Guardian (continued)

I suppose scientists never fully understood how our brains store and retrieve memories. Certain parts of the brain—although I don’t remember which ones—are known to be the primary locations where it is believed that the brain stores our memories, but there have been countless documented cases of people who suffered severe or catastrophic brain damage in those areas and still retained access to those memories. Sometimes the recall would not come for years and years later, or after much time spent in therapy and rehabilitation. Even then, sometimes there were gaps in the continuity of those memories or, in some rare cases, a concatenation of memories that did not match the actual event.

It feels slightly morbid to even be considering this. My memories appear to be intact, except, of course, that so-far-unexplained four-year gap following my “death”. If my mind is playing tricks, concocting memories of events that never occurred through the random association of memories that it can find, how would I know? If the sequence of incidents that make up that event seems make logical sense, again how would I know? Can I even be sure of what I perceive to be logic?

That, I fear, veers off into the realm of philosophy. Although that was one of my better series of courses in college, and I did find it to be far more interesting and engaging set of studies than I thought it would be, I never could fully grasp some of the metaphysical foundations of some of the philosophical disciplines. I do remember the professor who taught two of the courses, although I never could remember his name even years later. He was more than middle-aged man who regularly dressed in khaki cargo pants and Birkenstock sandals and white socks. He had white hair and a beard that, while you were unlikely to mistake him for Santa Claus, certainly made you consider that he was probably one of jolly old elf’s close relations.

Guardian (continued)

Faint pink-violet light peeks above the horizon. Dawn begins and I’m relieved that I haven’t lost all sense of the passage of time and the days. It is still some time before Jessica will be awakened by her father, though. These are strange, quiet hours: nature begins to awaken, but few humans do. Those who don’t miss the magic of it. I’m not sure I truly appreciated it when I was among the living. I suppose I do, from time to time, notice the colors and occasional beauty of it through the windshield of a car driving to work or through whatever rare window might be present in the building in which I was employed. When one has nothing but time, I guess you learn to spend it more freely, to view and value the things that you wished you had in life.

Somewhere, far off, I hear sirens. They are distant, heading further away from this house where Jessica and her family reside. I’m not sure whether it might be an ambulance, fire engine, or police vehicle. My son knew the difference—and was always willing to test and correct me when I guessed wrong. It was a fun little kind of game we played. He liked being able to show off—to demonstrate that there were things that he knew that his father didn’t. I don’t think it made him particularly superior, but pleased that there were areas in which his knowledge exceeded mine—something somewhat rare in his experience. But then fifty-plus years of life and learning will do that: it’s amazing how much unrelated knowledge one can acquire during the course of a lifetime, often without meaning to. Of course, I usually meant to. I could never see why learning should not be a lifelong pursuit. I’d seen too many people grow old before their time, eschewing new knowledge and experience for the safety of the familiar and the comfort of memories.

I was fearful that memories—and endlessly reliving them—might be all that I would have if I was wrong about this new state of existence. I am grateful that I seem to be able to still learn new things. I do wonder, though, where this new information is being stored, as I don’t believe I still have a physical brain, with its network of neurons and receptors, in which to store and access it.

Guardian (continued)

I wonder if that will make eternity seem to last even longer—if such a thing is possible. I remember a line from some television show: “The problem with immortality is that it’s boring.” I suppose that living an eternity in this state—or any state, I imagine—must be a lot like that. I haven’t been existing in it long enough yet to know, but I can see how that might be.

A memory comes to me of the cool, damp scent of pre-dawn, that time when the dew has settled like mist on everything before the morning sun burns it away. Most people start their days too late to notice it, but I remember it well, for I often left for work in the pre-dawn hours in order to avoid the worst of the traffic that clogs the California freeways from dawn until nightfall.

I thought I’d miss that, but I find a certain longing for it—for the solitary time alone in my car listening to one narrator or another reading from some old book I’d once read. It was my way of returning to the novels that I remembered from my younger days, having little time in the evenings to read both new stories and revisit old tales. That I will never be able to read to Jessica is a loss that I’m not sure that I considered before. For something so important to me, you’d have thought that I would have given it some consideration. Perhaps I did; I no longer remember.

