This is the continuation of Erik’s description of his death and the events that occurred in the moments that followed.

Erik: Then I felt pulled. It felt like I was being pulled from the back of my shoulders. Not pushed, but, it’s kind of what I would imagine water being moved up a straw would feel like.

(Pause)

Erik: It wasn’t like being abducted by aliens. You know like a UFO hovers over you and they like sssllrrrruuup (sucking sound), get sucked up. It wasn’t like that.

Jamie (laughing): Erik, you’re so creative! He’s showing me the motion of being pulled backwards.

Erik: I kinda expected that, though. But that didn’t happen. And it wasn’t like I got pulled into a different room. It’s like the room I was in began to change. It’s like when kids draw chalk on the sidewalk and then you take a hose to it or the rain comes and gently washes it away. It becomes a clean sidewalk again. The room I was in gently washed away, and I was in a different room.

Me: Hmm. But did you come back to see when I came upstairs and came into your room? Anything like that?

Erik: I know you were there. But really, that seems like 15 minutes after if happened.

Me: Okay. Yes, that’s exactly when I came up to your room. So you were pulled away by your shoulders, and the room gently washes away. So when do you see me and then the police?

Erik: Well, I saw it sorta from a different vantage point. It’s not like I was standing in the room.

Jamie: Erik, how do I explain what you’re showing me?

Erik: It’s not like I’m watching a TV. It’s not like I’m removed in that way. I was a part of it; I see myself in the room, but I’m not really part of that room at all anymore. It’s really hard to explain it in words, Mom.

Me: Like you were behind the veil?

Erik: Yeah, Sorta like that! You know how you can put a sheet over your body, but you can still see through it, but you’re pretending that nobody can see you?

Me: Oh, yeah!

Erik: That’s kinda how I viewed what took place.

Me: How did that scene make you feel? Was it difficult to watch?

Erik: At first I was a little confused why you were crying. I knew the police had to be there, but I really couldn’t have told you why. I just knew they had to be there. I knew it was right. But yeah, it was very painful for me to watch you break down like that. It was horrible, the most painful thing I’ve ever had to bear. I really didn’t think about how you would react. All I thought about was how I could get relief.

Me: Well, we called them, you know, the Hedwig Village Police. Maria told us she heard a gun shot so we turned the car around and drove like a bat out of hell back, and we called 911. (Explaining to Jamie): Since we live in a small village inside Houston and have our own police department, they came right away. In fact, they almost beat us there.

Jamie (giggling): He’s laughing that you called the village.

Erik: Once that was taken care of, I saw my body being zipped up. Then it was carried out, but I can’t really explain where it went after that.

Me: Well I guess at that point you didn’t follow it. You probably didn’t have much of an attachment to your body, an emotional attachment, I mean.

Erik: Yeah, none. It’s like you always told me when I was growing up that I wasn’t my body, that my soul was separate from it.

Me: Yeah.

Erik: Then, I remember the Light. It was really, really bright to look at, but there wasn’t any tunnel. No tunnel.

Me: Okay, so the tunnel was probably just the physiologic thing you were talking about before?

Erik: Yes.

Me: You probably died so instantly, that there was no period of slow oxygen deprivation to that part of the brain that causes the tunnel effect. Okay, so then after you saw the Light, what happened?

Erik: After I was pulled away, watched the scene, and then my body got carried away?

Me: Yeah.

Erik: Well, for a while I didn’t leave the house. I didn’t go out into the yard or anything. So that’s when I started to check on people I knew.

Me: Okay. Living people or deceased?

Erik: Oh, the living.

(Long pause)

Me: For exaaaammmple? Miiiilking the cow, miiiilking the cow! (Coaxing more information from his was like pulling teeth!)

Jamie: He’s showing me this image; it’s almost like going through a book.

Me: Oh, okay.

Jamie: you know, you flip one page, you see that person. You flip another page, you go see somebody else. He saw one of the friends. Male. A male friend that was close to him. Dark hair.

Me: Sean, Valentin, Jonathan?

Jamie: Does Valentin have a nickname?

Me: I don’t know. Frenchie, maybe? He was French. Anyway, he was the guy who hung out with Erik a lot during the last year of his life.  One activity they enjoyed together was target shooting at the gun range. Erik was too young to buy a gun, and we didn’t even know he had one. Apparently, he traded in some of his possessions and asked an acquaintance of Valentin’s to buy one for him. But if it hadn’t been the gun, it would have been something else: a rope, pills. Kim once told us that he might try to kill himself, but that there was nothing we could do to prevent it. Of course I took him to a therapist once a week, a psychiatrist once a week, I tried to get him to do past life regression, everything. We just didn’t want that prediction to come true. But, sadly, it did. Valentin was his best friend toward the end and made his life so full of love and friendship. Now, Sean is one of his lifelong friends. We’ve know him since grade school, and I homeschooled him along with Erik for many years. So, they were very close, too.

Jamie: No, he went to Valentin first. He didn’t check on Sean until later.

Erik: Then I went to see Popi.

