About Death and Spirits and Ghosts
Death and Ghosts and Spirits
Part one: Paul
In this next blog series I’m going to do my best to write about death, of things beyond this reality such as spirits, ghosts and visions. This is not an endeavor to pretend that I have the truth. It’s an attempt to relate my experiences.
If any of these subjects make you uncomfortable, you should stop. Take care of yourself and don’t read this blog post.
I was four years old when I attended the funeral of my beloved Aunt Gen. It was a formal and lavish affaire. The church crowded with friends and relatives, was filled with the scent and billowing smoke of incense. The priest wore black robes. The pipe organ filled the cavernous church with beautiful music. The large choir with a woman soloist sang mournful songs of love and loss. I felt the presence of Aunt Gen the entire service as if she were hugging me. I didn’t intend for it to become the funeral of which I would judge all that followed, but it did. I did.
I was eight when I faced a dead person up close. Don’t get me wrong he was in a casket and not in a dark alley. The person was my mother’s boyfriend. I will call him Paul.
As a medical doctor in a small town on the St. Croix River, Paul ran a private practice in the lower level of his duplex and performed surgeries at the local hospital. He was also, like my mother, newly divorced with young children.
I thought he was kind but quiet. He didn’t speak much, at least not to me. I really liked his daughter, whom I’ll call Suzy.
Suzy and I bonded over the love of horses and could list alphabetically the many breeds and their attributes.
“Arabian: fastest horse ever, Belgium: best at pulling wagons, Clydesdale: strongest horse ever.” You get the picture.
One fateful summer evening, my older sister was at the stove making dinner for the five of us. A simple meal of scrambled eggs with cubes of ham and pan-fried potatoes was one of my favorites. Breakfast was and still is my choice for dinner. Pancakes smothered with maple syrup, omelets with cheese oozing out the sides, and English muffins slathered with orange marmalade, these were my favorites at suppertime.
We had a yellow kitchen phone that hung on the wall with a long cord so one could talk while meandering around. As my sister scooped the eggs and potatoes onto plates and I carried them to the table, the phone rang.
It was rare to get a call during the dinner hour. My mother jumped to answer it, much like an excited teenage girl expecting a call from her boyfriend.
In a breathy voice she answered, “Yes.” Suddenly, she doubled over as if hit in the chest and turned away.
My older brother whispered to me, “I bet grandfather died.”
I couldn’t imagine why he would say such a horrible thing.
My mother dropped the receiver and began to wail. She hid her face in her hands and drifted to her bedroom. The door shut soundlessly.
My older sister grabbed the phone spoke, then listened. She locked eyes with me. I knew it was bad because her face drained of color. She said thank you and hung up.
“It’s Paul, he’s dead,” my sister muttered.
My brother said, “Paul was going to ask mom to marry him.”
My sister quipped, “No, he wasn’t.”
She glared at my brother. He shrugged at the correction. My sister lifted her head and went to the bedroom door and knocked. Quietly she slipped inside.
The intensity of emotions churned in my stomach, and any hunger I felt vanished. I stared at the cooled eggs and toast indifferently.
My sister returned from the bedroom and said, “You guys should eat.” She poured a cup of coffee and carried it back to the bedroom.
My brothers poured ketchup on the potatoes and seasoned the eggs. I couldn’t move, my mouth dry and my throat gaged hearing the sounds of chewing.
“Are you going to eat that?” my older brother asked. I shook my head and he grabbed my plate and scrapped the contents onto his.
Later that night, while my sister and I washed the dishes, she told me what happened.
Paul hadn’t arrived at the hospital to perform a surgery, and wasn’t answering his phone. The hospital finally contacted his mother about his absence. She drove into town to check his house and, after not finding him, called the police.
They located his body on his houseboat. He had had a heart attack and died. His body, stuck on the boat for two hot summer days, was almost unrecognizable.
As a doctor, he must have known of his heart condition.
There were two incidents in which I witnessed him struggle. Once, when he took us skiing at Buck Hill, a small local ski resort with tow lifts, rentals and mild sloping trails. The other was in the early summer when we went swimming at one of the local lakes.
That one concerned me as he and my mother were swimming past the roped area of the water. I knew something had happened because they stopped the overhead arm strokes and floated on their backs as they came into shore. Paul stumbled to his towel and slept for several minutes.
Both times he was forced to stop and rest before continuing. He had to have known. So did my mother, she was with him each time.
This was the 1960’s and the guidelines, medications and surgeries were limited compared to what we have today.
The next weekend my mother dressed us up, packed us in the car and drove an hour to Hudson, Wisconsin for his wake.
Held in a simple house converted to a funeral parlor, we walked into a room filled with flowers and in the center was his open casket.
I was shocked. He looked unrecognizable, as if he’d aged twenty years with sagging wrinkled skin.
The room was crowded with friends and patients. Waiting to express sorrow and pay respects to the family, most spoke in hushed tones. At the coffin were two maroon velvet-cushioned prayer kneelers. These gave attendees the opportunity to kneel besides the deceased to say a private and final farewell.
I inched in the room keeping my back aligned with the door. When I saw Suzy, I rushed to hug her. I knew her father’s death meant she would have to live with her mother now. Her mother was an alcoholic and unable or uninterested in sobriety. It was the reason for their divorce. Paul was working to get full custody of his children. With his death, that possibility had closed.
As we moved up the line to express our sympathies to Paul’s parents, my mother tried to ‘motivate’ my older sister to kneel besides the casket. My sister balked and shook her head. My older brother flat out refused and walked away. I was next in line and my mother grabbed my arm and in frustration and anger forced me to kneel. “Tell him you love him,” she spat as she knelt besides me.
Seeing his unrecognizable face from roasting in a houseboat, I got dizzy. Afraid I might vomit, I squirmed away from her grasp and escaped to the street.
Once outside in the sunshine, I slowly walked to a tree and leaned against it.
Tears fell down my cheeks and I watched the drops splash against my skirt. I lifted my head and across from me Paul stood. The Paul I remembered. He shimmered around the edges. Then he faded.
I must have looked strange to any passerby. One of the young undertakers rushed out to find me.
When he saw me he said, “She’s here.” He moved gently towards me and asked, “Are you all right?”
Blinking tears, I nodded but couldn’t speak of what I had just seen. I didn’t know how to start. Was it real? Was I dreaming? I remember pointing to the place where I saw Paul.
He knelt down next to me and said, “We’ve got lemonade in the kitchen. Want some?” He held my hand and guided me to the lower level of the funeral parlor.
It was a large kitchen like the one at my school. There were two ladies in aprons at work arranging trays of cookies, sandwiches, cups of coffee and glasses of lemonade.
After I sipped my drink, more to be polite than wanting it, I was returned to my family.
During the drive home, I was scolded and told my younger brother had stepped up and kneeled with her. “At least he has manners, the rest of you don’t.”
I never dared tell anyone of seeing Paul. He was my first vision. I would have many, many more.