Since my Mom's concerned call for help in mid October, Richard and I have been involved deeply in caring for my parents on Cape Cod. My Dad became increasingly infirm and was hopitalized for only 6 days before leaving us here on earth for his new home in heaven. We miss him dearly and are trying to help my Mom, his spouse of 66 years, adjust to the abrupt changes in her life. Our daughter Abby did a wonderful tribute on her writing site
www.theravenslanding.com. Our son Daniel's words of encouragement follow.(with his permission, thank you Dan).
Alan’s last few days of consciousness were the worst. His memory had been steadily declining, but now, on top of aching knees and a stiffening back, he was experiencing waves of dizziness and vertigo. And weakness! He had never felt so tired! It was difficult to stand, difficult to walk, difficult to stay awake. It was disorienting. And even as his daughter and son-in-law had last visited, he could barely interact with them. All Alan could remember were unpleasant snatches of interruptions of his peace, and dark memories of a needles and prodding strangers… perhaps a doctor’s office visit.
But then, suddenly everything had spiraled down. He was comfortable at home, but he sensed something was wrong. Vague recollections of falling, the coldness of the linoleum floor, feeling alone, weak, and pained. Finally hands grabbing him, and pulling him. He was afraid, and unsure where he was. More needles and jabbing. The only comfort was his wife’s voice, and that of his second daughter.
Then, one morning the dizziness exploded in his mind, and a storm of light and color, mixed with pain… and all fell quiet.
That was where he sat now. Just quiet. Alone. No where. Difficult to say, really, what was around him, or even if it was very dark, or not at all. There was no food, or water. But neither was there hunger, or thirst. He wasn’t afraid, per se, just waiting. He didn’t know for what, but he waited. In the semi dark—maybe fully dark—of an unconscious world, Alan sat.
He waited a long time. He felt an emptiness, which could have been hunger, somewhere. He felt tired. But he waited, unseeing. Somehow he felt the end was near. Death; not a person, but a thing, a place… was drawing near.
Suddenly there was a light. Alan didn’t notice when it had first appeared. It seemed far away at first. It wasn’t piercing. Just warm. Far away, but moving closer, slowly. It was walking towards him. It was a long walk. The light, whoever it was, was walking towards him at an easy pace over a great distance. To Alan, it seemed the light and the person were one. He stared curiously at it, expecting a source of light behind the figure, or in the figure’s hand, blinding his vision or obscuring the outline of the figure, but neither happened. Without a silhouette, and without a weird glow or aura, the figure approached. It was a man.
Before he arrived the man called, “Alan.”
The voice was kind. It had an authority that took Alan back to his army days, and both his training and his journey overseas. But it had a love, a compassion, that owned a thousands mountains, and comforted a thousand hearts. It owned a thousand deer and songbirds of the forest, and cared for each one. It reminded him of his mother’s voice when he was a child, and his father’s voice, but in a way that couldn’t really come from memory.
He wanted to respond to the voice—it stirred him somehow, with a familiarity—but ‘sir’ wasn’t right. He couldn’t say ‘dad.’ He wanted to use father; but how could a man he had never met be called father? Awkwardly he piped out an archaic term, “Here, lord.”
The man smiled His eyes were kind. His face Alan couldn’t place, although it also seemed familiar in a way. The features were both caring and difficult to describe. “I have been calling to you.”
“Oh really?” Alan asked. “I don’t think I recognize you.”
“Don’t you?” said the man.
He sat down across from Alan, and leaned forward. The two men sat with their foreheads nearly touching. Warmth from the man’s presences radiated gently on Alan’s face and arms. He felt it through his clothes, and it touched his skin. It kept going, through his entire body until it warmed his back and the back of his clothes. Suddenly Alan was aware that he had been both cold and hungry. But now something felt as though it filled his stomach—a golden warmth, like fresh bread and melted butter. His dry throat felt cooled and moist as though wet by mountain spring water from a crystal glass. Alan couldn’t place this man, but his presence was unlike any other human’s presence. He felt both loved, and filled. Every fear he had ever had felt comforted, and every anxiety about life, death, and the universe seemed subservient to this humble man. Whoever he was…
To answer the unasked question ,the man put his hand on Alan’s neck, and pulled him closer until their foreheads almost touched. He explained, “I am…”
After that, words had no meaning. Alan could neither hear nor understand them. He didn’t even know if they were being spoken. But it was all explained. He knew this man. He had heard of him, seen his work. He had even been with Alan through all his life. Alan had even looked for him at times, in books, in articles, and beyond the stars, in theoretical physics, and hypothetical writings. But he had been there. Waiting. From the beginning, the man showed him how he had been there, and when he had been closer, and the times Alan had even pushed him away. Alan was embarrassed he had ever refused the presence of the Kind Man, but even then he felt know fear of this man. Just love.
After a time—whether it was long or short Alan didn’t know—they broke their communion. Tears ran down Alan’s cheeks, and he had dropped his face into the man’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Lord.”
“Now you know me,” said the man kindly. “After all your searching. I’ve come to take you home.”
“Where is that?” asked Alan, a little surprised.
The man laughed. “Where do you think?”
He stood, and offered Alan his hand, pulling him to his feet. For the first time since he could remember Alan’s knees felt steady and clean of pain and stiffness.
“Do you hear that river?” The man asked.
Alan could. He realized it was the River he had sensed drawing closer before—the place that crept closer, the longer he waited.
“Come. We’re going to cross it.”
“How?” asked Alan.
“Do you see that city?”
Alan squinted through the semi-dark. He heard the river. It was wide and silent and somehow ominous. But he could see no… wait! There was something: far away, on the other side there was something. Another light. This was bigger though, and the more he looked at it, the more he could imagine he could see the beginning of shapes, like towers or tall buildings.
“I see… something…”
“That’s where we’re going. Walk with me. I’ll take you across…”
We have great stories form our last couple meetings. 
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