#6 A little stroll outside rerun

I was reluctant to leave my little room.  It was my security in a world that was new to me, but I was curious as to what was outside these walls and mother had left the opening so I moved closer to the opening.  It was very bright out there!  A strange brightness that I had never known before.  How can I describe it?  Not neon lights.  Not bright spotlights.  Not bright sunlight.  It did not hurt my eyes because it was not one light.  It was the same every where I looked and there was no source that the light came from.  Just pure light.  It was a blinding light, but not a blinding light.  I guess I just don't have words to describe it.  I stepped through the opening and looked around.  There was nothing.  No trees, no buildings, no nothing.  There was not even a place to stand.  I was in a complete void with brilliant light.

I seemed to be completely alone, but I was not lonely.  I felt a peace that I had never felt before.  Of course I had never been dead before, so this was going to take some getting used to.  Why had my mother came to me?  Was it to just leave me?  This was going to take some figuring and I was at a complete loss.  I suddenly thought about my brother, Jake, who had died in a car wreck right after his 29th birthday.  He had always been a carefree little fellow and his sudden death had devastated me.  I longed to see him.  He must be here somewhere.  I wish momma had given me a clue before she left me, but she hadn't.

Wait!  Charmin and Sysnyck  had found me.  Momma had found me.  Maybe Jake would if I thought about him hard enough.  I sure hoped he was here.  He had always been a bad boy, but about a month before he died he had started going to church.  Had that helped?  Oh I sure hoped so.

I closed my eyes tightly and thought about him as I last remembered him in his khaki pants and shirt as he looked when he came home from the Army. Then I remembered him as he was when we were on the Stroh place   Before Star kicked him and left a 4 inch scar on his right cheek.  Nothing.  Then I pictured him in the moonlight as we listened to the Grand Old Opry on WSM on Saturday night. There he was!  As Hank Williams sang "Your Cheatin' Heart, will pay some day and crave the love you threw away," I was reunited with my brother who I had not seen in 52 years.  He smiled his lopsided grin and I was filled with a joy I had not felt since he had left all those years ago.  Many times I had stood at his grave, but I had never felt his presence.

As the song ended I heard his thoughts.  "Glad you finally made it.  I was beginning to wonder.  I know momma saw you.  She told me you were here.  She said you were looking good.  Wanna go fishing?  Bull Creek is right over there.  We could catch a bullfrog for Josephine!"  He laughed when he said that and I suddenly remembered our trip to Bull Creek on the Ailmore  place.

Jake and I had gone to Bull Creek just for fun and found a giant bullfrog.  He put it in my skirt and told me to run to the house and have Josephine get me a box to keep it in.  I ran home and since both hands were holding my skirt and I was afraid of it I started hollering outside the door.  Josephine opened the door and demanded to know what was in my skirt.  Being the obedient little girl and scared to death of Josephine I opened my skirt to show her.  At that precise moment the bull frog leapt into the house.  That started the biggest melee ever.  Josephine demanded I catch it and get it out of there.  It hopped under the bed with me right behind it and Josphine whacking me with the broom.  How long that circus went on I do not know, but the bullfrog finally hopped out the door and that was the last I seen of it and I ran down the road to escape Josephine and did not return until mother was there to save me.

We both dissolved in gales of laughter.  Then we looked around.  Josephine might be here and we sure did not want her to catch us laughing at her.  As Hank Williams ended his song and the announcer began introducing a new singer the car faded away as did my brother.  Hank Williams had always been my link to the past and even before I died, I still scrounged around and found Hank Williams somewhere.  He was timeless.

It was with a very heavy heart that I turned to go back to my mossy little room.  Sysnyck met me at the door and soon she and Charmin were both in my lap and I was dozing off for another of my naps. Naps seemed to be the one given here in this place and since time had no meaning, that was a good thing.

#5 My first visitor and what a surprise! rerun

I awoke with a start to the realization that my room was glowing!  "Hello!"  I called.  And then dissolved in gales of laughter.  How was I saying hello when I had no body to do it with?  I composed myself, although I still found it funny.  That was one thing that I had not lost in the transition.  I had been a happy person in life and it looked like I was going to be happy here, although pretty lonely if someone didn't come and show me around.  Sysnyck and Charmin were still at my side.  I took a deep breathe and stood.  The walls of the mossy room looked different some how.  Then I realized what had changed.  Across from where I stood there was what appeared to be an outline of a door.  As I watched the outline became clearer and then to my utter astonishment, it began to dissolve.

