Assisted (or 3 Views of Death)

The Dad woke to a bright, sunny morning. Through the window, he could see the trees beginning to turn their fall colors. The air was brisk. Forty degrees, the kind of cold that woke the bones even when the sun promised a clear day.

He dressed slowly, pulling on his khakis and his navy wool sweater. It was his favorite. His wife had bought it for him on their trip to England in the 1990s, from a little shop off the English Channel. He’d lost it for years and found it again only after sorting through her things when she passed. He layered a gray Oxford shirt underneath and tugged on a navy longshoreman’s hat to warm his bare head. He used to have a great head of hair, just like his father and brothers, but the cancer had taken that from him.

With a sip of coffee, he watched the sunrise creep over the lake. He was at the family lakehouse, a two-story cabin, he had bought as a surprise more than twenty-five years ago. It had taken hard work and time to afford it. She had turned it into a home.

Old trinkets, family photos, and all the things they didn’t want cluttering their main house filled the space. It had been a getaway for him and his wife, then a gathering place for their children, and now a place where their children brought their families. The cabin stood as a testament to his dedication, bought after he received the advance for his second book. He hoped it would remain in the family long after he was gone.

The coffee was perfect: light, one cream, a splash of milk. The steam drifted upward, mixing with the cold morning air and brushing his face. God, he loved this place.

As he sat quietly, he saw an all-too-familiar minivan and then a pair of cars making their way up the driveway. The family was here.

Bagels, cupcakes, drinks, and a spread of homemade meals lined the table for a celebration for a man who wasn’t gone yet, but close enough that everyone felt the need to gather. The family circled around, telling favorite stories of people present and people long passed. The dad sat at the head of the table, listening, laughing softly, taking in all that he had created. His children talked to their children, who talked to their children. The house was full and loud; young kids ran through the rooms like they owned the place.

He didn’t want to add much to the chatter. He just wanted to sit back and absorb the moment.

A knock came at the door. He, his son, and his daughter all turned their heads at the same time. They knew who it was.

The Dad stood and walked over. George was on the porch.

“Hey, I’m George,” he said, extending his right hand, his left balancing a worn briefcase.

The old shook his hand. His daughter hugged George, while his son stayed back, arms crossed. The Dad led George inside, showing him where to set up. The energy in the room shifted immediately. With George’s arrival, the air grew heavier. His presence meant the end was near.

Conversation 1: Granddaughter

After settling George in, Dad noticed one of his grandchildren perched alone on the staircase, away from the swarm of relatives. He had seven grandchildren; four from his son, three from his daughter. This one was the middle daughter’s middle child. High school age, though he couldn’t quite remember exactly.

“Mind if I sit with you?” he asked, using the railing to ease himself down onto the step beside her. No one else noticed them tucked quietly at the top of the stairs.

“Grandpa… you research death, right?” she asked.

“Your mom finally let you look at those books, huh?” he chuckled.

He had been one of the world’s leading researchers in afterlife studies. He published papers, bestselling books, daytime talk shows, endless interviews with people who had brushed up against death and come back. He approached it from the philosophical side, weaving theories from everyone else’s experiences. It had always been a complicated topic for his own children. How do you explain that grandpa spends his life thinking about death?

“What do you think happens when… you know?” she asked, searching for the right words.

“When will you die?” he teased gently.

“...Yeah.”

“What’d your mother tell you?” he asked, trying to recall which of his children had become the devout Christian and which one was the atheist. He could never keep that straight anymore.

“I want to hear it from you.”

He paused, choosing his path carefully. Religious? Nonreligious? Something in between? He settled on the middle.

“Here’s what I think,” he began. “And this is coming from someone who spent his whole life studying the thing. When you die, you wake up in a field. Your own field, the kind that means something to you”

He glanced at her. “How much of our family history do you know?”

She shrugged.

“This lakehouse,” he said, gesturing vaguely through the wall, “is near where the first of us settled. Our great-great-great…add as many as you need…grandfather came here when the land opened up. He met a former Puritan woman along the way. They found a spot near here and he named the lake after her. That’s how we got Lake Deliverance.”

She watched him, rapt.

“Anyway,” he continued, “years ago I met survivors of a plane crash in Argentina. A whole group of them told me the same thing. When they died, even for a moment, they found themselves in a field. And in that field was a huge reunion. Family. Friends. People they’d lost. So that’s what I think happens.

“I’ll wake up in a field and your grandmother will be there. My parents, relatives I knew and didn’t know. You celebrate your life, and then you celebrate someone else’s when they arrive. It’s one giant reunion for eternity.”

His granddaughter wrinkled her nose. “Why do you like that? It sounds… boring.”

“It’s peaceful,” he said. “I’m going to see this lake with no buildings. To see it as our first ancestor saw it. And I’ll get to see your grandmother again.” He smiled at the thought; an easy, quiet smile.

The granddaughter stood. “Still sounds boring. I’d hope it’d be more like a giant nightclub. Or an island getaway. Something fun. This..” She gestured at the bustling house. “...is basically that already.”

She started down the steps, then turned back.

