On June 12th, I went to bed with a dude. A stranger. I mean, we’d met earlier in the day but didn’t really know each other but it wasn’t one of those romantically ideal situations. We met as I drove past a funeral and parade route between funeral service and cemetery. The place where his body was to be laid.
So, I went to bed with a dead dude. Not the usual Jesus freak who lives within (although he did join the conversation at one point) but one whose life had been taken violently the week before.
I don’t share with many people my relationship with all things invisible. I generally don’t describe myself as psychic or as a medium. Folks don’t get it and don’t believe it unless they’re in the experience with me (it happens during sessions sometimes). And, because things in my world morph so quickly, I hold a lot close to my chest so I don’t have to dance around expectations and suppositions. I have visitations all the time. They occur in a variety of fashions that, generally, aren’t all that fashionable to those fascinated with spirit-stuff. For me, there is no established hierarchy, bureaucracy, separation or predetermined archetype. They appear in the same fashion those still alive and breathing do. Mostly. They sometimes vie for attention, sometimes get pissed when they don’t get the attention in their own sweet time, can be a little too touchy-feely, speak loudly without saying a damn thing–just like the rest of us.
That experience has started morphing into one where communion is union. We merge and experience each other in manner, again, similar to that I have with those who still draw breath (at this point I don’t distinguish between dead and alive–it’s all alive, no matter the appearance).
I’m not going to use this man’s name because I’ve not had contact with his colleagues or family and their accidentally stumbling across it here may not be fair. I don’t have any words of wisdom for them and don’t know as this would bring any comfort.
When one gets dressed for work, even in law enforcement, we generally work under the assumption we’re going to go home at the end of the day. Sometimes that doesn’t happen. Sometimes someone else makes sure that doesn’t happen. That was the case for this young man.
I was transitioning from one place in Vegas to the next when I happened along a place where I was supposed to be. In fact, the whole purpose of my being there up to that point. What I thought was a poor sod getting pulled over for speeding wasn’t.
Then I felt someone come visit. And immediately knew who it was and where I was. And as two became one, I sobbed. I sobbed for him, I sobbed for those his death effected, I sobbed for the brotherhood and the larger community and I sobbed for myself. And I drove on to my next haven and through tears and snot, communicated the best I could our need.
When I sat without the fixative of the steering wheel in my hand and could let go in all ways, we had a profanity-laced conversation that doesn’t resemble anything pretty. I didn’t write down everything that was said because my hand couldn’t write as fast and furious as the words were coming & moving between. My heart cracked to hear someone who’d been murdered apologize to family for his death because ‘it’s not what I wanted for you, for us’. I had no answers to his, “How could we let it get like this?” and “Why do we have to be such assholes to each other?” How does one respond to another who can clearly say, “I don’t want peace! I want to go home!!” I could only sit and be and, as gently as I could, respond to “Is this real?” with a “Yes, love, it is.” And I was pissed. Pissed that this is part of my role, pissed that I can’t fix it, pissed that I was ready to go shoot somebody my owndamnself. I didn’t want to be humbly graceful. I wanted to be pissed. At the fuckers who shot him, his brothers for remaining silent about the larger gun issues in this country, at my own fear of doing the simple thing he wanted me to do for him.
He left soon after with someone I hope was his partner and came back to visit as I was crawling into bed. And we just sat together. This time he said nothing and I this time I apologized. For his unnecessary death, for my own unwillingness to drive back to where he wanted me to be with him at the time of the memorial, for being able to do nothing more than hold the space for him to be. With me. Sitting on a bed in a stranger’s home. Like two peas in a pod.
I don’t know when he left. I do know that I woke up alone, looked around and thought maybe it really wasn’t a super-shitty reason to be brought to Vegas anyway.
Comments