The Familiar Stranger

“My troubles are many, they’re as deep as a well
I can swear there ain’t no heaven but I pray there ain’t no hell
Swear there ain’t no heaven and pray there ain’t no hell,
But I’ll never know by living, only my dying will tell.”
–Lyrics: When I Die, Laura Nyro

“You will never understand the meaning of actual reality.”
–Padmasambhava, The Tibetan Book of the Dead

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The last time Diana spoke to her father was during a phone call on July 3rd. She generally dialed him up once or twice a month to check in, see how he was doing and just chat about life.

Sometimes their discussions were uncomfortable.

She was dissapointed that her father had gone back to the christian cult she was raised in almost immediately after her mother was institutionalized with dementia. The “religion” told members that there was no life after death and that intuitive ability “came from the devil” and also they practiced shunning of anyone who leaves the cult.

Diana left at age 17 and was excommunicated shortly thereafter. Most of her relatives and friends she’d known since childhood shunned her, as instructed, even decades later. Her father never did. But the doctrines he was following made ongoing conversations about anything that really mattered to her like navigating a minefield.

But that last conversation, in particular, was different. Her father was actually honestly questioning the narrative that that life and consciousness ended at physical death as the cult taught. He admitted that nobody really knows what happens at death until they die.

How could they?

At one point in that conversation Diana said, “Have I ever lied to you? You know I don’t mess around by saying things that are not true. You know that I’ve been very rooted in science all of my life.”

He hesitated and then said, “This is true. You have not lied to me, especially about things like this.”

She continued, “Well, I told you once that I did not believe much in anything until I had irrefutable proof, things like life after death and prescient dreams and intuition. But things have changed for me now and I fully believe in all of those things, that they all are real.”

She continued, “I mean, it also makes more sense to me that the world, and life, is a much more amazing, expansive and multi-faceted experience than what we’ve been told. And I believe that our consciousness lives on after the end of our physical bodies.”

“And yes, it’s true. Nobody really knows until they have had that experience…when they die.”

Usually, at this point in a conversation like this, her father would shut down emotionally and awkwardly change the subject but this time was different.

“You know, I’ve thought about it and I know you now believe differently than you used to. Perhaps you are right.”

“I guess we will all find out for sure when that time comes.”

Diana felt beyond grateful that she was finally able to have this conversation with her father and when she hung up the phone she felt closer to him than she had in a long time.

But she was left with a sense of foreboding, too. For days, in her head, she kept going back to the conversation, reviewing it.

A week later a man she’d never met who was an elder from her father’s congregation called her and told her that her father had a medical emergency and that he was in an ICU on life support. He’d been there since the night after their last phone call. Already the decision had been made to essentially, “pull the plug,” the next day. Since her father had given this man medical power of attorney Diana had no say. The doctors would not even share any medical details with her when she asked.

If it had not been for the fact that her father’s funeral and burial funds were left solely in her name she doubted that anyone would have bothered to call her at all. This brought up all of the old wounds and the old memories about what life had been like in that patriarchal cult. It had been so long, so many decades ago, she’d forgotten what it felt like to be treated as unimportant, to be shunned and disregarded as an “apostate”.

She was angry and hurt but she was grateful that at least she’d have the opportunity to pay for the cremation expenses.

She’d forgotten that, long ago, her father had told her, “If anything ever happens to me, call the union hall.” She’d shrugged her shoulders telling him that, “Nothing is going to happen.” He was very healthy and active at that time, a few decades earlier. She’d completely put it out of her mind after that.

Now she remembered.

He must have signed her name as sole beneficiary to those funds way back then, or perhaps even earlier. With no will and no other funds earmarked these were the ONLY assets he’d even bothered to allocate. Not to her mother, not to her brother, but to HER.

It was not a lot of money but it warmed her to realize he’d really trusted her all along.  This felt like a final love letter from a father to his daughter.

The news of her father’s demise had been a huge shock. On top of it all she felt helpless…she had no part to play at all limited by the fact that another cult member had been given the power over all medical decisions.  She was completely stonewalled.

The ventilator was to be shut off the next day at 12 noon and there was nothing she could do but wait.

When it was over she was told he continued breathing for almost another 30 minutes and then the breaths got farther and farther apart and shallower and shallower until there were none.

“He went peacefully,” the church elder told her later in a phone call.

