Chapter Thirty Eight: Coral makes a sudden detour to my sister Deborah's house

Coral stood up as though she was ready to go to my sister Deana's house when she said she had an urgent feeling we must go at once to my sister Deborah's house, which was in Utah, far away from the exotic city of San Francisco.  I was so alarmed by her purposeful change of plans I went along without saying anything.  Besides a trip to Coral was nothing but a hop, skip, and a jump so I knew she thought we could always go back to Deana's later.
Finally I said, "What is wrong with Deborah?"
The only thing I could think of that would cause Coral to make this determined side journey was Deborah was in imminent danger of dying.
"Deborah is not dying," said Coral, "but she could if she doesn't change her ways."
"Do you think we are going to be able to get her to change?" I said doubtfully.  "Besides Deborah is practically perfect.  She has done so little wrong in her life it makes me tired to think about it."
"Those are the kind who can die when they least expect it," said Coral.  "Because they don't look after their own needs well enough."
I knew that Deborah's husband had been having many medical problems lately.  Yes, they could put Deborah in danger, too, I was aware.  Her health was rather fragile too, although you would not have known from the amount of work she managed to get done, of all sorts. It was always dangerous to be a caretaker.  I had been one myself for my former companion before Terrance and nearly lost my life as a result.  I just was not expecting a long painful siege of cancer especially when dear heart refused to go to the doctor and did not know that was what he had.  But he assured me that he had lived in pain all his life and this was no different.  He finally started agreeing to make doctor appointments, but before he would go he would cancel.  As a result he did not know he had cancer until just days before he died.
He appeared to be as shocked as I was that the hospital suggested he sign up for hospice immediately.  He refused, but he had no more got home than another terrible pain hit him late at night and he told me to call hospice he was finally ready to accept the fact that he was dying.
Could Deborah be that close to death without realizing it?
"No, no," said Coral, reading my mind.  "I have just found out if I feel an urgency to see a sister I better do it.  I better get there and do a hands on intervention."
I was very curious about the wording Coral was using.  A spirit doing a hands on intervention?  Is that what Coral had been doing all these years.
 As soon as we walked into Deborah's Coral with a determined look in her eyes took Deborah by the arm and sat her down in a chair.  "Now you rest!" she said firmly.
"Deborah doesn't know she is tired any more," Coral told me, "so when she goes to extremes I have learned to just walk in and sit her down.  She seems to get my message. Sometimes she will even sigh and say, I didn't know I was so tired."
I was quite fascinated by how Coral helped her sisters in a crisis.  "Otherwise she will work til she drops," Coral went on.  "Some people just don't know when to quit!"
 I figured Deborah must have gotten too tired with all her Thanksgiving activities with her family.  I thought it was really quite admirable of Coral to rush to her side clear from San Francisco to sit her down in a chair, but if Deborah was receiving this intervention from a spirit, she must have felt delightfully soothed and rejuvenated after a few hours. 
Coral then went straight out the door. "Some people just have too much git up and go," she said.  "Now I am ready to go back to San Francisco.  Are you?"
This was a new side of Coral I had never seen before, the healer.  But it seemed very effective, as before we left I peeked in and Deborah was sleeping peacefully in her chair.
Coral said, "I must have given you a start, but I did not want Deborah to get into any serious trouble. She's got a ways to go helping Marv through his ordeals.  She might even have a few ordeals of her own before she is ready to join us on the other side."
In a few minutes we were back in San Francisco ready to visit our sister Deana once again.  I was almost disoriented, Coral flew across the country so fast.  All she had to do is think of a place and almost instantaneously she was there.  It took her longer to help me get there along with her, as my thinking was not lightning fast like hers.  But I laughed to think about how fast I had been able to travel when I thought Deborah was in danger.

Chapter Thirty Seven: Having another informative conversation with my sister Coral about how we function in the hereafter

I hated to take Coral away from her important work with the children she was helping to raise just to ask her a bunch of questions, but I was very often stumped about how to exist in my spirit form, light as a feather, but feeling rather insubstantial as a result.
"You will get used to feeling light all the time," said Coral, "and you will soon see it as a great advantage in getting around.  Oooh, when I think of having to transport that  heavy body to San Francisco where we are going, I shudder."
We had already arrived in San Francisco and were waiting in a park for a good time to intrude into the family festivities.  "I like to find myself in this park," said Coral, "after I arrive in San Francisco to visit Deana.  It is one of my favorite places next to the Farmer's market on the bay.  Deana and Lianna always take people to the Farmer's Market which is why I am so familiar with it."
"Don't you get hungry when you see so much wonderful fruits and vegetables for sale?"
"Not a bit," said Coral.  "That isn't me. Remember I grew up raising those fruits and vegetables, and I was mighty glad I didn't have to weed any more and bottle all our produce, but I watched my sisters from afar many times working their fingers to the bone."
"I just can't imagine an existence yet where you don't live to eat!"
"Well, it isn't necessary.  We have learned that we actually generate and transfer energy to each other to keep ourselves going.  Communication is the nourishment in the hereafter, but that is a hard lesson to learn, and many more would die from lack of it that will live if they think they are kept alive by something like food."
I tried to wrap my mind around the explanation that Coral was giving me about how the spirit was sustained without any visible signs of nourishment.  Coral ought to know so I tried to believe her.
"You mean," I said, "that the love the family gives each other is what keeps people alive, not the fresh food and vegetables?"
"The food and vegetables are an expression of the love, so that is why they sustain.  Look how hard our parents had to work, at first, to raise a garden, until the daughters were old enough to help plant and weed."
"Yes," I said.  "I get that, but it is the leaving out the food that I am having trouble with."
"Keep in mind that you discarded your body.  Your body was what really thrived on the food as lessons were being taught about what was even more important, the love that was passing back and forth between family members."
"I always knew it was important to love and support family," I said, "and I must say that is a hard lesson to learn.  This is the first time I have been back to see a sister since I arrived to the other side, because I either fought with them or their husbands didn't like me. I think my sister Deana will be able to receive me because she has no hostile husband and is happy since she moved to San Francisco to be around her daughter and her grandchildren.  Her daughter's husband is not even very hostile to her or to me."
I added, "I think you and I should go together to pay visits to our sisters from the hereafter.  I am sure you have had your relationship with each one of them, so you will be of great help getting me started in a hereafter to earth association."
"Yes, because they are getting older and apt to join us at any given moment.  Deborah is busy working on your novel about the hereafter.  I must say I found your ideas about the hereafter in that novel absolutely hilarious.  It is a little different than you imagined isn't it?"
"Well, yes.  I can't get used to being so well weightless.  Maybe because I was too heavy for years.  I certainly hope that discomfort will end.  I can't help but feel I am missing something.  That I am not all here."
"You aren't," said Coral, breaking into her characteristic peals of laughter.  "A good deal of you is missing." She patted me.  "Don't worry.  Other fatties complain of feeling too light.  They hardly believe they are there, which is understandable considering they did not feel substantial enough in life, so kept gaining weight to be more visible.  It is a strange phenomenon."
"Coral, really?  You think I gained weight to have more substance?"
"Yes, you did not feel that you were regarded as having enough to you.  You disappointed people with your paltry achievements.  I didn't think that, but they did.  I thought you were doing extremely well considering the odds you were facing, but you always ate when you felt defensive."
"I know I did," I acknowledged. "Even I knew that.  It was kind of an instinctive and primitive way to prove they were wrong."
"Deana is doing quite well with her weight.  Romina and Marsha are still thin, but we can't imagine at what cost.  We will have to go visit them to find out.  Deborah has done fairly well, because she had to lose weight or die.  Having developed severe diabetes."
"I hope she has a few years with her grandchildren before she passes.  They will miss her she is such a hands on grandma.  I was never able to be hands on when I got older. But I did not expect to spend so much time back on earth chasing around to make sure my kids and grandkids are okay and are surviving my passing all right."
"It's time for us to go visit Deana," said Coral, getting up.  "I think Santos has visited with her a few hours now, and we should be able to come in without intruding.  Deana is so alert she will probably pick up our presence.  That will be good so she can tell Santos.  Santos needs to start recognizing your signal so he can receive messages from you without actually having to be in the same realms.  You have established very good contact with your son Jerome and daughter Vivienne, but you will have to work more on Rafe and Santos to get them 'online' so to speak."  Coral laughed heartily at her own small joke, "Especially since your son Santos is such a raving caving skeptic.  It's going to be hard for him to believe in the current you, but maybe communicating with you will appeal to his sense of humor, and that will help."
"I would never have gotten through to Jerome without his barking dog," I said. "But Vivienne can pick up my presence in her dreams. She must have inherited the dream gene like Deana did."
"I preferred the direct communication I was able to have with you due to your years of writing spirit dialogues.  In order to make sure I got my message through to Deana in a dream, I was forced to listen to a great many of her dreams.  I was finally convinced she could get my message, after she learned to interpret her own dreams better.  It is no wonder people don't believe in a hereafter when the communication is so shaky.  But people learn by doing."
"I hate to think the fate of the world is going to depend on how well I can get through to my kids, Jerome, Vivienne, Rafe, and Santos in spirit form who need to get my message that life is eternal."
"It is very important just to convey that simple message, we live.  If the people in the world can really believe we survive death, maybe they will be more careful about dispatching great numbers to the hereafter including their own precious children who will survive death just like the rest of us have."
"There really isn't anything made up about this existence," I observed. "I am now here and must make do with being a wraith. But I still seemed to function about as well as I used to.  My thoughts have somehow arrived with me intact without a body to help me express them.  That is the real miracle.  People on earth are convinced we need the miraculous brain in order to live, think, breathe, remember and so on."
"We do while we are there," said Coral, "but at the moment of passing, the spirit essence unhooks from what can be now be seen as an arbitrary way of existing.  In the lighter more economical spirit form, there is a great deal less tortured maintenance."
"I always wondered how, for example, a person could get their memory back after their inherited brain condition blocked it out."
"It is like a block is removed leaving the spirit essence which retains the memory in a more advanced way than you can possibly imagine.  But the body becomes totally impaired in many of its parts before death.  The advanced Alzheimer condition will not change until death, but once the body with the blocked brain cells falls away memory is restored. It sometimes takes a while for a person who died with Alzheimer's to believe that, but eventually they trust and have faith again, and then they experience a miraculous restoring of memory.  They are so grateful, it is a sight to see.  It is like they received a gift from God."
"Hmm," I said, "Thank goodness, I did not experience such severe memory loss before death, but I am sure Paul did.  Alzheimer's runs in his family.  I wonder if his memory has been restored."
"As much of it as he wants," said Coral cautiously.  "Come now, it is time to visit Deana, Santos, and Liana and the kids and her husband, whoever is in San Francisco we love and cherish!"

