The Other Side of Heaven (7 page)

The is nothing more painful than
the pain of losing a child. Nothing. No matter how old or young they are, the
pain is indescribable. It is physical as well as emotional. An agony that rips
you apart, brandishing an emptiness that never fills. An ache that’s always
there and the feeling of deep desperation when you ask yourself, “How can I
live though this, how am I
going
to live through this?”

It’s a daily process. Step by
step. Day by day. Some better than others. Progress can never be taken for
granted because anything can set you back. A song, television show, video game
.. food. Anything.

A part of me completely died the
day my son Ben left this earth. Even though I felt it slipping as he lay
fighting for his life, still within me was hope. Hope for him to return, hope
for a chance to make up for any wrong I may have done toward him. One more
chance. Please.

I did my best as a mother raising
him. Life sometimes got in the way, things were busy. I had my job, my husband,
the younger two children, and Ben was older. He was never forgotten. He was my
oldest and will always hold that special place in my heart that no one can ever
touch. He was the first born, the first being I ever loved unconditionally and
entirely. I grew up with Ben, he was my learning curve and he knew it. At least
I hope he did.

Looking back, thinking of the
memories, taking in the pictures, life was good. We were a family. A huge
family. The loss of Ben was a tidal wave that smashed through us all. Although
sometimes, I forgot there were other’s in pain, other’s grieving. But I think
that was normal. I was a mother who lost a child.

Ben was grown and the other two
children were still young. They needed more attention. He was doing well. Of
course, like most parents we had our issues with him when he was younger, hut
he grew into an upstanding young man. I was proud of him … still am.

He was working out of town, in
another state, had a new girlfriend, life was good. I didn’t expect that call.
No parent ever does.

Ben was hurt. He had fallen at
work and it wasn’t good.

He was rushed into emergency
surgery. The head injury was severe. While my husband Marv worked diligently to
get us a flight, I walked the street. Back and forth saying nothing. Thinking
of my son, praying, not praying. For six hours I walked. Sometimes alone, other
times someone would join me. No words were said. I was scared, heartbroken, and
numb.

I didn’t want my child to die, I
didn’t want him to suffer either. Was he in pain? Was he afraid? Did he need me
and I wasn’t there?

I family member who lived near
the hospital rushed to be at his side so he wasn’t alone. For that I’d forever
be grateful.

At one point in my walking I
believed he had died and prepared myself to enter my home and get the call.

He hadn’t. He made it through
surgery, but it was touch and go.

The entire journey with Ben after
the accident was touch and go. I basically moved out to where he was. He became
my focus. It was progress, then digression. Infection, then hope.

Again, my focus was on my son. I
believe my family understood. My poor husband. How many times did I forget
about him? He never balked or complained. No matter what I wanted to do, or
time needed, in the name of Ben, he was agreeable. He was hurting, crushed. We
all were.

Ben had been moved to a rehab
hospital and we were ready to bring him home to care for him. Marv was making
preparations, looking at loans so we could customize the house to care for Ben.
It was then, full of hope that he’d one day recover, that he left us.

I didn’t know how to handle the
news. One day we were planning on bringing him home, the next he was gone.
Fate, life can be so cruel and unfair.

When the call came, I just said
‘thank you’. It took a while to process, to ask questions.

The healing process is far from
over. In fact, I’m still in infancy. Still fragile. Some days I am strong and
feel the fight, some days I want to stay in bed.

I went back to work mainly
because I was working for Arthur. He understood, he had been there. That dear,
sweet man was amazing. He knew how to act with me when no one else did. He knew
when not to say anything, and when he should.

No one knew how to talk to me,
what to say. Truth be known, I didn’t know what I wanted to hear.

I certainly wasn’t expecting to
hear what Natalie said that day. She knew my son had died. Okay. That didn’t
shock me. But when she called Arthur into the reception area, and told him who
she was, my attention was caught.

