spending time with my father that
mattered. I could care less if I caught any fish.

We were buddies, best buddies. A
relationship I believed my mother was jealous of. She hated that we spent so
much time together. I honestly tried to do the bonding thing with her, but she
was the colder of the parents. A stiff board of separation wedged in the
relationship, that pretty much said, she was the mother, I was the child and
the buck stopped there.

Did she love my father.
Absolutely. We all did. His sudden death devastated her. Had his illness
progressed to the point it took his life, maybe she would have been ready. We
all would have been.

I was in the middle of my divorce
when things started happening with my father. Subtle things, he’d forget a lot
more, sort of daze off, at times he’d stammer in his speech. He actually
believed he had a brain tumor. Alas it was no brain tumor. He was diagnosed
with early degenerative dementia. Something we learned shortly after was called
Alzheimer’s. Not much was known about it back then. It was a scary disease,
with no treatment, no cure. All we knew was my father, at fifty-eight was too
young to have it.

Within a year he had to stop
working. Not long after that, increasingly he would get confused or lost. He’d
forget to swallow or how to eat and even use the bathroom. It was devastating
to watch such a strong man, who never needed anyone, who was to proud to even
borrow a dollar, watch him become so dependant. He hated it. He was still well
aware of his condition and it was killing him.

It was also killing my mother.
She was working and taking care of him. At sixty she started looking as if she
were seventy. I worried about her. But she trudged on. My brothers and their
wives helped as much as they could. We all pitched in. It didn’t bother us at
all. It was our father.

We still had years left with him.
Or so we believed and who knew, maybe a cure or treatment would be found. All
we knew was we weren’t sending him to a home.

My own children were teenagers,
and it was at the point where the entire family had gotten into the caretaker
routine.

Knowing that my father still had
many lucid moments, and seeing his moods sink more often than not, I figured a
trip or pick me up was in order. I made the suggestion that he, my mother and I
go to the lake. We used to go there a lot as kids. He liked that idea.

“We’ll go fishing,” I told him.
“Like we used to.”

“I like that idea Amanda,” He
said.

“We’ll rent a boat. Get matching
life jackets.”

“I don’t need a lifejacket,” he
grumbled.

“Yeah, dad you do. Humor me.”

He actually did. Although my
father was an expert swimmer, it didn’t stop his illness from coming on
suddenly. I didn’t want to chance that he’d forget to move his arms or legs or
hold his breath.

We went up on a Friday morning
and I was able to reserve the old family cabin we had rented so many years
before. We took walks, had dinner on the deck, and relaxed. His seemed down,
really down. I suppose he was missing my mother. She would come the next
morning. She had to work.

“Tell you what,” I said to my
father. “When mom gets here, we’ll go fishing. How does that sound.”

“It sounds good.”

“You okay?”

“Not feeling real well Mandy.
Just off.”

I understood, and as nightfall
hit, something called sundown syndrome came. He lost lucidity that night, was
agitated and frightened. It wasn’t a good night at all. He fell asleep crying
and I did as well.

I woke up before the alarm, got
dressed and started the coffee. The plan was to have breakfast, wait for my
mother, and go fishing.

But when I went to wake my father
… he wasn’t there.

Immediately, I filled with panic.

Was he in the bathroom? His bed
was unmade and showed signs that he had an accident. His damp clothes were on
the floor. He couldn’t have gone far. He was in the house.

Yet, he wasn’t.

After screaming around the house
and outside, I called for help and began my search for my dad. My heart pounded
with every step and every call out to him. Within ten minutes not only were all
those on the camp property looking for him, but so were the police.

At first I was certain we’d find
him.

He was sick, but he never
wandered off. Not like that.

We were so busy looking for him
in the wooded area, that the prospect of the lake hadn’t crossed my mind until
I saw it.

No. It was too far for him to
wander. However, when I looked at that lake, I got a sickening knot in my
stomach. I knew. Somehow I knew. Staring out into the peaceful waters, the
morning mist still hovering above it, I knew where my father was.

My mother was angry and screamed
at me when she arrived.

“How could you lose your father?
You were supposed to take care of him? How did you let him walk away?”

I wanted to die. Everything she
yelled at me, I already asked myself. Why didn’t I double check the doors? Why
didn’t I check on him first before I made the coffee. Did I forget to give him
medication?

Four days later they recovered
his body from the lake.

My mother didn’t speak to me for
weeks. Not a word uttered at the funeral. Even when she finally spoke to me
again, she never mentioned it.

But it was never far from my
mind. Was I responsible for my father’s death?

It was pain and guilt I carried
with me and couldn’t let go. It was worsened years later when my mother died,
and just before she did, she said, “I forgive you, Amanda.”

Her saying that reiterated that
not only did she blame me, but I was indeed responsible as I feared.

When I heard about Natalie Baynes
and her mission to find five people to meet a love done, I had to reach out. I
had to take that chance. Even though it had been decades, the guilt was still
there. I hoped and prayed, but never did I think she’d choose me. My suffering
was old, I was sixty.

She told me the risks. That I
would be dead for three minutes in order to fulfill my resolution. Whether I
stayed dead was up to me. I had to want to return. In my heart and mind there
was no doubt I would want to continue life. I had children, grandchildren. I
wanted to live the rest of my life knowing the answers to my questions.

