Isabella, stop saying you're dead

Isabella, stop saying you're dead.

Ed Tasca

This story took place over thirty years ago. And I disobeyed my father by not telling it until now. So this writing is an act of guilt and redemption.

The sky wasn't bright and clear with stars peeking out of the twilight. Instead, it loomed darkly, solemnly as though scripted for a funeral.

I was sandy from sitting in thought on Brigantine beach when I got up and removed the top layer of my clothing, baggy shorts and a home-cut pullover top. I tossed them over my sandals and bag alongside me in the sand.

In an old tight swim suit, I was ready to hit the water. It was calm and waves welcomed me with shy curly splashes at my feet.

A video-like sequence repeated in my mind in the dull, dusty color of sad memories. “I don't have anything to prove,” I argued to myself. “I don't need to forgive. I don't need to regret. I just need to live according to my own needs.” It repeated and repeated like a mind worm that wouldn't shut off. These were things I wanted to scream at Gabriel, who turned out to be a deceitful promise of love and care. He had just broken up with me via a video call.

I remembered clicking him off in mid apology. He acted pained, by not pained enough.

Along the marshes and lagoons of Brigantine Island there were memories that captured my thoughts. These were the happy places where my father took me to fish and catch crabs when I was a child. Recollections tumbled upon one another, playing in the sleepy waters off the beach with my inflated dolphin, pulling up her crab traps to find four or five blue pincers pecking at a fish-head, riding the famous Brigantine roller coaster, laughing at the panicky screams of excitement from all aboard. These were daughter-father memories at happy times, at safe and secure adventures.

The video images of Gabriel faded. I kicked at the water and quickened my pace til the water was knee-high. It felt good, warm and glad-to-be-hosting me as though it knew romantic trauma. But it couldn't cleanse those bitter emotions.

I had told my brother I'd be here so he could join me afterwards at a diner that had been a Brigantine landmark for as long as I could remember. We always called it The Avenue Diner. It's real name: Donatello's. I learned as I got older that it was named after one of the fathers of the Italian Renaissance beloved of the owner, Mr. Puglia. It had burned down once years ago, but Mr. Puglia without hesitation had it restored with touches of classical architecture, a portico with columns, carved trim above each window and door. And an interior with iconic images from the High Renaissance. I studied art history in university. It was mankind at its most creative. It was a fitting atmosphere for me that evening.

Warm timid waves with little shoves and nudges took me to chest-level. I dived into a swim, the still water bursting to a splash, as my arms took flight.

I swam a few lengths, to take what comfort I could from the surf. My exchange with Gabriel hours earlier was still pricking at the peace of my seaside escape. And so I kept moving, flipping from float to swim more like a bather than a swimmer. My thoughts had finally begun to quiet.

That's when I felt the suction from beneath, something pulling me down, manageable at first, but soon growing stronger, drawing me under the water irresistibly.

Suddenly, the ocean peace and calm turned into an aggressive pulling at my entire body. I fought against it, flailing about within what felt like a net. I was being sucked away from all my agile powers.

My mind fixed on breaking the hold but I knew from another event years earlier that I'd been captured by a rip tide. It can grab you like a bold wind and hold on to you like a night terror.

The tide drove me almost to the sandy bottom. Instinct tried to shoot me back up, but my efforts only tired me. I flailed and twisted, my body wrestled with the mighty subsurface current.

Until there was stillness. Numb and lifeless stillness and surrender.

And then, magically or mystically, I had the satisfying weightless sensation of the sea coughing me up into gentler waters, safe again.

My consciousness remained free and clear-headed. And I found that I no longer felt the assault of the water's pressure. I was free and safe.

For a moment, my mind struggled to understand the transformation. Fear was gone and my consciousness had become a physical place, ignited by brilliant skeins and waves of light that propelled me onto a never-ending boulevard that went on as far as I could see. I was still alive I thought, but somehow detached from the ocean.

I was moving to wonders unknown like that of a fetus returning to a womb - a wonderment like nothing I'd ever experienced before. Was this just a dying trance? The answer came quick and amplified.

I heard my father's voice. I couldn't see him. I did feel his presence, it was a surprise that could only come from the hereafter. He'd been gone for over six years. I was going to join him. The thought thrilled me. “Isabella, I'm here.”

I let go of myself now, captivated by the strange radiance that led me along the luminous boulevard. I was in an ethereal state of pure consciousness. “Father, am I going to die?

