When someone taps you on the shoulder…
When I first began dating my husband, I worked a 2nd job during the weekends. I got to know all the random people who would stop by. One of them was Rich, a mortician. He was a lovely man. He came up to me one day, after months of perfectly normal hellos. He looked around nervously and said, “Uh, I have to tell you something.” “I see dead people.” Allllllrighty then. I said gently, “well you are a mortician, of course you do.” He looked abashed and then said to me in a rush, “I never, ever do this but I have a message for you.” The Twilight Zone theme began playing in my head.
“What’s the message?” I managed while frantically thinking about exits behind me.
“A man, he’s built like a brick house - solid. He says his name starts with something I can’t catch - but it has a hard D sound - like Danny, Dennis, Denny. He just won’t leave me alone. I don’t tell people I do this - and PLEASE don’t tell anyone…. I don’t want people thinking I’m crazy! He says he died of cancer, in the stomach area. He’s pretty insistent. He keeps picking you out and telling me to talk to you.”
Well friends, I didn’t know anyone dead like that. Nothing. Nada. Zip. I told Rich so. He looked super embarrassed and mumbled something about being sorry for bothering me and left.
My new boyfriend (and future husband) of 3 weeks at the time, had to cancel our date because his uncle had died and he had to go to the wake and funeral. He called me to say hello during my break. I proceeded to tell him the story of the morning’s happenings. There was a long silence on the line. He said, “You just described my Uncle Dennis who just died. He died of pancreatic cancer and that was basically his personality. You could not ignore him.”
It took a long time for Rich to come around again and I had to search him out - he was so embarrassed. I did manage to tell him months later, that he was right and who the man who had “outed” him was.
When this happened, my boyfriend’s mother was dying of cancer at the time, and when we told her the story, she was comforted. I know that Uncle Dennis was there, extending his arm to help usher her in as she crossed the divide. I am grateful to Rich who was brave enough to tell me this even when I looked at him like he was nuts.
