Seeing Dead People

 "I see dead people."  That was a great line from a movie.  It's useful in so many ways.  And it is ironic that a culture that often seems to want nothing to do with the Almighty and His ways, really, really wants to talk to dead people ... some sort of assurance that this earthly life isn't all there is.  But they don't want eternity on His terms, so it is easier to write Him out of His-story and say things like, "I'm not religious, but I'm spiritual."  To this latter phrase I usually respond along the lines of:  "This is not news.  All people are 'spiritual' beings.  Whether or not we acknowledge it is the other thing."

But I want to talk about something else for a minute if you permit me.  "I see dead people."  Actually, I've seen a lot of them - too many - lately.  One of my closest friends passed away last week and when I looked at her lying in her casket I thought two things:  First, she would've hated that color of lipstick.  Second, that what I was seeing was really just the shell she left behind.  And her shell had been worn-down by an unnamed neurological disease for the last decade at least.  It took away her ability to walk without tripping due to not feeling her feet.  It took away her ability to sew, which she loved, because she couldn't feel her fingertips anymore.  It gave me pause to think.  What are the abilities I have now that I just take for granted?  If I lose my feeling in my fingertips, my hobby as a writer is done-for, my ability to play guitar is done-for, and my ability to sew is also done-for, although some would question if I had that talent anyway.  Well, since we are here I will tell you that story.

I have a pair of pajama bottoms I had grown unreasonably fond of and so I thought, "What's to stop me from just sewing my own pair using these as a pattern?"  So I went out and bought literally three dollars worth of jersey cotton, blue tie-dye patterned cloth at Walmart and went home to sew.  I turned the old pajamas inside out and laid them on the table to use as a template.  I laid the new fabric on them and then just measured out one inch on each side so I could roll the seam in nicely.  Then I proceeded to take my Brother-at-my-Side sewing machine and sew them puppies up.  Except when I tried to step into them I  had some problem.  There was not enough top for some reason.  So then I sewed a band of material around the top.  And tried again, and couldn't get into them.  My other friend, who is pretty much also an expert seamstress, took a look at what I made and asked me some questions.  Not the kind of questions you like.  Things like:  "What the hell were you trying to do here?"  and "Why do you have a 'fly' on these - on the front AND on the back?" (I couldn't bring myself to cut the extra fabric so I just folded it over and sewed it.)  It took her longer to fix the problem than it did for me to sew it the first time, albeit incorrectly.  My friend that had just passed seemed to love that story a bit too much, so for Christmas she gave me an official pattern for pajamas and some material.  Both are still in the bag.  I'm kind of scarred for life at this point.

I went to another funeral the week before.  (yeah, we are back on that topic.)  And I was sitting in church at the funeral Mass for a man I met once but did not really know.  I am friends with his daughter and her young adult children, who now are grown up and have husbands and families of their own.  The grandchildren were polite and in fact delightful.  And as I was sitting there in church listening to the homily and the beautiful music of guitar and piano (just like I want for my funeral) it struck me, "So this is where It all ends up.  We all end up spending our whole life pretending that it isn't going to come to this point."  I'm good with the idea of spending eternity with God, it's just jumping the ravine from here to there that makes me nervous.  

"I see dead people" is part of my Polish culture.  It has happened to so many people I know that I fully expect to see someone before I pass away.  For example, with my grandmother, she woke up in the middle of the night and poked my grandfather and said, "Staszek, my mother is here.  She is standing at the edge of the bed."  He did not see his mother-in-law there so that was that, back to sleep.  I think it was a few nights later that my grandmother got up to get a glass of water in the middle of the night and collapsed in the hallway.  I have also heard-tell of stories where just before a person passes away, he or she smiles as if seeing someone familiar.  It's Polish, and we stick together, that much I can tell you.  I

will see dead people. In fact I have asked God for who I want to see that would make me most comfortable in the transition.  Yes, of course, Jesus, but I also have relatives that I would like to see.  

