THE HORRIBLE TURNING point occurred soon afterward; I cannot express the precise interval. On earth, it might have been a week, perhaps less; I cannot say. I only know the shock came dreadfully soon. I'd been disappointed that I'd have to wait so long for Ann. Albert told me not to dwell on the waiting aspect of it but the certainty of its occurrence.
I tried; I really did. I made an effort to convince myself that my disturbance was unwarranted, that it had no bearing on Ann's situation.
I began to occupy myself with other things.
First of all, our father. I saw him once, Robert. He is in another part of Summerland. Albert took me to see him and I had a talk with him, then left.
Does that sound strange to you? I feel it will in light of your relationship with him. I'm sorry if it strikes a discordant note; but blood is not thicker than water here. Rapport is a matter of thoughts, not genes. Simply stated, he died before I got a chance to know him. He and Mom were separated when I was a young child so that there could be no affinity. Accordingly, though I was pleased to see him and he to see me, neither of us felt any compelling urge to further the relationship. He is a fine man though. He had his problems but his dignity is unquestionable.
"Here, we are divided by sympathies rather than miles," Albeit said. You've seen, in personal detail, how powerful my union is with Ann and our children. And I'm certain that, if Mom were to pass over as I "dictate" this journal to you, our relationship would be much closer since it was so in life.
Uncle Eddy and Aunt Vera aren't together. He lives simply, in a lovely spot where he gardens. I always felt that he was not fulfilled in life. Here, he is.
Aunt Vera has found the "heaven" she desired and believed she would find--totally religious. She goes to church almost constantly. I saw the edifice. It looks exactly like the church she attended on earth. The ceremony is identical too, Albert informed me. "You see, Chris, we were right," Aunt Vera said to me. And, as long as she believes it, her Summerland will be contained within the boundaries of that conviction. There's nothing wrong with it. She's happy. It's just that she's limited. To repeat: there is more.
One final item. I discovered that Ian had been praying for me without telling anyone. Albert told me that my post-death state would have been far worse except for that. "A prayer for help always eases that experience," were his words.
I return now to my account.
It began at Albert's house; a gathering of his friends. I'll say it was evening since there was a kind of twilight in the sky, a soft and restful half-illumination.
I won't attempt to tell you everything they spoke about. Although they tried to make me part of the conversation, most of it was far beyond my understanding. They spoke, at length, about the realms "above" this one. Levels at which the progressing soul becomes at one with God--formless, independent of time and substance though still aware of personal identity. Their discussion was intriguing but as far over my head as it was over Katie's.
I thought I was only part of the background. Yet, when I thought--in reaction to the gathering and what they were saying--And all of us are dead, Albert turned to me with a smile. "On the contrary," he said. "All of us are very much alive."
I apologized for the thought.
"No need for that." He lay his hand on my shoulder and gripped it firmly. "I know it's difficult. And consider this. If you, here, can think that, visualize how much more difficult it is for anyone on earth to conceive of afterlife."
I wondered if he were trying to reassure me about Ann's inability to conceive of it.
"It certainly is one of the great pities of the world that virtually no one has any idea what to expect when death comes," Leona remarked.
"If men only felt about death as they do about sleep, all terrors would cease," said a man named Warren. "Men sleep contentedly, assured that they will wake the following morning. They should feel the same about the end of their lives." "Couldn't something be invented which would allow the human eye to see what occurs at that moment of death?" I asked, trying not to think of Ann.
"Someday it will be invented," a woman named Jennifer told me. "A camera-like device which will photograph the departure of the true self from the body."
"What's needed even more, though," Albert said, "is a 'science of dying'--physical and mental aids to accelerate and ease the separation of bodies." He looked at me. "Those things I mentioned earlier," he reminded me. "Will people ever have that science?" I asked. "They should have it already," he answered. "No one should be unprepared for survival. Information regarding it has been available for centuries."
"For example," said another of his friends; a man named Phillip. " 'As to man's survival after so-called death, he sees as before, he hears and speaks as before; smells and tastes; and when touched he feels the touch as before. He also longs, desires, craves, thinks, reflects, loves, wills as before. In a word, when a man passes from one life into the other, it is like passing from one place into another carrying with him all the things he had possessed in himself as a man.' Swedenborg wrote those words in the eighteenth century."
"Wouldn't the problem be solved immediately if direct communication were devised?" I. asked. I looked at Albert. "That 'wireless' you spoke of earlier."
"In time, that, too, will happen," Albert said. "Our scientists are at work on it constantly. It's a tremendously difficult problem though."
"It would certainly make our work easier if mere were such a wireless," said another of Albert's friends; a man named Arthur.
I looked at him in surprise. It was the first time, since I'd arrived in Summerland, that I'd heard an inflection of bitterness in anyone's voice.
Albert put his hand on Arthur's shoulder. "I know," he said. "I remember how distraught I was when I first began our work."
"It seems to grow more difficult all the time," Arthur said. "So few people, who come across, possess awareness of any kind. All they bring along with them are worthless values. All they desire is a continuation of what they had in life no matter how misguided or degraded." He looked at Albert with a pained expression. "Will those people ever progress?" he asked. "Even with our help?"
As they continued talking, I could feel myself becoming apprehensive once again. What exactly was Albert's work? I wondered. And to what dark places did it take him?
Worst of all, why did I continue to associate this anxiety with Ann? It made no sense to me. She possessed awareness. Her values weren't worthless. She wasn't misguided and she could never be called degraded.
Why, then, was I unable to break this dismaying connection?