pop, where are you?

Over the last couple of years I’ve been with two dear people as they passed from life to … wherever …

'Now-age' people (as new-age folks now like to be called) say the body’s just a vessel. We are more than flesh and bones. We are spirit; we are essence; we are one with the universe. We don’t die. We live into infinity. Christians tell you the body dies, but the spirit lives on and passes to a greater heavenly arena where they promise salvation. Buddhists believe we’re reborn to learn our past mistakes. Jews say we’ll have a place in the world to come. And Islam preaches the attainment of eternal bliss in the hereafter.

I never understood any of this until the day my aunt died. And I still don’t. But just minutes after my aunt passed, I was mystified. Standing by her side, I cradled her tiny, dry, withered hand in one of mine, sheltering it with the other. No matter how hard I looked, or how closely I leaned in to her still face, I could no longer see her. “Where have you gone, Catherine? Where are you?”

Eight months later I sat with one of the most handsome, classy, vibrant men I’ve known, as he bravely slipped away. I draped across his footballer shoulders and tightly wrapped my arms around him, swallowing tears I knew he wouldn't welcome. But it wasn’t him I hugged. He’d already left.

At that very moment, I was gutted—yet bewildered. “Pop. Where are you? Where have you gone?” I pressed my cheek against his, then kissed his forehead, now pallid and relaxed of life’s stresses. Only minutes before, he’d mustered the last of his strength to give one final instruction, “You have to let me go. Let. Me. Go.” And go he did

I went back to the hospice the following morning where staff had laid my father in clean PJ’s, tucked tightly between crisp white sheets. He died just before his 69th birthday. Nurses had slipped the card I’d given to him between his hands; hands that were strong and athletic, artistic and gentle; hands that had held mine as a child, keeping me safe and secure; hands now void of life that lay neatly folded across his chest. I wrapped my hands over his and squeezed them as I leaned into his cheek to kiss him goodbye. But he wasn’t there.

I don’t know where Dad went when he left that body. I don’t have a faith. I don’t believe in an omniscient being. I don’t believe in rebirth. Or a life hereafter promising eternal bliss. I have no answers and I don’t believe I ever will. I just know that it’s the anniversary of Pop’s death next week, and as I miss him every day, my heart still whispers, “Pop, where are you?”