Communication Beyond the End

My dear, beloved friend of 18 years, Randy Milberg, left his body last week.

It was December 20th that I received the news that he had had a massive heart attack and was lying in a hospital bed in a drug-induced coma.

For two weeks, his family and friends waited, prayed, extended hands to one another, communicated through a blog called CarePages that the hospital offers (an incredible boon, and the best use of communication technology I have personally been exposed to so far!), and we all reconnected.

Community was born. Suddenly, Randy’s parents - too unwell to travel, and living in far-away Arizona - and his brothers, both living in other states, and his friends all over the country could come together, hearts open wide, waiting to see… hoping against hope… hoping, in fact, for the best while preparing for the worst.

But not really preparing. How can you prepare for death? The reality is beyond our imagining, until it happens. Then it strips us of pretense and lays us bare.

What we do with that opening is what makes it a moment of grace or one of hell.

As for me, I feel terrible. I have lost the friend who knew me best. The man who, although we disagreed absolutely about politics, I could always turn to, no matter what, and he would hold me, and our friendship, in truthful and gentle hands. No mean trick, that!

When I heard that Randy had suffered the heart attack, another friend of mine suggested that I contact him on the inner planes. I thought, “Well, that’s really your gig, being a communicator in that way, but I’ll give it a go. God knows I’ve had some interesting experiences in the realm of spirituality, so what the hey!”

The results were surprising, and have led me to believe that I can communicate even beyond the usual body-to-body, person-to-person way.

First, I invited Randy to come sit in a circle of light that Jack Canfield - in his Breakthrough to Success 2008 Seminar had guided 400 of us to find within ourselves. Randy was hesitant: “Circle of what???” But he seemed upset, and the friend who had led me to this experiment had told me that his spirit was agitated and confused and frightened, and that he needed to be calmed in order to heal - either into his body or into the light of God.

So, I told Randy calmly but firmly that he had to come with me into the circle of light and sit down.

Randy trusts me, so he did what I asked. He asked me what was going on and I told him that I would tell him everything, but that he must first understand that he had to stay in the light and be calm, and rest.

We talked. Or rather I talked. I told him what had happened, and I told him that he could stay in the light as long as he wanted, and he could even define this particular light as he wished - consider it eternity if he wanted - that when his daughter came in to see him, which she did, he could now consider that he had spent eternity with his daughter. She was the love of his life and his reason for living, so I knew that that reasonining would speak to him.

When his daughter came in, she knelt beside him, and they held hands and gazed at one another with breathtaking love; the kind of love that speaks of lifetimes of communication. She even brought some cushions for him to sit on and lean against, as he and I were both sitting on a wood floor. Then his mother came in and went to him and hugged him.

All of this sounds like a fairy tale, or just a good imagination, but something happened that let me know that there might be something to this - something besides, that is, making me feel better:

Randy had been resting in the light for a good number of days - still physically in the coma, but in good health other than that pesky old heart thing - when one morning I “checked in” with him, and found him sitting there slumped back gainst one of the cushions, looking exhausted.

Later that ssame morning, I received word that Randy’s body had developed the first of the infections that would ultimately make it impossible to heal him.

Interesting, isn’t it?

The day after that, he started to glow, golden, and then he became living flame. It was a beautiful thing to behold, and I could only think that he was purifying. Sure enough, the day before his death, I found him there in that light, smiling like the sun, his eyes bright and clear. He had passed the threshhold of that cleansing. But the question now was whether he would come back to us a different sort of person, or leave his body.

Within 24 hours, we had our answer.

Communication… I had had the most intimate communication with my friend that I had ever had in my life, because Randy never asked for help; he liked to give it. And his heart attack brought together friends that had not spoken to one another in decades!

In my opinion - and I must tell you that in this case it is not a humble opinion at all - there is only one sacred thing on this planet beside the planet itself, and that is us. We are such fleeting flashes of light, and the things we simply have to disagree with one another about turn out to be fluffs of down. We have no choice but to have our disagreements and confusions and all the rest of it - how else would we build character if we didn’t have something to rub up against, like rocks in a bag, rubbing one another smooth. But the beauty of death is that we can see clearly what the true measure of that person was. We can honor them and love them, and see reflected in our love and theirs that even on this planet of such strife and contradiction, true communication of the heart, mind and soul does exist.

We simply need to open our hearts and minds to see it and feel it. And as Randy underlined for us - through his neglect to do so - we need to realize that community does in fact surround us, that while we are waiting for the perfect responses from others, these people are already there and remarkable just as they are. And we need to reach out with one humble empty hand to receive help, and with the other equally humble full hand to offer assistance.

Then, in life and in death, we remain in community, in communication, and living in love and connection, which is what gives our lives the only true meaning.