Proof of Heaven

Susanna’s daughter was ill with several brain metastases from breast
cancer. Her prospects of survival beyond a few months were remote. It
wasn’t a good time to take a call—my mind was completely absorbed in
the digital image in front of me, and with mapping out exactly what my
strategy was going to be to go in and remove it without doing damage to
the brain tissue around it. But I stayed on the line with Susanna because I
knew that she was trying to think of something—anything—to allow her
to cope.
I’d always believed that when you’re under the burden of a potentially
fatal illness, softening the truth is fine. To prevent a terminal patient
from trying to grab on to a little fantasy to help them deal with the
possibility of death is like withholding pain-killing medication. It was an
extraordinarily heavy load to carry, and I owed Susanna every second of
attention she asked.
“Dr. A,” Susanna said, “my daughter had the most incredible dream.
Her father came to her in it. He told her everything was going to be all
right, that she didn’t need to worry about dying.”
It was the kind of thing I’d heard from patients countless times—the
mind doing what it can to soothe itself in an unbearably painful situation.
I told her it sounded like a wonderful dream.
“But the most incredible thing, Dr. A, is what he was wearing. A
yellow shirt—and a fedora!”
“Well, Susanna,” I said good-naturedly, “I guess there are no dress
codes in Heaven.”
“No,” Susanna said. “That’s not it. Early on in our relationship, when
we were first dating, I gave George a yellow shirt. He liked to wear it
with a fedora that I also gave him. But the shirt and hat were lost when
our luggage failed to arrive on our honeymoon. He already knew by that
time how much I loved him in that shirt and hat, but we never replaced
them.”
“I’m sure Christina had heard lots of wonderful stories about that shirt
and hat, Susanna,” I said. “And about your early times together . . .”
“No,” she laughed. “That’s what’s so wonderful. That was our little
secret. We knew how ridiculous it would sound to someone else. We