It was nearly 20 years ago now that I heard the loud thud on the kitchen floor that changed the direction of my life completely. Aug 3, 2002 was that fated day. It was on that hot, humid late afternoon day that I held my father’s hand on the hardwood kitchen floor of the home that he so lovingly built, as he took his last breath.
I was 30 years old and a jet-setting strategic business consultant living in Boston. I drove the two hours home to our country house in the rolling green hills of New Hampshire for the weekend for a family reunion. Little did I know that it was a reunion of a different kind. My family members were gathered together alright. But not like I had anticipated. There were no games and parties. No laughing. No dancing. We were gathered together now in our grief of the great patriarch of our family who had succumbed to a sudden heart attack at the age of 55.
And for me, as it turns out, this day marked the day of my greatest pain. And my greatest gift. For on this day, I began my spiritual journey. You see, up until the day my father died, I was an atheist. I was raised in a family in which neither my mother nor my father believed in God. In their childhood, both of my parents had horrible experiences with organized religion, so they decided not force it upon their kids. It wasn’t that they were against God. In fact, they both considered themselves as spiritual, but they did not share their convictions with us kids. They told us that it was up to each of us to find our own way in terms of what we believed about God. I pretty much idealized my parents, and so I followed their lead. I did not actively pursue or investigate anything about it.
Consequently, the only experience that I had in the first 30 years of my life with God was a handful of times when I went to church for a wedding or a funeral. Well, of course, I also tagged along to the local Catholic church with one of my neighborhood friends, Colleen, when I was a little girl. But that was only because her family went to the penny candy store after church and I would get to pick out a whole bag full of sweet treats. My mom was strict and didn’t allow me to have candy very often, so I endured Sunday’s at church with the McDonald family in order to get my sugar fix. But I didn’t understand what church was all about. And my parents did not bother to explain it to me since they did not believe in organized religion.
So, you can imagine my surprise as an adult when I was holding my father’s hand as he died and I saw a blue light. My sister and cousin were doing CPR, desperately pumping his chest hard, and forcefully breathing air into his lungs, trying to revive him. My other family members were standing around gasping, crying, and yelling in panic. In the midst of this scene, I let go of my father’s hand and calmly walked away to the other room. Although they were still trying to fight for his life, I knew the moment that he left his body because I felt his energy leave it. And at that moment I also saw a blue light and I felt an incredible peace rush over me. I knew he was gone. I knew he had left his body. I knew with certainty that he was not coming back. I didn’t want to tell my family members this because they would think I was crazy. Quite frankly, I didn’t know what to make of it either because up until that moment, I did not believe there was something after death. I thought that we are just this body, and that when we die, that is it. Lights out. Game over. Finito. My father lived by the motto, “You only rock once,” and he ingrained that into my head. He lived his life like this was the only life he ever will live. He preached about living each day like it was our last. I even remember a letter he wrote to me telling me that I should squeeze all of the juice out of the grape. He urged me to realize that this was my only life that I will ever live, so I should try to get all of the juice I can out of it every day. Every last drop. So, I tried my best to think like that and to live like that. But, now I was faced with a different paradigm. If we only live once, then what was this blue light leaving his body? Was that his soul? Where was it going? Is he going to live in some other place?
As I sat in the living room and calmly called family members to inform them of my father’s sudden passing, my sisters and cousins and mother were in anguish in the room next door, still trying to bring my father back to life. It was not until two hours later at the hospital, when they gave up trying. The doctors finally pronounced my father dead at 5:40pm on Sunday, Aug 3, 2002.