Arthur always swore he got one more
moment with his daughter. Something he didn’t mention again after Ben died.

She told me how Ben pushed his
way to her, made his presence known. How he was different, real, like he didn’t
belong. He said to tell me he knew I was there. But it wasn’t until she
mentioned the song, that I believed her one hundred percent.

Right before Ben passed, he sang
a song. A song he knew since childhood, one that we as a family would always
put on during car trips and cleaning. Natalie said he sang that song.

He was adamant to about talking
to her and gave her a message, and because finding me was accidental and fate,
she chose me right away.

I wanted to say yes right there
and then, but I couldn’t. Because of the risk involved, I wanted to tell Marv.

I not only told him about
Natalie, I prefaced it with articles and internet videos.

Then I gave him the news. I was
picked to be one of the five.

He didn’t seem excited, he seemed
scared.

“You don’t need to do this, he
said.” “I know you’re hurting. But people get through this. They survive
without getting this chance. It’s risky, Jen. You could die. No, wait, in order
to see Ben, your heart has to stop. Will it start again? I can’t handle losing
you too.”

But a part of me is already gone.
If you say no, if you stay firm, I won’t do this. I won’t.

He slowly shook his head and
grabbed my hand. “How can I deny this? How? I would never be able to live with
myself if I stood in your way.”

I squeezed his hand. “I need
this. I need my one more moment. I need to hear his voice. Hold him. See his
eyes.”

Marv nodded. “I understand. You
think that will give you peace and resolution.”

“Yes.”

He lowered his head.

“You don’t?” I asked.

“Sweetheart, how can we just take
one more moment?” he asked. “How can one more moment be enough? It won’t be.
You’ll get that and you’ll need one more. One more moment can never be enough.”

He was right. However it was
something I was going to do. In a sense, I had his blessing. I felt very
strongly about it.

I needed it. I really did. I
truly believed it would ease the pain some and help me move forward. And I also
believed after hearing about Ben’s urgency to speak to Natalie, perhaps my son
needed a resolution as much I did.

I didn’t expect for things to
move so quickly. I expected preparation time. There was none. A mere three days
from the phone call from Natalie. My insides turned and churned, I was nervous.
I couldn’t eat. I told no one about my opportunity. After I got back, I would,
until then, it was my secret.

A woman named Artie showed up at
my house the day before ‘my day’, we didn’t have a time that I would go, simply
that I would die. How it all went down was left out. Natalie herself didn’t
know Everyone’s circumstances were different and the scenario of the ‘meet’
would have something to do with the resolution.

Artie was a lovely woman who had
traveled from her home outside of Chicago to my place in Florida. A church
going woman who was part of Natalie’s team. She would be with me when I left,
and to ensure nothing medically was wrong, she’d have her hand on the phone
waiting to call for help.

I took comfort in that. Being
able to talk to Artie, sharing my fears and anxiety helped a lot. I didn’t
sleep that entire night and poor Artie stayed up right along with me.

“I’m armed and ready to not
sleep,” Artie said, holding up a coffee. “I resolved myself to not slumber at
all.”

We stayed up watching Julia
Roberts’ movies.

Artie would be the face I saw
when I returned, the first person to hear my story, to listen to me ramble. I
believed she was as excited as I was. In that short span of time, Artie became
my friend.

That morning after breakfast we
sat on my back porch watching the sun. It was a glorious day. But it was like
waiting on a relative’s arrival. I was anxious.

“I know it will be overwhelming,”
Artie said. “I wonder if it will be as real as you and I are, or seem like a
dream.”

“What’s the first thing you will
do?” I asked her.

“Take it all in,” Artie said.
“Just absorb first. I wouldn’t want nerves to get in my way of the whole
experience.”

She had a point. A good one. I
heard the tea kettle whistling and I went into the kitchen to make us each a
fresh cup.

I had both mugs in my hand and no
sooner had I stepped from the kitchen toward the patio door, then the sun light
became a huge, bright light. I was encompassed by it. There was no pain, no
feeling, and I knew. This was it!