“Thanks, Grandpa. I… hope to see you there someday.”

He smiled up at her, then used the railing to pull himself to his feet and rejoin the party.

Conversation 2: Son

Dad walked outside and lit a cigarette. He had been an avid smoker in the seventies, but he’d quit at his wife’s insistence. “Think about the family,” she had said. Now? It didn’t matter anymore.

His son stepped out behind him and rested his elbows on the railing beside Dad.

“I thought you quit smoking,” he said.

“Doesn’t really matter anymore, huh?” Dad replied, offering him a cigarette. The son hesitated, then took it.

They stood side by side, silent, breathing in the smoke they used to share decades ago. Out in the yard, grandkids and great-grandkids ran through the grass playing tag or some version of it. Dad watched them; this was what he would miss most.

He stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray and turned to his son.

“I know you’re upset about this,” Dad said, gesturing loosely up and down at himself.

“How do you expect me to react?” his son answered, exhaling smoke through his teeth.

“Fair point,” Dad murmured. “I get that you’re more of a traditionalist when it comes to these things, but—”

“Don’t start that academic shit with me,” his son cut in, the words sharp but trembling. “I get why you’re doing it. I do, honestly. But that doesn’t mean I can’t be upset. Everyone’s acting like in twenty minutes you’re not going to be dead. Yet here we are having a family party. It’s weird, Dad.”

Tears started gathering at the corners of his eyes. He wiped them away quickly.

“I’m not trying to fight you in the last half hour of your life.”

Dad looked down at the deck for a long moment before chuckling softly. His son kept wiping at his face, trying to stay composed. Dad finally looked up and said, “You came into this life fighting me you might as well fight me on my way out.”

They both laughed, genuinely this time.

Dad leaned back against the railing. “Let me tell you something I never published. I couldn’t. I never found anyone else who described anything like it.”

His son looked at him, curious despite everything.

“It was the nineties,” Dad continued, “and I was in rural Korea. I met this older man who’d survived a car crash. He told me he blacked out and woke up in a leather chair inside what looked like a psychologist’s office. A man walked in—American, forties maybe—gelled hair, black-rimmed glasses, dressed like he didn’t belong in that time period. But he spoke perfect Korean.”

Dad paused, remembering the man’s intensity, the detail.

“The stranger told him they were going to debrief his life. They walked through every decision he ever made. Little moments he missed, others he loved. They watched film reels of his memories. Looked at photos. Outside the room, he said there were others doing the same thing in their own rooms. And he wandered through this place—hardwood floors, stained glass windows, flower gardens, a pond. It was unlike anything I’d ever heard described.”

He looked down at his hands.

“Then he woke up in the hospital. I asked him what he thought it meant. He only said one word: peaceful.”

A quiet wind moved past them. Dad inhaled the cold air.

“Soon enough,” he added gently, “I might be in a room like that… talking about this moment right here. Or laughing about those post-game talks we had after your baseball games.”

His son swallowed hard.

Dad let out a small laugh. “You know what’s funny? I spent my entire life researching what comes next, and I still have no fucking idea what to expect.”

They both burst out laughing. Full, loud, helpless laughter before falling into a tight embrace.

Another moment, Dad thought, that might show up in the debrief.

Conversation 3: Speech

The remaining children were ushered outside, leaving only the adults gathered in the living room. Dad stood before his children and his older grandchildren, the fire crackling softly behind him.

“You know,” he said with a small laugh, “not many people get to give their own eulogy.”

A few smiles flickered across the room.

“I know this is a tremendously sad moment, but I don’t want it to be. Your last memory of me is going to be this. Right here, right now. Giving a speech before I go upstairs and drink a cocktail from George that I won’t wake up from.”

Silence settled over the room, warm and heavy.

“I want you all to look on the bright side. I was going to lose this battle. When the doctor said it was terminal… What else was I supposed to think? But I’m not going to spend my last minutes lecturing you.”

He then went person to person, speaking briefly but sincerely of his love, admiration, and gratitude for each of them. He didn’t want the little ones inside since they were too young to understand. There were tears. There were long embraces. He asked them not to respond to him; he didn’t want a circle of final words. It would feel unnatural, he said.

When he finished, he lifted his eyes to the second floor. George stood at the top of the stairs, waiting.

Dad took a step toward the staircase, then paused and turned back for one last word.

“I once heard an old saying,” he said. “After life comes death, and after death comes life again. I sure hope that’s true. Whether we meet as family or friends. As cattle or as trees. An Inuit man once told me about his whole previous life after he suffered a heart attack and died for a brief moment. He talked to me about his life as a succulent. He was born to the rain in some western US state and witnessed the development of the American west. He said wagons and travelers passed by his spot on the trail. He did nothing but be a succulent. His life came to an end when someone picked it up. I asked him what he made of it before he got brought back to life by his son and he said that theirs is more to life then what we see. He then told me that same quote I said to you; after life comes death, and after death comes life again. I hope to see you all there in the next life.”

He gave them a gentle smile; one of acceptance, and not fear. He began his climb up the stairs.

In his mind, it was the perfect last day.