Imaginary

by Mary W. Matthews

Created on: September 11, 2010   Last Updated: September 12, 2010

Wings, white robes, harps, and haloes? Definitely imaginary; the creation of popular culture over many centuries. Usually invisible overseers who have nothing better to do than watch over you and protect you from danger (IF they feel like it)? Almost certainly imaginary. Messengers from God, the original meaning of the word in the Hebrew Scriptures? Perhaps.

My younger sister died of brain cancer at the age of 23, after two surgeries and close to a year of helpless anxiety for my family. It was one of those particularly nasty cancers that has dozens or hundreds of little spider-leg outgrowths; it would be impossible for the most brilliant surgeon alive to have removed every “spider-leg.” Katy’s first surgery was the day after Thanksgiving, and the surgeon removed a mass from her brain roughly the size of his meaty fist. By the next April, her cancer had grown back completely. The second operation would be her final operation, we were told. I presume that a third operation would have left Katy as brainless as poor Terri Schiavo turned out in the end to be.

Katy’s cancer was in the right frontal quadrant of her brain, an area that governs imagination, decision-making, and short-term memory. On the Halloween after her second surgery, Katy had a massive seizure that left her bedridden for the rest of her life and completely destroyed her short-term memory, along with a good-sized chunk of her long-term memory. You could tell her the same joke 50 times in a row, and Katy would laugh just as hard each time – never having heard the joke before.

Family members took Katy’s care in shifts. Katy's husband, Scott, took the night shift; Mom took the day shift; and I covered the late afternoon and evening. (Luckily, at the time I was working as director of publications for some bleeding-heart lawyers, and their compassionate hearts bled for me too.)

Three days before she died, I was sitting with Katy when she suddenly stopped talking to me and started talking to someone invisible who was standing behind me, a little to my right. Do you remember the scene in the movie "Poltergeist" where the little girl spoke to the “TV people”? It was like that: Katy was conversing with this invisible being and answering questions. I have no doubt in my mind that what was invisible to me and inaudible was objectively real to Katy.

A moment later, Katy turned to me. “Someone came in,” she said matter-of-factly.

“I noticed that,” I said cautiously.

“They told me I’m going home soon.”

My heart stood still. “Do you want to?”

“No, not yet.”

“Well, then don’t go until you’re ready.”

And then Katy forgot the conversation completely, and we talked about other things.

Did Katy see an angel? It would be simplicity itself for a skeptic to dismiss this conversation as the outgrowth of a damaged brain, just a hallucination as what was left of Katy's brain recognized its own impending death. After all, by this time, Katy was missing roughly half her brain, and what remained was riddled with cancer. Later that day, I boasted to Katy’s husband that Katy had asked me to marry her, and I had said “Yes.” (Scott smiled and said, “Good.”)

And if Katy DID see an angel, the angel came more for MY benefit than for my sister’s. Katy forgot the encounter within seconds; whereas for me it has been more than 25 years. I doubt that I will ever forget it.

It comforts me to think that there is a dimension that humans cannot ordinarily perceive, a dimension inhabited by beings who take an interest in humanity’s spiritual welfare and who wish us well.  I don’t believe in “angelology,” or TV series like "Touched by an Angel" or "Amazing Grace," or any more of the elaborate mythology of angels celebrated by popular culture in today’s world. But I’m not willing to dismiss the idea of angels outright, as nothing more than a myth that evolved to comfort people’s fear of death.

It could very well be that Katy DID see an angel, that a spiritual being came to her with a message from God: “Death is nothing to fear. You’re going home soon.” I usually choose to believe so.

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