When I Needed Him
“She can’t come in with you,” said the radiology technician. “She has to wait outside.”
“But she drove me here to sit with me. She’s my daughter. She was cleared to be with me. I’m claustrophobic. I don’t do well with MRIs. I thought we’d worked this all out.”
The lab tech shook her head.
“With the pandemic, we aren’t letting guests in. You can wear a sleep mask so you don’t see the sides.”
“A sleep mask. Like a blindfold. That’s how I’m supposed to handle being trapped, unable to move, and probably panicking? For a long abdominal procedure that takes 55 minutes?”
“Yes.Though the whole procedure is scheduled for 55 minutes; you probably won’t be on the table for more than thirty or forty minutes. But we have to get moving. Your procedure should already have started. If we don’t begin now, you’ll have to cancel.”
“What happens if I’m in there and I freak out? Can you pause, let me out for a minute, even if I don’t sit up or get off the table?”
“It doesn’t work that way. We can’t pause and continue. If you need to get out, just tell me; we’ll be in communication the whole time. I can hear you and you can hear me.” She paused, then continued. “But you should know that if you have to stop the procedure, your insurance probably won’t cover it, and it will be expensive.”
“Even though it won’t be complete, you still charge me?”
“We bill you for the procedure, but insurance only covers it if it’s complete.”
I shook my head and mumbled, “This is nuts.”
Some minutes later, I was inside the tube for my abdominal MRCP. I was not happy. I’d asked the tech not to tell me how much time was left, at least not until we were almost done. The loud noise didn’t bother me much, but knowing that I could not sit up, could not ask for a break, could not leave, kept me on the edge of panic. I was breathing my 6-6-6-4 box pattern, chanting Kirtan mantras softly to myself, channeling the kind of support I used to get from Ed before he passed, just trying to get through the hour. And also wondering second by second how much longer this would go on, and if I should just give up now and get pulled out.
“You can do this,” said a male voice.
“What was that?” I asked. “What did you say?”
“I didn’t say anything,” said the radiology tech.
“Oh.”
“That was me,” said the male voice again, and this time I was clearly hearing it in my head, not through my ears. And I could recognize the voice.
“Ed?” I exclaimed, in shock.
“What was that?” said the technician.
“Maybe you should keep this conversation between us, in your head,” said Ed.
“Um, yeah, sort of,” I thought. “But this is pretty weird.”
“I don’t know,” said Ed. “We’ve had conversations like this before. You need help, you need to talk, I listen. The only difference is this time I can hear you clearly.” He laughed. He sounded happy. Ed had lost most of his hearing some years before, and had a cochlear implant in one ear.
“There’s another difference, Ed,” I said. “You’re not actually here. I’m alone in here. You’re actually, um, not in your body anymore, back in Gloucester. We had an online service for you on zoom; Ruth arranged it. She’s putting on another one, a bigger one, in person in a couple of weeks. I’m in California, in a hospital lab room, inside this scary freaking tube. We’re not ‘talking’ the way we used to talk.”
“I still don’t see the difference,” said Ed. “Most of our conversations the past two years have been with me back east and you in California.”
I paused. It felt like we were getting off track, like I was missing the big picture.
“Then why are you here right now, or sort of here, talking to me?”
“Because you needed me, Richard. You asked for my help.”
“And you heard me?”
“You asked. I answered.” He paused. “Is there anything you want in particular? I know you’re scared. How can I help?”
I hesitated, thinking. “Maybe for right now, let’s just keep talking. Is that okay?”
“Sure. I’d like to talk. I’d like that a lot."
I nodded, and realized my head did not hit the top of the tube, so apparently I had more room than I thought.
“Please don’t move,” said the technician.
I grinned and almost shook my head, but stopped in time.
“How are you able to hear me?” I asked.
“That I don’t really know,” said Ed. “I know you asked for my help, in your head. The more interesting question might be, how can you hear me? Have you thought about that?”
“I haven’t, but I guess I should. Are you able to read minds wherever you are?”
“No, but sometimes I can feel people calling to me. I think if they call, maybe when they’re sleeping, maybe when they’re panicked the way you are, maybe when they’re meditating, they can get through to me.”
“Can they hear you back?”
I could suddenly feel intense sadness from Ed. “Not clearly. Maybe not at all. I don’t know. I wish they could.”
