Editor’s note: This issue of the Memphis Flyer is dedicated to Hailey Thomas, a member of our work family who passed away last week. We welcome you to read this week’s Last Word to get a glimpse of the beautiful mark she left on us.
A week or so ago, I had the most vivid dream. I stopped in my favorite bar and my friend Kristin greeted me, smiling ear to ear as if I’d just walked in on a funny conversation. “I didn’t know you worked here now!” I said, pleasantly surprised but perplexed. “I do! Come give me a hug,” she said as she whipped around the counter. Kristin passed away in March 2020, and although it felt as real as the last time I saw her, I knew it was a dream. And I stayed in it as long as I could to admire the way her eyes lit and lips curled when she laughed, to feel the warmth of her embrace. I like to think this was her way of sending a sweet hello, a gentle reminder that she lives on … somewhere. Reaching through to the other side.
When I was a kid, I developed a deep curiosity about death. From my earliest experience of loss — around the age of 5 — I couldn’t help but wonder where the departed went. They existed, they lived full lives, and then they were just … gone. I thought a lot about growing up, and how grown-ups always died. I decided I didn’t really want to be one.
As a teen, I desperately sought to prove that death wasn’t the end. I went “ghost hunting” with friends, in graveyards or “haunted” spaces, with audio recorders and several cameras — digital and film, black-and-white and color, with flash and without. We needed to cover all the bases. At some point, I messed around with Ouija boards and attempted seances. Was that unidentified blob in the photo an “orb”? What was that indecipherable whisper I heard on the tape playback? Did a summoned spirit blow out that candle?
Later, I read about quantum physics and the possibility of alternate realities and timelines. I studied various religions and beliefs on death across cultures. Eventually, I stopped looking for proof. A fruitless effort, really — too much to wrap one’s head around. I liked the way my thoughts went when I considered the law of conservation of energy: Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, only converted from one form of energy to another. I am not a physicist, and whether or not this can be appropriately applied to life and death doesn’t matter much to me. It’s the idea of it. Because I have seen and felt the energy of everyone I’ve ever met. The imprints left in places, in minds, and on hearts. The deceased have lived and because of this, they live on. Their energy hasn’t been destroyed but transferred, transformed into a thing less tangible than physical existence, just outside of our three-dimensional view.
We can still feel them in dreams, in sunsets, in songs, in special places that held special moments. A butterfly in flight, a falling leaf, a soft breeze, the sound of rain on the roof, the smell of cookies baking. In remembering their smile lines, the times you laughed together until your cheeks hurt, the long talks and road trips and late nights.
Maybe death is just a door. To reincarnation, to heaven, to infinity, the unknown. And we’ll all gather again when it’s our time to step through.
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Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which 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 that we 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 an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just round the corner. All is well. Nothing is hurt; 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! — Henry Scott Holland