Chapter Thirty Six: Walking down the road looking for a new adventure in the hereafter

I had discovered you kind of had to manufacture your own fun in the hereafter by not doing anything that you had heard preached would be required once you entered heaven.  I was able to avoid Mormon heaven successfully.  I was sure I knew what that would consist of.  Some good Mormon preaching was all that would be required by good Mormons to be happy and feel like they had found the 'right' place, but I had always been bored in church, so that kind of heaven was not my cup of tea.
I had checked on my kids who were all alive and well, but I was alarmed because up on Facebook my oldest great grandson, Tristam, was asking for prayers on his behalf.  I immediately extended some prayers for him, because I figured no good looking fifteen year old ever asked for prayers unless he was really in need.  There were a lot of ways a teen could get in big trouble.  I did not dare think about my other wild teen grandson, Santee, who was just sixteen.  I hoped he would survive the four day holidays also.  His mother was probably not going to get him until the Christmas holiday, as he was quite far away and she would have to save up the money to go bring him home, as his father, my youngest son, Santos, was not working and would not be able to help her financially.
Santos' back injury required he quit his job to a big hotel where he had to do too much lifting to move heavy equipment into the area for big shows the conventions staged.  Santos did not want to completely wreck his back, so hard times or not, he took the termination from his job rather than electing to keep on lifting until he was a complete physical wreck.  I just hoped Santos would still be able to eat by Christmas.  He seemed to be hoarding his little reserve of cash pretty well.  Santos always had been able to live on practically nothing before he would resort to a boring job.  He also did not want a back breaking job either, it seemed, which I thought might lead to hardship now, but not like a worse injury would.

Thinking of Santos I found myself in the old mansion where he was living rent free and saw that he was also talking on his cell phone to the guy that owned the place, a movie maker originally from India.  Santos was finalizing plans to go somewhere with him the next day in the same vicinity in San Francisco where his Aunt Deana lived, my youngest sister.  Santos had decided to accompany Lev who would drop him off coming and going to a business meeting with some of the people who had engaged him to make a documentary.  This was a good opportunity for Santos to explore any possibilities of earning more than just his room and utilities, working for Lev.  He had gone to film school, but he was having a hard time making a living at it, for sure.
I wished I could drop in on Santos' son, my grandson Santee, as he was called, but I didn't really know how to find him.  I would have to try to overhear news about him as Santos talked to people on his cell phone.
I wondered if I ought not to hop in the car when Santos and his landlord Lev were riding north, but I was afraid Santos might think I was snooping even if he did not know about it.  I was still not comfortable listening in on conversations I knew I would never have been privy to when I was alive.  I would have to feel the need to be more of a detective before I could be a dedicated eavesdropper.
I decided to get to Deana's on my own and I would be there when Santos dropped in and could get in on a few of the laughs and good times.  It would be good for Santos to see his aunt and his cousin, her daughter, Lianna.  They had always got along well.  Her son, Eric, a few years younger, was Santos best pal while they were growing up.  They were like brothers.
I had sensed that Santos was going to catch a break, and hearing he had a chance to take a trip with Lev, I was sure this was an opportunity.  It would be a good time to impress Lev with his need for something to keep body and soul together and maybe fulfill a little bit of his dream to be a movie maker.  But Lev knew lots and lots of desperately poor people in India I was sure, so he was not going to go out of his way help spoiled young Americans, but he must have liked Santos and Eric or he wouldn't still be friends with them.  They had a small history of interaction, and Eric was good at never letting a connection die.  He was always renewing and refreshing his ties to people who might come in handy in the movie making business.
Becoming a movie maker was a very tough goal as Eric and Santos had long since found out.
Yes, next was a trip to San Francisco.  I was determined! I had never gone that far away alone as a spirit.  I didn't know but what I ought to ask Coral to go with me, as Deana was her sister, too, and she had surely been to visit her in the 69 years since she had passed.  Deana had been only two or three years old when Coral left us.
Deana's symbol for Coral in her dreams was a butterfly.  I thought that was lovely.  She had spent so many years as a spirit, you might say she led a truly butterfly existence.  What was Deanna's symbol for me?  I had forgotten.  I know her own was an elephant, and my sister Deborah's symbol was a swan.  Romina's was a deer.  I couldn't remember Marsha's. Maybe I was a lioness since I had been born in July.  I just could not think what I was. I needed to find out as I would probably be appearing as that animal in Deana's dreams right about now.  She had probably already picked up my portending visit to her fair city. 
Oh, I could hardly wait.  Coral and I could have such a good time in San Francisco!  Just following Deana around was a trip. Maybe we could even get in on the revolution Deana was always talking about!

Chapter Thirty Five: I return to Daughter Vivienne's on Thanksgiving

The Thanksgiving holiday rolled around before I knew it, and I woke up that morning determined I must mix and mingle with Vivienne and her guests to make sure she was all right.  I soon learned that she and Jerome had not been able to get on the same page and were once again spending the holiday apart although in the same town.  But Vivienne seemed to have adjusted as she was fairly cheerful while cooking her turkey.  It would be her first Thanksgiving holiday without me, visible that is, although she must have suspected that I was there in spirit.
Her lemon tree was loaded with lemons.  Her dog's eyes followed her every move as usual when she was home.  He was getting old.  I was afraid she would miss him when he died more than she did me, she was so attached to him. Her son Earl was playing scrabble on his I-pod.  I hoped he was thinking of me as he practiced as I had tried to get all my grandsons interested in scrabble so I would have somebody to play with but he was the only one who had taken any interest in it.  We had a few games before I passed on, too few in my estimation, but scrabble did not excite the children compared to video games. It just wasn't violent enough.  But I had taken to playing it all the time in my old age in order to rest my eyes from computer work.
I was worried about whether Jerome had gotten too depressed during the holidays, and decided I had better go check on him, too. Rafe had gone out of town to have Thanksgiving with his girlfriend's parents.  Rafe had always deferred to girlfriends and wives when it came to holidays.  I was used to that, so sometimes a year might go by before I laid eyes on Rafe even though we lived in the same town.  He only called on special occasions like my birthday and maybe Christmas.  Sometimes I never even heard from him at Christmas, but that was when he would be breaking up with a wife or girlfriend and was extra depressed.
I roamed around Vivienne's a little while, making sure she was now in a good mood with the end of the Thanksgiving festivities in sight.  Cooking a turkey was extra stressful for her as she followed recipes and tried to make everything come out cooked at the same time.  I saw that her mother-in-law somehow turned off the fancy oven after she put in the rolls.  It was a while before Vivienne noticed, so when everything was ready to serve the rolls weren't done which stressed Vivienne, but she was very good and did not snap at her mother-in-law.  I knew better than even get near her kitchen when I was alive for fear I would mess things up.
Finally the rolls got done properly when they were half way through the meal. Vivienne's older son, Jefe, was home from college.  He was a dear boy, who had such a lovely temperament it was hard for him to cause trouble at all.  He always found jobs and earned money to help with his expenses.  He was determined to run up as little student debt as possible.  His girlfriend was simply lovely.  She was a college girl, too.

I could see Jerome talking on the phone when I got to his place.  He looked animated and happy which was a big relief.  I had hoped he would not take his estrangement from Vivienne too hard my first year missing from the scene, but maybe he reasoned that since I wasn't there, maybe they ought to celebrate holidays apart, since they had always clashed on something or other while trying to celebrate together.
I did not know quite why myself.  Maybe Vivienne and Jerome were too much a like or too different.  Take your pick. I happened to look out at Rafe's pool and saw a man sitting at a table by the pool.  I wondered idly who it was and then was shocked to see with a second look that it was Paul, Jerome's and Rafe's father from the spirit world!
The first thing I thought of was whether Jerome's dog had seen him, too.  I wondered how I could find out since she was lying beside Jerome so she could touch him now and then and make sure he was okay as he talked on the phone.  If he got upset it was her job to lick his hand and comfort him from whatever blow he had received over the phone.
I decided while he was still talking I would just go on out and say hello to Paul.
"I wondered when I was going to see you," I said as I went through the door.  Paul looked up and smiled.  He seemed fairly glad to see me.  Or at least he wasn't hostile.
"I thought I would drop by and see how Jerome was making it through the holiday.  They have always been hard for him," he said.
"It looks like he is going to be all right now," I said cautiously.  "How are you, Paul?  They are still looking for your bones.  I wish you could tell them where they are so they could give up this six year search."
"Don't worry," said Paul, "When the seven years is up,  they are going to have to notify the government.  The gravy train will stop. My bank account will drop to zero."
"Good thing there is a cut off point when there is a missing body," I said.  "Although Jerome does not expect to see any of the money that should have accumulated but has probably been spent."
"That's what you get when you have kids with two wives," said Paul.  "I have told Maylene she should love her brothers, but she couldn't seem to do it, and she is afraid of Jerome when he loses his temper."
"My daughter by my second husband and Jerome clash, too.  You see Jerome spent Thanksgiving alone because Vivienne did not want him to arrive late.  That's not how she does things."
"I knew he was alone," said Paul.  "I tried to stay alive as long as I could, but I took a wrong turn and never could find my way home again."
This seemed to be his idea of a joke, so I said nothing, as I did not think it was all that funny.
Just then Jerome opened the door and came out and his dog Jilly immediately spotted me and barked!  She might have been barking at Paul, too, as I am sure he was just as visible to her seeing eyes as I was.
"Mom?  Are you here?" said Jerome, peering around. "Have you come back to check on Sonny?  I am all right."
I felt uncomfortable with him not sensing his dad was there, too, although I had gotten tired of him feeling so haunted by his dad when he was doing that show about him all over the country.  But his dad had been gone longer than I had, I was sure, and he seemed used to being ignored.  He didn't act like it bothered him.
"His dog has taken to seeing me," I said.  "That's how Jerome knows I am here. I am sure he can see you, too."
Paul looked interested at that bit of information.  "Is that right?  Trust Jerome to find a dog who can see spirits, considering who his mother is."
Jilly laid down by Jerome and put her nose on his foot. She seemed resigned to spirits surrounding Jerome and made no further protests.
"Mom," said Jerome, "I know you are here because of Jilly's bark.  I know her barks.  She just as well have said, your mom is here, Jerome. I have felt Dad around all day.  He doesn't want me to be lonely on Thanksgiving either."
Paul perked up.  I thought he was even tearing up, he seemed so moved by the fact that Jerome had sensed his presence.
"I hope you and Dad stay friends in the hereafter just as you were here," said Jerome. "I would appreciate it if you would try to find out where he lay down and died, so we can get this long ordeal over with."
Paul laughed, but shook his head.  "How in the hell does he think you can tell him, if me and all my relatives have not been able to get across to him where my remains are?  It's not easy for a spirit to tell those left behind something they need to know.  He will just have to move on.  How long can you keep looking for bones anyway?"
Paul sounded exasperated enough that I did not think it would be wise for me to try to find out anything today.  I was just going to settle for seeing him.  I told Paul that I was going to leave to go check on some more relatives maybe.
Paul didn't say anything.  He just sat there, so I figured he would stick around Rafe's place now, maybe even for a few days.  That way he could see Rafe, too, when he came back.  I was sure Rafe had to go back to work on Monday.
I went out through the fence and down the road, wondering what other great adventure was going to befall me now in the hereafter.

