DRAWING ON A VISIT FROM AN ANGEL

In my father’s last few moments before he was medicated for the pain, he held his arms up from the hospital bed, much as if to reach out to someone bending over the end of the hospital bed. I tried a couple of times to grab his hands, because I thought he was trying to get my attention but was unable to see where I was standing. If he was blind at that moment, regardless, he saw something he wanted to embrace. His eyes were wide open. He saw then what he wanted to see. Each time he’d pull his arm free again, and continue this upward reach, with a look on his face as if he clearly saw what he was reaching toward. Even the nurse seemed to find this unusual. Not that she hadn’t seen it before, in other patients but not in the context of what we had been chatting about moments earlier.

It was at this point, that we (my son Robert and I) decided, on the nurse’s recommendation, to request the doctor immediately prescribe appropriate medication to ease Ed’s pain for the last moments of his life. As a family believing very-much in the afterlife, I had mentioned to the nurse that it was my belief his spirit was thusly preparing to cross over. The last mortal action was to reach up with his arms, possibly toward what he perceived to be the grand, forgiving light of heaven (as we know it), sensing the image of his wife Merle awaiting him to cross. The only time he stopped reaching up was when the medication calmed him for those final moments. But there was no question in our minds, Ed was eager to leave his tired old body and reach for something that was attainable.

I didn’t stay for that last bit of his life because it was obvious there was nothing left of the mortal coil. His spirit was gone and it was just a host of tubes feeding that “flesh on bones” remnant of human existence. Shortly after we arrived home, the dog came over to my wife, put its head on her knee, and looked up at her as if led by his old friend Ed, on this last adventure on earth. Bosko never does this unless begging to go out or for food. I said to Suzanne, Ed has just passed. The phone rang seconds later. We knew what to expect.

You see, Ed loved that dog....and although he couldn’t have his own, in the rental apartment he lived-in, we made sure to bring Bosko whenever we visited. We’d let her go when we got out of the elevator, and it was a most joyous trot down the length of hall to his open door. Ed delighted in treating Bosko, and after a drop and roll, so he could scratch the old belly, she wouldn’t stop nuzzling under the knee to get him up from the chair. It was biscuit time. Bosko is part Border Collie, and I told Ed she treated us all like sheep....herding us to where she thought we were supposed to be. It was quite appropriate that Ed used Bosko to break the news to us that he was crossing over.

Ed had a terrible fear of two things in life. Going to a dentist and a doctor. He loathed hospitals but was fine as a guest. It hurt him through his life, and a number of times he’d be forced to go because of a medical emergency.....one he might have avoided if he had gone for a check-up now and again. But as an old sailor, from the famed North Atlantic Squadron of the Second World War, he had seen a great deal of death at sea. He had faced it many times before when his ship, the Coaticook, came under fire from above and below. He was a lot tougher than I gave him credit for......because his reluctance to go to a doctor had always seemed, to me, more cowardly than anything else. In that last month in the hospital, Ed would have done anything to get out of that situation.....even knowing he wasn’t going to survive for long. He’d have just as soon died reading the paper at home, or walking uptown, or better still, having a final cool beer as he loved in life. The problem for Ed was that at the same time, he was in and out of dementia and it meant he could have caused harm to others especially if he had conned his way out of hospital care.....and found his car. We had to hide his keys after several escape attempts nearly succeeded. In moments of clarity, he knew full well his apartment was only a block away. If Ed had the chance then, he would have driven that car as far as it would take him. It was the inevitable accident, if he did drive again, we were determined to stop..

For the past several weeks, I have been sitting at hearthside, here at Birch Hollow, with a pad of paper and pencil, trying to sketch the image of an angel. The one I witnessed in a dream, during a serious childhood illness. While it may seem strange, on top of strange, but it was the clear memory of an event that may have happened half a century ago, that helped me through the loss of both parents, in just over a year.

I have made an attempt several times, over the past year, to sketch the angel I witnessed. I can see her so vividly. Just not enough to be able to get a satisfactory image on paper. Some features look alright but the distortion of others is laughable. When I finish it looks like an eagle with a human face. But then I’m a pretty poor artist. It might have been a fifty year old dream-visitation but it’s one I will never forget as long as I live.

