Dearest Rachel –
Just think, it was only yesterday that I was congratulating myself for having reacclimatized to the local time zone. I really should have known better. But last night, I had already woken up once, at three, so I was mildly disgusted with myself about that. At the same time, my head was swirling with ideas to talk to you about, most of which were too small to make more than a paragraph. They ranged all over, from the past (where images of you were reimagined into artwork – I’d discovered an AI program recently that might be able to do that, if it was fed enough data in the form of your old pictures), to the present (trying to force myself to set these ideas aside, in order to grant myself some needed sleep) and the future (thoughts about questions, and points of discussion for this woman I’ve been talking to, and whether and when to meet in person, and what to say to her then). I hardly need to tell you that going back to sleep was a challenge.
But somehow, I actually managed. And in that brief span of time, you visited me again. for whatever reason, we were facing some sort of athletic challenge in the morning, and you were bringing me my gym togs, as if I had any in real life. You set them next to me, as I was aware that I was still in bed, debating whether to get up yet. “Here you go,” you said, “don’t want to be unprepared. It’s you and me against the world, right?” It’s not something you’d normally say, but somehow it felt right in context.
I reached out to you, pulling you onto the bed, bringing your head to rest against my chest, you giggling softly as you let me do so. “You are so good to me,” I murmured. “I don’t know what I’d do without you. And I hate the fact that I’m going to have to find out.”
You had been just about to nestle against me, but with those words, you pulled away and looked at me with an indeterminate expression on your face.
“What.” It was a question, and yet it wasn’t. There was no rising tone, no attempt to actually ask me what I said, as you understood my words perfectly. You simply couldn’t grasp the meaning of what I had said, and the implication behind it; or, maybe you just refused to.
“Don’t you remember?” I tried to get up on an elbow, but couldn’t manage anything. “Last January? The tubing run? The hospital?
“Don’t you know… you’re dead?”
And with that, you faded away, as did the dream. I picked up my phone to check, dreading the answer, as the room was still dark, despite light seeping in from windows on both sides of the room.
Five-thirty. Yeah, I’m not yet where I need to be yet.
***
It’s strange, how, until this most ‘enlightened’ iteration of civilization came to be, that denies the existence of the divine or supernatural (and thus, ironically, places its supposedly advanced self only on a par with the rest of the brute beasts that populate this planet), mankind has always assumed that there is a spirit within the individual that lives on after death. As soon as we had the time to contemplate it, we all came to the same conclusion – there was more to life than just our current existence. If nothing else, there had to be some form of cosmic justice, when there didn’t seem to be such in our own time – an answer to the question about why a good people suffer and evil people prosper.
But between our present, and that future, no one has been able to agree what there is. Even in our faith, where Jesus tries to come up with comparisons to ‘the kingdom of heaven,’ He finds Himself coming up short. “To what shall I compare” it, He asks, grasping for an adequate description within the human experience, and He tries many ways to come up with a suitable parable. But at times, it seems as if even He is only able to describe part of the elephant that is heaven.
How much less so are those moments between here and there understood? There are stories of near death experiences; people pulled back from heading into the light, as it were. Is there truly some antechamber as you hover between the two? Did you find yourself wandering through some emptiness before realizing where and what you were?
How long did it take you, until you knew you were gone? Or, was it not even like that? Was it not so much that you were gone, as much as we were gone from you? What happened in those five hours between the moment of impact, and the moment everything was turned off? What did you see, what did you experience… what did you know, and when?
I picture the moment when you realized you had crossed over (and I’ll admit, I would like to see if I can get the AI to paint something like this): your face, bathed in the light of the Shekinah glory, that inhabits and illuminates the entirety of the celestial realms, looking up at His outstretched hand as He welcomes you to a place at once, completely foreign to you, and yet everything you expected and so much more. Behind you are nothing but shadows, made that much deeper and darker in contrast to the Light in front of you. As your eyes, accustom themselves to the Brightness, they slowly widen in surprise and astonishment, before changing their expression to joy and anticipation, as you eagerly take His proffered hand. Those few hours of wandering – to say nothing of the fifty years spent on this planet – completely fade behind you as you step inside the gates, matching Him stride for stride (or rather, He shortens His stride to match yours). And so, you join the attendant hosts in celebrating Him and His allowance of yourself into heaven, to be with Him (and those He’d let in before you – saints, friends and family) forever.
I don’t even know if I’m remotely close, and I know that you can’t come back to tell me. But this is what I picture for now, until I’m told otherwise. Does it sound about right?
Anyway, until you get the chance to correct me, keep an eye on me, and wish me luck. I’m going to need it.
Letters to Rachel 