Chapter Thirty Four: I decide to leave Terrance in Rehab for a while before disturbing him

I decided not to go hunting for Terrance after all because he was probably getting settled among the alcoholics who had not rejected eternal life and was just finding what that was all about.  I did not want to interrupt anything.  Now I started to run down my check list to see if I ought to be somewhere else.  Was anyone in the family, sick or in trouble or even dying?
I wanted to ask Coral what was being done for molested children as I thought a whole lot of troubles on earth started with this happening to a child.  I was pretty sure this had been my dad's fate when he was too young to do anything about it.  Molested children was such a difficult issue on earth people had not followed up on very many studies about what happened to them when they grew up.  I was sure they would discover that a certain percentage of them may have turned molester themselves and some might continue these activities in spite of how they got started, after they married and had a family and tried to live 'normal' lives.
Many molested children simply did not tell anybody, so were not on in any public record of having been molested.
Coral said that of course children murdered in sexual assaults were some of the most heart breaking cases their benefactors had to help try to recover from such horrors.  So she knew all about that branch of the Children's Paradise.
I told Coral I wanted to try to establish a connection in the hereafter to some of the people arriving there who had been molested as children as I had been.  I had attempted to connect to other victims on earth, but did not quite know how to go about it in the hereafter.  I said, you need something like an Internet here like we have on earth and Coral burst into peals of laughter.
We have something better than your Internet, she told me, and we can always use it, too, if we need to.  She told me they were just leaving me alone to get comfortable upon passing.  She had not realized I wanted to connect to more people.
I was really quite mystified at this point about how the hereafter worked.  "What country do you belong to?" I asked Coral.  "Who is your president?"
Coral again burst into peals of laughter.  "Excuse me for laughing at you," she said, "but I always get a kick out of all the misconceptions people have about how the hereafter is supposed to work.  We don't have a president, and we are not divided up into countries.  We just serve as needed."
This did not tell me a whole lot.  Coral read my mind and said, "Do you want to go visit President Obama?"
"No!" I said startled.  "I doubt if he would pay any attention to me but how about visiting former President Kennedy?"
"You got it," said Coral, snapping her fingers.  "I would love to take you to a conference with President Kennedy.  He has assured us if someone arrives from earth that we think has done a good job alerting people to danger, he will see them immediately if we contact him."
Coral acted like she could hardly wait and soon had me hurrying off as fast as I could go for this historic meeting!  As soon as we arrived she told someone that she wanted to see John Kennedy, the former president of the United States , as one of her relatives had arrived she thought he needed to meet.
John Kennedy himself soon came striding out to talk to us.  He shook hands with Coral and Coral introduced me!  Yes, I found myself shaking hands with John Kennedy a lot sooner than I expected to, I can tell you that.
"First of all," I found myself saying quite boldly, "James Dean, the movie actor who was killed before you passed came from the hereafter about two months before your assassination and told me 'someone in governmental circles in his forties with a theatrical personality is going to die'."
"That describes me pretty well," said John Kennedy.
"The fact that Jimmy brought the message threw me off.  I kept thinking it was going to be an important person in the movie business who was very political.  I just could not imagine that the assassination of a president was going to take place."
"I lived dangerously," said Kennedy.
"I am James Dean's age, younger than you are," I said. I was born in 1931."
"Were you a democrat?  Did you vote for me?"
"Yes, despite the fact that I was disturbed by some aspects of your personality. I have read many books about you since.  I could not help myself.  Like many Americans, I studied you in depth, trying to understand what happened, as we were all so affected by the assassination."
"I could not believe it was happening to me either," said Kennedy. "But in retrospect I could see why my character, my excesses, played a part in my destiny."
"I was asking my sister Coral, how are you governed here?"
"Naturally I play a role in the hereafter just as I did there as many people want to see me.  They want to know what my take is on my relatively few years in office.  They want to know what I would have done differently, and so on. But I no longer feel I belong to any country since here we are working more for the good of mankind.  Whoever suffers on the earth affects the well being and good health of all the others. I know that might sound a little extreme, but since nuclear weapons even a dictator of a small country could conceivably destroy the earth as we know it with a nuclear attack so to my mind people have to think what is good for all more than they used to.  People who come to the hereafter are disappointed because I no longer talk like a politician perpetually running for office."
"I would be disappointed if you did.  I always wondered what you would have done when the abortion issue came along.  Your brother Teddy abandoned the Catholic position on abortion and supported pro choice.  I saw him once when a political meeting was held in the old Le Grand Hotel ballroom. He was trying to help Kerry get elected to office.  I came specifically to ask him about the abortion issue, but of course nobody was allowed to talk to him.  The loyal democrats surrounding him saw to that.  My being a registered democrat made no difference.  This was a very disappointing meeting to me.  Nobody said anything thoughtful.'
"That's the trouble with the democrats going so strongly with a pro choice democratic platform.  They just as well have knocked out all the Catholic supporters, which is one reason I think they have struggled ever since.  You can't fight the good that religions do, regardless of the fact that they also do bad.
As a matter of fact the Kennedy brothers have had some of their most heated debates among themselves since Teddy joined us on this side on the issue of abortion.  It is a most troublesome issue for the Kennedy brothers especially who were raised Catholic. So this is the kind of discussion you would have initiated with my brother Teddy?  I am going to tell him that I just spoke in the hereafter to a woman who wanted to debate the abortion issue with him on the campaign trail.  I take it you were a pro life activist?"
"As much as I could be.  I took it upon myself to write protest letters to my newspaper in particular, the Arizona Republic, which went liberal in a big way and printed many many columns supporting abortion, telling women how to accept it, how not to feel guilty, which has become known among pro life activists as a 'liberal bias'. I connected up to pro life Catholic activists toward the end of my life who reactivated a lot of protesting to abortion clinics trying to 'save one baby at a time'".
"Oh yes," said Kennedy, "I told Bobby look at how the media is going pro choice.  This is fooling the democrats into thinking that the country is going pro choice, but instead many of the people abandoned their newspapers which had become too liberal for them to accept on the subject of abortion."
"I say that the divisiveness that has developed is as much the fault of the liberals as it is of the conservatives or more because with the embrace of the abortion solution endorsing the violence of bloodshed, the liberals lost a lot of ground they had gained in being for civil rights for all minorities and so on. I could see big trouble down the road coming for the democratic party, and now it is here."
"I agree with you!" said Kennedy.  "I could not have said it better.  Thank you, for bringing your sister to meet me," he said, turning to Coral.  "I, who was turned out of office, by the fatal shedding of my blood, as was my brother taken out before he could ever run, we would know why a solution involving blood shed is not the right answer."
I felt that I should go, that my visit to former President Kennedy was as fruitful as it was possible at this time.  I was the one who was weary from being granted the privilege of meeting him.  I needed to go off and digest his words, and reflect how easy it had been to get in to see him, where on earth it would have been next to impossible to meet a president or even a former one and say to him what I had just said to former President Kennedy, as it had been impossible to say a truthful honest word about what I thought to Teddy Kennedy, campaigning for John Kerry in the very complex where I lived. The democratic faithful were there to protect him from the slightest strain and to get their pictures taken with one of the Kennedys.
I still did not know a whole lot more about the Hereafter now that I had talked to him, but I did know that all things were possible, it seemed, and that what you thought was a lot more important here than it was regarded on earth.  Which was very encouraging.  Coral seemed very happy, too, with our meeting.  Oh my God, what an experience!  I needed to digest this meeting before I made my next move!