I can remember standing over Ed, on one of the many visits, and noticing a couple of the nurses looking at me, with a sympathetic glance, that suggested they knew it wouldn’t be long. I’m sure they’d have had some kind words for me if I’d all of a sudden burst into tears, or begged a willing ear. On a number of these occasions I thought to myself, I wonder how many people in this hospital right now, including staff, have had an audience with an angel in their lives. I imagined that, of those who would admit it, the number wouldn’t have been all that substantial. And I thought that the calmness and resolve I felt, was, in some part, attached to this early liaison, that has stuck with me for most of my days. It is an ongoing sensation of gentle recognition that there is something beyond.....despite what can’t be explained......abstract versions and unscientific claims that can’t do anything more than marginally pacify mortal curiosity.

Earlier in this series of blogs on the paranormal, I wrote at some length about a dream visitation with my guardian angel, so I won’t repeat it entirely here. You can look back yourself if interested. If you believe in such things, or have had similar experiences, it might be a source of validation. A lot of folks think I’m mad......and possibly I am. But I’d never trade my experience for anything else.....because the sense of that event has been at my side through many, many trials. Such as the near death of our son Robert, who choked on vomit during a seizure which hit him when still asleep. When I couldn’t revive him, I know I called upon an old and dear friend.....and it was this calming angelic influence that kept me sane for those first critical hours of emergency care. It had happened during one of the heaviest snowfalls of the year, and our roads were unplowed. Even the ambulance got stuck on the way out our road, on the way to the hospital. Robert was diagnosed, at about eight years of age, with epilepsy. He’s only had two major episodes but both were during sleep, which can be deadly because of similar choking.

When I told my mother that I had seen an angel in my dreams, she explained to me that it had been a sign that the fever was finally breaking. I woke up that morning soaked with sweat. Merle told me I’d been talking in my sleep at the peak of the fever, and this may have been the time I was dreaming of the angel-kind. I see it somewhat differently after many years thinking about it. It’s just something you want to explain rationally, such as fever, but have a nagging suspicion it may have been something much more. Why else would I remember this all these years later, such that I can recognized every detail....and in color, of my visitor’s heavenly presence.

I had been sick for weeks with a horrific cough, and on and off fever. Every time I coughed I vomited. I couldn’t keep anything down. I’m not sure what the doctor gave me to fight the illness, but he informed my mother that if it didn’t clear up soon, I would have to be admitted to hospital. Whatever the illness was, it was horrible. I had to sit upright in a chair for most of a week for fear that I’d choke myself with vomit. I was weak. I remember thinking that evening, I was sicker than my parents knew. I don’t know why but a kid’s intuition kicked in. My body was wracked with pain because of all the coughing and throwing-up. I wasn’t too familiar, at that point, with the sound of death’s door being knocked-upon. I’m suspicious about just how close I might have been to Mr. Reaper. Before I awoke again, I had experienced a dream that certainly seemed stranger than most. I really didn’t have a good understanding about heaven or angels at that point, so I can tell you, I must have had help filling in the image I saw before me. There she was, with curly blond hair and such an incredibly kind and loving expression on her face, hovering above me, without any movement of these huge white wings, rising above her head and shoulders. But there was unmistakable movement. I wasn’t looking at a static image. She was moving her arms in gesture, for me to come closer. And I did as she requested. There was an aura of calm, an aroma of flowers, and a coolness to the atmosphere.....a coming down from a fever I supposed, with a cold cloth on my forehead....sitting in that livingroom chair. It was a feeling of near nirvana, as I think back on it, as if I was floating, weightless, to meet her level. Possibly I was that close to departing this mortal coil. Maybe she was helping me out of my human form......but I’ve always believed it was the case that she was letting me know that it was not yet time to leave, and that my body would recover. Rather than a dream, I believe it was at a time of near spiritual departure that we came to meet.....and I was influenced, so gently, to return and live life as Teddy the wunderkind of Burlington’s Harris Crescent. And I did. My mother was at my side when I woke up. She had been sleeping on the couch beside me. I had survived, and with a really interesting story. Do you think so? If you think I’m a nut, well that’s okay too!

For more on this recollection, feel free to dig into the archives of this blog.

I’m still trying to create an honest depiction of this vision, on paper, and if there’s truly interventions from the other side, maybe one day I will get the divine image I’ve been dreaming of......or, possibly it is never to be. It’s an image in my mind, my soul, and I’m good with that......