When someone that we love "passes away", when someone whose spirit that we've known and laughed with and cared for up to that moment when, shockingly enough they become no longer with us but "somewhere else" like something out of the Twilight Zone, what do we, at that moment and beyond that deeply etched javascript:void(0)moment, have left? There's the body.. laying there on the bed, deadly still and cooling down by the moment.
But where is the animation, the energy that was there just a moment ago but now has "passed on"? Or even has that animating force passed on?
Has that energy really retained some kind of coherence in some way resembling the individuality we once knew and loved? or has it just simply extinguished itself like a candle flame running out of wax and the upward trail of the smoky remains dissapating into the air..?
I tell you it is a freakish feeling not to know for certain if any of our many belief systems, often wrapped in familiar cliche' and relentlessly affirmed by so many of us as.. The Truth, is what has reeeally happened to this once warm-bloodied human beingness that so many of had for so many years called "friend".
Of course these are the age-old questions that I am not about to answer with any kind credible authority, regardless of my own belief systems which I, like everyone else hold tight to.
What do we have left after the energy is gone... the body removed by the men in black quietly closing the door behind them..?
A lock of hair, a wedding ring, in time a jar of ashes, pictures, paintings, favorite clothes so often worn, a shower cap still on the back of the toilet where she had last put it, now over a month ago.
Don't touch it.. don't move it. Don't move anything lest I upset the tenuous make-believe connection that seems to be stretching thinner by the day.
What do we have left that we can hold onto? Memories are poorly made stand-ins for the real thing.
In going through some audio recording on my computer that I had made in September of '06 I accidentally.. sychronistically, came across a snippet of Patti speaking as she was speaking to me then feeding the ducks, as though she was telling me now..
"try not to be sad though we're leaving".
Uh.. easier said than done, honey..
3 weeks have gone by. I still walk through the day with a tightness in my throat, "on the edge" as our Hospice Nurse told me yesterday on the phone.
Every night as I turn out the light I wonder if that "Patti Spirit" will speak to me as I am asleep. I have questions but not about what it is like on the "other side", but rather "are you alright?" and "Did you find Skip?" but mostly, simply, "are you OK now?"
As Kalil Gibran wrote centuries ago: Love knows not its depth until the hour of separation.
So far I have not "heard" from Patti in my dreams.
I am somewhat self-ashamed of that. You would think that at the very least, my unconscious mind that creates all these other dreamy scenarios every night would somehow involve itself with creating something that has such profound effects upon me during my waking hours of everyday.
But nothing. I dream of printing presses and old white cadillacs.
Maybe I'm just not "psychic" enough. Maybe I'm just another dumb brute of a man doing what we guys do. I question myself along these lines. I shut out the light again, pulling up the covers and again wondering and wanting to make some kind of contact, real or imagined, I don't care at this point, to answer my questions.
But my being too insensitive to receive any kind of message either from the depths or above does not mean that others cannot receive messages. It is to this thought that I write this to all of you who are reading this and who knew Patti.
If you have had or will have any contact with her while in your own dream worlds, please let me know and I will publish your "Message from the Depths and Above" here for all of us, who also may have questions needing answers, that we may read and consider for ourselves.
One such friend of ours has had the dream, the message, the connection.. whatever you wish to call it. I am so glad I was told the dream-message during the course of our conversations. It has helped me and no doubt the dreamer as well (who wishes to remain anonymous):
The dream is follows:
Patti was just there. In my dream. I cannot honestly say it was more than that. Her hair was light blonde, like cotton candy, only softer, like a fluffy cloud surrounding her head. She was so joyful, throwing her arms around me and repeatedly kissing my cheek. I noticed how smooth her skin was, and how completely beautiful and healthy she looked. She kept saying "I feel great" as though she really wanted me to understand. It was not so much to me but from her.
Then it was obvious to us (not sure who else was there but I was not alone), that it was time for her to be on her way. She left rather reluctantly. After awhile - moments, longer?, she returned, fluttering about, happy, free, with three other female beings who seemed -- I don't know, older, more mature yet that's not quite right either, wearing dark clothes (Patti wore white). We had a very clear sense that they were from the other side. Again we became aware it was time for Patti to go, to move on. She seemed oblivious. Finally, she drifted away, happily, with her three companions. We felt it was goodbye.
So what do we, at that moment when the Spirit departs and beyond that deeply etched moment have left?
A little bit more than what we had a moment ago.
Thank you. Thankyou both.