The mugs were no longer in my
grip and when I looked down to my hands, they were younger. My arms looked
younger and thinner. Although I could have been mistaken, the light gave me
almost a gamma ray glow. Reaching up, I touched my face. For certain I was
younger, the skin was firm.

How long did I stand there in
that light? A moment? It was brief and it dissolved before my eyes, exposing a
lake.

The lake.

The same one in which my father
drown. Artie wondered how it would feel. Would it seem like a dream or real. It
was real. It was as real as stepping from one room to another. I would love to
say my heart beat from my chest, but I didn’t feel that. I did however feel
like a sponge absorbing something, making my soul feel full.

The birds chirped, the sky was
blue, the temperature was perfect. It was a place of bad memories that seemed
like a paradise.

And then… I saw my father.

His back was toward me, he was
wearing that fishing vest of his as he stood near the end of the peer casting
his line.

I wanted to fish again with my
father and I had the chance.

I couldn’t move, didn’t know if
I’d be able to speak. I stood fifteen feet from him and was frozen, fearful
that a single word would cause me to sob uncontrollably.

My father, I had missed him so
much.

I watched as he reeled in his
line then sat down on the peer.

“Hand me that yellow spinner
bait. The small one on top, will ya’ Mandy?” he asked.

Why wasn’t he turning around?
Didn’t he know he was dead? Maybe he didn’t. I stepped to his tackle box, and
grabbed the spinner bait, handing it to him over his shoulder.

I tried to speak but my throat
felt thick and I cleared it. “Here you go.”

“Thanks.”

“How’s the fishing.”

“Oh, it’s good here. Don’t think
it’s always sunny and a good day. Sometimes I sit and nothing happens. Today is
not one of those days. Sit with me, Mandy.” He patted the spot next to him.

Bodily feelings returned and my
insides trembled. I really wondered if he knew. I had so many questions, yet I
couldn’t recall any of them that second.

I worried about my knees, they
usually ached when I sat and got up, well this was going to be interesting.
Yet, I sat with ease. No pain.

He stared outward, avoiding eye
contact. Was he angry? Did he even know? I could see my reflection in the
water, I was younger, yet he was the same as I remembered him.

My mind spun. Had I travelled to
an alternate time where my father didn’t die. What was going on?

“When they said you got the
resolution lottery … I was worried.” He fussed with his rod, then set it next
to him.

Finally he looked at me. His eyes
had that spark, the one he lost. My lips quivered, I reached over and clutched
his hand. I wanted to embrace him, but he seemed reluctant.

“Daddy. Do you know you passed
away years ago.”

“Yep. I do.”

I could feel his strong hand, the
roughness of his skin. It was how I remembered.

“How is mom?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Kind of
not together right now.”

“How is that possible?”

He shrugged.

“I missed you so much.”

He tightly closed his mouth and
smiled, I rested my head on his shoulder and he brought his hand to my cheek.

“I’m waiting,” he said.

“Waiting on what?”

“For you to say your peace. Ask
your questions.”

“You seem angry.”

“I didn’t think we’d need this
resolution. I kind of did, but, Mandy …” He faced me. It’s been years. Decades.
Why you holding on?”

“How can you ask that. Unless you
don’t remember?”

“Oh, I remember. We know our
deaths. When we need to resolve them. We watch them over and over.”

“Did you do that?”

“No.” He shook his head.

“Were you scared? In pain? I need
to know you weren’t frightened at the end? Did you even know what you were
doing?”

“I didn’t have pain. Back then,
Mandy, there were a lot of times where I just didn’t know things. Where I was
confused. A gift up here is we get those memories. We get to know what we
missed. How our family acted. We suffered there, but it’s a distant memory. The
suffering I mean.”

“I am here because I couldn’t let
go. You never wandered. Since you got the chance to know what you were doing
during your confused times, did you know you were wandering?”