A sliver of light came through the opening.  Well, not a sliver so much as what appeared to be a group of bright dots.  I had hallucinated one time and seen something much the same.  That was on top of Wolf Creek  Pass and I think it was frost coming out of the air.  It was sort of like something Disney used to do when Tinkerbell zipped around the room.  I waited for the music, but it never came.  The what ever it was  appeared to be about 5 feet tall and a foot or so wide.  It never touched the floor, but hovered in front of me as if waiting.  The dots continued to move, but the mass stayed in one place.

Suddenly my mind was filled with thoughts of my mother.  I could feel her presence.  I could see her hands.  Her hands were much like mine only thinner fingers.  I could see her brown hair in the style she wore when she was in high school  She had been the prettiest girl there.  She was a flapper!  I remember the picture.  I remembered how my tonsils were always inflamed and we never had money to get them out and she would let me sleep with her.  (Finally in the 6th or 7th grade it became a matter of life or death and out they came.  Mother traded house cleaning to the doctor and I do not know what happened with the hospital but I got ice cream for my first meal.)  I remembered how loved I had felt and as I watched and thought of my mother, the dots began to change!

I gazed into the gray eyes that had been my mothers years ago.  Sometimes they were gray, sometimes hazel, and on rare occasions they were blue or green.  I reached for her and to my surprise I felt myself wrapped in the same arms that had held me so many years ago.  I felt her breathe on my cheek and I was overcome with a completeness that I had not known for years.  For the first time in a very long time, I felt like I was home.  She softly patted my shoulder and whispered "There, there."  I was once more 4 years old and in my mothers arms.  Could life get any better than this?

Hey!  wait a minute!  This is not life, this is death.  Get it straight here.  She held me out at arms length and smiled.

"We need to talk."  Her mouth never moved and I realized I was hearing her mind.  "I know you have questions and I am here to answer them.  So let's get started.  Ask me one question."  She folded her arms and waited.  Then she added.  "Only one for now.  What do you want to know most of all?  Only one."

So I thought what was most important.  And I knew.  I also knew that we were talking with our minds and she was hearing all my thoughts swirling, but she waited patiently.  Finally, I turned to the wall and then back to her.

"All my life I believed that when I died Jesus or the angels or someone would swoop me up to heaven and I would be judged and either sent down or let into heaven.  I have not seen anyone and I can not believe this mossy room is heaven or hell.  So what went wrong here?  Where are all the saints?  Where are those golden streets I am going to walk down on the way to the throne of God?"  I stopped and mother smiled at me.

"Well, you are an inquisitive little thing, aren't you?  Now let me try and put this as briefly as I can.  I have been here 20 years or so and even I have not seen the big guy.  It seems like only yesterday that I got here.  Judgement day is a long time from now although with the mess the world is in now, it can not come fast enough.  But we are here in a place that is safe from the world.   You do realize that one of these days, those nuts down there are going to blow the earth clear out of it's orbit and this place will really get busy then!"

"We communicate with our minds and we see with our minds.  We do not really exist except in a spirit form.  You see me as you remember me and I see you as I remember you.  You are just a little girl, but as time goes by you will grow in my eyes.  For now, all you need to know is that I am here to guide you.  I know you have pets in here.  I can not see them, but you can.  Just picture them in your mind and then reach out and touch them." 

She stopped and I turned to where I had last seen Sysnyck and Charmin.  I closed my eyes and pictured them and when I opened my eyes, they were there!  I reached down and Sysnyck licked my fingers and Charmin rubbed on my leg!  Oh, heaven was going to be nice!

I turned to mother, but she was gone and the door that had been there was still open.  My life was just beginning!

#4 Signs of life! rerun

I must have dozed off because I found myself waking up from something and it almost had to be a nap.  I glanced around the little mossy room (for want of a better word) that I was in to discern what might have woke me up, had I indeed been asleep.  I did not see anything untoward, but something was different.  I had the distinct feeling that I was not alone.  A slow examination did not turn up another person.  Then it dawned on me!  Of course I would not see a person.  I was a warm glow so if there were someone else in my space they would, of course, be a warm glow also.  With this in mind, I once more inspected my area paying strict attention to detail.  It was then that I noticed a small depression across the area from where I stood.  Well, it wasn't so much  a depression as a sort of shadow, but not a darker shadow.  It was much lighter.  While I could not see my warm glow self, I judged it to be much smaller than me.