Scenes of my childhood with my father flashed around me like sacred mosaics bright with color and studied design for movement.

“My dear, do you understand what has happened?”

Time was gone, with past and future undivided, visible at once as a coherent sequence. And each scene included me. I seemed to be happy and energetic. But I also felt I was doing things that were arrogant and wrong, when I was sure they worthy and right. They were telling me who I really was.

An objective identity emerged, not flattering, but not the rose-colored reality I imagined. Objective reality was always slinking about like a comic book villain. I was not the lovely and accommodating young girl I thought.

The flares around me became brighter, still guiding me up their magnificent boulevard. All events seemed to be telling me I was entering into a rapturous afterlife. Was this suicide? This thought didn't seem to bother me, because I heard my father voice.

“Isabella.”

I could see the white splashes of foam his energy made not far in front of me. He was the only loved one who called me Isabella. Affectionate friends called me Billie.

“Father, it's you!” I was so excited now that I wanted nothing more than to remain here, wherever I was, forever.

“I have a message for you,” he said without a greeting or welcome.

I'm going to join you,” I said.

“No. No. Isabella. You've gone as far as you can go.”

“But I don’t want to turn back. This is my chance. I can feel it all. A freedom from pain, anxiety, and all the dark purposelessness that seemed a bad dream where I was.

This next moment was silence laden with confusion and then imposition. “Is this just a dream, father? Tell me, because I don't want to wake from it.”

My father had gone. Like a door blown shut by the wind.

My visions of childhood were gone. Nothing remained, just my irresistible flight up the illuminated boulevard and its perfect rapture. I wanted to find my father again. He would never just leave me to my own intents in an unfamiliar point of reckoning.

Beings of light, only light, appeared now, seeming to communicate without words. The effort was granting me all the secrets of the universe. In my ethereal state of pure consciousness, they arrived in a rowdy storm of mad sarcasm – life's mysteries that man has argued over for millennia. They mocked me for my ignorance or maybe I just sensed mockery. It was so overwhelming, I wasn't sure what I had absorbed and what just became gibberish.

Some secrets I recalled and confirmed: Human values are pranksters, not to be trusted, born of our contradictory nature. Values of any kind are self-serving, and as so, valueless. Humans, while the highest being of creation, speaks in words that hide their secrets, making all human behavior a psychological muddle. And the sensations of joy and suffering? Joy occurs only in discrete packets of pleasure and happiness, irregular and fleeting, while events of pain and suffering shape us and haunt us over a lifetime – until death.

I now also knew what I suspected for a long time all human endeavors are marbleized with uncontrollable dark threads throughout a lifetime. And at death we learn the truth of our dark threads and how we were fooled throughout life about our innocence.

Most of what I could catch and remember was that every life is veiled with a blur, hiding its reality. A squid shot by concealed by an ink spray that seemed to visualize this for me.

This omniscient storm then cleared with: Life isn't meant to be a friendly place. It is meant to unfold through personal judgments and decisions, most based on bad choices. And the choices are predisposed by your individual nature.

All maddening revelations that stung, because we try to make life a simple process when it is an unfriendly complex one. But something kept telling me, Isabella, there's still more to learn. Much more. Do not haul your journey here, no matter what.

Suddenly a radiant portal shone just ahead. The beings of radiance continued to escort me like my glowing entourage toward this majestic portal, a ride like royalty in a golden and bejewelled parade. The blinding radiance all around grew as I moved ahead.

But now, the closer I came to the portal, something began to drag my progress. Announced by a sudden dimming of the glow, forces stopped me with a paralysis that confused me. As though it were a climax of some kind. The fading lights seemed to tease me into one more impossible forbidden advance. “Let me be,” I found myself appealing to these hidden forces. “I know what I want. I want to know more. I want to move ahead.”

“Father,” my thoughts screamed out, “I should be able to make this decision myself. I want to join you. You seemed so happy. Take my hand,” I pleaded like a child. “Please, papa,” I implored like a child. I have made my decision. It is my choice. I want to join you.”

There was another silence. The squid flew by me again with its tail of ink leaving me in its dark blue fog.

It was my father again who intervened. He became visible for the first time. “I love you,” I screamed at his beautiful face. He smiled with self-assurance and I felt a human emotion again, to sob.

“Isabella, my love, you do not make this decision to join me. No one who comes here wants to leave. But like your rides as a child on the roller coaster, life has a beginning and an irreversible trip forward. There's no getting off before it's time.