Me: Yeah, Popi (my dad, Erik’s grandfather) told me you visited him, sat down in his lap and laid your head on his chest. That kind of freaked him out, because he’s a total atheist. He doesn’t believe in life after death at all.

Erik: Yeah, and it was sort alike going to the house next door.

Me: Wait, are you talking about my dad, Popi, or Pappa’s father in Norway?

Erik: Your dad. Popi.

Me: Well, I have to tell you, Erik, it really startled my dad. He called and said he was in shock and that he didn’t know what to think. I’m glad, because he’s almost 90 so…

Erik and Jamie laugh.

Erik: Then, I went to Norway to see Bestefar. Chilled with him a while.

Me: Okay, so then what?

Erik: Well, there was this really bright light that I didn’t really feel I could look at, cuz I’ve always been taught not to look at the sun since it might burn your eyes, you know?

Me: Yeah, sure.

Erik: But it didn’t burn at all. No tunnel, no upward and away motion. I was actually a little disappointed in that! (laughing) You know how when you come out of a movie theater after sitting in the dark and you come out into the bright-lit lobby? It takes a while to get use to it, to adjust. Your eyes adjust, and you begin to see you’re not alone.

Me: Uh huh.

Erik: And the odd thing is, I can’t tell you if I was inside or outside. It’s like I was just in a space.

Me; How did you get to the Light from Norway? Were you pulled there?

Erik: It’s weird. It’s like I just walked a few steps and got there. I just walked in the direction that I felt the pull was taking me. Let’s go back to the life jacket idea. It’s like I was being pulled and pulled toward and then into the boat, but while I was being pulled, I made those visits. I do all this stuff, and finally, by the time I’m done, I’m getting closer to the boat, and they pull me a few feet up into the Light and into the ALTERNATE DIMENSION. (He says this like Rod Serling would say “TWILIGHT ZONE” with an eerie and mysterious tone.)

Jamie: He’s laughing hard!

Jamie and I laugh.

Me (laughing): Making a joke about it, huh?

Erik: Of course that’s not what we call it when we’re here. You don’t even know what to call it! You just know you’re in the right place. That’s the only thing that matters, You know you’re in the right place. I knew I didn’t do anything wrong, that I was just in the right place.

Me: Good. So who did you see over there?

Erik: I remember seeing Aunt Denise first.

Me: Yeah, that’s what you said through Kim. So, uh, how did that conversation go?

Erik (chuckling): It’s so funny that you say conversation, because she had a mouthful for me!

Me: Oh, boy! I bet!

Erik: She went at me verbally. And frankly, I really felt like that was unfair, because she knew what was going on, and I didn’t!

(My younger sister, Denise, committed suicide in 2003 after a life ravaged by severely brittle Diabetes. She walked with a walker, was fed by J-Tube directly into the small intestine, wore diapers and had to be catheterized three times a day. When she had a small bowel obstruction, they gave her blood that was Hepatitis C positive. Her nephrologist told her that essentially she was a goner because they couldn’t treat the Hep C without her rejecting her new pancreas and kidney.)

Me: Yeah, because she killed herself too! Of course she was so debilitated by her disease so, no surprise there…

Erik: Yeah, but over a period of time, again and again and again she would come at me with “what happened?” and “what do I need to do?” and “who should I console?”

(I found this really funny, because our family took care of Denise; she lived with us. And she was such a busy body, always asking so many questions. We always used to tease her by saying, “Why say why; Try Bud Dry.” That used to make her laugh, plus it gave us all a short reprieve from the barrage of questions.)

Me: Yeah, Denise was a bit of a Buttinsky, but in a loving way.

Erik: But there were other people there, too. But no God on a throne. There were like six people there to greet me, uh, dressed in clothes.

Me (chuckling): Nothing Greek?

Erik (laughing): Yeah, nothing Greek.

Me: No toga party, then? Dang! I remember those when I went to Rice University!

Jamie laughs loudly.

Erik: That was good, Mom! That was good.

Me: Were they all departed loved ones of ours?

Erik: Yes, and there were some I knew that I knew, but it was kind of like when you have a dream where you know you know that person, but in consciousness you can’t identify them at all.

Me: Okay, wow, this is all so interesting. Well, I guess we should close now. But Erik, you know it’s your brother’s birthday today. Did you wake him up this morning or try to?

Erik: I tried to, but he sleeps like a log.

Me: That’s true! That’s true! Okay, well maybe you can give him a little surprise while he’s awake, then.

Erik: Yep.

Me: Give him some goosebumps like you do to me!

Erik (chuckling): I do have some tricks up my sleeve that I’m going to use throughout the day!

Me: Good!

Erik: A special day!

Me: Why do I always feel intense goosebumps more on my left side?

Erik: Your left side is more sensitive than your right.

Me: Oh, okay. Well, I love you Sweetie, and when I come over there, we’ve got some catching up to do! I’m going to prank you to no end, just like you do to Jason and Robert and me!

Jamie and Erik laugh.

Me: Well, I love you, Erik. I love you so, so much. I miss you. I miss you so, so much, Sweetie.

Erik: I love you more.

I find that very hard to believe.

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