My husband, Tim, died peacefully in my arms. A true gift. A true honor. Because we confronted his death with conscious awareness, I’m no longer afraid of dying or living, or of being alone. I feel more peaceful with and tolerant of the differences, incongruities, and contradictions that people present.
Nonetheless, I am more discerning and choosy about how I spend my time and energy, and with whom. I now have greater trust in my life, and in my own inner authority and personal guidance system. Quite the journey!
Early in our marriage, a psychic informed me that Tim and I had a ten-year renewable contract. That was the first I’d heard of relationship contracts. When I told him, he nonchalantly said, “That seems about right.” We had known on the day we met that we’d be getting married. We married for Love. Our exceptional life together ended five days before our 11th wedding anniversary.
When Tim was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, we’d already experienced the deaths of our grandparents, mothers, beloved animal companions, my sister, and his aunt — mostly consciously. Even so, his dying proved the ultimate test of our fortitude.
Initially, we went along with the physicians and followed their protocol. However, after a critical surgical mishap, Tim explained how his aunt had dealt with her cancer: prolonged, torturous, expensive treatments with debilitating side effects, and repugnant resistance. With equanimity, my husband was very clear that, while he still had a choice, he wanted to choose quality over quantity. In other words: quit treatments and gracefully accept death.
I needed another 24 hours of kicking and screaming before I reached acceptance. We then located a hospice with an open bed to receive him, and knowingly set forth toward our final embrace. I invited family and friends to come say goodbye. Word spread throughout the community. Musicians Tim knew, loved, and had played with — some re-surfacing after thirty years — brought instruments and jammed. It was joyous. A celebration of life lived on his terms.
Those final three days, Tim had a foot in each world. Though he lacked words to articulate most of what he saw, he described his experience as beyond glorious. Ignorant grievers dismissed his buoyant countenance as drug induced, but I knew what was real. He was very lucid, and proved it to me.
Tim explained that whenever someone called out to him or spoke his name, he could be there with that person in an instant; and, no matter how many people called at one time, he could be anywhere and everywhere concurrently.
My first night alone at home, I realized I better go through his stuff while he was still alive in case I needed to ask him any questions. During our entire marriage, we had never gone through each others creative spaces. The next morning when I arrived at the hospice, he already knew.
He told me that all is known, and all is forgiven. Tim emphasized that the ONLY thing that crosses over is love.
Tim influenced the timing of his departure. I had told him I hoped he wouldn’t die until Friday. He said “I’ll see what I can do!” Thursday morning, the doctors called him the “miracle man”; Tim’s body had been shutting down severely, and they were surprised he was still alive. He mostly slept from then on. Even so, at 9 p.m., a musician begged to come visit; when he walked near the bed, Tim opened his eyes, sat up, and said, “Hi! Have you met my wife?” Then late that night (early Friday) he died in my arms. The clock said 1:33.
For eleven years, we’d celebrated the numerology of my birthdate, knowing 1-3-3 is me!
Following his death, a rainbow appeared in the clear blue sky. Tim visited people briefly in the bodies of unfamiliar cats, dogs and crows. He blinked lights on and off to say “Hi.” There had been an unfavorable energy in the basement at night; after Tim died, that energy disappeared. As I sat by the river scattering Tim’s ashes, two hawks, two eagles, and two otters came by. Forms change. Interconnectedness, support, and love remain.
Life continues….
Author’s postscript:
My husband “walked in” at the very moment Toby Dog died in my arms.
Eighteen months before we met, Tim all of a sudden sat upright and announced aloud that he needed to “get a job with benefits because he had a wife coming.” None of his family or friends could fathom such, but the following Monday he signed on for a work training program, and that led him to his job at the hospital — with terrific benefits!
We had no idea of the specific timing until years later when I found his Train-to-Work diploma. There it was: proof that his aha! moment of knowing was THE moment Toby Dog died in my arms (my first fully conscious, lovingly aware death in this lifetime.) Toby Dog was a significant part of me being able to keep my heart open and my spirit interested in staying on earth in this body through very dark, challenging passages. So was Tim.
We know he “walked-in” because previously Tim would have had nothing to do with hospitals, nor would he be able to keep a hospital job for the thirteen years until he died in my embrace.
Toby Dog and Timothy David have the initials T.D. in common, and both Toby Dog and Tim stayed with me eleven years. Also, they had both been rejected and misjudged by many others, but the moment I met Toby Dog, and the moment I met Tim, I fell instantly and totally in never-ending love.