“Why can I?”
“Again, I think maybe it’s the depth of your need, and the meditative state you’re almost in, and perhaps that little sedative you took before the procedure. I’m pretty sure Ruth has heard me when she dreams, and I think George heard me in a dream, and I know Sam and Jim reach out often, while they’re awake, and I can feel their moods change, their worries lessen, so maybe they’re hearing me a little. Kerry, too, for sure; she and I were super close, and she’s the most meditative, the most tuned-in of our book group. But even she and I haven’t had a conversation like this.”
“Maybe they should get into an MRI tube, take a sedative, chant and meditate, and then call to you.”
“I wouldn’t wish what you’re going through on anyone,” said Ed.
“Are you lonely?” I asked.
His voice brightened up a bit.
“No, Richard, actually the opposite. I feel something grand here. I’m sad when I feel Ruth calling, because I really want to touch her, but most of the time I just feel this incredible love all around me.”
“Whose love?”
“It’s just love. It’s like this place is nothing but love.”
“Is it God?”
“Well, you know I never believed in organized religion or the all-powerful creator God that people worship. But it’s kind of odd; I always said that God is love, and that my goal is to love everyone, and that’s what I feel here. Even more, I’m actually capable of meeting that goal now.”
“What do you mean?”
“I used to try to love everyone, but you know, you and I talked about it, some people I just couldn’t do it with. Sometimes I would be so mad at myself, knowing that a person behaving poorly was making it hard for me to love them, and that I was failing.”
“You loved a lot of people, Ed, a lot of times. Everyone knows that about you.”
I could hear him smiling. For a moment, I was distracted by that thought, realizing that I could feel his smile when all of this was happening in my head. I wondered how that was possible, then quickly hurried on.
“You did better than most, better than anyone I’ve ever known. If you couldn’t love everyone, that’s because you’re human.”
“I was human, Richard. I’m not sure what I am now, but I can truly love everyone. It’s amazing. It’s wonderful.”
“Do you think you became God?”
His answer came back swiftly and firmly. “No. Absolutely not. I’m just me. But I can see people more clearly; I can see them for who they are, not what they do. It’s like I forgive them for the things they do wrong.”
“Do you think that’s what happens to people when they die?” I asked. “It sounds a lot like God.”
“I have been thinking about that. I wonder if what happens is, people pass, and suddenly they’re invited to this place where all they feel is love. And maybe they have a choice, whether they want to feel love and give love, or whether they want to sort of go back to being who they were. You know, living the life of the false self: my ego is not my amigo, like I always said to you.”
“So you still believe that?”
“Oh, it’s much more than that, Richard. I used to think it was true, but sort of philosophically. Now I know it’s true. Not intellectually, but as a feeling. I was given a chance to truly feel love, for everyone, and it turns out to be easy to do. No judgment. Probably everyone is given that chance.”
“And if some people don’t take it, they go to hell instead, or whatever?”
Ed laughed, and it was the big loud laugh that I had known for years.
“Of course not. That’s a ridiculous concept. They’re given a choice to feel love and be love, but nobody forces them to do anything, and for damn sure no one punishes them if they don’t. I can see that all around me: souls who were tainted and are now pure, souls who were trying when alive and now feel satisfaction and bliss, souls who struggled and are still struggling.”
“You see that, Ed? How?”
“I guess ‘see’ is the wrong word. I feel it. I don’t actually see anything here.”
Suddenly his voice brightened. “Although right now, I can see what you’re seeing! Well, not that you’re seeing anything inside that blindfold, but I can see and touch what you do. This is wild. This is neat.”
We both stayed silent for some time.
“I wish I could lift up the mask so you could see more, Ed. But I can’t; the tube doesn’t leave me any room to raise my hands.” Suddenly my anxiety came back, and started to skyrocket.
Ed jumped in quickly. “I don’t feel any of your anxiety. I just feel, well, obviously love, like I said before, but I’m aware of things around me, even though I can’t see them.”
