Jimmy Visited the Next Day
by Betty Gore
I do have recollections of the day Jimmy died, but I know now that I was in shock and was just letting family members take care of me as if I was a child. He died between 3:15 and 3:30 Sunday morning. I remember my husband getting me to eat a piece of bread late in the afternoon and going to bed that night, and being surprised I did sleep some when I woke in the morning. I hadn't been capable of showering, brushing my teeth, or anything the day before, but I felt I could the next day. I got into the shower and turned the hot water on, and I don't remember my mind being on anything really.
I cannot to this day explain what happened to me next. In the shower with the hot water running I felt myself surrounded by my mother, dead about 20 years and my sister, gone for 12 years, and Jimmy. My mother and my sister seemed very strong and Jimmy was weak and wavery. There was such strength and love coming from my mother and sister, a love that was so strong it was like nothing I could have ever imagined, and I had always loved deeply, but this was such a different thing, it was like every part of my being was touched with this love. How long they were with me I have no idea, because just as suddenly as they appeared, they seemed to be gone.
I continued getting dressed and went on as though nothing extraordinary had happened, because after learning of my son's death, nothing after that seemed extraordinary. The love and the strength stayed with me for days after and all through the funeral, and I felt such love for everyone I saw. Gradually as I came out of the shock I began to feel more normal.
It was only later that I began to question everything about what had happened to me in the shower that day -- where had it come from, why my mother and sister were so strong, and why Jimmy was so weak and wavery. I told two ministers about it, and one didn't really reply and the other one said he had heard of such things. I told my therapist and she said it was an out of body experience. Everyone I told I said maybe I was out of my mind in those moments, but if it is so, it was the only time in my life I ever experienced anything like that.
It finally occured to me that it didn't matter what it meant, It was as real to me as anything else in my life, and I could just accept it for what it was, and I didn't have to understand it. About a month later I felt compelled to tell my daughter, I think I waited because she might be afraid for my mind. She said, Mom, you needed strength, and it came to you, and Jimmy was weak and wavery because he had only died the day before, and that made a lot of sense to me. I do know that there is such love as we cannot even comprehend in our human state, and I felt for a moment touched by it.
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