Chapter Thirty Three: Coral and I go back to check on Terrance in the Camp of the Resisters

I asked Coral to go back with me to the grim and frightening Camp of the Resisters to check on Terrance again, my companion for seven years up until a year before I passed.  Once again I was frightened by the bank looks on the faces of the Resisters.  I looked directly into the eyes or tried to of as many as I could until we came to the spot where we had last seen Terrance.  To my surprise and fear Terrance was no where to be found.  Had he managed to destroy himself completely resisting the gift of eternal life?  But Coral shouted, "Hooray!" which somewhat reassured me.  "Seeing you brought him out of his profound state of depression," she said.  "I am sure of it.  He has probably gone to the Alcoholics Hereafter. That's a step up from here." 
"They have a hereafter for alcoholics?" I asked.
"Of course," said Coral.  "They have got a hereafter for every kind of person. People create havens with the kind of people they feel comfortable with who might prove helpful in their struggle to accept the awesome burden of eternal life." 
I knew that Terrance would have turned down eternal life if he could.  He associated it with religion and anything connected to religion he was bound to reject.  But the religious always tried to take the credit for there even being eternal life.
"Life itself is eternal," said Coral, as usual reading my mind.  She had developed this wonderful gift to the point she could really startle me.  "Life came first and then came religion."
"Hmm," I said.  I didn't quite know what line to take with Coral as she seemed intensely devoted to the cause of the children in Paradise. Did that constitute religious in the hereafter or had the religious ruined their reputation in heaven with screwy ideas mixed with belief which had cause a lot of trouble on earth? 
"I want to ask you right now, Coral," I said.  "Does Jesus really exist?  Have you seen him?"
"Of course, he exists," said Coral. "But we all get so tired of people complaining that Jesus has not shown himself as they were led to expect he would when they got to this place."
"Well, I know," I said.  "I think people are a little unrealistic in their expectations of what Jesus could do, like he was a magician who could be all things to all people."
"Make no mistake," said Coral, "Some of the masters have developed great powers. But nobody has as great a power as the Christians think Jesus does."
"I got tired of arguing with Terrance about religion.  His contempt for the religious knew no bounds.  I thought he went overboard in his rebellion. He used it for an excuse to drink.  The religious drove him to drink, make no mistake."
"I know,' said Coral, matter of factly.  "I suppose you will have to argue with him again if you should happen to want to look him up, but since he is off the booze, progress might be quicker."
"Oh, yes," I said brightening at the very thought. "I am so glad there is no alcohol or no money in the hereafter.  That ought to facilitate change as nothing else could."
"You will find as time goes by people still find ways to indulge themselves using tricks of the mind.  That's what the Resisters are doing.  They take pleasure flouting the religious by refusing eternal life."
"I believe that is exactly what Terrance would do.  He did not indicate to me even by a flicker of an eyelash he recognized me.  I wasn't sure he did.  That is the stuff of nightmares.  For Terrance really did have a brilliant mind, at one time, that is."
"A lot of the Resisters do," said Coral.  "Which is why they frighten people.  Now is there any place else you want to go in your attempt to run Terrance down?"
"Could I find him in the Hereafter for Alcoholics if that is where he is?  I would like to pursue this matter to some kind of better conclusion.  I don't think I can rest easy until I have found him.  I want to know for sure that he has gone to a better place."
"Oh people sometimes jump around here like Paddy's fleas," said Coral.  I was surprised to hear her use an old metaphor my mother used to say to us when we were kids. "You have seen them.  Some are not satisfied until they have found the hell they think they deserve, but they usually don't spend too much time there before they are ready to climb right back out.  I have seen people absolutely determined they were going to find the Lake of Fire so they could jump in it."
"No rehab for them, huh?" I asked.  "They just wanted to burn?"
"It's another way of destroying yourself completely, burning in Hell's Fires.  That sounds easier to a lot of sinners than repenting and trying to change themselves."
"Do you think Daddy tried to lose himself in Hell?"
"Oh, probably," said Coral, "And then he decided to go to the Alcoholics' Hereafter for rehab. I think that is where he has spent most of his time since he passed.  He may have spent some time with the Gay Men in their paradise, but he doesn't feel entirely comfortable there, so he goes back and forth."
"Oh, then you did know all about Daddy?"
"I told you I was always seeing him, and Mother, too.  After all, they were the only parents I had, so I was glad to be reunited with them.  I found the children they lost, so I was happy to introduce them to their parents, too."
"I will never get used to all the people who have been saved in the hereafter," I said.
"Oh, if you add up all the people you know who have died, you will know there has been a passle come here during your life time.  If one is saved all are saved.  Life does not pick and choose."
"It just takes some getting used to.  I recall Mother mourning over miscarrying her twins.  She used to say that she sinned, which was the reason she lost the only boys she ever conceived."
"She was talking about the one she secretly aborted, whose name is Rose."
"I suppose there are doctors and nurses here who specialize in saving the babies who miscarry or are killed in an abortion."
"Yes, they are very skilled."
"But why would people be so sure that these babies would not survive death?"
"People who come to believe in abortion generally don't believe there is eternal life or that anyone survives death."
"Then it would seem that taking that life would be even more brutal, since they do not believe there is any other."
"I am not sure what they are thinking," said Coral, "or even if they are thinking really.  There are plenty of signs of spirit life if people train their eyes to see.  The spirits manifest as much as they can.  It is the nature of the escape hatch that death provides when there is too much pain that makes it difficult to perceive life after death.  If spirits were seen too easily, passing from this realm would not be an escape.  Spirit life has to be somewhat hidden to protect those who have been tortured to death.  When the tormented finally die of their pain, they know they are 'safe.'  Their tormenter can no longer 'see' them in order to torture them further."
"Do the tormenters sometimes try to track down their former victims so they can try to hurt them more?"
"Oh yes, but it is more difficult for them to torture their victims here after they have passed, too.  They may still have evil in their hearts but they don't have the kind of power they did on earth.  You will see."
"I could listen to you all day, Coral.  There is so much I need to know about this existence."
"There is plenty of time for you to learn," said Coral, "After all, you have forever!"  

Chapter Thirty Two: I go find the old mansion in California where my youngest son, Santos, is staying

With a little help from Coral, after all, I made it to California and found my way to the old mansion where Santos was holed up trying to make a little money to eat on, since his room and utilities were paid for by his presence.  It was his benefactor's idea that he could keep his property from being vandalized, but his idea of how he could make a little money on the side had not materialized into anything concrete, so what money Santos had taken with him was melting away every day paying for his living expenses.  After all, he did have to eat.  He could not live on air as I did, being a wraith. 
I followed Santos around part of one day.  He did not do much except take a long walk.  He seemed pretty down, naturally.  He was working a little on his novel, and his cousin was coming once a week to take him out to a movie or something.  His cousin had urged him to come down, so he probably felt guilty because Santos' money was running out with nothing to show for it.  He still had his phone turned on and was talking to his son every day or so.  He would go up on Facebook and say a word or two here and there.
Santos had always been a man of fewer words than Jerome or his sister Vivienne.  He and my oldest son Rafe were more alike in that regard.  Maybe they were like my dad who was a man of few words except when he got mad and then he could cuss for three days. I was surprised that Santos had managed to write nearly a full length novel.  I noticed he was still getting it out and working on it, so all was not lost.
Santos was a war veteran having served seven years in the navy.  I hoped he would apply to a war veteran's association for help if he got too poor.  Jobs just were not plentiful.  Less plentiful than I had ever know them to be, except possibly during the great depression.  I was barely born then, so it did not affect me as later periods of hard times did.
I had not been able to do anything during this last period of hard times except offer my kids some money when they ran clear out.  I lived in the old El Grande Hotel government housing complex so they could not move in with me.  Santos had stayed with me a while once and so had Rafe back when he was out of work once, only that was to another government housing project where we lived when Vivienne and Santos were still kids.
Now I did not want them to move in with me at all!  Ha.  No, I did not want Santos or any of the rest of my kids to get so discouraged they gave up on life.  I didn't think Santos would.  He was not the suicidal type.  He was not an alcoholic as far as I knew.  He never drank in high school at all.  He was very clean living because he was into sports.  He could not play basketball if he got into trouble with substance abuse.
Santos learned to drink pretty well in the navy but since he had not got as early a start on alcohol abuse as Rafe and Jerome, he did not seem to be an alcoholic to me.  I would rather have said he was addicted to video games and a cards called 'Magic' which I never understood. He was teaching his son, young Santos, to do the same.
Now of course he could not afford to drink at all.  Maybe that was one good thing about his impecunious state.  He had never smoked.  Since Santos had grown up with me as his mother after I had run out of my inheritance entirely we had lived in about as complete poverty as it is possible to be in. We survived on food stamps and welfare and government housing.  I was not able to get government disability until Santos was a senior.
Relatives bought him his sneakers to play ball.  The only thing he complained about was the style of the shirts he had to wear, bought from the thrift store.  They were not fashionable and up to date and he was sure they would be recognized as second hand, but other than that he said little.
Although on one occasion I remember him getting mad and tipping all our own furniture upside down saying it all belonged in the dump.  He even said, 'Why do you have to be so god damned poor?"  Otherwise he was a good sport and made do with two old TVs that passed for one.  He had to hit one of them to make the sound go on, but Santos knew just how hard to hit it.  The other one provided the picture.
The furniture was terrible.  In California people gave me couches so at one time I had a living room with four couches in it, one by every wall.  But in Phoenix for some reason nobody ever gave me any couches even though the couch was so bad it needed to go to the dump all right.  People were afraid of my neighborhood so they would not visit.  So did not see this terrible old couch.  We had to make do with it for thirteen years.  Mother did give me her platform rocker when she left town once.  She also let me borrow her big colored TV set for a while when she left for a few months.
Unfortunately, a gang of thieves in the neighborhood saw it on through the window and watched my comings and goings.  One night when I went to the grocery store not even a block a way, they broke Santos' bedroom window, stepped in, and wrapped it in one of my good quilts and took it out the front door.
Santos came home before I got back and found the door open and the TV gone, so after he cursed a blue streak, he got out the broken down TVs again so he wouldn't have to go without.  We hardly had enough money to eat on, let alone buy another TV set.  Mother was angry because I let hers get stolen.  I should never have turned it on without shutting the blinds and keeping it on the wall to the street, where it was less apt to be seen by thieves scouting apartments for something to break in and steal.
Vivienne kept getting jobs in high school so she could buy a prom dress and so on, but Santos wanted to play varsity basketball so he could not spare the time for a part time job.  He was afraid he would not make the team if he did not practice all the hours the black coach recommended.  He being white, he was sure he would be cut if he did anything as time consuming as take a part time job.  He never did get one until he took a class that provided one during school hours when he was a senior.
Vivienne bought a prom dress that cost a $100.  I thought that was a little high for a poor girl, but if it made her happy I wasn't going to tell her she could not afford it.  She earned the money for it, after all, working to McDonald's on the corner.
Those were the days.  I recalled how I used to sit out jars with what I called tooth paste water in them.  The next morning there would be cockroaches in every one of the jars.  The pesticide guy must have been a crook because he did not ever kill one cock roach.  He claimed they all went back in the walls to die.  That's why we never saw any dead ones due to his spraying every month.
A big hole had already opened up above the shower from the shower above leaking.  The contractor had stinted on the materials and holes were opening up in the floors of all the bathrooms, despite the fact that the complex was only six years old.  They finally had to rebuild mine, the hole got so big, but they were never able to fix the hole above the shower.  It would always open up again.
The sewer pipes did not slant enough and the sewer was always getting stopped up.  If you did not stay alert sewer water would bubble up out of the toilet and go all over the floors.  I kept a big wrench handy and when I heard the gurgles I would run outside and unscrew the lid off a pipe sticking about two feet out of the ground, and the sewer water that was backing up would run out on the lawn, sometimes leaving feces, toilet paper and so on, rotting there for days.  I hated that, but crooked contractors were a way of life with government housing, since they were very apt to get away with charging the government high prices and then substituting poor material, and getting past inspectors.
I got so I would immediately call the plumber they used myself. He could come out with rotor rooter equipment and push the blockage out, so a mess did not come out on my lawn.
This was our home and I hated feces and toilet paper coming out on the lawn anytime.  Nobody said anything about me calling the plumber, but then we did not have a manager half the time, so there was really nobody but me to call the plumber sometimes.  As long as they paid for it, it was okay.
I became used to all the conditions of poverty and Santos had been raised when I was the poorest I had ever been and the most disabled.  I had spent all my inheritance.  Even a hundred thousand dollars was not going to last forever.  I lived on it twelve years with a couple of jobs after it ran out, both of which resulted in bad bouts of chronic fatigue.
I paid for two operations with my inheritance, including a Caesarian for Santos.  I paid for Vivienne's birth. And I bought a new volkswagon.  I never bought any clothes for me, not even thrift store clothes as the thrift stores were not as good as they later became.  I just wore my clothes until they practically became rags.
Being on the way to complete disability is a hard way to go when you are having kids, but we survived.  Santos and Vivienne's dad never contributed a penny for their upbringing.  I think he sent $50 once or maybe it was $80 for a new bike for Santos, and that was it.  Once in a while we saw him and I would be incensed at the new toys he had bought for himself, but I knew it would not pay to try to get any child support out of him.
He regarded these as my children.  I had told him they were mine when he said he was going to hit me in the stomach and kill Santos when I was pregnant with him.  I said oh, you are going to kill Santos and me both.  He said, oh it won't hurt you.  I said, I think if you hit me in the stomach hard enough to kill Santos it will probably half way kill me, too.  I had not heard of that method of killing an unborn child before, or ever had a man threaten to use this method on me.
I naturally told him that he could just leave and this would be my baby.  I would raise him and he could go hang.  So that is what he did, he left and I raised Santos.
I naturally did not trust him too much to have anything to do with the kids, even though he did see them maybe three times after that.  He acted like he just did not care if he ever saw Santos.  He had formed some sort of attachment to Vivienne I thought, naturally, since she was a beautiful little girl, but I think he only saw Santos maybe once when he was a child.  He never saw him play basketball even though he came to town once when he could have done. He was content just to see Vivienne. 
I thought that was all very sad, but Santos was a cheerful kid on the whole.  He did not let all these harsh cold facts of life bother him all that much.  He turned out to be a tough ghetto kid.  Made varsity in his junior year on an almost completely black basketball team with a black coach.  It was a good team and went to state and  won state championships while Santos was going to school there.  Santos was taller than any of my other kids despite his dad being a much shorter squirt.  After his dad lost weight he looked like a little shrimp compared to Santos.
Santos had dreams of playing college basketball and even going to the NBA but his black coach declined to recommend him.  If he had had a white coach he probably would have done, and he probably would have played basketball better with a white coach, but that was the breaks for a white kid after blacks were allowed to enter sports and became the main stays at a lot of big high schools and colleges across the land in basketball and football especially.
Turn about was fair play.  Santos never carried any grudges.  Yeah, he was a pretty unique kid.  I called him my ghetto son.  He was always talking about the 'ghetto' where he had been raised....

