I Never Fully Left

I died on May 25, 2021.

I had never really been afraid of dying but I was definitely afraid of suffering.

The way I actually died put an end to all of that useless worry.

Less than three months prior, I’d been diagnosed with grade III dedifferentiated chondrosarcoma, an advanced form of bone cancer. There was little they could offer me as treatment other than measures to help extend my life and keep me comfortable, but I’d never be cured.

The massive heart attack that killed me on my bathroom floor that fateful day saved me from all of that, though, and sooner than I’d planned. But it seems it was a much more merciful alternative.

It happened suddenly and without warning. I stood before the bathroom sink preparing to brush my teeth when I felt an abrupt, sharp pain in my chest. It radiated outwardly from there to my neck and shoulders. Yet before I knew what hit me or had time to clutch my chest, my legs buckled beneath me and I was on the floor. Then just as quickly as it had first appeared, there was no more pain at all.

Like that foggy, cobwebby feeling when first awoken from a nap; I was there, but I also wasn’t there. It was as though I floated away from my physical body. And in a sense, I did. I truly “shuffled off this mortal coil”.

Although the transition from my physical body to this current state of being was cold at first, bordering on frigid, it was also effortless. Once I fully left my body, I was wrapped in warmth. Not just a physical warmth, but a feeling that I eventually accepted as love. That’s what welcomed me here. And I feel very strongly that this is the same feeling I left behind.

As the warm and peaceful feeling washed over me, I fully drifted away from my physical self and became part of the atmosphere, the galaxy, that surrounded the space my now-former body occupied. The body that lay there on the ground was still me in a sense but it no longer held me - not as who I once was or as what I’d become. I was free and not confined to a shape, but rather released to the energy of the spirit world.

This spirit world is neither above nor below the gravitational pull of the Earth, but all around. There are no faces here, no bodies; just feelings and senses. No words are exchanged among other spirits, just emotions, sentiments.

I am gone but I am everywhere at once.

When my beautiful four-year old granddaughter Maggie summons me, while I cannot make myself appear, she can feel my presence. Our thoughts and feelings, although separate, are interlinked, tuned into a shared frequency.

I sing to her in sounds that only she can hear…

Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral,


Too-ra-loo-ra-li,


Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral,


Hush, now, don't you cry!


Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral,


Too-ra-loo-ra-li,


Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral,


That's an Irish lullaby.

I cannot change what I did or did not do in the physical life I once held. And perhaps because of that, I was able to forgive not only myself but all others who hurt or wronged me. All of my guilt, my sadness, my regrets - they’re all gone. They vanished into thin air, in much the same way that I have. All of the negative emotions have faded away. They serve me no purpose now. They once held me prisoner, but now I am free.

But the love persists. Despite my absence, this overwhelming love for this child, for her parents, it keeps me somehow connected. I am bathed in it, surrounded by it, and content and blissful in the knowledge that the love I imparted toward others will live on in and through them.

“Wherever you are, I’m there with you. In and through love, I will always be.”