Did my father know? Was he aware
that he died? Was he scared? In pain? Did he blame me? Did I in a sense kill my
father? I knew, it wouldn’t be long before I got the answers and the peace I so
desperately sought all these years.

The very first indication that my
baby brother would be a practical joker came the day he was born. My mother had
a complicated delivery and ended up being put under. When she woke, she
distinctively, though groggy, said she remembered being told she had a healthy
baby girl. Two hours later, they brought a boy into her room.

It wasn’t a case of switched at
birth. It was anesthesia. An event, that set tone and change for my brother
Jimmy.

Everybody loved Jimmy. He was
fun, outgoing and always the practical joker. He was my baby brother and even
though he was the youngest, he was always the one who felt the need to protect
us.

I recall my mother being so
fearful for Jimmy, always worried about him unnecessarily. She used to tell me
she was worried something was going to happen to him. I always believed it was
the baby of the family thing, not a psychic instinct.

Jimmy was twenty-three years old
when he died. So young and so full of life, his death was quick, tragic, and
unexpected.

I don’t think I knew another
person who could light up a room like Jimmy. When he died it devastated us all.
It darkened our lives.

An entire family torn asunder by
a tragic mistake.

And the way he died wasn’t cut
and dry. It wasn’t to us, those who loved and knew him. But people who didn’t.
They’d hear Jimmy died when the safety on the gun malfunctioned. They would
look at me as if I wasn’t telling them something, or they knew something I
didn’t, as if my explanation of his death just wasn’t enough.

Countless dreams, including those
so vivid I swore they were real, did not bring me the peace I needed about his
death. How did he feel about it? Was he okay? Was he eventually reunited with
my mother who adored him to no end.

 When I heard about the
woman who had died and been dead for such a long period of time that science couldn’t
explain it, I knew her quest was valid. It had to be. I often wondered why God
wouldn’t offer the ‘one more chance’ resolution to everyone. Just one more
chance to say goodbye, to know. I’d pay a price for that chance. A year, two
years off my life.

There is no price tag for peace
and resolution

There was a risk to being chosen.
I could die, but it was a risk I was willing to take. When we contacted the
woman, Natalie, we did so as a family. Help our family. It was our family
chosen for the resolution, but we were told, we as a family must pick the
person. My siblings picked me. It wasn’t because I took Jimmy’s death the
hardest, but more so I was level headed. I would not get so lost in the moment,
I’d forget the messages and questions. There were a lot.

I was ready. It was just a matter
of waiting for my time to come.

How does one go about describing
the life and death of someone who truly can’t be described by words. I mean,
any words I would use just wouldn’t be strong enough. When I talk about my
mother I am a vat of mixed emotions. Over joy, love, sadness. We lost her too
soon and without any warning. So dealing with that is hard to swallow.

Usually when someone goes
unexpectedly, it’s an accident. She left this world peacefully. At least we
believe that. Hopefully, when one of us meet her face to face in the unique
opportunity, we will get that answer.

I feel it though. I feel there
was peace around her passing. We really don’t have questions, we have
statements. We just want her to know how much she meant to us. I suppose she
did, but it doesn’t hurt to reiterate that.

My mother was kind, generous, and
the most loving unselfish person you would want to meet. A beautiful person
inside and out. She didn’t look her age and sometimes she didn’t act her age.
Of course, she wasn’t old when she passed. Her name was Phyllis and she was
only sixty-three.

She was the world to me, my
brother, sister and nephew. We had each other and that was all we had. We
didn’t need more. So when she left us, a huge gaping hole remained.
Collectively, each of us make up my mother. We all have a part of her. It is
the highest compliment I can be paid when someone says I am just like her. We
were all close, and there is an unspoken and underlying competition on who was
our mother’s favorite. I guess every family has that. I know the answer. It
wasn’t any of her children, it was her grandson.

The way a lamp lights up a room,
Jacob lit something inside my mother. He created even more of a spark. She
adored him and he returned that sentiment equally. Many times we were like,
“Ah, man, she never was like that when we were kids.”

Then again, we weren’t her
grandchildren.

There was something special about
their relationship.

He took her death hard, as did we
all.

She was with us one day and the
next … gone. That fast. She wasn’t ill, she just passed away suddenly of
natural causes.

My mother always said she would
give us a sign if she was fine and made it to heaven. She gave us a sign. Not
even twenty-four hours after her death, we had gathered at the house. It was
only the four of us and my sister frantically called us to the patio. There we
were pelted with an overwhelming aroma of my mother’s favorite flowers. It was
unreal.

Surely it had to be a sign, an
undeniable sign from her. Or was it?

My guess as to why we were chosen
for resolution is because we are such a small, tight knit family, torn
internally over her sudden death.

We never got a chance to say a
final goodbye, to say we loved her and tell her how much we appreciated her.

We, as a family were chosen, yet
we didn’t know which one of us would actually make the journey to deliver the
message of love to our mother. See her, hug her and bring some of that back to
share. One of us would go and we wouldn’t know until that second.

I didn’t know for certain who
would get picked, however, my money was on Jacob. And because we all felt that
way, we prepared him for the trip of all of our lives.