Chapter Thirty One: Oldest Son Rafe and GF Jan attend new play

I was able to see my oldest son Rafe and his girlfriend Jan when they attended the play Jerome had been directing which I hoped made both him and the playwright happy.  Every live body counts when it comes to theater. I just wished I had a live body so I would count more.  I had not seen Rafe for a long time and I was very pleased to see him looking handsome and well.  His latest romance definitely agreed with him.  His girlfriend also looked pleased and interested to be there.
Theater always brought our family together.  We had been attending Jerome's plays for years in some theater or another across the land.  He had done shows in Phoenix, Utah, Texas, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, and a family member had always striven to be there wherever he did one.
I took a Grayhound bus to Los Angeles when he did the show about his missing father there.  It was a wonderful trip.  Rafe who had already gone there a couple of days before gave me a ride home in his sports car. When we reached the city of Phoenix where we both lived he pointed out many construction jobs he had worked on in his years in the business.
Rafe had been hard on himself, nearly always working twelve hours a day and drinking on the weekend.  I was afraid he was going to die young after he had a heart attack, but he had been steadily cleaning up his bad habits.  He quit smoking and now from his color when I saw him at the play, I believed that he had cut way down on his drinking.  I hoped so.  I knew he would be a happier man if he gave sobriety a chance.  And might not be joining me in the hereafter for many years to come.  For a time there I greatly feared I might bury him, the worst thing a mother can contemplate. 
I was thinking after I saw Rafe that I would have to find out how to teleport myself to California where I would have to find the old mansion where Santos, my youngest son, was staying.  I was just not sure I was up to whisking myself to California as Coral whisked herself around the country as a spirit.  I just did not believe I had the hang of it.  But maybe if I concentrated I would somehow find myself doing it automatically.  I had always had flying dreams.  Maybe it was somewhat like flying.  I remembered how I would brace myself to take off in my dreams wondering if I could get myself up in the air again.  Miraculously I would take off.  I would be so overjoyed because I had done it again.
Maybe it was as simple as that.  Where oh where was Santos?
I had come to realize that probably most spirits spent three fourths of their time back in the same environment they had left once they got used to being invisible.  That is where they felt the most comfortable and 'at home.'
I was sure that every town had a hereafter with mostly spirits of the hometown folks inhabiting it around and about the relatives they had left struggling on earth.  Every crisis would surely bring them rushing back even if they did leave for a little while.
I was going to have to check on Vivienne again to see if she was making any progress in her struggle to get through the Thanksgiving holiday without a meltdown.  I knew now she was worried about her only full blooded brother Santos in a crisis.  I wanted to remind her that his back injury meant that he had to change jobs whether he wanted to or not, and jobs were scarce in this depressed economy.  Yes, maybe he needed to go back to college as he mentioned to try to get a degree in another profession.  His student debt loan wasn't too high.  He had been paying on it regularly.  Maybe he could arrange to go back, but I feared that he would incur another forty thousand debt load if he became a psychologist which he talked about wanting to be.  Possibly more.  He could be saddled with school debts to his grave.
Many of these former students were so school debt laden they were going to be years paying them off.  Were times worse than they had ever been?  Well, probably so, but I would just have to take heart along with them and struggle with the hard times.
The problem was the country had simply filled up and gotten old.  The whites had come and killed off nineteen million or so of the former inhabitants, the Indians, and things had been good for a while.  Lots of big empty spaces, but now the population had snapped back to higher proportions and the young had lost their taste for holocausts.
Although there was always a holocaust going on.  People desperate to lower the population rates had endorsed legalized abortion, even the liberals who had formerly been 'bleeding hearts' who did not want to kill a fly.  They hated war, but did support the war on the unborn.  Apparently they felt that some brutality was necessary to keep some semblance and order and control of mass breeding without regard to room and ability to support and afford.
I understood that.  The country was getting so shabby.  You could see that, as a country always did when it was overflowing with poor.  Now corporations were taking their companies to foreign places where labor could be as low as a dollar and a half an hour.  Joblessness, as a result was rising all over the US where people had become accustomed to higher wages and demanded them whether the  corporations were making as much profit as they could or not.  The people did not know what they were doing. They were sending corporations right straight to Mexico and other places like India. 
It was going to take them quite a while to decide they would settle for an hour and a half wages as Mexico was doing.  Of course, the products brought back to the US after being made with cheap labor in Mexico and other places might not find as ready buyers, if too many jobs were lost in the US.
I had feared when I was working in a cosmetic factory they would move it to Mexico every time it was time to sign the contract for our wages.  Organizers from back east would come and extort us to strike if necessary, but illegals from Mexico would never strike, and I decided I could not afford to either.  I needed to feel my family.  I knew very well the company could easily cross the border, and we would have no job at all.  As it was we were still getting minimum wage which was as I recall somewhere close to six dollars an hour at the time, which was a lot better than a dollar and a half the company might be able to pay workers in Mexico.
They would barely survive on that, but I was barely surviving in the US on minimum wage, so I did not know how to live on Mexican wages either.
There was so much to think about if you were going to help your kids survive hard times.  I hoped that Santos had found some kind of way to earn some money in California, so at least he wasn't going hungry. Well, I was going to go and find out if he was okay no later than tomorrow.  Even if I had to ask Coral for her assistance in getting there.

