Yes

A few of you may know that some years back I experienced what I can only call a near death experience. Tonight I feel an unsettling sense of surprise that the memory of it brings me no comfort.

I'm struggling, and  I can't tell you precisely why it is worse again. That's just the way of grief I suppose. It sneaks up from behind with increased intensity when you least expect it. I miss JeanAnn, who died so recently on December 6th. I miss Brenda  who died in May of 2010, and my brother Steve, who died in November that same year. They are the most recent holes left in my heart, but there are many others, and. I am feeling them all tonight.

Do you have odd notions about the purpose of your life in relation to those dear to you? I have to ask, because, I certainly do. Always have. Always I have seen myself as part of the fabric of lives around me. A single thread, but woven deeply in and about; helping to hold it all together. Some very important strands in my own life are missing now; and I'm feeling the threadbare places this winter.

Don't get me wrong. My life is rich with friends and family still here with me. Tonia quietly sets a cup of hot tea beside me. Has music softly soothing the pain she sees in my eyes or in the creases around them. She has felt it too today. We have talked about it. Hard to say why  bittersweet memories have crowded so close.

JeanAnn was standing in our kitchen two months ago when she asked me about Brenda's death. They had been out of touch for years. Did my answer provide any comfort? Was it sensitive enough in view of JeanAnn's own illness, and her long ago friendship with Brenda? Maybe not. I think I may have dropped the ball that time. I do believe that if sentience continues after bodily death, the way that both JeanAnn and Brenda believed that it would, they are more forgiving than I of my shortcomings.

Hearing of my 'near death' experience may have brought comfort to my friends. I'm sure it did to my mother; but for me it raised  huge weighty questions. When asked if I would come back, I had answered, yes I would, for my friend. There had been no possibility for misunderstanding at that moment of decision. No looming questions. Moments, or milliseconds later everything was suddenly very different again. I must have meant 'friends' since it was impossible to choose between them. Weren't my family members my very first friends? Every animal I ever met, stray or not, domesticated or wild ? What exactly had I promised?

Is it possible that the entire experience consisted of ions misfiring over random synapses? That meaning was erroneously assigned to it? That the external and tangible events before and after that experience were just as meaningless as the near-death experience itself?
Is it just as possible that the simple act of saying yes was all that was really required? Could  that alone have accomplished something good for my friends?