This just in — the afterlife is “fantastic.”
That’s the news from Jon. And he should know, he’s been there in the afterlife, wherever that is, for almost ten months now.
Mind you, I didn’t get this “fantastic” news directly from Jon. I got it from his niece, Lindsey, who got it from Jon, in a dream.
It was one of those vivid dreams that stick with you and that you tell your friends about. Also your grieving, widowed Aunt Barbara.
The Afterlife Is Fantastic
In this dream, which Lindsey had a couple of weeks ago, Lindsey spotted her uncle at the family house in Southern California in the little town of Piru.
“I asked him how the afterlife is and he said it’s fantastic and that he’s working in the newspaper business again there.”
That sounded like Jon. That he would report that the afterlife is “fantastic” — not sublime, not serene, and above all not holy — sounds just like him.
Also — that Jon would return to the newspaper business is telling.
Toward the end of his life Jon was a thriller writer. Before that he was a software engineer.
But before that he was a journalist.
He worked on the family newspaper in Southern California, then he started Zodiac News Service, a crusading anti-Vietnam war, pro-civil rights, pro-marijuana underground publication with hundreds of subscribers all over the U.S.
In the Sweet By and By
Returning, in the sweet by and by, to his original calling sounds just like Jon. The real Jon. The Jon I fell for fifty years ago.
Still, when it comes to the question, is there a Great Beyond, I am a skeptic. Do we get a celestial afterlife? I dunno.
And that’s what makes Jon’s death so hard for me — my sense that my husband of forty-four years has has been extinguished. Evaporated. That he is no more. That he is nowhere.
I know, I know — I’m a practicing Christian, and Christianity’s foundational teaching is that we do not die. Jesus assured his disciples that, “In my father’s house are many many mansions . . . I go to prepare a place for you.”
That is the promise of Christianity — that there is an afterlife, one in which you might even get to work on a newspaper, just like you did when you were young and ambitious and full of big ideas.
But I don’t know that.
Messages From Heaven?
As for those dreams and whether dreams can bring messages from heaven, I don’t know that either.
The world’s great wisdom traditions say, yes, they can.
Hebrew scripture tells of Jacob’s dream of angels walking up and down a ladder, from earth to heaven and heaven to earth.
In Christian scripture, Joseph was warned in a dream to flee to Egypt with Mary and the Baby Jesus to escape the murderous King Herod.
And, Buddhist and Hindu texts honor the dream state as a potential path to enlightenment.
As I see it, traditional scriptures like these have rung true to people for thousands of years, vetted by generation upon generation of practicing Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists. I take these accounts seriously.
People You Know and Trust — What Do They Say?
I also take seriously the experience of the living, breathing people I know and trust.
Lindsey is one of those people,
But so is my neighbor up the street. She died just a few months ago. She had health challenges, so I imagine she had given some thought to what death might hold for her.
Last summer, at a neighborhood party, she asked me how I was feeling about the loss of Jon.
“It’s hard,” I told her. “It’s hard, because I don’t know where Jon is.”
“Ah,” she said, her face lighting up. “You never know. He could be someplace amazing.”
Amazing? Fantastic?
Could be.
More stories from my rocky spiritual journey can be found at “Quarantine Hair: I’ve Got Curls All Over My Head. How Did That Happen?” Also, “Lt. Col. Vindman and That Old, Old Question — Are We Born Selfish?”
love this! I knew ‘that’ Jon; didn’t meet the bald one until 3.7.20.
love the images (written & visual), and the sentiments (seeking & sure).
thank you!
Thank you, Pamela. I’m not sure which one is handsomer — the bald Jon or the one with some hair up top.
When I was about eight I was playing with some other kids on a garage roof overlooking the railroad tracks. Old planks were stored up there and we pushed one out over the edge like on a pirate ship. I was urged by an older boy to step out on it, saying he’d stand on the other end as counterweight. As soon as I did, of course, he stepped off and down I went. I had a soft landing on sandy ground and lay face down thinking, “I’m not hurt.” What I didn’t know was the plank had flipped and was coming down. “Jerry,” a voice said, “roll out of the way.” It was a man’s voice like no other I’d ever heard. Kind, concerned, seriously urgent. I rolled to my left. Whap! The plank landed where I’d been been a second before. Turn it over, one of the boys called from the roof. A long, spike-like nail was buried in the sand, and I would have been impaled had I not rolled away.
Thanks for warning me, I said. We didn’t say anything, they said. Yes, you did. No, we didn’t. Yes, you did. No, we didn’t. We lost interest in it eventually and moved on to other things . Kids accept things against all reason, and I didn’t think about it for many years. And then I did. Rationality is overrated and the scientific method now bastardized to scientism doesn’t have all the answers or even a lot of the questions. I’m glad that happened to me. I’ve never had to try to think my way through the puzzle of existence and come to bitter conclusions.