What else have I forgotten? Is that how this existence ends—that my memories slowly fade, one by one, until none remain and whatever I am now is gone? That seems a horrible way to go, but I’m not sure I’ll even be aware of it. I mean, how can you realize that you’ve forgotten something that you no longer remember? I seem to remember everything about my life . . . at least no less than I think I remember while still living it. There is that four-year gap after my living existence ended, but I think that’s a different thing. For all I know, I spent them on the bank of a great world-spanning river. Or somewhere on Mars. Or . . . I have no idea.

Guardian (continued)

During the day I can follow her around. It’s strange, though, as there seem to be gaps even in that. I don’t know if my mind wanders—which concerns me greatly if it does, for then I’m not keeping as close a watch on her as I have dedicated myself to—or if it some kind of weird effect or lingering side effect of the four-year gap between when I died and when I became aware again. I just know that I’m there, watching, and then she’s something other than where she should be, having traveled further from me than she should be able to in that instant. When I do notice it, it’s kind of like watching a video on an unstable internet connection, with the sudden stalls and then attempts to catch up before it synchronizes itself again.

I find those lapses troubling, for I know how quickly children can get into trouble. It takes only an instant for something tragic to occur. As lonely as I might be here, in this strange sort of pseudo, spectral existence, I have no wish for her to join me here. As much as I miss her, I do not wish that for her. Not any time soon. Not ever, it was within my power.

It might be that it happens more often than I think, being perhaps a part of the experience of this kind of existence. I probably don’t notice it when she’s still or in one location, such as when she is coloring in one of her books. When she sleeps, I don’t know that I would notice it at all.

Still, it troubles me. But, again, there is no one that I can ask.

She breathes steadily as she sleeps, and my mind does wonder. I try not to dwell on the past, on the events of my life. It seems to me that returning again and again, reliving events over and over again, can only bring a despair and, yes, guilt over things that I can no longer change. Experiencing that for an eternity seems to me a path to madness—even if it is, perhaps, inevitable.

It’s hard, though, as I watch her sleep now, not to remember how she slept when she was first born and then as she grew, month by month, from a newborn into an infant and then into a toddler. Those flashes of memory come almost unbidden. I suppose I could prevent them entirely if I wished, but I don’t. They bring me—not comfort, exactly—but a connection, I suppose, to my past—to my past life, to be quite literal about it.

#

I expected it to be more difficult to see the people I loved, and those who knew me, go on with their daily lives without me in it. I suppose that’s to be expected when four years have passed. Even if some of the grief and sense of loss remains, that’s enough time for lives to regain their former shape—or to adapt to their new ones.

My son’s face sometimes betrays his loss. I don’t know whether it’s from memory that passes through his thoughts, or because I am not there to help him with a difficult task or to celebrate with him when he succeeds. He does not know that I am there when Jessica learns something new or shows off some new bit of knowledge or ability. I know that he wants to share those moments with me—for me to be there with him when they happen.

I try to tell myself that it would be the same had he moved away, for I would not have been present to witness these events. But I also know that is not wholly true. Were I still there in his living world, he could call me or share videos of them. Instead, he can only wish for that. I can only imagine the pain I have caused him in that and wonder, sometimes, whether I was perhaps too selfish and focused on my goal. I tell myself then, as I did before, that he is a grown man and able to better protect himself alone than Jessica could or can. Her safety and happiness are the reasons that I have done what I did. If there is someone sitting in judgment of me for that choice, they have not made their presence or opinion known.

I think it will be dawn soon. One thing that I’ve noticed about my new state of existence is that I find it difficult to measure time. Without the sensations that provide us clues as to the passage of the day—changes in temperature, lighting, air movement—time seems not to exist, except where it is apparent through the movement and motions of others.

Guardian (continued)

How do I travel?

I’m sure. I just do. It takes some effort, as I guess my new natural state (if that’s what it truly is) is to remain stationary, in one place, but that seems awfully boring for an eternity of non-corporeal existence. To go somewhere, I just think about where it is I want to be and then I go there. The experience is inconsistent, though. Sometimes I do get the sensation—no, the experience—of movement from one place to the other. Other times, it seems like I just transition from place to place. There might be a logic to it, like longer distances use a different method than shorter distances, but I haven’t really experimented with it to find out.

