They

Now that Sarah has gone back to Alaska and back to making moose-meat chili, I’ve found time has lost some of its meaning. The election seems years ago and it's a shock to realize that George W. is still in possession of the White House. I feel only irritation over the mess the country’s been led into and somewhat hopeful that something can be done about it—but neither of them passionately enough for me to want to write about (just yet).

Clearly I need to move on and think about something else. So rather like the sherbert they serve between courses to clear the palate, I want to write about something from my childhood that set me on whatever crooked path my life has taken. I’ve shared this with only a few people because I don’t much like having to defend myself. It happened. I didn’t make it up. The memory has lasted a lifetime and forever changed the way I understand the world. But it’s one of those things when it happens to you, the memory is indelible. When it happens to someone else, people want to explain it away—that is, unless they already “know.” Things like what happened to me tend to upset the applecart of things that people have primary certitude about. If you are passionately fond of a particular variety of apple—you may want to skip this blog. If, on the other hand, you have curiosity and a sense of wonder about apples and trees and the universe--by all means read on.

It is about what I call “they.”

I was ten. I checked on my school records to be sure. The younger I was, the more enchanting it seems to me now. I was attending the Brighton and Hove High School, except it really wasn’t high school in the American sense. My mother was doing private nursing for a very rich old man who lived in the penthouse of an exclusive block of flats just down the hill from my school. Since Mum got on very well with the young wife and was always open to a bit of extra money to help with my school bills, she agreed to do a double—24 hours on, which required her to live in. I came along for the ride.

We settled in nicely and I rode my bike up the hill every day to school. The old man was in and out of it but I didn’t see much of him after my mother took me in to introduce this strange little urchin who was to share his flat, sleeping in the room directly across the hall from his. I think he noticed me. Mum sort of stage managed it. She introduced me and then whisked me out. Mum had seen that I’d been around death—even putting pennies on my grandmother’s dead eyes to set the lids down—because she never wanted me to be afraid of it. So from the brief experience of sort-of meeting him, I could tell from the slightly sweet smell of death that he was not too long for the world.

One night after about a week, I was awakened by noises that seemed to be coming from upstairs. It didn’t occur to me that this was a penthouse so there couldn’t be any upstairs, but no matter, to my childish mind that’s where the sounds came from. There were footsteps and doors opening and shutting, all distinct and noisy enough to have woken me up. I was annoyed. It sounded like a party and it was far too late—didn’t they know I had school the next day?

I opened my door to cross the hallway, which to my surprise was silent. I had expected the noises to intensify. I remember feeling perplexed as I crossed the hall to open the door to the old man’s room. I saw my mother get up quickly from her chair. She looked concerned and I got the sense I shouldn’t have bothered her. I whispered in my high-pitched little English voice, “Mummy, those people upstairs are making a terrible racket.” She didn’t seem angry after all but put her arm around me and guided me quickly back to my bedroom. “Lock the door, darling,” she told me, “and go back to sleep.” I heard no more noises until she knocked on the door next morning to wake me for school.

I learned then the old man had died in the night. No one explained anything and that might have been the end of the story except for some reason the memories refused to die. Years later I asked my mother why she had told me to lock the door.

By then, I guess, I was old enough to be admitted into the circle. It seemed I was not the only one hearing them. But the old man was not only hearing them, he was seeing them. Mum said that the footsteps came to the door and even though he was in deep coma and giving the death rattle, he spoke to whoever had come. He saw his parents. He saw his brother. He saw his dog, and my mother heard the sound of claws on a wood floor. She said she couldn’t be frightened because there was so much joy in his voice as he spoke to them. Well—maybe she hadn’t been frightened until I opened the door: God knows what she must have thought as she watched it open. The sounds ended, she said, the moment he died.

But the story doesn’t end there. It wasn’t just my mother and I. The young wife, who had not been the most faithful of brides, heard them and locked herself in her room with a bottle of whiskey, saying they were going to get her too.

Three of us heard them, one of us a child. The old man saw them, even calling his dog by name. They came for him. I cannot believe anything else.

Since then, I do not believe anyone who purports to tell me about death unless they have somehow looked into that place beyond life. All the fire and brimstone in the world cannot supplant for me being told of the joy of an old man who was seeing once more the things he had loved and believed he had lost.

For many, many years I did not speak of this. Those I told sometimes looked at me with sympathy and shook their heads. They offered all manner of explanations that best fitted with what they had been taught. From their doubting, I learned to be silent because it was easier.

Then one day, I went to the Spiritualist Society of Great Britain. I wanted to know—I had to know—were we all just delusional on the night that the old man died? No, I was told. When death is shared, as this old man shared his with us, there is always a reason. It was not my imagination, nor that of my mother and the young wife. What was unusual and very special was the fact that he shared it. There was a purpose--and in fact, I had betrayed it by letting fear prevent me from talking about it. Your purpose and your duty, the spiritualist minister told me, is to talk about this without fear of consequence or reprisal. Whatever communication we are given from beyond--whether in dreams or imagination or in more conscious contact--is a gift to guide us to become whom we are meant be.

My mother said that in fifty years of nursing, she never before or after experienced anything comparable. Hospice nurses tell me that it happens from time to time and that the transition to the other side is always easier when it does. The nurses tell me it always a privilege to share it when it happens.

This blog is the first time I am openly acknowledging my experience as a child. I wish that everyone could have direct experience to dispell the doubts. It has given me the knowledge that guides my life. I know that “they” come for you because I have heard it. I know that what waits beyond is hopeful and joyful. I know that we each have a purpose and that sometimes it is difficult to find and sometimes scarey in the demands that it makes of us. I find the sense of a community around us, waiting to welcome us back—to be profoundly comforting.

I just hope by speaking out at last, I am finally worthy of that night when an old man shared with us one of the most private things we will ever experience.