John died at dawn on a Thursday. The day before he died, he woke up at 7:21 a.m. and asked, “What time is it?” When I told him, he closed his eyes, slowly shook his head back and forth and said, “Darn.” For a minute, I couldn’t even breathe. I knew what this meant--that he would hold out one more day so that he could die at dawn.
One of the other books that John kept on his nightstand was The Chela and the Path. In one of the chapters, it describes how the angels bring in the color of the day at dawn. When I read it, I thought it sounded really neat. When John read it, dying at dawn became his goal. Since he was definitely dying, he figured, “Why not pray to die at dawn?” And, so, about two weeks before he died, he asked me if I would please start praying for him to have the opportunity to die at dawn so that he could see the angels bring in the color of the day. So, I began praying to God to grant his request, not knowing how such a request might be granted, because, you know, I had worked in a nursing home years before and most people passed on in the middle of the night when no family members were around to hold them back emotionally. Not really wanting him to die at any time of the day, and still hoping for a miracle of some sort, I ended my prayer with “according to God’s will.” I had always prayed for God’s will throughout my life, but this time, I have to admit, I was really hoping that God’s will was somewhat similar to mine. It wasn’t.
Later that night, at around 9:00, John went into a coma and a nurse from hospice came and stayed in an adjacent room. At around 1:00 a.m. on Thursday, my sister came over to be with me at his bedside. About 2 hours later, he started that horrid breathing pattern that is so difficult for the living to hear. My sister panicked somewhat and called the hospice center and they said it could last up to 3 days like that and they would send some kind of a machine over in the morning. I told her to forget that--and to get the newspaper from the kitchen and see what time dawn was the day before. She did. I told her that when it got close to the same time, we had to really start paying attention, because, knowing John, he was going to be as focused in death as he was in life. And, boy, if ever there was a guy who was determined to die at dawn, it was John.
His room was painted off-white and had a window facing the East, so we opened the curtains and waited. Sometime shortly after 6:00 a.m., the room began to literally change---accelerate-- in vibration and color. At first, it was filled with what I can only describe as what felt and looked like sparkles of light, white light, similar to the sparkles at the end of one of those hand-held sparklers we had as kids on the 4th of July. Then, the colors started filling the room--pink, purple, light gold, aqua, violet, green--colors I’m not sure to this day that I’ve seen before or since--it was as if we were standing inside a cloud of color and light. And, there seemed to be the very tangible presence of angels in the room. I mean big angels; larger than life angels, who filled the room and radiated so much love and hope and peace and warmth that I was so overwhemed for a few moments, that I forgot about John. Thank God my sister was there--because she was experiencing and seeing everything that I was. We were speechless. It was as if we were in a different compartment of time and space, even though we hadn’t left John’s side.
I had been holding John’s hand for hours by then, and after a few minutes, when the light and colors and radiation were most intense, I looked at his face, which had a soft, pain-free, peaceful expression on it and heard him quietly exhale. He was gone. It was as if his soul took flight and was absorbed into the light, into the arms of the angels or cosmic beings or whoever it was that was there with us. My sister whispered, “Is that it?” I said, “Yes.” And, it was. We just looked at each other, with tears streaming down our faces, in awe of what had just occurred.
Today is Wednesday and it is green. It was on a Wednesday that I realized my husband would be gone by dawn the next day.