Contrary to what the movies might have you believe, I don’t see the insides of things as I pass through them—walls and such. I’m just suddenly aware that I’m on the other side. I suppose I should be grateful for that: I’m not sure I really want to see the meat and gristle of people and things as I pass through them. I’m not all that interested—and, frankly, I tend to be quite squeamish about such things. Or, at least, I used to be.

It’s kind of weird. It’s not as though I can simply materialize from one place to another—at least, I don’t seem to be able to instantaneously travel from, say, San Jose to Anaheim in an instant. Across the city, though, seems to work, although time does seem to pass while I’m in transit. I seem to travel at a constant speed between places—at least when I’m aware that I am actually moving between them. There’s no sensation of speed, such as the feel of the wind against my face, but it seems that I can travel between places at a certain speed and no faster. What that speed is, I’m not sure. I’ve never remembered to measure it. I can tell you that it’s not the speed of light, so there must be some other physical (in the sense of “physics”) limitation for it. I guess it makes sense that even the afterlife has to obey some kind of consistent physical laws.

I suppose these same laws are what prevent me from interacting with objects and people in the living world. Or maybe I just haven’t figured them out yet. Maybe it’s like magic: once you understand how it works, then you can use it. Or maybe only certain “ghosts” have the ability to manipulate the living world. I don’t know. And I wish I had someone to ask.

#

I watch over Jessica now as she sleeps. She murmurs sometimes as she dreams, even whimpering occasionally. It’s been said that children, particularly young ones, possess senses that they lose as they become adults. I don’t know whether it’s because they are not allowed to use them as they grow up, or whether those senses fade as part of a person’s natural evolution through their lifespan. If anyone could sense and communicate with the dead, it seems to me that it would be the very young and, perhaps, the very old. Both are very near to an existence of non-being—merely approaching it from different directions.

Listening to Jessica’s murmurs, I try to make sense of them. They occasionally sound like words, but most of them sound like the nonsense of a Lewis Carroll poem. Out of context, the few words that I think I understand make no sense. And of those, some of them are words that, at age four, she should neither know nor understand. She always was a bright girl, but even putting my prejudices as her grandfather aside, I can’t imagine a child of that age ever knowing or comprehending what those words mean. I am certain that misheard them.

She does seem particularly troubled by her dreams. I don’t see her smile in her sleep from them, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. I remember, though, during latter part of her first year, when she would awake crying—full-on crying, with real tears and everything. Often, she would not even be fully awake. She would sit up in her crib, crying and with tears filling her eyes, until I comforted her by holding her and rocking her back to sleep. I remember those nights. As she tried to ease back into sleep, she would open her eyes, often only an instant, to see whether I was still there, and then close them again. As she was very, very young, and could not articulate her fears, all I could offer her were the comfort of my arms around her and soft promises that I would always be there to protect her.

And so I am. Perhaps not in the form in which I—or perhaps anyone—might have believed, but I am here, watching over her as she sleeps.

The days are harder. At night, the most I feel the need to do is to cover her again with her blanket. She never did like to be covered with them. I would pass her room on the way to the kitchen or my bedroom to find that, even on the coldest nights, she had kicked it away, leaving it in a jumbled heap at her feet. As a result, of course, we learned to dress her in warmer pajamas. I wish that I could hold her, to feel the movement of her body as she breathed in sleep. I wish that during the daytime hours as well.

Guardian (continued)

He remembered swallowing the pills, washing them down with a gulp of cranberry juice. Originally, he had considered taking them with a shot of good tequila or vodka, knowing that the alcohol would intensify the effects of the medication. Something stopped him, though. Perhaps the fear that it might not be believed that it was an accident if the autopsy showed that deliberate combination.

Afraid what the neighbors might think? he mused half-sourly and with an equal dose of irony.

Settling back against the seat, he closed his eyes. With slow, steady breaths, as if waiting for sleep to come, he waited for the effects of the medication to take hold. He knew, from his previous experiences with them, that it might take more than 30 minutes before he would feel the telltale signs of the drugs working in his system. He wondered whether he would last that long without panicking and calling for help.

