Goodbye friend

--rickiT

I was driving on vacation north of San Francisco when the phone rang.

It was my life long friend Pat.

“Where are you Rick?”

“Just crossing the Golden Gate bridge heading into the city.”

“Can you come by. I need to talk to you.”

“What is it?”

“Better I talk in person.”

“Of course Pat. I can be there in a couple of hours.”

I set my GPS for Pat’s Bay Area home. My stomach churned and my mind wandered.

Pat was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Treatments had so far been unsuccessful.

I drove with purpose.

When I pulled up to Pat’s house there were several cars parked in the driveway and on the street.

I parked around the corner and walked to the house, silent with my thoughts.

The front door was open so I walked in.

Pat’s wife met me in the hall, gave me a hard, long hug. There was a tear in her eye.

“Thank you Rick.”

“How is he?”

She pointed to the living room.

Like a king in his court, Pat sat in his customary lounge chair surrounded by a half dozen friends and relatives.

I gave Pat a hug where he sat and asked, “How are you doing?”

“Conscious and coherent,” he said.

I laughed.

Pat always said that. It was his standard reply.

With some struggle Pat stood up from the chair, took my hand and led me outside to the patio. He sat us down in facing chairs.

“I’m on my way out.”

I gripped both his hands and met his eyes.

He said, “I have accepted my mortality for some time now. I just don’t know how to go to death.

Blair is here. She will do a circle of death ritual if I want.”

“Is that what you want?”

“I think so.. I am so tired. It is time.”

“My dear friend.”

I helped Pat back to the living room where Blair and others were still seated around Pat’s chair.

As he sat, he moaned a quiet sound and his eyes glazed over for a moment.

He looked to Blair and nodded.

Blair motioned to the rest of us to hold a hand or leg. We did.

She cupped one hand on the back of Pat’s head and took one of his hands into the other.

“Imagine yourself rising from your body,” she chanted.

“The world is increasingly small as you become larger and larger.”

One of us began to cry.

Pat’s eyes closed, his brow heavily furrowed.

The light in the room seemed to dim.

Blair made the sound of OMM. It was a primeval tone that filled the room.

Pat’s eyes opened wide.

“I can’t. I can’t go to it. I don’t know how.”

I leaned over to my friend’s ear and whispered, “You do not go to death, Pat. Death comes to you.”

He looked doubtfully into my eyes, then whispered back, “What should I do?”

“Let’s put you to bed. See how you feel after a nice sleep.”

Pat’s birthday was the day before mine. It was my habit to call him up on his birthday and ask him what the future held, being a year older than I.

It is a joke that we shared every year.

With Pat tucked into bed I leaned in and said, 

“I want you to promised me something.”

“OK,” he said.

“Promise me that when I arrive in heaven, you will brief me on everything there. I will need a guide.”

Pat smiled, nodded and closed his eyes.

“Until then, my friend, goodbye.”

I left the room and went back out to the living room.

I said my goodbyes to the friends and relatives.

“I have to get back to southern California.”

“Aren’t you going to stay for Pat?” said one of his sisters. “He will probably die soon.”

“I did not come see Pat die. I came to say goodbye.”

A day later Pat’s wife was with him at his bedside.

“How do I go?” he asked her.

“You love to kayak. Imagine kayaking out to sea.”

Pat paddled his kayak toward a setting sun and died.