Many Rooms

The idea that an afterlife might exist, and might possibly be just a part of a grander scheme, different parts of one big world, came up again last week while I was at work. This concept seems to be a recurrent theme for me whenever someone in my family dies and, although I’m not overly religious, I find it to be an interesting idea.  The same two pieces of writing keep popping up, John 14:2 and the poem "Death is Nothing at all," which are very similiar.

Both verses seem to say that there are different states of being, each with its own location, but each parts of a whole. Both verses use the analogy of a house with many rooms. As if being alive or being dead are just different forms of “being,” both under one roof. One could interpret that in a religious way and believe that we are in God’s house no matter which form of being you are in, or if you are more unsure of that, you could interpret it to mean that we are all part of the universe/earth/world no matter what form of being you happen to be in. Either way, it is an interesting concept and, if true, somewhat comforting.

John 14:2...

“In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you.”

Explained like this...Whether here or there, we are still in the house, in one of the mansions of our Father, in one of the apartments of his vast abode. This we ought continually to feel, and to rejoice that we are permitted to occupy any part of his dwelling-place.

And the  poem by the Canon Henry Scott-Holland, who became a professor at Oxford University... 

Death Is Nothing At All

Death is nothing at all

I have only slipped away into the next room

I am I and you are you

Whatever we were to each other

That we are still

Call me by my old familiar name

Speak to me in the easy way you always used

Put no difference into your tone

Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow

Laugh as we always laughed

At the little jokes we always enjoyed together

Play, smile, think of me, pray for me

Let my name be ever the household word that it always was

Let it be spoken without effort

Without the ghost of a shadow in it

Life means all that it ever meant

It is the same as it ever was

There is absolute unbroken continuity

What is death but a negligible accident?

Why should I be out of mind

Because I am out of sight?

I am waiting for you for an interval

Somewhere very near

Just around the corner

All is well.

Nothing is past; nothing is lost

One brief moment and all will be as it was before

          How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!

The second one is the poem I chose, from dozens of death related poems and verses, to read at the end of Kirsten’s eulogy. Later, my sister, Kristina, reminded me that it was the same poem that our grandmother quoted after our brother, John’s, death in 1979. My sister, who was 13 at that time, in her grief wrote, “my brother is gone” on a piece of paper in her room. Our Grandma Dan, who was in from out of town for the funeral and was sharing Kristina’s room, secretly added to the note, “your brother is not gone, he has only slipped into the next room.” Maybe it is such a common verse in times of loss that it is not that much of a coincidence, but at any rate, I had not thought of that when I chose my reading, nor had I thought, until then, of the verse that was bookmarked in a bible on the nightstand of my mother’s deathbed at home in 1994, and what the two verses had in common. I had never seen my mother in a church, except for weddings, nor had I ever seen her with a bible, so we were mystified when we found it there. The bible was bookmarked at John 14:2, “In my Father’s house there are many rooms…”

So, anyway, fast forward to Wednesday last week. I was seeing a patient that I have been treating for about ten years. As I worked he told me that he was going to begin to work with hospice care in Frederick County. I told him that I admired that and told him that I have had a good experience with the hospice bereavement services and explained the situation to him. He told me he had an advantage over the other hospice care workers because he could communicate with the other side, that he “sees dead people.” He had never mentioned this before, and although I was thinking he was possibly “off his rocker” at this point, I stopped what I was doing (just in case) and told him to concentrate and try to focus on Kirsten. He closed his eyes and was quiet for a moment and then he said, “She is always watching over you, but I don’t feel her right here right now…you know, in our father’s house there are many rooms…”

Wait for me Kiki <3