Is that veil between Here and There as hard and fast as we think?  Maybe not.  The Irish have a concept they call "thin spaces."  That is where the veil between Earth and Eternity is less like a drapery curtain and more like a sheer.... we feel our people with us, and there is a sense of peace - or maybe a soul has come to ask for prayer so they can complete their journey.  Perhaps they are stuck in Eternal Third Base and need our prayers to "bat them home."  The day I found out my friend Denise passed, I was driving on the road to my house and just felt "her" in my car.  It was quiet - no radio, no nothing, I just felt her there as if spending one more minute with me before she went further Onward.  If you are American, some of this may be hard for your modern sensibilities.  But if you are Native American these ideas will feel like a favorite Saturday sweatshirt in autumn to you.  The Slavic European cultures also have a much more natural acceptance of this because culture and faith are woven together almost inextricably.  Well, except for those from Communist countries, which explains why they can blow people up and not care.  I would like to admonish them: "Just because you think there isn't a hell, doesn't mean you are right and doesn't mean you won't end up there."  

At the last wake I was at, there was a montage of photos of friends & family.  It was lovely.  Then I noticed the 2007 photo of me and four friends on vacation at the beach.  Of the five people in the photo, three of them are now deceased and of the two of us remaining, one uses a walker and it aint me.  For a moment it felt uncomfortable knowing that since many of my closest friends are mostly older than me by a decade, in the natural order of things, I am going to be burying most of them.  That is the price of friendship.  When it ends that way, it stinks to be the last one standing.  I know a lot of people that won't get a second dog once they go through the soul-wrenching agony of losing one.  As for me, that is why I have more than one at once, and overlap their ages.  I will have a furry friend remaining to get my mind of how brutal death seems at the time.

But because of pets dying, most specifically dogs, I  know the exact time I will die.  Well, generally speaking anyway.  Even people who are not particularly religious are fond of St. Francis of Assisi who was so kind to animals that he even tamed a wolf.  It seems reasonable to presume that the Good Lord will put Francis in charge of the pets that go to heaven.  And it is also reasonable that at some point St. Francis, who may be a saint but also will have his patience wear thin when he says, "Lord, it's TIME for you to call HER up here.  She keeps sending her dogs up first and I've got my hands more than quite full.  I need some help."  That being the case, bury me with a box of Kraft Mac n Cheese because Serena has been waiting mighty long for another bowl of that stuff.  St. Therese of Lisieux may spend her heaven dropping roses as "signs" to those on earth.   I will spend my heaven playing ball with dogs.  

In my mind I still see my friend lying in state in her coffin.  And it bugs me how unnatural that is because she would prefer dragging me out to Denny's for a meal and going to the Christmas Tree Shop to wander around aimlessly.  I think about seeing her dear husband at that same funeral home only a year or two ago.  I think about her now in heaven wrapping her arms around him and giving him a kiss like she used to do when the Women's Group would return from vacation.  He would smile like it didn't phase him much but you could tell she was his world.  I think about her telling me how he would never pick up his socks off their bedroom floor.  And I told her that even though I'm not married, I think it was just his way of saying he still needs her.  She could do that one little thing for him.  Every single day.  And that she should just give up yelling and move the laundry hamper out of the bedroom since he wasn't using it for his socks anyways.  I remember the stories people tell me.  So funny.  So raw.  So human.  So full of love.    

                                              

I had a choice - to either start sobbing from the raw reality of all this, or go find some comfort quickly.  So I drove to a local farm-store and walked up to the ice cream window.  I asked her if they still carried Maine Blueberry which is what I had there a while ago.  She smiled and said, "we don't serve ice cream that is dairy-based anymore ... " and I almost said WHAT THE HELL IS THE MATTER WITH YOU? But I stifled the urge.  Did I want Kale-based or beet-based frozen product?  ARE YOU BLEEPING KIDDING ME?  I looked at her and said I would try the cherry something ... on a sugar cone and she smiled and said, "we don't carry cones either..." SONOFBIACH.  GOLDARNFRIGGIN COMMUNISTS.  I don't give a ratz arse if the cup you put it in is biodegradable or styrofoam that will last in the landfill for 150 years.  In fact, in her honor, (just to get even) I am going to throw a perfectly good styrofoam cup in the landfill this weekend knowing that when I needed it the most, the people of this world could not give me some of the comfort that I find in a simple bowl of ice cream.  Because it is very hard to be midlife and keep seeing dead people.

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