Three Days in Heaven

Bev kept a vigil over my lifeless body for hours. Her sister Lucinda picked the kids up, and the medical team leaves the ICU, where they moved me after my stint in the ER. Though it isn’t protocol to place a corpse in ICU, somehow Bev convinced the staff to put me there and skip the trip to the morgue, at least for now. It isn’t because she didn’t want to let me go, it’s just she has this weird feeling about my “current state.”

When Bev arrives, they still have me draped from head to toe. Bev comes to my side, lowers the sheet and exposes my face. She has seen all the evidence anyone would need to determine my apparent lack of life, but something is bugging her. Bev just stares at me, hoping for any sign of life. She holds my hand and begs me to wake up. Most of us have heard about the five stages of grief. As it suggests, came in stages; hers comes all at once.

Right about then is when she starts losing it.

“Tony, now you listen to me. If this is some sick, and I mean a very sick, practical joke, you best snap out of it right now! I mean it, Tony!”

Now I can be as fun as the next guy when it comes to a prank, but even by my standards, this would be way over the top. I’m giving her the benefit of the doubt because, like I mentioned, she’s losing it, but, in this case, has fully lost it. Bev isn’t overly aggressive, and she gently shakes me.

“Wake up, Tony! Sweetie, please!”

Fully weeping, she kisses my cold lips, then rests her head on my chest. She raises her head slightly enough to look at my closed eyes.

“Please, Tony, talk to me! Don’t do this to me!”

She begins to stroke my hair and with tears rolling down her face, quietly whispers, “What am I supposed to do?”

I’ve had my fair share of profound grief, like when my sister died. It’s the kind of gut-wrenching pain and sadness that your body aches, followed by endless buckets of tears. Her sorrow is so overwhelming; any grief I ever had paled in comparison to hers. She sits on a chair, exhausted and emotionally drained, then continues to sob. After all she has been through, falls asleep.

It’s about midnight when her cell phone beeps and wakes her, indicating a message. Awakened and startled, she glances at the message ID, but no name, just “unknown sender.” She ignores it and falls back to sleep. Moments later, another beep and the same ID. Again, she ignores the call but remembers she turned the ringer off earlier at the hospital’s request. She peeks at her phone again, this time turning it completely off.

It has been over twelve hours since I arrived at the hospital. Bev is sound asleep on a chair beside me. An aide comes in the room, and in a gentle tone, wakes her.

“Mrs. Stanford, we need to move your husband.”

Bev wipes away the crud piling up from her eyes, yawns and gives a big stretch.

“Mrs. Stanford, your kids have been trying to reach you. They said your phone is turned off.”

“I’ll call them in a minute. I want to spend some time with my husband.”

The aide leaves the room. Bev comes over to me, still stretched out on a gurney.

“Well, Tony, I guess this is it. You really pissed me off this time!”

She collapses on my chest, more sobbing and grabs my hand… and it grabs back— hard, or so she believes.

In shock, she releases it and screams at the top of her lungs, “Nurse! Anyone! Come here!”

The head nurse and the attending physician hurry to the room.

“What is it, Mrs. Stanford?”

Pointing to me with a shaking hand, she says, “I grabbed his hand, and he squeezed mine back.”

The doctor rushes over to me and checks for a pulse, then pulls his stethoscope from around his neck to listen for a heartbeat. With the earpieces of the stethoscope still in place, the doctor sadly shakes his head. He removes the stethoscope from his ears and places it back to its resting place.

“Mrs. Stanford, it might have been what we call an electrochemical reaction. There isn’t any sign of life I can detect. I’m sorry.”

“Well, I’m not as convinced. I saw it with my own two eyes and felt it too. Don’t you two dare touch him until I say so! Do you understand me?” she exclaimed.

They both nodded a fearful yes.

“I’m going to see Kent.”

It’s a little early for Kent to be at work, so before she goes upstairs to the admin offices, she stops at the coffee shop. Bev is still rattled by what she went through with the hand squeezing event a few minutes ago. A latte is what she needs to calm down and try to make sense of what happened, or what she believed happened. She was shaking like a leaf, then takes a sip of her latte... spilling a few hot drops on her slacks. She glances at the clock above the counter and knows Kent should be arriving soon. Before heading to his office, Bev remembers to call the boys. She digs through her purse, grabs the phone, turns it on, scans the missed calls and messages. Curiously absent are the “sender unknown” messages received earlier.

“It must have been my imagination,” she says aloud.

