Animal Voices

Chapter 13 

Expanding Molecules

 

In the very early morning, not fully awake, I ask him what happened. What was it like when you died?

 

I watch him hit an invisible wall — the moment so sudden and severe that he is instantly horizontal, facedown. Fast as a gunshot. No time at all between wall and floor. 

 

Then we are floating in a dark area — thin lines of light, a bright red triangle, a yellow backwards Z. We float higher and are over California, as if in an older time. As he points out his childhood house, I fall asleep.

 

~ ~ ~

 

5:30 am, and I’m sitting in the warm glow of the living room. It’s the first day of our new experiment: a verbatim conversation typed on my laptop. Talking with Dawn at dawn, as Bob puts it.  

 

Are you ready? I ask.

 

I’ve been ready. I feel expanded, my molecules of light spread apart but held together too — like a big cloud. And here’s what’s wild, I don’t really ‘go’ anywhere as I am everywhere. I just focus — and then I am there, in that place. 

​

It’s like being in a body and you think of your knee — suddenly that is your focus, but your knee is part of you all along. It’s more apparent here, so I can be with you instantly. I don’t have to travel. I am already here, in the house, and when I ‘think’ of you I am more focused and able to talk.

 

I’m used to sharing thoughts with you in bed, and writing about it later. It’s different, talking as I type.

 

Minor adjustments. But the more we do this the easier it will become.

 

That’s what people say about living without you. 

 

I’m sorry.

 

I know you are. I am too. I love that we can talk. But I miss your body, your presence.

 

You are doing good. I’ve been watching you. And I’m always near. Do you feel that?

 

I feel a nice presence in the house — the whole atmosphere blanketed with calm and peace. I feel you here, making sure I’m safe. So thank you for that. 

 

Welcome. Should I tell you about what it’s like here?

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Yes!

 

Sometimes it looks white and cloudy, and it feels like we are above the Earth, so I get why some people think of heaven this way, floating around on clouds with angels. 

 

Are you an angel?

 

He laughs, gives a little shake of his back. No wings. 

 

But some people have wings because they believe they are angels, so it is real for them. There are all kinds of people here. Some tell me their story and I tell them mine, mostly about how we died. It’s interesting to hear all the different ways people die and what happens after. 

 

Remember how how I hit the invisible wall and my body was flat on the ground and then I was out, floating up through black space? Some have similar experiences. They float up and sometimes there is this dark area — not bad or scary, just a dark zone. At first I thought it was because I blacked out, but other beings describe that same kind of black zone. 

 

What is that space?

 

Maybe to show you that you are not in your body any more? Like a ‘delineation’ — ha, I got that word from your thoughts right now. I can go into your thoughts for the right word — that is handy! Maybe that is what it is, a delineation, a kind of boundary you pass through. 

 

Then I floated higher, looking down on Earth, seeing places where I grew up. A few others have that same thing — floating above the Earth, looking down. Some see their bodies. I saw mine, but not right away.

 

I went really fast. Like a gunshot — that fast, as if I was shot in the heart. I was down and everything black. I was out. It didn’t hurt, no suffering, no time to even call out. It was just — pow! I hit the invisible wall and was down and out. 

 

I think there was a minute when I tried to get back in, but I couldn’t hold on to my body. There would have been a lot of damage so that would’t have been good. 

 

Do you know why you died? Why that time, that way?

 

I think I understand. But I want to talk with you more before I explain all that.

 

I want you to know that I think you are doing really well. I’m proud of you. You are stronger than you think. And you see things clearly. Most of the time. 

 

We have a laugh, and he tells me to keep doing what I’m doing. 

 

I will be with you. We will get through this.

 

Everything is different now.

 

Here too!

 

We laugh again, and I feel him close. I miss you so much, I tell him.

 

I know. It’s much harder for the living person than the one who is gone. Here there are not the details you have — dealing with all my things, having to make a new life without me. Everything is different all of a sudden.

 

It really is. I’m a different person.

 

You are. Me as well. And Alyeska, too. We’re all different now. 

 

You’re doing good. Just take care of things one by one. Don’t get like how I used to be — so crazy with all the details. You know how to let things flow.

 

Yes, best to flow with what’s happening, with whatever life presents.

 

~ ~ ~

 

Though we end on that carefree and optimistic thought, truth be told, there’s a horrible disconnect in my days. Come 10 am, only a few short hours after talking with him, I inevitably plummet into sadness — a free-fall into the chasm of emptiness and despair.  

 

I have a creative and intuitive counselor who suggests I get comfortable with the uncomfortable. Okay, I think. Let’s feel those feelings. I sit on my chair in the living room, hand on heart, ready to go into the feelings — and Bob appears. 

 

We’ll move through this together, he tells me. It’s going to be okay. 

 

My mind panics and buried questions come to the surface. What if I had kept him home the day he had heartburn, the day before he died? What if I had taken him to the ER? What if, what if…

 

He sighs and tells me there are other timelines. Maybe in one he was diagnosed with something. Maybe in one he had a stroke. Maybe in one he had an operation. But most of these, he says, lead to a weakened body — and sometimes no mind or life at all. I wouldn’t have wanted that. 

 

He holds my hand and says this huge thing happened so suddenly, so unexpectedly — there was no way to prevent it. It needed to happen this way. That maybe in other worlds or timelines it was different, but this is the one we are in. This one — in so many ways — the best timeline for what had to happen.

 

He promises to tell me everything. But to take it easy now. Remember to eat. To sleep. To keep doing one thing at a time. Taking care of whatever needs to happen. 

 

I am with you, he says. And it’s all going to be okay.

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Read Chapter 19