Chapter Thirty: Jerome publicizes the new play he directed all he can

Jerome talked about Rafe, my oldest son, and his girlfriend Jan, asking about the play. I wanted to go if Rafe attended just to see his reactions, but I didn't know if Rafe was still going.  I knew he would be if Jerome had anything to do with it. I was also wondering what Santos my youngest son was doing.  He was in California the last I heard trying to see if he could find a job down there.  My grandson, Santos Junior, was down there going to high school, which was Santos's main reason for going.  Santos used the money I left for my funeral and burial expenses to go.  Since I had willed my body to science, there had been about $500 after all expenses were paid for each of my offspring. That was all I had to give them which was quite a pitiful sum considering what my own dad had left me and my other sisters, close to $100,000. 
But when Mother died she only willed her daughters what was left over from quite a lavish $10,000 funeral plan.  I had been so frugal I had not even used up my $1200 before I died even though Mother had been dead for over ten years.  I kept it in a small account with Marsha for emergency dental repairs.  But I had not told any of my kids about it or how much was still left, so they might not ever find out about it, as even Marsha forgot it was there, and had to be reminded every time I tapped into it, which I had not done for four years.
Mother had been so incensed that she had settled for such a small divorce settlement thinking my dad would stay alive for years, she had told us all she was not going to leave us a penny, as we had plainly gotten her share when our dad died only two years after she left him.  I told her that was okay, but that once people got their hands on money left to them in a will, they hardly ever gave any back.  Romina was the kindest and paid for Mother's back operation which I think set her back five or six thousand.
This was a good investment as Mother had somehow managed, working along with her alcoholic second husband, to bring about $300,000 back home after he died and she retired.
They had earned their small fortune in real estate after she divorced Daddy and went to live on the beautiful island of Maui in the Hawaiian Islands.  Our mother dressed in mu mus and looked basically Hawaiian the whole twenty years she was there since she was quite dark.  Her skin was a beautiful olive.  The Hawaiian people took to her and she said she would have stayed there forever if she had not had a stroke and needed her daughters to take care of her.  Deborah had mostly done that.  The rest of us tried to do our share but I was only able to handle her about two weeks before I gave up, and Deana just a little longer than that.
This was during the time when Mother was her worst behaved in her old age.  She was violent and she ran away from us.  She pinched my little grandson I was tending at the time and I heard her in there saying, "You are a very bad little boy and you are going to grow up to be a very bad man!"
I rushed in and told her she was never to say anything like that to my bewildered grandson again, who was actually the nicest little boy imaginable.  I don't know what caused her to say such a thing to him, possibly his dark skin.  It was hard to believe she was prejudiced even though she had lived in Hawaii for twenty years, but she was.
But that was also when Mother either developed stroke damage or Alzheimer's and said funny things that made us laugh about as often as they horrified us.  In fact, I had never laughed at Mother more in her life.  I recall once she was sitting in Deana's house, and I was there visiting her, and she looked around and said, "This is the ugliest house I have ever seen in my life!"  Something about that struck me funny although Deana was not too amused.
She was always trying to send money to George Bush, the first Bush president.  Finally Marsha took her money away from her, and managed to intercept another letter she sent to President Bush.  In it she said, "I can't send you money because my daughters have stolen my bank account, but here is my Chevron gas credit card, so use it all you want."
Oh I could tell you stories all day about the funny things she did.  I think she noticed we were laughing at her in spite of ourselves and so she just out did herself doing more outrageous things.
I thought I had better get prepared to see Mother again now that Daddy had sneaked up on me and taken me by surprise, when I had sent out the word to all relatives to approach me with great caution, making sure they were welcome.  Mother was sure to want to know how Daddy acted since I gathered she and Daddy rarely saw one another.  She had also divorced her second husband before he died, and she had sent her third prospective husband on his way before she ever married him, but it sounded like she was still a favorite with the old codgers who arrived in the hereafter every day.  Mother had always been a flirt.
I had not seen Rafe for quite a long time, but I gave up hearing from Jerome by mid afternoon on Saturday.  He was so busy he had probably forgotten all about asking me to attend the play again.  He was out beating the bushes to get other people in to see the play.  He was even promising a free ticket now to everyone who showed up.  He was just as anxious as the playwright was to have this play seen.  It would not be good if no one attended when they were thinking about starting another theater company featuring new plays.
Oh well, he might call at the last minute and ask me if I was ready to go again.  You could never tell what Jerome might do. 
I decided not to hunt Santos down until after the play closed.  I did hope that Jerome would be able to find an audience for tonight's performance and for the matinee on Sunday.  I would probably haunt the theater any way, as I could not get my mind on anything else.  Coral hadn't seen the play.  Maybe she would want to go.
Maybe I could find other people to attend it from the hereafter.
If Jerome ever produced one of my plays surely Jimmy (James Dean) would go since he had promised me a production of one of my plays in the hereafter.  But I doubted if I could get Jimmy to attend this play.  He probably wouldn't think he had good enough reason.
I tried reading Jerome's mind and got that Friday night's performance garnered nearly a full house!  Oh great.  Well, I didn't think I should be praying for more people.  Perhaps that was inappropriate, but I certainly did wish for good audiences for the remaining two days for Jerome's sake as well as for his friend Chase's....

Twenty Nine: Jerome considers doing one of my plays about a meeting between a space alien and a woman dying of cancer

After the meeting with Daddy I felt better in spite of myself.  I was shaken but we had finally established contact in the hereafter.  I rushed down to see what Jerome was doing.  I wished I could tell him I had finally seen Daddy. He was in conference with his playwright actor friend, Chase.  They were still talking about forming a theater company.  I could feel energy flowing to me from their words even though I was in the hereafter.  I began to understand even more how people transmitted energy to each other through powerful communications.  If Jerome would just do my play on earth about my conflict with Daddy that would be as energizing to me as Jimmy producing it in the hereafter.
I thought about establishing a connection with Jerome, as well as with my daughter Vivienne, that could be perpetuated by him still producing my plays.  I would still have a voice through my plays in his theater company.  Jerome was almost reading my mind as I heard him saying to Chase--"I want to do some of Mom's plays because I think her voice is so modern.  Her plays were not done because she was ahead of her time with her visions and perceptions. And that way she will still be alive to me.  I will not have lost her.  She will still be speaking to me and to other people through her work."
Chase was sympathetic. I didn't think he had heard any of my plays read in the workshop.  He had been in the workshop a little bit but I don't think he was there when Jerome produced my play about living in the ghetto interacting with a schizophrenic with learning disabilities who was married to Santos' former baby sitter, Becky.  I had taken them in until they could get subsidized housing because they had a new baby and I did not want to see them homeless.
Jerome was talking about doing a play of mine I had written about a visit from an alien from outer space called BLUE.  It was a play with the second title of "The Spiritwalkers Convention" about all the characters meeting in their spirit form to honor a sister who was dying of cancer and would soon be in her spirit form in the hereafter.  Theater was a metaphor for the Spiritwalkers Convention.  The characters knew they were in their spirit forms in a play.  BLUE was a character who had auditioned to play the alien.  He comes dressed in a blue alien suit and strange things begin to happen.  A space ship pulsates just outside the windows.  The theater space glows in blue light.  The other actors (spirits) get nervous as the play appears to have called up actual space aliens. Is this actor a real space alien?  And so on.  I thought there were some very provocative ideas explored in this play 
Jerome said he could see great possibilities in staging this play.  It could be very theatrical with the dying sister being revived by energy from the visit from an alien, his space ship now pulsating just outside the theater, monitoring all that is taking place inside as the connection between aliens and spirits is explored.
Perhaps Jerome's close call in the fire that consumed most of his belongings had brought him within shouting distance of his own death.  He would now be thinking of how he, too, was going to have to survive only in his spirit form at some point down the road, just as I was doing.
He had been too young even to think about producing a play like BLUE when I wrote it twenty years ago but now perhaps he had embraced more of the realities of passing from body to spirit.  My spirit would come alive as he staged this play,  more alive to him than I had ever been.  Thus our work could perpetuate our lives in another way.  As long as a play like BLUE could be staged I would not be dead to the world.
I could feel Jerome thinking about his own work and how he could extend the life within his plays with a stronger message.
"I need to revise my play about Dad's death," he said.  "I have come to some new insights in just the last few months.  I know if I did my show about him, I could find him better, where he might be now, I mean.  Going through this fire has helped me to see how helpless he must have felt when he was in the grip of circumstances beyond his control."
"Have they ever found your dad's body?"
"No, they are still testing the DNA to see if that one corpse in California is his. If it is he went far astray from where he was when he started his journey.  They said the corpse was in terrible condition, like this man had lived a very rough life in his last couple of years.  If Dad was still alive then, he was without an identity.  It is painful to think of him wandering the earth not knowing who he was."
"Maybe he did know who he was but didn't want to come home."
"Maybe not, but how could he live without money at all?  He never tapped his bank account.  I tend to hope that he died before he had to suffer starvation and complete amnesia on the hard cruel streets."
"Maybe you will never find his body."
"That's a possibility, too.  We may never be able to find any trace of him."
"Everybody loves a mystery, even a sad one," mused Chase.
I thought about Jerome's father.  He was undoubtedly in the hereafter somewhere, but I had been so consumed with avoiding a meeting with my dad, I had not even considered an encounter with him.  My God, there was so many to see.  I hoped I would not have to work up to meeting all the rest of them as I had to work up to meeting Daddy.  Maybe one of these days I would just run into Paul, too.
I would put the word out.  Maybe Jerome would do the one man show he had created about his father when he went missing--music, pictures, memories.
Paul would surely attend.  We could meet to the theater.
Jerome said, "I think I am going to have to do my show about my missing dad, if I can just get some resolution.  They are going to have to tell me this corpse was either his or it wasn't.  Maybe after I find out the results of that DNA test,  I can resurrect my one man show about him again."