He looked down at the phone in his hand considered tossing it out of the window to be lost somewhere in the shrubbery, forcing himself to commit to his own bravery. Or was it cowardice? he wondered now.

His hand tightened around the phone, obscuring its screen from his sight. He would wait.

It was hours later before they found the car. He was long since dead. They, of course, attempted to revive him, as they were professionally obligated to do, but the drugs had done their work. No amount of heroic efforts on the part of the rescue team could restore him to his body, so undo the chemical and physiological effects of the medication. He was dead. And there was nothing more they could do about it.

Jonathon took the news with surprising stoicism, Eleanor thought. She had made him call the police when his father had not returned from work that evening. He could tell them nothing more than where he worked and the route that he normally drove to come home. It was there, but some distance off the main road, that they had found the vehicle . . . and the dead body of the man who had been his father.

Guardian (continued)

It’s not at all how I thought it would be.

#

The ceremony was brief and somewhat well-attended. As happens throughout one’s life, people drift apart. Many people expressed their condolences for his death, but few of those attended the service. If he was well-loved as he had believed that he had been, the sparsely populated pews provided little proof of it. Still, of those who did attend, both family and friends, all spoke fondly and kindly of him.

It was a surprise to almost everyone. He had suffered some of the ailments that come from middle age, but none that should have proved fatal. As one less-than-tactful “mourner” noted, “The cure was worse than the disease.” The problem was: no one knew what the disease that he had suffered from was. To be coldly scientific about it, the autopsy reported that his death had been accidental, that the overdose of medication that had claimed his life was to blame, not any part of his aging body—aging and dying in the ways that we all do. Life, as they say, is always fatal in the end.

Jessica was too young to understand. Barely of the age where she could walk on her own, they did not know whether she understood that her grandfather was gone—that she would never see him again in this life after the burial. She did what all toddlers of that age do: she tried to emulate the solemnness of the adults around her, then became bored and wanted to be elsewhere.

“I didn’t know he had a drug problem.”

“I’m not surprised. He never did quite fit in.”

“It didn’t show. He seemed so . . . normal.”

Vague whispers, not meant to be overheard, but heard nonetheless.

“It’s so sad.”

“That little girl meant everything to him.”

“Now he’ll never get to see her grow up.”

None of them knew. None of them would have understood—no, not really.

She sat alone, the same way that she did in the medical examiner’s office that day, feeling many of the same things, remembering many of the same things from that day.

“The toxicology report shows an overdose of his pain medication—probably accidental, like he took a second dose, forgetting that he had taken the first one. Had he ever done that before?”

She had shaken her head. She could not remember the last time that he had used the prescription medication, but then he had not always told her. That the bottles that she had found still contained most of the pills that had been prescribed told her that he had not been abusing them, or been addicted to them—unless he had been managing to keep them refilled without her knowledge. Possible, she had considered, but it seemed fair from likely. There had been no unaccounted spending of funds from their joint account, nor had he been selling his belongings on the side—either covertly or with her knowledge. It didn’t seem to fit the facts. Or at least not what she wanted to believe.

The thing that scared her the most was how she was going to live without him. She had relied on him for nearly everything—to take care of the myriad trivial details of everyday life—and now she would need to figure out how to manage them all herself. Jonah would help—should help, she told herself—hopefully finally stepping up and doing his fair share around the house now that his father was no longer there to do it. She would need to spend more time with Jessica, as would he. That, perhaps, scared her even more, for she never really possessed any fondness for children. They were fine in small doses, but now . . . It was another one of those things that he had always taken care of.

Guardian

– 1 –

 

I don’t know what I expected death to feel like. I’m not sure we have the language to describe it—at least not in English.

I mean, I remember dying. I think. I remember feeling drowsy and then profoundly sleepy. After that I only remember . . . this.

Well, not exactly this.

I become awake . . . no, aware again. And now, sometime later, here I am.

I don’t feel disembodied, even though I imagine that I should. I clearly don’t have one any more—at least not a physical one. I clearly still exist though, and I feel like I have some mental . . . substance. But it’s not a body . . . or a brain.

See what I mean about our language not being to describe it?

