I rushed over to the knoll. Maybe there’s somebody on the downside, and I just can’t see him
from here, I reasoned. I found a vantage point at the top of the knoll and looked around.
No one.
Then I heard the voice again—softer now, the words spoken quietly, as if Jay were right
behind me.
Over here.
I turned around, slowly this time. I was frightened. I’ll admit it. But fright soon turned to
amazement. Jay’s headstone was square in front of me. I was standing on his grave.
I jumped off that pile of earth as if I’d been standing on an alligator. Soorreee, I apologized. I
don’t know who I thought I was talking to.
Yes, I did. I was talking to Jay. I knew then that he was there. I knew that he had survived his
“death,” and that he had called me to his grave for a final, private moment.
My eyes filled with tears. I sat on the ground and rested there for a while, catching my breath,
looking at Jay’s name, freshly carved in the marble. I waited for him to say something else.
He didn’t.
“Well,” I said, after a while, “what’s it like being dead?”
I was trying to lighten the moment. Instead, I saw lightening in the distance. The storm was
getting closer.
“Listen, Jay,” I said in my head, “I want to thank you for all you did for me, and for all that you
are, were, for everyone. You’ve been such an inspiration to so many people. You’ve touched
so many lives in such a kind and caring way. I just wanted to say thank you. I’m going to miss
you, Jay.”
I began to quietly sob. Then I received my last communication from Jay. It wasn’t in the form
of words this time. It was a feeling. A feeling that lovingly swept over me, like someone laying
a cape over my shoulders and gently squeezing my arms.
I can’t describe it further. There are no words. But I just knew then that Jay was going to be
all right, that he was all right, and that I would be all right, too. And I understood that
everything right then was perfect. It was just the way it should be.
I stood up. “Okay, Jay, I get it,” I smiled, ‘Nothing is impossible.”
As I turned and walked back down the hill, I could have sworn that I heard a chuckle.
You two shared a beautiful moment there. Thank you.
He was there, wasn’t he? I did hear him, didn’t I? And he did hear me.
Yes.
There is a life after death, isn’t there?