I grabbed at his offering, glad to get back into his world and out of mine. “So what happens to the ones who are struggling? Or the ones who don’t, I don’t know, choose to stay where you are?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t. Maybe they go back into a different body, in the Buddhist sense. Maybe they go back as a different creature. Maybe they remain sort of stuck, until they decide to stop fighting. I can’t tell. It just seems like when I look around, I sense people who are now love, and people who are still unsure. And—and this part is important, Richard—that’s why I am now able to love everyone so much more than I could before. Because I can feel eventhose people who are still suffering while alive, or still struggling with hate and anger and despair after dying, and I realize that it’s just a matter of time for all of them. Who they are right now, what they did today or yesterday, is not who they are. Who they really, truly, are is love; if not now, then in the future. This place is always here for them. So I just see that piece of them.”
“This is sort of amazing, Ed. You realize that.”
“Oh, believe me, I do. It’s like my wishes all came true. The world I wanted to believe in is the world that actually exists. And eventually everyone will be here.”
“Is Earl there? Your parents? How about—“
Ed cut me off.
“No. It’s not like that. There is no identity to anyone I sense here. To anything. It’s all just feeling. People who have been in this place of love, people who are just suddenly finding it, people who are still on the path here. But none of them have any distinguishing characteristics that I can see. Man, woman, old, young, nothing.”
“You can see me. And Ruth. And George, Kerry, Sam, others.”
“For some reason, that’s different. People who are alive, I can see them, a bit. I can identify them; maybe not with names, if I didn’t know them before, but who they are now is clear. Where they live, that sort of thing; the people around them, and their relationships. I can feel their struggles and their joys.
“Is it lonely not having Earl, your parents, your other departed friends, around you?”
“No. I don’t miss them. I feel love for everyone. And maybe it’s easier because I can see my friends who are still alive: Ruth, Caitlin, Ruth’s family, Father Richard, Reverend Anne Deneen, Lawrence and Joy from Shalom Mountain, the book group. And you know what, Richard? It’s remarkable, but those people who are hateful, prejudiced, angry, intolerant, violent? None of them feel good about it. It’s all a pretense, a defense, a way of protecting themselves with judgments because they’re not yet ready to embrace love and acceptance. They project their fear and hatred onto others so they don’t have to look inside or try to change. It’s more lazy and frightened than it is sincere. Maybe not for everyone, but all the ones I see. The ugliness is just a cover, an excuse to avoid work. They don’t know it, but I can see them for who they really are. And I know that someday, maybe soon, maybe later, maybe while they’re alive, maybe on the day they die, maybe long after that, they’ll see what it means to feel pure love. That offer is always going to be there for them. So I see the version of them they’ll become, instead of the hurting souls they are today.”
I stopped and thought for a bit. I knew he was still with me; he didn’t need me to keep talking.
“So I have a question, Ed.”
“Shoot.”
“What about all those people who believed in a different version of God than you do, the people who used the G-word as an excuse for intolerance and bigotry, for misogyny and patriarchy, who made the world a worse place while claiming they were warriors for God’s true mission?”
“What about them? I don’t understand your question.”
“Well, are they where you are?”
“Of course they are. If they want to be. Those thoughts were all just part of that ego-is-not-my-Amigo thing. It kept them from God, or from love; they were never working for God. When they let it go, that’s when they find love. Because God is love, and always has been. Nothing else.”
“How do you feel about all this, Ed?”
“I couldn’t be happier.”
He paused again. “I miss Ruth. But that feeling, I think it won’t last forever. And I know that she will someday be as happy as I am today. I hold onto that feeling. I try not to worry what it will be like if she comes over to this place and I can’t find her.”
More silence.
“I miss you too, Richard. I love you. And I know that your future will be as light and joyous as mine is now.”
“We’re all set,” came a loud mechanical voice in my ears. I blinked repeatedly, but with the blindfold on, I couldn’t see anything.
“What was that?” I asked.
“We’ve stopped,” replied the tech.
“What went wrong?” I asked. “You can’t finish?”
“No,” he laughed. “It’s been close to an hour. We covered everything. You didn’t seem to hear me when I asked you to hold your breath, but I was able to work around that. You were so calm, I think you must have been asleep. I’m pulling you out now.”
“Ed?” I asked in my mind again.
“Have a great day, Richard. I hope we get a chance to talk again. I love you.”
“I love you too, Ed. Thanks for being here.”
“Anytime. Happy to do it.”
© Ruth Mordecai, at the Matthew Swift Gallery