I suppose the young would think I am old and yet, I am not, at least not quite old. My long time friend is old. She is ninety three. She is an artist and an educator who has developed macular degeneration, an eye disorder that makes one blind. She cannot see. She cannot write out a check. She cannot do her art work. She cannot read. She cannot teach. She lives alone in a townhouse, in walking distance to downtown, but she cannot walk. She loves dogs and had them all her life but her last dog died a few years ago and she will not get another as she doesn’t want to leave an animal alone in the world, “Who will care for it when I die?” she asks, when I suggest she get at least a cat.
I don’t know what she does all day by herself: blind, hard of hearing, not able to walk to the next room without her walker, alone with her thoughts. I lives hundreds of miles away, but I call her regularly. She doesn’t complain and she doesn’t talk about being old, alone or dying. She talks to me about what we have always talked about, politics to human nature, our children to scientific discoveries, philosophy to what my latest adventure has been. I have noticed, in the last few months, that she seems to slant the conversion more often to the question of life after death. I repeatedly suggest she have her son help her sign up for Victor Zammit’s weekly newsletter, “A Lawyers Guide to the Afterlife”. It always contains videos that she could listen to by doctors and mediums talking about near death experiences and communication with those who have already passed on. It is an interesting newsletter and he has a forum where all sorts of viewpoints and mediums share there thoughts as well as their latest books. It would be interesting and entertaining for her. Victor Zammit is a retired attorney living in Australia. He has an annual world wide conference in Phoenix on communicating with those who have passed on.
There is a product that one of the members on his forum is promoting that a University of Arizona professor is in the process of developing. It is called a “Soulphone”, which one can use to talk directly to the other dead. There are several versions. The first one is just a (Yes or No) switch which is activated by light I think. He said it should be on the market next year, swiftly followed by a device to text the dead, and them you. Within a couple of years, he hopes to have on the market a television monitor he is developing in which loved ones, and other people who have passed, on can actually be seen while communicating with them. This is Dr Gary Schwartz PH.D, author of, “The Afterlife Experiments."
My friend’s interests seem very peaked by this. She is not religious. She is not overly sensitive. She is quite pragmatic and yet, she is one of the kindest persons I have ever known. She is very prim, and proper and one would never guess her interest in the Theosophical Society; and yet, she was drawn to it because of all her prophetic experiences she quietly had all he life that she could not explain. She has no answers about this topic, and has drawn no conclusion. Yet now, as she sits alone, in the quietness of the day and the night with her thoughts and her failing body, her mind ponders the purpose of what her life has been. “Surely there must have been a purpose to all this?”… meaning her life and all she went through, she asked me recently. Yet, her most burning question now appears to be, “is there life after death of the body?” When I tell her of what some cardiologists and other medical doctors have experienced with their patients, and the survival of consciousness she gets keenly interested, especially when I explain how they seem to think that the personality of the individual survives.
She is not one to share her feelings or her pain, as I said she never complains, and yet, I can sense a feeling of disappointment in her life, and not achieving what she had hope to, whatever that might have been.
She never seemed to have too much of an interest in life after death, but now she does. I suppose we are all rather in shock when life is ending for us. Some get a warning and others don’t. I don’t know which is better. But she has time, all her time to ponder that all that gave her pleasure is over. She is alone as she waits for death to come…. be it tomorrow, or ten years form now. What does she look forward to….. a passing phone call? What is she capable of doing, except thinking? I told her I loved listening to her stories about her mother’s life in Sweden, about her living through the bombings in London, her adventures in South America. She was an artist, a writer, an educator among many other things. She raised a family, and had her own school at one point. She was and is a wonderful human being and yet she is alone, trapped in a body that is failing her. I suggested that she get a tape recorded and record all those wonderful stories for her great grandchild and pass on as much family history for him as possible. She seemed excited about the project and yet she never got the tape recorder. Money is not an issue for her.
She has lived longer than many humans and yet for the past seven years her passions, her independence, her ability to read, or even surf the net is beyond her ability. When her last dog died, whom she loved so much, that is when I noticed a sharp decline in her quality of life. She has adult children, grandchildren and even a great grandchild and yet they all have their own lives. Her oldest son visits her weekly to take her shopping, but then the door closes, and once again she is alone with her thoughts until the phone rings.