Lost? sure I am

Digging for heavenly stuff

It was well into the night when she started to take a speedy downturn.. The nurse looked at me and silently signaled that it was time.. "her breathing is very shallow" he said .. He told me he will close the door so that we may have our privacy to say goodbye..  She was a DNR (Do Not Resuscitate i.e. Do not try to revive the body by any means like chest compressions .. shocks.. etc.) as there was no point in her continuing the way she became.. In her final days, she stared at  nothingness and seldom looked at me. That last day before she closed her eyes for good, she replied that she knew who I was and how silly of me to ask her if she still recognized me.. I begged and pleaded for her to reopen them just one more time... Just one more word...  something.. My pleads were to no avail..

All I knew as I was standing next to her hospital bed watching the monitors signal her final departure, is that I Should pray.. I  fumbled through the Holy book but only stumbled upon verses that curse the people who prayed to idols.. fumbled some more looking for those verses that promise good things, only to stumble upon promises of God's promise to damn this group or take revenge for another.. " this one sound's soothing", I said to myself when I finally located a part that spoke of heavens and pretty things, only to land a verse or two later onto God's vengeance and his mighty wrath... "Hey !!! Hey !!! Heyyy!!! go back to the heavens' stuff" said my sister as I was losing track of what I was reading watching the monitors at the same time, and holding off from weeping or losing composure.. She never appreciated weepers and I won't do it, not next to her.. not now..

So I stuck to  the few soothing verses.. kept reading it and reading it until her breaths became so shallow, and her heart rate went to the single digits.. However, as the awful monitor beep signaled that she was fading to no more.. I put the book aside and I unconsciously started chest compressions.. I could see a pulse coming back on the monitor "yes!! her heart is beating again", I thought to myself..." then what??" I asked myself... Cancer has spread everywhere, she was totally lost days before her heart stopped.. Do I want her body simply warm yet lifeless for my own selfish reasons? So I surrendered..  I stopped compressing her chest, her heart kept going for few seconds more and then it stopped too.


Always heard of people feeling the presence of their loved one around.. Didn't feel that. That trip driving back that day was so eerie.. It was a warm night, yet it felt like the coldest winter.. I had my sister and dad next to me, but felt totally alone. We all couldn't help one another..I wasn't sure if there was something that could have spared her life had I got her help somewhere else.. I wasn't sure if all avenues of helping her were exhausted..  I wasn't sure how I'll handle her loss like many people who lost their dearest did, but was sure of one thing,  that she was gone,  and I can never see her or hug her again..

Or Can I??

The Desperate Quest:

You think it's the right thing to do when you have to rid yourself of grief over losing a loved one. You cry a little.. No a LOT.. A LOT!! You pray a lot.... You look for all those who remind you of the deceased.. They said you get angry too... I Couldn't get angry, cause I already was...  then you pray and pray and when you're done praying , you pray some more.  Those final days and especially the final moments hunt you down everywhere you go.. all the time.


You figure may be if you sleep, you 'll dream of her in a different state and she might look happy, might say something.. She might give you a message; a sign that may be,  just may be,  there is more to death than death in another dimension.

Heard of dreams that transmit messages.. May be I'll see her in heaven.. But what if she doesn't recognize me or care anymore to see me there?  What if I never see heaven? what if I belonged to hell?
What if we both never get to recognize each other??  What if we both were doomed to hell?
What if .. what if?? what if this whole thing was just a nightmare and I'll soon wake up?!!!


You think reading may help.. So you may have  read for "Dr. Mostafa Mahmoud" a renowned Egyptian physician and religious scientist (the secret of death).. Ok, That was not bad in essence we are energies that go about to infinity, and death ushers the path for new lives.. For the continuity and oneness of creatures and the universe....

But I want to contact her now!! Then I catch myself posturing or saying a word she used to use too.. I feel slightly assured that she left part of her in me.. True like the book says energies go on and on to infinity.. So part of her is here, but that is NOT HER!!! I WANT HER!!!!

You move on to another book:  the after life experiments By Dr. Gary Schwartz.. Technically about mediums that seem to truly have the ability to get messages from the ones who passed on.. He investigated if they were mere frauds, mind readers, fortune tellers, or true mediums.. Ok, that was nice.. But good luck trying to find a real medium and should you find one it's years for an appointment.. And how do I know she would come? she can be mischievous and may not like that at all especially if the medium winds up interrupting her during a good Volley ball game..

