Half a Message from The Other Side

My mom passed away two years ago this Christmas. Her rather quick, untimely death was a blessing in a way. Otherwise she was facing a slow hell of a death from a cancer that was eating away at her body and brain. Eighteen months after she died she returned to me with a message, but I only got half of it.

It was this summer, at the annual Clan Speck reunion (Hubby's family), in a tiny cabin by a lake.

Early Saturday morning Hubby gets up, bangs around getting dressed, and heads off down the hill for breakfast. I drift off back to sleep in the darkness. Thirty minutes or an hour goes by and the squeak of the front door opening wakes me up. I figure it is Hubby coming back to kiss me goodbye and tell me he is off to the golf course with his brothers. But the door bangs shut and there is only silence. It must have been Hubby leaving, I surmise. He probably came in and kissed me goodbye while I was still asleep and the sound of him leaving woke me up.

I squinch open my eyes and the overhead fluorescent light is on and glaring. "Damn that man," I think to myself, "He didn't turn off the light when he left." Then I realize there is someone in the cabin standing by the door, just beyond my view behind the closet wall. I panic for an instant thinking some psychotic mass murderer has found me in the deep woods of Arkansas.

Then I see her. She walks across the cabin looking at me very intently. It's my mother, back from the dead, 18 months gone now. I know she's dead, I know she's a ghost, but she isn't wispy or ghost-like. She isn't floating across the floor. She is just as solid looking as a live person, has on shoes, and is walking around like normal. I am excited but unafraid. I don't think the dead coming back to our world is an odd occurrence anymore. I am merely surprised that it is my mother because I didn't expect to see her of all people.

She looks wonderful dressed in a brown pant suit with a silk paisley blouse. She never, ever wore brown, I think to myself, but she looks great in that color. Her hair looks nice too, all piled up in a Marge Simpson hairdo.

At that moment I feel a wave of love for my mother like I have never felt before. It is deep and genuine and warm and fills my soul....and surprises me. For the first time in my life I know what it is to really, truly love my mother. Our relationship had always been rather cool and impersonal but that's a whole 'nuther story. Suffice it to say we were not warm-n-fuzzy close.

Mom is looking intently at me to see if I'm still asleep. She has that look on her face like she doesn't want to wake me, but urgently needs to talk to me. She is very quiet as she crosses the floor, all the time keeping an eye on me to see if I'm awake or not.

Yes, Mom, I'm awake. You can see I'm awake because I'm looking at you. You don't have to tiptoe. You can say something already.

She crosses the floor away from me and heads for the back door. She disappears out of view around the corner. Dang! Why didn't she stop or do something or say something? Why did she just walk by? What was that all about? I figure she is gone. Then she rounds the corner and strides right up to my bedside. I am so startled it almost knocks the breath out of me. My heart is thumping ninety miles an hour. Can this really be happening?


Mom makes an exaggerated puckered kissy face and bends down to kiss me. I'm still a little groggy from just being woken up, but I manage to crane my head up to meet her and make the puckered kissy face back. Instead of our lips touching, my face...well...goes through hers. She is ethereal, like a 3-D hologram. She straightens up and we both get a funny look on our faces; that we somehow knew that wasn't going to work, me being living and her being dead and all.

She gets serious, furrows her brow and says, "I've got something very important to tell you."

WOW! My brain snaps to attention. I am fully awake now. Whatever she says next will be the most momentous words ever spoken - wisdom of the ages from The Other Side.

"Xrciosion kos slepoise lwisbjios sljew boawlje llbjlkjxfow lxjgoi aejlsjd."

It's just garble, as though she is speaking Chinese. There is a windy, ripping, zippery sucking sound and the lights go off, Mom disappears, and I am alone again in the darkness, the nightlight glowing softly across the room.

Apparently when my brain went from hazy sleepiness to fully cognizant, it disrupted the connection between this world and the next. Dammit! I really, really wanted to know what she had to say. I was listening with every fiber of my body. I wondered why she choose this time and place to find me. She had never been up here, and this is an odd place for me to be. Where did she get the brown outfit? Why brown? I had a million questions and no answers.

When I later told this story to my sisters, they said I had this experience because of unresolved issues with my mom. I don't think so. If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's a duck. The simple fact is my dead mother returned from the other side to give me an important message. That's it. That's all there is to it. Nothing more. I just need to learn Chinese so I will understand her during the next visit.

And yes, I realize that by sharing this with the world, I have just given my family all the fodder they will need for my commitment hearing. Sigh.