Since I was getting pretty good at the floating now, I slowly drifted until I hovered almost level with the whatever it was on the floor of my mossy room.  I reached out with what I thought to be my hand and was overcome with a feeling of having been there and done that before.  I looked deep within myself and I felt my Sysncyk.  Sysnyck was a dog I had many years ago. She was a little poodle/Chihuahua mix.  She had died of kidney failure 25 years before and I had mourned her for years.  I knew she was with me at this moment.  I knew when I found her that Charmin, the calico cat was beside her.  I felt like I was coming home.  They had waited all these years to welcome me to this place.  I had read the poem about the Rainbow Bridge many times and taken great comfort knowing that my pets would wait there for me.  I could see them as clear as day.  Somehow I knew that this was all in my mind, because they did not exist in the bodies that they had before and I knew I did not either.  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and I could see those two little animals in all their glory.  This was so damn cool!

I began to get excited thinking about all I would soon behold.  It was just a matter of  figuring out how to get around in this new world of mine.  I lay back against something and I could feel the little bodies settling on either side of me.  Some how I knew that it would all be fine.  And it seemed right that I find my animals first because they were devoted to me and had waited so patiently all those years.  I knew mother was in my future as were my siblings, and grandma and great grandma.  And Kenny.  And Duane.  And Sherman.  And no doubt many others that I had forgotten, but I had the rest of eternity to find them.  No hurry.

The one I was most anxious to see was the one called Jesus.  I needed answers from him.  I needed to get this judging thing out in the open so I knew which way I was going.  It was the wondering that had me anxious now.

But right now I could feel another nap coming on!

#3 Welcome to the hereafter. rerun

Slowly I opened my eyes and my first thought was, "That was one helluva ride!"  I had no concept of time, nor place.  As I looked around I seemed to be in some sort of glen.  Now I have no idea what the definition of "glen" is, but it seemed to fit this place.  There were very soft bushes everywhere I looked and I stood on a blanket of soft green that appeared to be moss of some sort.  I also seemed to be completely alone.  This was weird, but not a bad weird.  The world I had lived in was always moving and always sounds of some sort.  There was no sound at all.  Wow!  All my life I had suffered from tinnitus and now it was completely silent.  No ringing in my ears!  This dying stuff might not be so bad at all!  At least that problem was gone.

I needed to take stock of my situation.  Having never been in this position before, I had no idea what was expected of me.  My concept of death, if that was what I was experiencing now, was not this at all.  I was supposed to just die and my soul would immediately raise up to heaven and I would meet Jesus and see my mother and be reunited with my brother and sisters and live happily ever after.  I was not real sure that dad was going to be there, but that was not my call.  At no point had I ever envisioned this little  green glen, but here I was.  Surely I was not expected to just set here for eternity.  Where was that Jesus any way?  

I had no concept of time.  Was it still my first day?  What exactly was expected of me at this time?  One thing was for sure, I was at a loss!  For the first time in my adult life, I had nothing to do.  I had no one to tell me what to do.  And from the looks of my surroundings there was not much I could do in this mossy little glen.  I could think.  But what was I supposed to think about?  I had fully expected that upon my death I would be whisked up to the pearly gates with the trumpets heralding my coming.  The gates would swing open and the angel guards would look in the book and there would be my name!  Louella Beth Bartholomew.  Daughter of Christine Josephine Haas.  Grand daughter of Josie Emma Haas.  Great granddaughter of Helen Gagnebein.  I would walk inside.  I would approach the throne and all my ancestors would be there to welcome me!  

But most important of all, Jesus would open his arms and welcome me.  "Come my child.  Your labors are over.  You are home."

Instead I sat here all alone not knowing what to do.  Lou Mercer was at a loss.  That was a definite new wrinkle.  I had always been the problem solver, the go to person, the leader, and the one who could be counted on in a pinch.  Well, one thing for sure, I needed to get my shit together and figure this out.

So I leaned back against something and stretched my legs in front of me.  Now you understand, I do not actually have legs or a back to lean with, but this little warm glow that I now am is going to take some getting used to!  So bear with me.  