“Mandy, what are you talking about?”
he asked.

“The day of your accident.”

“It wasn’t an accident.”

If I was breathing, at that
moment I lost ability to breathe. I took his words as his blame of me. My
mother was right. “Oh, Dad. Dad, I didn’t mean it. I am so sorry. I am so, so
sorry. I should have locked the doors, I should have …”

“Stop.”

“What?”

“Why are you apologizing?”

“It’s my fault.”

“How is it your fault that I took
my own life?”

Everything seemed to freeze. Time
stood still. It all made sense. Why he was there alone. Why my mother wasn’t
with him. “You … you took your own life.”

He didn’t reply.

“All these years. I have done
nothing but blame myself. Second-guessing every move I made that night, and you
took your own life?”

“Mandy …”

“How could you?” I stood and
blasted a repeat of my question. “How could you! You did it on my watch. My …
watch. I carried that with me. How could you do this to me?”

“It wasn’t just about you.” He
stood up. “I was not the man I wanted to be. I woke up that morning in a pool
of my own piss. Do you know what that’s like? I took care of you, Mandy. It was
not your place to take care of me.”

“Yes it was. I wanted to do it.”

“And I didn’t want you to. It was
only going to get worse, I would get worse. I wanted you and your brother and
sister to remember me for who I was, not what I became. I didn’t want to live
like that.”

“It wasn’t just your choice.”

“I’m sorry. It was.”

“Then why didn’t you come to me?
To one of us?” I asked.

“And what? Ask you to help me
die?” He placed his hands on my shoulders. “Would you have done that?”

“Daddy, I carried this for
decades. Decades. Blaming myself for you wandering off and drowning. You could
have at least said goodbye, said you loved us, or left a note.”

“I did.”

“No. There was no note.”

“Yes, there was.”

“No, there …” I shook my head and
when I did, in the reflection of the water I saw a vision. A scene. My mother
in the bedroom of the cabin. She was crying, packing my father’s things, and
she found the note.

I turned and looked at my father.
He must have seen the same vision.

“Did you know Mom found it and
never said a word?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I did. She’s out
there somewhere. I’ll see her again.” He faced me again. “I’m sorry, Mandy. I
thought she at least told you about what happened. I thought that was why you
wanted the resolution. To ask why.”

“No, I needed the resolution to
know I didn’t cause it. And all these years, she could have stopped that.”

“Please don’t let that be another
burden you carry.”

“No, I’m done.” Upon those words,
everything brightened.

“I think it’s time to go back.”
He said.

It was our final moment, a chance
I was robbed of and in that moment, I grabbed on to my father and embraced him.
His arms wrapped tightly around me and he planted his lips to my cheek.

“I love you,” he said. “I have
always been so proud.”

“I love you, too.”

The light grew brighter. I
expected joy, to be overwhelmed with happiness, instead I felt heavy. And I
stepped from that embrace, holding my father’s hand as I moved to the lights.

His fingers slipped from mine.

“Mandy,” he called out. “Did you
find resolution?”

I paused and looked at him and
then answered, “Yes. Yes I did.”

I stepped through.

The ability to breathe hit me
like a ton of bricks and I gasped hard.

I was laying on the kitchen
floor, my head rested on Artie’s lap.

“Oh, thank Jesus.” Artie said
with relief. “I called for help. They didn’t even get here yet. Did you.. Did
you do it?”

I couldn’t speak, I honestly
couldn’t speak. However, I was able to nod, and when I did I started to sob.
Artie clutched me tight, holding on to me.

What I needed in resolution, I
found. Even though the burden of the cause of my father’s death was lifted, I
felt the grief from the years my mother robbed of me. Years of peace and
happiness. My heart was broken and I wanted badly to release it. I would
eventually. It wasn’t what I expected. I didn’t hear what I wanted to hear. But
I saw my father, embraced him and in a sense, I went fishing with him one more
time.