Chapter Twenty Eight: Coral comes to discuss the election results

Coral asked me if I knew what had been going on in Mississippi in regard to abortion. I said well, I had recently been reading about the concept of Personhood and the fact that voters would be given the opportunity to restrict abortion rights completely with the recognition of the fetus as a person from conception.  She said she was disappointed to learn that the measure failed to pass. I told her I  thought the measure had been too extreme, with perhaps too many threatening ideas for voters, including abortion denied for rape or any other reason.  Voters just weren't ready to pass so many restrictions contained in this far reaching piece of legislation.  I said I thought maybe it would be better to try for less.
Coral said well the child would pass to the other side, it just would not be visible in the world for people to see in person.  I said I know it, but it looks like a complete shut out of abortion for any reason is going to be very tough to pass.  I asked her if she remembered that when she was a girl some of the states allowed abortion for rape and incest.  Severe birth defects of course could not be detected then as they were later on. 
"There were comparatively few abortions then," said Coral.  "Far less than there are now.  It looks as though people in the hereafter are going to be involved in major child raising for years to come."
"A better educating job has to be done," I said, "on the existence of a hereafter and the fact that that these children are all surviving."
Coral rolled her eyes.  "And how do you propose we do that?"
"I don't know," I said, "but I am shocked to find myself in such a real place although very different than I expected somehow.  I mean I was just staggered to see all those children.  I am sure if people on earth could be taken on a tour of these facilities they would be ashamed of themselves for passing so many of their children on for others to take care of in spirit form.  It is just not natural!"
"Of course it isn't!" said Coral, "but I don't know how we can educate people. You tell me.  I came through to you as clearly as I could.  I kept telling you you had to keep protesting, keep talking about your spirit contacts and trying to convince people that they do survive death and so will these children however young they are.  People here will help them to grow up, but it is just not natural to spend your childhood in heaven when it should be spent on earth where you were conceived.  Life is designed to last up to eighty years, ideally.  To disrupt life at such a young age as a few weeks after conception is criminal somehow.  It has taxed all the helpers to the max.  But life must go on.  It is designed to be eternal, so the angels are committed to this job.  They have to be angels in order to do it."
"I am sure they taught you to be an angel, too."
"First of all, angels had to take care of me.  I was only nine years old, Shadra, for God's sakes, when I passed.  Mother did not even know I was dying until I was a few minutes short of death, and then it was too late to take me to the doctor!"
"I know.  I have heard about your swift shocking death many times.  It was a family tragedy.  Marsha, Romina, Deborah, and Deanna are still alive.  I have only recently come here to join you after you were over here sixty nine years alone!"
"I wasn't exactly alone.  I had Grandma.  Grandma was very kind to me after she passed, just as she was to you and Marsha and the rest of the girls before."
I looked up just as an older man sat down and joined us.  He looked oddly familiar, and then I did a double take.  It was Daddy!  I wanted to jump up and run.  But I made myself sit calmly.  I tried not to panic. Coral was turned just a little bit, so I poked her.  She turned and saw him.
"Oh, hello, Daddy," she said, calmly.  "How are you?  Did you notice Shadra is here?"
"Yes, I noticed her," said Daddy calmly.  "Hello, Shadra, what is this I hear about you being afraid to see me?  Don't you know that I love my seven daughters equally and my sons."
"What," I said, "What do you mean, Daddy?  I have brothers and another sister?"
"Yes," said Coral, "Didn't you know Mother also aborted one of her children, another girl, and miscarried twin boys. Their names are Eli and Shadrach.  They are in the hereafter."
"Miscarried children you have saved?" I sounded like I was reproaching the hereafter medical teams for saving miscarried children, too.  "I am sorry, I didn't mean to sound disapproving, Coral, but it absolutely boggles the mind to think even miscarried children as well as aborted children are saved here!"
"They were alive before they died!" said Coral.
"I finally got my sons!" said Daddy proudly.  "They are great boys.  They can ride like the wind.  Then there is Rose, one of the most beautiful daughters I could ever ask for.  She is the one your mother aborted in complete secrecy I might add. She did not tell anyone but me, but I told her never again, since she could have lost her life doing such a foolish thing."
I had another sister I did not even know about!  Rose.  I just did not know what to say. 
I was so unsettled over the direction the conversation had taken that I was speechless.  Daddy gave me a pat on my arm.  "I hear you have been to the Children's Paradise where Coral spends most of  her time."
"Yes, I went there.  She also took me to the Camp of the Resisters and told me, Terrance, my last companion is there, still resisting.  I was afraid that is where you were."
"Oh, no," said Daddy, "They are a bunch of crazy fellows, those resisters.  I don't understand them sitting there trying to will themselves into oblivion.  As soon as I found out there was a hereafter, I did not resist much I will tell you.  I am sorry I was such a mean onery fellow in my last years when you were watching over me.  Your mother had just divorced me.  We had quarreled for nearly forty years practically non stop.  I did not know how to do anything else but snarl, but after a few years my natural personality started coming back.  You know how I always liked to party and have fun.  Well, I found out life can be a non stop party if you just learn how to be yourself without any alcohol.  I couldn't get any alcohol here, so I quit all my bad habits and I was a different fellow."
"But Jed said that you were living in the hereafter for gay men."
"Yes, those fellows have taught me how to handle what happened to me as a kid.  I got into that stuff when I drank and tried to act older than my age.  Those older fellows got hold of me and taught me to have sex with them.  I was game.  You do a lot of stuff when you are drinking you might not do in your right mind.  They would ply me with alcohol and I would do almost anything if it felt good.  But I always wanted to be a normal husband and father. I had that in mind and took the opportunity to marry your mother when I could."
"Yes, but from my observation you were still messing around with the fellows."
"Yes, I was," said Daddy stoutly.  "I can't lie about it any more.  I was tempted and I knew your mother would probably never suspect, so I gave in."
Well, this was a brand new daddy, talking in a way I never expected to hear.  But I thought it was the truth, coming out at last.
"I paid for those sins when I found out one of those tempting older fellows took my innocent little five year old daughter into the corn and played around with her, too, because he got mad at me."
"I was afraid to tell you for fear you would try your best to kill him."
"Oh, you got that right.  I wouldn't have rested until I had chased him down and killed him dead as he could be, and I don't think anybody would have blamed me.  I might have served a year or two in the pen, but that would have been it."
"That's why I didn't tell you.  As bad as he was he did not deserve to die for what he did.  I could see I would have to be his judge and jury, and I decided not to tell you and save his miserable life.  But when he started hanging around the Widow Brown with all those kids, I decided I had to tell.  I understand somebody shot him, but did not kill him.'
"I just heard about the shooting.  Nobody told me that he was shot because he was suspected of molesting you after you had told some garbled story about one of the Widow Brown's daughters being molested."
"When it came right down to it, I lied and said the beautiful daughter I thought he was after had already been molested only I said he did everything to her he did to me."
"The shooter heard that story and decided he deserved to be shot if not entirely killed."
"A shot in the leg was better than one in the heart."
"I didn't know I had a little daughter who was capable of trying to save her molester from death."
"And you from being his murderer, don't forget that, Daddy."
"That low down skunk would probably have loved to sit in jail the rest of his life, telling his stories."
"I thought you might be afraid he would tell stories about you and him and that was another reason you would shoot to kill, to shut him up!"
"You thought that!!!" said Daddy, acting very shocked.
"Daddy, people acted like they did not even know men had sex with each other.  That sly old goat might have got a big kick out of telling everyone you and him got it on. He struck me as being just evil enough to do just that."
"Where in the world did a little tiny girl like you get ideas like that?"
"I grew up in a hurry when he laid his hands on my private parts."
"Yeah," said Daddy, acting like he had been struck in the heart with a bullet himself, "I guess you did.  You always were too smart for your own good.  You started winking at the men when you were just a year old.  Men fell in love with you. Grown men.  I knew that was dangerous.  I knew some low life would take advantage of you if you weren't careful."
"You were supposed to be my protector, Daddy."
"I know I was," said Daddy, in a strangled voice.  "Don't you think I didn't know that, me who taught you to love horses, to follow me around out in the corrals, begging me to let you ride."
"I forgave you a long time ago," I said, patting his hand.
"I didn't forgive myself for a very long time," said Daddy, looking down and shaking a little bit like he was trying to control some violent emotions.
"Got to go now, girls," he said, getting to his feet.  "I hope I can talk to you another day without feeling this bad."  And he left as swiftly as he had come.
Coral and I sat there stunned for a few moments.  "Well," said Coral.  "That was Daddy.  Now you know his state of mind, Shadow.  So now maybe you can feel a little bit more comfortable in the hereafter!"

Chapter Twenty Seven: I go to see a new play my son Jerome is directing for an actor friend

After seeing the play she said she helped write, I became even more convinced that my sister Coral had a zany sense of humor despite her years of work in the Children's Paradise taking care of the children gone to the hereafter before their time. The spirits were so light, that what they said and did had to be a great deal lighter in weight than such events would have been on earth.  Our events on earth had been in keeping with our heavy bodies we had to lug about, growing heavier every year.  Now as a spirit I was so lightweight I could hardly get used to myself, considering that I had been too heavy for years. 
Then I thought to go see a new play written by an actor friend that my son Jerome had been directing on earth. I slipped into the theater, accordingly, and spent two hours seeing a rather long winded but compelling piece of work, done earth style. Oh how I wished as I was watching it that I was still back on earth and that Jerome was agreeing to do one of my plays.  Instead I had had to die and go to the hereafter to have any hope of anyone doing another of my plays.  I felt the tears come as I watched in the shadows, Jerome unaware that I was even there, but then I happened to remember that he possessed copies of all my plays.  Maybe one day he would do a production in honor of his playwright mother.
But it just wasn't the same thing, not the same thing at all.  I sat and cried for all I had lost.  No more Jerome in the hereafter to talk about theater with.  He was one place and I was another.  Oh why hadn't we realized that time was of the essence and we had to do whatever we were going to do together, it could not wait.  I wanted Jerome produce my play on earth just as he was producing his friend's play. 
Afterwards I went into the cafe where Jerome and his friend were having coffee, talking about tonight's performance. 
"I was just thinking," I heard Jerome say, "that I wish I had done another one of Mom's play before she died, too.  It is not going to be the same thing doing one without her here to be excited and cheer me on."
"We never know when we are going to lose our mothers," said his friend Chase.  "My mother is still alive but she is getting way up there.  She can't possibly last much longer." 
"I am glad I decided to come back and start a theater company here," said Jerome, "but I just wish I had done it before Mom died.  The next time I see her in a theater will be in heaven."  And he began to cry.  "I am sorry, Chase, but we were so close, I did not realize how close.  She always encouraged me to be an actor, a playwright, a director.  She always thought I could do it." 
Chase patted him gently on the shoulder.  "It is too bad we don't get second chances," he said.
After they were gone I just sat there, too sad to move. I looked up and Jimmy (James Dean) was looking across the room at me.  He walked over and sat down.  "You mustn't let yourself be filled with too many regrets.  You had a good run.  You accomplished a lot in the years you worked with Jerome.  All good times have to come to some kind of end, but you are here now, and I am going to do one of your plays.  You will see.  We will have good times, and it won't be many years until Jerome joins you and you can have a great reunion in heaven." 
"I know," I said.  "I am just thankful that Jerome did not die in the fire that consumed his apartment.  He was lucky, but he has some good years left in him to struggle on this earth.  I knew I had lived out my time.  But I guess you always wish for just one more good time together with those you love."
"Yes, always.  Do you realize how many regrets you have when you die young? You are old.  It was a good time for you to die.  Past eighty.  Come on, you had a hell of a run, Shadow!"
He held out his arms to me and I got up and came into them so  he could give me a hug.  I needed it.  We got up and walked slowly out the door.  I had seen two plays in two days, one in the hereafter and one here.  What next? 