She goes to her contact list and phones Cindy, our babysitter. (Blain, our oldest, objects to the “babysitter” terminology, after all, he is practically an adult. He’s twelve.)

“Hi, Cindy, it’s me. How are the boys?”

“They’re alright under the circumstances. They still don’t know Tony is, well you know…”

“Cindy, do me a favor and let’s keep it that way until I see them. Let the boys know I’ll be home a little later.”

“You got it. Take care, honey. If you need anything, and I mean anything, give me a shout.”

“Thanks, Cindy, take care of my babies. Talk to you soon.”

She hangs up and takes another sip of her latte. Bev checks her phone again and notices an overlooked unread message. She casually scrolls through her messages them until she reaches it, and is reluctant, but decides to open it, then almost faints as she reads the message:

Don’t let them do anything to the body. All is not what it seems.

She turns the phone off again and couldn’t believe how someone could be so cruel. Even Tony’s idiot friends have some amount of class and wouldn’t stoop this low.

The phone vibrates with another message.

Again, saying aloud, “I’m losing my damn mind!”

It is obvious the phone is off, but it still displays another unread message. Nervously she opens the message.

Bev, please, for God’s sake, don’t let them do anything to me.

Only this one has a name at the bottom of the message: Tony.

She glances at the phone, shaking it as if it were human.

“Whoever this is, you are relentless!”

Whatever sorrow Bev had, is turning into anger. She gulps down the rest of her latte and throws the empty in the wastebasket, then storms to an awaiting elevator and punches the button to the administration floor. On the way up to the eighth floor, she takes another peek at the message, lets out an angry gasp, then slams the phone shut. The elevator reaches the top floor. Bev bulldozes through the administration office door and marches past the receptionist.

“Mrs. Stanford, Mr. Stengle just got here and hasn’t had his first cup of coffee. Please wait and take a seat. I’ll buzz him and let him know you are here.”

Ignoring the request, Bev almost busts down the door. She’s been pretty hard on doors today.

“Kent, I need to talk to you right now!”

Kent says to the party on the other end of the line he’ll call them back.

“What is it, Bev?”

She steps over to his desk and hands him the phone.

“Do you know anything about this?”

He fidgets with the phone.

“I know you are upset Bev. What’s the problem with the phone?”

She taps the phone, “Look at the messages!”

“The phone is turned off, Bev.”

“Oh no, it is not!”

But it is. Bev grabs it away from Carl and turns it on and hands it back.

“Now look.”

He scrolls through her messages.

“There’s nothing here but a few messages from Cindy and your kids. What am I looking for?”

“Give me that thing.”

She takes the phone from Kent and looks again.

As Bev continues to scroll through them, then says, “I got a message from him.”

“Him? Him, who?”

To save herself from any more embarrassment, she doesn’t answer because he is right; the messages are gone. She explains that someone is playing tricks with her.

“Bev, you’re under a lot of stress right now. I’m going to call, Paul. I’ll have him prescribe something for you to relax.”

Kent reaches for the desk phone, and then she interrupts him.

“I don’t need to relax.”

She sits down on his sofa and holds her head in her hands.

“I’m losing my mind, Kent. I can’t believe this is happening.”

She stands up and grabs his shoulders with both hands, begging him.

“Kent, please do what you can do.”

“Do what, Bev?”

“Don’t send him to the morgue. Do not let those ghouls near my husband until I say so!”

Frustrated, Kent throws his arms in the air.

“Bev, you’re asking me to do something I don’t know how to do. This is a first.”

Bev takes a few steps toward the door, then turns to him.

“Kent, we’ve been friends for a long time—figure it out.”

As soon as she leaves his office, Kent gets a message on his phone.

It reads: Help her. Thanks, Tony

He puts his phone away and sits back in his chair, not sure what to do with the message.

Curiously, Kent comes to my room, stands beside my bed, then asks, “What’s going on Tony?”

From my bedside, he makes a call to the medical chief of staff, Dr. Paul Kline and orders him to do something. Kent asks him to put me back on a respirator, do anything, then adding that the Stanford family have been huge donors for a long time.

“We at least owe them that much. All I want to do is buy some time until I can straighten this out.”

“Straighten what out, Kent?”

“It’s a long story. I’ll fill you in later. Just help me out.”

Paul tells Kent he’ll send me to a spare room for as long as he can, and at least hook me up to something to keep me from stinking up the place.

“Kent, the guys down in the morgue get a little antsy when we leave bodies lying around too long. You’d think they were on commission.”

