If You See Her, Say Hello

Another Lament for a Lost Loved One

Those of you who have frequented this blog long enough to have read this harrowing post, or my novel Mansion of High Ghosts, may recall of the terrible tragedy which befell the occupants of my automobile way back in 1987. This remains the singular life-changing event of my time here, other than having been born in the first place.

The quick and dirty version is simply that being struck head-on by a drunk driver on a major interstate highway in broad daylight not only killed my intended wife Allyson, but also nearly took away her little brother, Jack. Crushed in the destroyed, steaming, reeking shell of a car he suffered numerous internal injuries, broken bones, cuts, bruises, abrasions. I ‘walked’ away, in a manner of speaking, with only the bruises and abrasions, blood running into my eyes, covered in glass, blinded by sunlight. None of us probably should have survived, and yet, two of us did.

The last photo.

This dreadful, while ultimately enlightening, NDE still dominates in comparison to virtually every other aspect of my life, before and after… but, yea, have I managed to live with the horror and the pain, transmuting much of this emotional dross into creative work and philosophical inquiry both, sow’s ears becoming silk purses, for nearly four decades. I maintain my balance best I can also through specifically healthful bodily, mental and spiritual practices. (Much of that work simply involves NOT doing things smart people oughtn’t do, but that talk deserves its own post.) I tried self-medication for a long time; now it’s more like meditation.

On a day like today, however, the pain feels like a red-hot rising caldera of hot magma, a thousand tiny earthquakes forming cracks in the stony carapace around my grief-stricken heart, a heart suffering both a figurative and literal hole in it. News has come—fraught news, bleak in its content and heavy in the mind of the one who now holds it:

The three, which in an instant became two, has now become one. Jack Ray, Jr., at only 51, has joined his dear sister, mother and father in whatever becomes of our spirit and consciousness in the absence of our material bodies.

1986, happy and young, no clue what was to come.

Sudden and shocking, this death comes on the heels of my wife’s brother Gary also being found unresponsive and ultimately deceased, and this only a few months ago. And while this forum offers neither the appropriate time nor place to discuss or speculate about anyone’s cause of death, let us close the topic by saying, the hour of the time is not ours to know. Gather ye rosebuds, gentlepeople, for one never knows when the curtain may fall.

It’s a fraught traverse here in meatspace. I have suffered; I have witnessed suffering that makes my own pale in comparison. And as for getting older, nothing much gets easier, at least not physically. Well, like his sister, Jack will not now suffer the depredations which come with the aging human frame. As I suspect from my many discussions and reading of material by fellow NDE veterans, he is no doubt at peace now. Allyson’s sweet face, all those years ago in the shattered car, held a slight smile of total relaxation, even insouciance regarding her sudden lack of life. Small comfort, but still. Her suffering, brief; my own, ongoing.

I know Alvy awaits me on the other side of the Rainbow Bridge.

And later, Jack, cut out of the car and his long road to recovery soon underway. Two survivors, plus my beloved cat Alvy, who also made it out. Losing her in 2002 brought a thunderhead of hot grief; I will leave readers to speculate on how I feel at the news of “Little” Jack’s untimely departure.

We last saw each other about three years ago. As I like to say to people, for all I’ve been through, I am still recognizably myself. Jack, then in his late forties, also remained his typically cheerful and humorous self, reminding me every bit of the teenager with whom I enjoyed so many happy and fun times.

As for Allyson, perhaps Bob Dylan said it best:

She still lives inside of me

We’ve never been apart.

Godspeed my son, my brother. We had such a good time, before the bad times came, didn’t we? But now you are with her again, brother and sister reunited. Blessings and love go out to the four remaining sisters, Diane, Esther, Jackie and Janet, the nieces, nephews, the loved ones—the survivors. Long may we all run.