There were no signs that anyone had been here before me, but then a warm glow does not leave footprints in the moss.  If I were home and watching Jeopardy! this would be a perfect nap.  I do not remember the last time I actually stayed awake through that program.  It was kind of a joke that at 3:00 every afternoon, I watched Jeopardy! on the little television behind my eyelids!  But I must remember, that this position I am now in, is not a laughing matter.  I am all alone in this great universe and something is expected of me, and I do not know what it is.

#2 What the hell! (rerun)

My mind raced back to the night before.  I had gone to bed early because I was tired.  Icarus was snuggled against my back and Daisy lay on the rug beside the bed.  They were looking at me funny.  As I watched, Icarus looked at Daisy and they both left the room headed outside.  Now something was not right here.  How could I watch them if I were asleep?  Wait!  I was not asleep, but my body was.  Oh! crap!  Something was sure different here.  Slowly the realization came to me.  I was dead!  I was stone cold dead.  Funny, I did not feel dead.  Actually felt pretty damn good!  My hip didn't hurt at all.  I wasn't cold or anything.  I just was.  That was strange.  I had always thought that when the time came I would be whisked away up to heaven or jerked down below, but here I was in my own bedroom looking at myself laying there in the bed like I was asleep.

I am going to look in the mirror and see what I look like!  Let me just scoot over here in front of the mirror.  Oh, I see I do not scoot, I float.  Whoa!  I was drunk once and thought I was floating, but I threw up when I tried floating.  Oh, wow!  This is so cool.  I just have to think where I want to be and I am there.  I can see this is going to be fun!  I finally got my eyes turned in the right direction and there was the mirror.  Well, I should have cleaned that sucker when I was alive!  Little late now.

Hmmm.  No reflection.  I must be a vampire.  No, wait.  I am over there in the bed so I can not be over here.  If I look real close I think I can see a warm glow.  Oh, this is so cool!  My wrinkled up old body is now a warm glow.  I can not wait for the kids to see this!  Uh oh.  I forgot about those kids.  They are going to be devastated.  I should call them.  Where is that phone?  Oh, there it is.  This floating thing is sure nice.

I can not pick up the phone! How can I call the kids if I have no fingers?  And I see I can not talk.   Well, I can talk, but no one can hear me.  Course there is no one here to hear me anyway.  Well, what am I going to do all day if I can not do anything?  How long have I been dead any way?  Shouldn't I be shooting off to a judgement seat of some kind?  This being dead is going to suck if this is the best it has to offer.

I am just going to float on outside and go look for someone to guide me in this "what to do after you are dead" thing.  Oh, I can just float on up through the ceiling.  Daisy and Icarus on the deck and they do not even see me!  But at that moment they both looked my way and then put their little heads down.  They sensed me, I think.  But I was too busy to give that much more thought. I was floating higher and higher and then in a valley and across a desert and into a forest.  I looked down and I could see the ball that was the earth fading behind me and then coming closer.  Stars sped by on both sides and I did not even worry about colliding with them.  I gave only a little thought to where this journey might end.

Very clearly, my life as I knew it was over and what lay ahead would prove to be the greatest adventure of them all!

#1 Conception of an idea.

I started this over a year ago and was real happy with it, but only published a few entries and then my life took a turn and I dropped it.  Someone called my attention to the fact that I had dropped the ball and so I went back and read what I had published.  I liked it.

I know I now have a different audience, and they have no idea what is going on.  So I am going to republish the first part of this a day at a time which will refresh the earlier audience and give the newcomers a look at what I worked on before.  This time I will try harder to finish it.  Bear with me.

So it begins.



#1 Conception of an idea.


This morning I woke up thinking about my death.  The cat was here.  So was the dog.  But what if I were not?  I tried to envision what my life after death would be and a scenario played through my mind of what it might possibly be like.  I then thought about all the people who have gone before me and what it would be like to see them again.  So I have laid some ground work inside my head of what  will transpire.

You must first realize that this is a complete work of fiction since I am alive and well here on South Road right where you left me.  This is just to let you know when this little link pops up on my facebook page or on the Google site, that my mind has spun out something and you can either read it or not, but I think it will be kind of fun.

That having been said, I am going to publish this and then start my day.  I have put my ideas down and very soon you will be treated to my first installment.  Just try to remember that I am not really dead and we will go from there.

Lou Mercer