After a brief silence, Kent says, “Paul, I’m with Tony right now, and I must say, he looks like he’s only asleep, and—”

Paul is quick to interrupt.

“And not breathing or a pulse! Kent, I’m sorry, but around here we call that dead!”

“Speaking of that, Tony has been in whatever state he’s in, for what, about fourteen hours or so, and…”

“And what?”

“I’m not a doctor, but something curious is going on, —or, in this case, not going on.”

Irritated, Dr. Kline asks, “What? What’s going on Kent?”

“The attending physician said he is still limp as a noodle, no evidence of rigor mortis, and his eyes are fixed and not dilated.”

Paul has composed himself, which also includes a perplexed expression.

“That is curious. I can’t promise anything. I’ll do what I can.”

“Thanks, Paul.”

Paul orders they put me back on a respirator and heart monitor, not that either one is of any use. The heart monitor still shows a flat line, and the sound is turned off. My only sign of life is the artificial rising and sinking of my chest with each cycle of the respirator.

Word spreads quickly about the “undead, dead man,” and my room becomes the place to be for professors and other doctors. Not seeking board approval, Dr. Kline takes it on his own to keep me around for a while, and to help cover his derriere, he decides this is a once-in-a-lifetime teaching opportunity for a group of lucky interns, and a small gathering of them assembles. Dr. Kline scrutinizes the group and decides on a target: a senior resident. Paul rips the name-tag from his lab coat and reads it before addressing him. Paul maneuvers the tag back and forth so he can adjust his eyesight.

“So,”— then squinting at the name— “Dr. Bengla, what do you believe we have here?”

The resident scans the chart, listens to my chest with his stethoscope and prods around for a pulse.

“It could be bradycardia.”

This is an entirely plausible diagnosis. The condition of a heartbeat is so slow, it is nearly undetectable and has caused a few misdiagnoses in the past. Some of those poor souls woke up in the morgue; this, however, is not the case.

“You mean to tell me that you graduated from medical school?” Paul asks.

“Yes, sir. With honors from Harvard Med.”

These pompous asses never say Harvard Medical School. The extra energy it would take to complete the name of the school is too much of a waste of time for them.

“This patient no more has bradycardia than a cold! Better dig deeper than that, pal!”

Paul snatches the chart from him in exchange for his name-tag. He turns to one of the other interns and slams the chart on his chest.

This time, Paul doesn’t bother to read his tag and condescendingly asks, “Well, doctor, what are your thoughts?”

The young doctor follows the same procedure as the first. He looks over the chart, listens for a heartbeat, followed with more pulse prodding. Paul crosses his arms and again questions him.

“Well? I’m waiting.”

He does another quick assessment, then faces Paul.

“This patient does not have a heartbeat or any respiration.”

He takes a deep breath; then a confident intern says, “In my opinion, Dr. Kline, I’d say he’s dead.”

Paul uncrosses his arms then smugly and slowly claps his hands in approval. The senior resident clips his name-tag back on his lab coat lapel. Embarrassed and frustrated, Dr. Bengla leaves the room for tea.

Bev visits me again where they have been storing me. She is still not convinced the messages she received weren’t part of an elaborate hoax. Her first suspect was the administrator Tony fired. But deep inside she hopes they are real and makes every effort to hold on to that hope until the bitter end. She is trying to come to terms with my death, but still not prepared to let me go—at least not yet. Bev hasn’t told the kids anything. She wanted to wait until the right time—a moment of time fast approaching.

The hospital board picked up on the charade that has been going on. The decision is made to unplug and send me off to the morgue, putting an end to this once and for all. A nurse comes in the room to disconnect the respirator. Bev is still with me and will not give up without a fight. She pleads with the nurse to let her spend the last few moments alone with me before the attendant arrives.

The nurse replies, “Mrs. Stanford, I’m only doing my job. I could get fired.”

Kent stops by a few moments later to comfort Bev and politely says to the nurse, “Margie, why don’t you take a break, I’ll handle this.”

Suddenly, the heart monitor shows a brief sign of life. What had been a constant flat-line, now shows a faint indication something is going on; not much, but something. This would have been noticed by those in the room if it weren’t for the fact the sound is turned off. The attendant comes in and turns off the monitor without looking at it. The only sound heard was the click of the switch. Unnoticed by the four of them, a small tear was flowing down my face. They finally move me, and Kent followed them the whole way like a protective pit-bull; my wife was not far behind. When they arrive at the morgue, Kent instructs them not to touch me until further notice.