“But I'm here.”

“My love,the nature of death and the forces that propel it have their own mysterious engine. They rule the world of the living.”

“Father, I miss you. And mom. And everyone who has passed. I want you all back.”

“Isabella, you are still alive.”

Father. Damn it. I can't be alive. I'm talking to you.”

“My love, your language, tells me you are still alive.”

An inner voice told me that “One more step meant eternal peace.” And I wanted it. I could not control this desire or the great unknown force that had snared me and rode me along this spectacular boulevard of lights. “Father, I had made it to you, to the end of my journey.”

“Isabella, you still have a woman's life to live.”

“I'm no longer a woman. I'm not a man either. I'm just me, now.”

“Go,” he defied me.

“If I am not dead, this is another Earthly trick,” I challenged.

“Isabella, please. It's no trick. You don't possess life. Life possesses you.”

“For what to raise a cat I do not like.”

“Go.”

“Father, I'm not dead, I never felt so alive!”

“Go. Go. Otherwise you may be lost forever, a ghost waiting to be recognized and redeemed.”

“Father, there are no ghosts.”

My father's voice began to fade into the wonders of the unknown. “Go back and tell everyone what you have seen and felt,” he said, his voice the whisper of a cat scratching tufted carpet. These were his last words. And he vanished.

“Father, I love you.” I cried that I had to say another painful goodbye to him again.

My luminous guiding lights were gone. My body returned with bodily sensations. This world we all dream of. Or we wish for. It may never be available to me again. That seemed the most unfair worry of all.

At the same time, something else aroused all my senses. I realized I was in the arms of a powerful young man. At first it seemed just my imagining. But within a few seconds, He had breached the ocean surface and my body felt the cool night air as he raced me to the beach.

I became awake on the shore, gasping for my breath. I had been under the water my watch said for only two minutes. Two minutes where I had engaged an eternity. Night was falling, but the moon had escaped the clouds and shimmered silver across the water. It seemed to confirm that I was alive and conscious and back on my beach.

My rescuer was still pumping on my chest until I cleared the waters that abducted me. I lurched into a sitting position, coughing and choking until my lungs emptied. My rescuer finally spoke: “My dear,” he said, taking my hand, “I didn't think you'd make it. But you did. You survived.”

I didn't feel sad. I didn't feel lost. I didn't feel denied. I felt wonderstruck. I was now a representative charged with passing this mystery of death's border to the world.

I felt the weight of both worlds pressing on me, one a dream, the other an awaking, but after this near drowning I wasn't sure which was which. I tried to focus on good thoughts and feelings.

My rescuer was on his phone.

“I'm okay,” I told him. “Don't call anyone.”

“Isabella, I just called your brother again. I told him what happened. He's on his way. He cried he was so happy.”

The echoes of the near-death sensations continued to play over in my light-headed uncertainty. I had no reply for the young man who saved me. I was still shocked by what I had seen, what I had felt and what I was told. I could only stare up into the twilight and take another delicious breathe again, more deeply now.

There I was with a fairy story of pure bliss and love.

I have resolved the mystery of the afterlife and why people who have died momentarily, reached a point of real death, found it of infinite rapture, but came back to life because like my father's roller coaster ride. The trip is predefined and there's no getting off in the middle. Then I remembered he mentioned ghosts. This idea would fill me with dread for years to come.

At this moment it was time for me to thank my friend, by my reckoning, a close friend now. I could feel myself smiling through deep, fresh drags of Brigantine air.

I was told this magical event should be shared. I'm a university graduate with two degrees, and it was at that moment I decided this was my story, personal and without words to explain it. And that it would only raise hundreds of questions I couldn't answer. And disbelief I couldn't deal with.

“Thank you,” I said to my rescuer, dabbing the last salt water from my lips and cheeks and squeezing it out of my hair. “Friends call me Billie.”

Later, when my brother arrived, I couldn't resist. I insisted no hospital -- no, we all would go to Donatello's for drinks. Perfect.

This all took place thirty years ago. And it is only now that I have had the patience and courage to share what happened that night on Brigantine beach. To close, let me say that my rescuer was a sweet and charming man, but we never became a couple. I still think of him even today. I learned from that near drowning and my brief relationship with my rescuer how my arrogance and pushiness in life had distanced me from all those I thought of as friends and lovers.

Anyway, that's my story of how eternity showed up on Brigantine beach. And I was in nothing but an old bathing suit.