Chapter Twenty Six: Sister Coral takes me to a play about a Republican candidate debate on the subject of legalized abortion

Naturally Cora would be alert to any activity pertaining to legalized abortion on earth.  She had been coming to me for years to encourage me to keep protesting.  When she arrived she asked me if I had heard what Herman Cain said on Meet the Press on his views about abortion.  I apologized for being inattentive to everything that was said about the issue, even though I had been trying to keep track of every single reference to the subject in the press since the campaign activity had begun.  I had even been watching the Jon Stewart show on a regular basis just so I could keep track of what a popular liberal comic was saying about the Republican debates.  Earth's TV was beamed in everywhere.  People in Red River apparently loved Jon Stewart so I was able to see shows like his wherever I went.
It turned out that this Republican candidate debate play that Coral was taking me to was not on earth at all, but in the hereafter.  It was connected to Children's Paradise activities.
She said that a group of pro life activists had become very disappointed for fear the subject would not be debated adequately at all by any candidates on earth, so were staging an imaginary debate play that she knew I would want to see.
As we rushed to the hall connected to the Children's Paradise where the debate play was being staged, Coral talked fast and furious.
"Herman Cain on earth said on national TV that abortion centers were targeting the black population in particular.  Abortion advocates wanted to kill as many black children as possible!  When it was pointed out that many black children were born into terrible conditions.  He said he knew they were but that was better than murder!"
I was shocked at how many people were flowing into the hall and they all seemed to be talking fast and furious as they seated themselves, blacks, Hispanics, whites, Indians.  Coral found a seat for us and just in time.  The curtains opened to reveal a row of candidates in front of their podiums.  Just as in the political debates held on earth there were people in front moderating and asking questions.  I was to understand that this debate was fictional, purely imaginary!  Some of the candidates seemed to resemble people on earth.  Well, I had to be quiet as the play began to unfold.

MODERATOR:  As you know legalized abortion has been a hotly debated issue on earth for a long time, but when the political candidates begin to emerge, sadly the issue is usually shifted to a back burner and no moderator ever brings it up.  We are seeking to change that lack today by having a debate that will address the legalized abortion issue in all its complexities. The candidates here have agreed to debate this issue only in today's presentation.  So let us begin.  Herman Cain, you are one of the few Republican candidates who has gone on National TV to talk about this issue, so to honor you, we are going to give you the first chance to speak.
HERMAN CAIN:  I am not afraid to talk about this issue.  I will talk about it every chance I am given.  Because I believe that with this issue, we have got the opposing party on the ropes.  Which is why we hardly ever get asked about our views on legalized abortion.  Liberal democrats know that the issue of legalized abortion may do them in.
MODERATOR: And why is that?
HERMAN CAIN:  Because there are millions of little souls in heaven who have been sent there by legalized abortion that they can't talk about.  Democrats do not believe in this kind of heaven.  A lot of them, I am sorry to say, do not even believe in God.
MODERATOR: Ann Coulter, could we have your response to Herman Cain.
ANN COULTER:  I am a late comer to the scene.  Why they left me out I don't know.  But after seeing Candidate Michelle Bachman losing it on national TV, I decided I had to make a run.  Nobody may support me, but I am here today because I wanted to have my say about legalized abortion.
MODERATOR:  Good for you, Ann Coulter.  So why don't you think you will get any support?
ANN COULTER:  I am too beautiful and too mean.  I have just said too many mean things and ruined my chances of running for president.  Nobody will support my candidacy.  
MODERATOR:  That is why we invited you, Ann Coulter, as we did not think a debate on legalized abortion by Republican voices would be complete without Ann Coulter.  We are prepared to put up with your meanness for a day if it you have some insights to offer.
ANN COULTER:  Abortion is mean, wouldn't you say?  This is war on the unborn, so it sometimes takes a mean person to deal with that concept adequately.  I have been told by my spirit mentors that heaven is full of millions of the unborn who have been sent to their deaths in legalized abortion. The problem is that not enough people on earth have thought sufficiently about the afterlife to realize that you cannot just kill an unborn child and forget about it.  This unborn child is going to show up in the hereafter, so all the mother has done is shift the problem to the hereafter for other people to take care of and raise.  I would say most people believe that any child who dies young is going to be raised in heaven by the angels or family members who have passed and are trusted enough to do the job.  We have begged mothers who are having a child they don't believe they can take of to just carry it to term and give it up for adoption if nothing else.  Just don't kill it.
MODERATOR: We have taken note that the earth believes that it now houses 7 billion people and don't you think that many already think that that is a few too many?
ANN COULTER:  Do we ever say that the hereafter can't hold all the children that are being sent there?  I would say that legalized abortion has surely caused one of the biggest crises ever experienced in the hereafter with millions of children flowing in from every so called civilized country on earth.  The hereafter has to take care of these children somehow because they can't send them back.  There is no reprieve for these children. So what about overpopulating the hereafter?
(MANY OF THE AUDIENCE LAUGH UPROARIOUSLY AND BEGIN TALKING EXCITEDLY AMONG THEMSELVES)
MAN IN AUDIENCE:  I say that the facilities in the Children's Paradise have become overcrowded, but we are expected to provide for more and more.  Reincarnation has been set back many years because so many hands are needed to take care of all these children already created with no where to go and no one to look after them.  These children are growing up and are in turn being recruited to take care of more children.  They want to do it.  They want to help with the problem any way they can!
ANN COULTER:  I rest my case.  Many of the previous activities in the hereafter have had to be set aside to take care of these children.
(Just then I was utterly shocked to see two women stand up in the audience and when the moderator asked them to identify themselves, this is what they said.)
CORAL: Our names are Coral and Shadra.  We are sisters who have been fighting legalized abortion for forty years, only Shadra, my sister, has been on earth, and I have been in the hereafter working in the Children's Paradise!
(Then a woman representing me spoke.  I looked at Coral, still utterly shocked. She laughed and said, I have been working on this play.  I helped write it)
SHADRA:  I am Coral's sister Shadra.  Coral would not let me rest.  She kept urging me every day to get the word out that legalized abortion was wrong.  She and I formed a partnership, she in the hereafter and I on earth, to work together for this cause.  I have now passed into the hereafter.  Coral took me first thing to see the Children's Paradise where I wept to see literally hundreds of children being cared for by angel helpers. After seeing them I went with my sister Coral back to earth to see if I could find someone to take my place there to work on the cause.
MODERATOR: Did you find anyone? 
SHADRA:  I am trying to recruit my daughter who seems to be a likely possibility.
MODERATOR:  Good.  Now I find that the rest of you Republican candidates have been strangely silent on the subject of legalized abortion. You are very important people, but we find that a very small number are being vocal about the subject of legalized abortion.
ANN COULTER:  I will tackle any subject, however difficult or unpleasant.  That is why I am not running.  Even many Republicans reject me.  They don't think I could possibly win.  I am too mean.
MODERATOR:  If we can't get any of the other candidates to speak on this subject, what does the audience think we should do?  All of these gentlemen and one lady seem very reluctant to express their opinions on this subject. (The candidates look uncomfortable but nobody says anything) Ann Coulter is not even a candidate and it is agreed is very mean and she is the only one besides Herman Cain who seems to have anything to say.
(Audience mumbles things like, 'a shame')
WOMAN IN THE AUDIENCE:  We are all workers and volunteers in the Children's Paradise.  We have plenty to say.  Why don't you turn the time over to us?
MODERATOR:  We did not think we could actually emphasize to you how little the subject is being debated by the Republican candidates unless we got them all up here and then realized they have had next to nothing to say on the subject, and that would include Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Michelle Bachman, Ron Paul, etc. etc.  (Each candidate acknowledges his introduction) As for the lady in the audience, the problem is emanating from the earth, which is why we are trying so hard to get earth people to address it.  They are the only ones who can stop it.  What good does it do if what we say does not penetrate to earth?
WOMAN IN THE AUDIENCE:  We know nothing is penetrating to earth.  I am so disappointed in this play.
MODERATOR:  I am very disappointed in it, too.  I am very disappointed because so few important politicians on earth are willing to speak out loudly and clearly and often on this subject.  We can only hope that things will improve.  You can go home now.
WOMAN IN AUDIENCE:  What!  You have got us all together and now you are a no show.
MODERATOR:  No, the people who are not willing to speak on this subject are a no show.  We have these figures here on stage representing the Republican candidates, but we have asked them to limit what they say strictly to the abortion issue.  As you can see they are mostly all silent on this subject.  They are not eager to address it.  In fact they don't want to address it at all.
WOMAN:  I thought the Republicans were our only hope for some relief.  If they are not going to address the subject, what hope is there in that?
MODERATOR:  Probably not any.  I know you workers are all very disappointed.  I know you were hoping for more, but if the Republican candidates don't address the subject because they think the people don't want to hear about it, we have to acknowledge that fact, too. 
WOMAN:  We just as well go back to taking care of the kids.  And give up on this years' crop of Republican candidates.
MODERATOR:  It is not our fault that the Republicans will not live up to hype and show their pro life strength.  I am very sorry.  I am just as disappointed as you are.....