Sara had been battling throat cancer for several years -- indeed since 1996 -- and passed away on December 13th, 2003.. I, like most in my position, had wholly "ignored the signs" and believed that she would get well. She had, after all, fought off cancer three times before in her 52 years of life. It was her last week that confirmed the existence of Heaven for me beyond all doubt.

First, let me describe her condition. She had what I always referred to as a "Shark Bite" on her throat. It was the only way that I could describe the wound, half of her throat being eaten away. On the day after Thanksgiving, she had a bad fall in our kitchen which hastened her condition to the point where she laid basically bedridden on the hospital bed that Hospice Home Care provided for in our living room.

During that final week, I had three dreams. Two were of Sara appearing to me as if young, but still possessing her "wound". She appeared "outside" in a field with what I would call bright sunlight all around, as if we were in a park, complete with flowers and butterflies. I could not make out her face -- this seems to be a reoccurring theme as I shall discuss later -- but I knew it was her because of The Wound. The third dream was one in which a "doctor" appeared to me in a white "lab coat". Although I could not make out his face, I did know that he had pitch black hair which was very short.

This "doctor" told me that Sara would be dead in a week. When I awoke, she was lying on her bed watching television as normal and I dismissed it as merely a routine nightmare. Three days later, she was dead. I now realize that a dying person can voyage into and out of Heaven. This is where things really got unnerving.

Sara laid in a coma from Friday night until her death at approximately 7:25 P.M. (Central) on Saturday. During her final hours, Sara's mouth had been moving rapidly underneath her lips as if she was eating or talking to someone. Sara was physically unable to move her mouth because of the damage done to her muscles by the cancer. Not to mention, up until that point, Sara was unable to close her lips at all for several months, which makes the fact that they were closed equally interesting.

For two and a half years she was unable to take in food or subsistence orally, and for over a year was unable to talk since placement of her tracheotomy tube. Yet, here she was, moving her jaws as if she was without the disease.

The other major event of that night is the one that really scared me. I had been sitting on the floor in front of her bed watching video tapes of Sara and me with a woman that I had hired to care for Sara while I was at work. All of a sudden, in what was probably mere seconds but seemed to last for hours, I experienced every emotion that I had ever witnessed in my life, in such intensity that I cannot even begin to explain. Fear, anger, frustration, hatred, anxiety, -- you name it!

I turned around and immediately noticed that Sara had passed. Calmness flowed over me like a soothing river. I realized that I had experienced Sara's death without even had seen her die. Five minutes before, she was still alive, though in a coma. I believe that I had felt the "evil part" associated with every human being ripped away from her so that she could enter Heaven direct.

Three days later, I had another dream. One of the last things that I did for Sara was place a damp blue washcloth on her forehead. She had requested it because of a mild fever. In my dream, Sara was in the bathroom near the sink. I "knew" that it was her even though the washcloth -- the same blue one -- was covering her face completely. She told me that she just wanted to hug me and once we had, the brief dream disappeared.

I've had numerous dreams before and since, but none so "realistic" as these four. But Sara wasn't done with me. Her son came down from Michigan on that Sunday and helped take care of matters. When he and his wife departed, they left behind a stack of files two feet high on my coffee table. Underneath the stack -- unknown to me -- was a small notebook tthat Sara used to communicate with her nurses, etc. When I grabbed the stack exposing the notebook, the only words that were written on it were "Thank You!"

Now Sara was a miser. She wrote so many words on one page that sometimes a person had a hard time reading what had just been written. This page was free and clear except for those words. I know that Sara had written them long before, but I believe that she "arranged things" so that I would find the little book as I had.

I am Catholic, but Sara was a Baptist. I do know however, that she is in Heaven much as we Catholics believe without having had to go through Purgatory. I say this with much reservation because I know that she had gone through hell in her life -- four bouts with cancer, an ex-husband and ex-boyfriend that tried to kill her, breaking her spine at age 13, and struck by lightning! -- events of such severity that even one episode would surely doom a mere mortal like us. It leads me to wonder of what price is Heaven? Surely one cannot enter merely by saying "Praise be the Lord!" For all of her suffering, Sara still remained concerned about others literally right up to the moment that she entered into a coma.

If you're still not convinced regarding the reality of Heaven, consider what happened to me as a child, and reflect upon the foregoing story:

When about nine or ten years old, I had a severe fever and was burning up with a 104 degree temperature. I had a dream that I was "rising up" as if on a spiral staircase, floating away from a crowd of people below. The higher I ascended, the more everything became cloudy as if in a white fog. It wasn't bright, just foggy. At the top, I leaned over something like a railing and marveled at the masses below. A man in white, with long brown hair and beard, with "no discernable face" stood next to me. I was, if I recall correctly, physically unable to turn my head and look at him. He told me basically that "It wasn't time." and I immediately started back down the "steps". The fog lifted as I drew near the people and upon reaching their location, I immediately woke to find that my fever had broken. I now believe that I had "died" that night, for at that age, I knew hardly anything about what Heaven was like.