She wanted to say, “How the fuck would you know? You were not even there, asshole!” but she bit her tongue and swallowed her raw rage.

Diana was completely numb and full of devastation, sadness, helplessness and anger.

She decided to head out to a remote beach to take a long walk, sort herself out and have a good cry alone in peace. It was a really wide, long beach that was reached via a short but steep hiking trail and an easy place to avoid human contact, even in peak tourist season.

It was as good a plan as any and the dog was happy to get out too. He wagged his tail excitedly and almost knocked her over in his eagerness to jump into the car. That dog was such a big, calming presence for her. A big loving goof but magical too. He was getting up in years and she hated to think of life without him.

“Enjoy each other when you can… You just never know,” she had told her son.

The day was warm and sunny but a thin veil of fog was rising off of the sand, giving the entire coastline a surreal, mystical aura. As she descended the last part of the steep trail there was a sweeping view of the entire beach; she was pleased to see only one person in sight and he seemed to be preoccupied with catching bait for fishing.

“Good,” she thought.

She intended to give the man a wide birth and skirted that area of the beach as she headed north. Suddenly the dog started wagging his tail and took off, making a beeline directly for the man, as if he knew him.

“Damn it! That dog has a mind of his own.” Diana was mildly irritated since now she was forced to walk over and speak to the man on the beach. She was grumbling to herself but also knew that the dog was rather magical and if HE decided that she needed to talk to this guy there was probably some reason.

There had been similar experiences in the past. One time the dog did something similar to an old fellow sitting alone on a bench at the beach. She was concerned that the dog would annoy this tourist and tried calling him away but the man hugged him and petted him and wiped a tear from his eye. He said he had just lost his dear older dog companion and was mourning him and he said, “I’m grateful. This dog makes me feel so much better now. I think it was a sign from old Joe.”

Still, the encounters could prove to be inconvenient and at those times Diana felt as though her life was directed by Joey the dog.

She walked up to the stranger on the beach who was petting Joey and smiling. The dog continued wagging his tail excitedly, enjoying the attention.

“Now that’s one nice dog you have there,” the stranger remarked, “A really good dog,” patting Joey affectionately.

That was what her father used to say about Joey. Those exact words, actually.

She peered into the man’s bait bucket and said, “Sand crabs for surf fishing?” He squinted a bit in the sun, “Actually, I like to fish off the side of the north jetty. The perch there are not really large but they are very sweet and tasty.”

He continued, “Did you see how crowded the mouth of the river is, all those little skiffs lined up with tourists fishing for salmon? Sure, the salmon are a big, impressive catch but they taste like cardboard this time of the year. Terrible stuff. I’ll leave them to it and stick with the perch.”

She chuckled hearing this. Again, it was exactly something her father would say…he was a very practical guy that fished for food, not trophies.

In fact, on closer inspection, this stranger was dressed so much like her Dad used to dress it took her aback. Slightly faded Levi jeans, sneakers, a short sleeved plaid button front cotton shirt. And the clincher was that this man wore a leather belt with a leather holder and a Buck knife just like her father always did.

At that point she realized this was no ordinary encounter with a random stranger on the beach. This absolutely was a message from her father…a loving visitation in a setting that would have been familiar to them both and a simple conversation about ordinary things.

She started to feel quite emotional, excused herself and said, “Have a good afternoon fishing,” and started walking away, up the beach. She did not want to burst into tears in front of the man and then end up spilling her guts that she just lost her father, “And you remind me of him so much”. That just felt too weird.

And she did not believe that’s what this experience was all about.

Intuitively she knew it was just a way for her father to say goodbye to her one last time, nothing else. Her father was not really comfortable with extreme emotional displays but she always felt close to him when they were on the beach fishing together.

As soon as she managed to put some distance between herself and the man on the beach she burst into tears. She had a good snotty, sobbing cry, really letting it rip after she saw him get into his truck and drive south to his fishing spot.

She sat down on the warm sand and Joey sat beside her and let her hug him for comfort.

After collecting herself a bit she paused, silently thanked the universe and her father for the visitation, then got up, and headed back home.

A few nights later her father also visited her in a very vivid, lucid dream. They were sitting in his house going through a bunch of boxes and he was deciding what to do with items that they contained.

Suddenly he looked up at her, his eyes sparkling excitedly, and told her, “You were right! There IS life after death.”