Some time has clearly passed as well. I don’t know what happened during that period. I don’t if I was processed or judged or reincorporated or what, only that when I become aware again—or at least capable once again of retaining memories—almost seven years had passed on the world that I grew up on.

I don’t remember anything about a heading into bright white light or a meeting shining robed old man with a long beard. I remember something like falling asleep and then . . . now. Or the now not that long ago. I imagine that it’s different for everyone—I can’t imagine someone shooting themselves in the head not experiencing pain at their moment of death. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be anyone else around that I can ask.

That’s the other thing that puzzles me: I haven’t encountered anyone else. Thousands of people die each day, certainly several dozen in this area of the world alone. You’d think that I would have picked up at least a hint of someone else by now. Being alone like this would be a hell of a way to spend eternity.

Not that I believe in Hell—or Heaven, for that matter. I never embraced any kind of religious beliefs. I didn’t care if others wished to put their faith in whatever deities they wanted to believe in, just so long as they didn’t demand that I obey their strictures . . . or Scriptures . . . or whatever. If they found comfort and solace and strength in that, so be it. I never ridiculed them for it. I just never accepted it as part of my life.

Do I feel like a disembodied spirit? No. And yes. I mean, I don’t feel as if I’m ethereal and non-corporeal, although I imagine that I must be. I can’t see myself, but I still feel like I’m, well, still here.

I can’t feel my pulse or heartbeat or have any particular urge to breathe. At least, I don’t have any sensation of breathing nor that panicked sense that I need to because I’ve stopped.

I suppose that it’s possible that I’m dreaming all this, but it doesn’t feel like any dream I’ve ever had. I’ve had regular dreams, fever dreams, effective dreams (or so they felt like), and medication-induced dreams. None of them ever felt like this. There is a consistent rational logic and presence to this that dreams rarely have. Other than for the seven-year gap in my “memories”, there have been none of the sudden “jumps” in location or scenery. People I observe behave as they should, appearing and acting as they did when I knew them as living.

They say that our emotions are controlled by our endocrine system. That fear and anxiety and dread and such are all the result of certain hormone and neurochemicals altering our blood chemistry so that we experience those emotions. I suppose that must be so. I haven’t really felt any of those since I reawakened. (I really don’t know the right word to use to describe it, as none of them seem to capture the nuances of the experience.) I suppose I feel . . . smoother (?) . . . no longer prone to the swings of emotion that I experienced when I was living. It wasn’t as if I was particularly manic then, but this is different. “Calm” doesn’t describe it well either. It’s almost as if I experience memories of feelings, but they don’t affect me as profoundly as they did before. It partially reminds me of how a family therapist once described it to me, based on his own experiences with anti-depressant medication. The feelings are still there, but they don’t trouble me. But that doesn’t really describe it either.

It’s not a state of dispassionate regard either. There’s definitely something like emotions there, but they’re . . . I don’t know . . . distant. But that doesn’t really describe it either. See again what I mean about lacking the language?

I’m not even sure why I’m trying to leave this log—or whether it will exist in any kind of tangible form that someone—living or not—can access and review. If someone living could read it, and prove its authenticity beyond a doubt, wouldn’t that just shake the core of many people’s beliefs and religions?

I’m not even sure that I am leaving a record of this. I’m thinking about it and it feels like it’s getting stored . . . somewhere. Heaven only knows where that “somewhere” is. (I mean that solely as a colloquialism, of course.) Maybe it’s only in my head . . . or mind . . . or whatever.

But enough with the philosophical and theological stuff.

Why am I here? You might have noticed by now that I don’t seem particularly surprised to be here—or rather, in this non-living state. It’s been said that some ghosts are the dead remaining on Earth (or the corporeal world, or however you personally choose to describe it) because they have unfinished business there. Their deaths may have been deliberate or unexpected, but that’s the reason that they continue to “exist” after their death in a form that can purportedly be seen.

That’s exactly where I fit in. Except that I don’t have any hard evidence that I’ve ever been “seen”. 

Sure, I’ve been looked at—or at least in the direction of—but I’ve never experienced a reaction that would imply that someone had witnessed my reappearance from beyond the grave. (Which reminds me that I suppose I should try to find out where mine is and visit it at some point.)