Then I read hello from heaven, by Bill and Judy Guggenheim.. Ok but that book was about near death experiences .. Tired of the same old stories of seeing those gorgeous parks, angels and the levitation ..
plus, it's about near death .. I want info about the DEAD already..

So I decided to make my way through "Into the light" by Dr. John Lerma.. A physician that worked with hospice care and had seen the dying on a daily basis..

"I wish I found that book before she passed on", I thought to myself.. It was one after another; scenarios of those dying patients that somehow were all quite talkative given their grim conditions.. One in and out of a coma, the other with Huntington's Disease and somehow her throat was fine and she was also quite a yapper on her final days.. The enlightenments and revelations each patient had at their final days were too fantastic..  a Jew switched to christianity on her dying bed and an atheist that found Jesus .. numerous accounts of the same .. The dying person stares at something and it's always at the corner of the room.. Well, she stared at nothing!! Her eyes looked blank.. I never walked in and noticed that she was looking at the right or left corner of the room ...

Get Lost !!! 

I worked at the rehabilitation facility where she stayed for few months during her critical times.. There, there were many older patients who were dying in hospice care or have terminal illness or debilitating diseases that can't be handled at home...

I figured I keep my work there though it was difficult to walk in and picture her waving cheeringly at the door seeing me arrive.. I figured may be I can see what this book was talking about .. It spoke of beautiful things, no one was greeted by hellish beings even convicted killers, and a Nazi soldier they all saw pretty things, angels, plants, horses and fields..They saw Jesus.. Things I couldn't find that day going through my holy book to locate a peaceful promising  future in the after life..

I was assigned to see this frail 86 Year old dying patient named Sarah..she had terminal cancer too. She was getting worse, treatments stopped that she was expected to die in days.. She had no family and the few that visited her seldom did.. Unclear if this was because she was often tired, sleepy , confused or grumpy..  she was not eating and was technically a skeleton with shriveled dry patchy skin that dangled  loosely off her sharp shrunken bones.. She had white impressively thick long hair haphazardly arranged  to the side of her head on the pillow.. her boney wrinkled features bared the remains of a once upon a time beautiful  face with sky blue eyes that look like, over the years,  they were slowly digging their way into the depths of her eye sockets..

She lied there staring at the ceiling.. I thought I had my opportunity to explore, hoping I  get to hear a real life story for myself as the ones listed in the" into the Light" book.. I was so excited that I finally found a chance I missed with mom.. "This woman, is staring the same way mom did .. Finally, I will know.. God sent me this woman... She is going to tell me about what she sees, and what she hears.. She is going to give me excerpts about those angels the pretty beings, the after life, heaven... I will hear about the place where mom is..  that she is being entertained somewhere in a different dimension.. I found her!!.. I found her!!", I thought to myself.
,
"Hi Sarah.. Sarah?".. Sarah didn't flinch though she was not known to be hard of hearing.. She was known to complain of the smallest noises made by the ventilator of her neighboring bed.
"Sarah!" I repeated
She finally looked my way, carefully, I figured I start a little chat before I go into business..
"Sorry to bug you".. "How are you doing today?".. She looked away, didn't answer.
"I heard you are not eating well, is it the food here or your appetite?" .. She looked at me and said "I ate"..
"Ok, That's good!" faking excitement ..
She went back to her fixated stare at the ceiling.. I had it .. I wanted to know.. "what are you looking at Sarah?" she didn't respond.. "Up there? are you thinking about something.. do you see something?"

Sarah kept starring at the ceiling still..after a moment of silence I got my answer.. Suddenly this very frail, barely visible elderly woman looked at me. She summoned the loudest, firm commanding voice paired with rage and cried: "GET LOST!!"..

 "Lost ? I have been doing exactly that", I thought..

 Few days later,  I submitted my resignation.. It was no longer fruitful for me to keep going there and revisit the memories, of her weak final days...

It was critical to quit trying to resuscitate an artificial pulse of her invisible ghost.. She lives on.. Her soul is still naturally throbbing through my sister,  and her spirit is still naturally breathing,  through me..




( Note: The self reference was only intended to minimize " she"s / "her"s  and confusions  among the female characters..)

Kindly leave comments, and feedback below .. Thank you for reading :)