A.J. Ayer, the logical positivist and, in his time, a better-credentialed Christopher Hitchens at laying the wood to the credulous, stumbled into a hospital one night and died in a clinical sense on the table as doctors worked on him for four minutes. After recovering, he said he had seen a red light which he understood to be the source of everything. He remained a stout atheist – he wished existence for him to end for good and all — but struck up a friendship with a priest and had many a friendly discussion thereafter.
I wrote a novel for which I did some research about death, but not in a reductive materialistic sense where there is a clinical analysis of the machinery breaking down and the crying need for all the palliative care possible at the end.
Katy Bulter’s work — “Knocking on Heaven’s Door: The Path to a Better Way of Death” — is damned good journalism on the subject, but because of that childhood experience, I came at it from a different angle. I’m almost embarrassed to talk about it, so thoroughly indoctrinated have I been by our secular culture and the don’t-feed-ME-that-bullshit point of view necessary for a journalist.
Interestingly, Charles Lindbergh waited 24 years after his flight before plucking up enough courage to write about the presences he sensed around him in the cockpit who made navigational suggestions and generally kept him awake.
“At the Hour of Death,” published in the ’70s and now largely forgotten, was a cross-cultural study in India and the U.S. of deathbed experiences, a thousand in each country. Some had no idea what was happening to them, while others had a pretty good idea (23% had cancer). Even allowing for disease and brain injury, a huge proportion saw what the authors call “apparitions” in the form of dead people (mothers 23% to fathers 9%) appearing to welcome them to the next world. As a result, 54% felt elation or serenity at the prospect, though 29% had negative feelings (the Indians had a higher likelihood of this). There are 22 tables at the back of the book that set forth the percentages of how questions were asked and answered.
All this said, I don’t know anything except that and Pascal’s Wager sounds like a good bet to me.
Jerry. Thanks for telling us that amazing story . . . And, yes, I too had that same experience as a journalist in newsrooms full of skeptics. As you say, “I’m almost embarrassed to talk about it, so thoroughly indoctrinated have I been by our secular culture and the don’t-feed-ME-that-bullshit point of view necessary for a journalist.” It’s only after my stint as the religion reporter at the Contra Costa Times that I could talk about religion or spiritual stuff without embarrassment. It was easier to talk about sex than God in the circles I went around in most of my life . . . So good to hear from you!
I was once an atheist until becoming a nurse. After spending time with many dying patients, I realized that our loved ones continue to exist….just in a place beyond our conscious perception. I know nothing else except this: we do not “cease to be”.
Sending you my warmest wishes as you navigate your tender spirit through this holiday season.
Thank you, Jill. That’s helpful: “We do not ‘cease to be.'”
Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the certainty of things unseen.
Barbara, Thank you for sending along the comments about Jon’s whereabouts and the remarks by Lindsey. You hit the nail on the head. I can recall Lindsey making those observations. And your photo of Jon back at the typewriter brings back wonderful memories!
Jon at that typewriter back in the 1960s may bring back memories for you but not for me — by the time I met Jon, he had no hair on the top of his head. He did have a mustache, however. And he was adorable.
What a life affirming talk with your niece. It warmed my heart to learn about her experience with Jon,
We love you & wish you less grief as each day goes by. 💕🙏🌈. Joy
Hearing about that dream was such a breath of fresh air. It sounded so much like Jon!
The rational mind is data driven, so the decisions it makes are limited to what it believes or thinks is true. Not very effective in this particular context.
That just leaves us with faith … or his niece. I think her experience is not unreasonable, these things happen all the time. Prayer is just an appeal in a non-linear mode. Different rules … but you know this.
Thank, you, Rich. Actually I do have a lot of faith in Jon’s niece. She is quite a person.
Love this, so spot on and concise. I don’t know about the after life either, I’m glad it gave you comfort to hear about this dream. I think of you very often
Thank you, Deidre. It is comforting to know that you are thinking of me!
How wonderful that this message was delivered from your husband by your niece. I truly believe this happens.
Recently, I was dreaming only about people who had died, including my daughter and many others. It got to the point that when I dreamed of someone who was still alive, I got nervous. Once I acknowledged that they may be trying to communicate, those dreams stopped. I like to believe they are, because it makes me feel good.
Amazing to have so many dreams of people you have cared about. and, oh my, including a daughter… So far I have had very few dreams of Jon. I still find it hard to visualize him or think of him at all concretely. It brings on the tears. Maybe that’s why Jon was reduced to sending his message through his niece. Resourceful guy!