They set around him in his final hours, crying and holding him. He was a father, a husband, a brother and a friend. Yet at such a young age he lied there breathing slowly, and not making a sound or even seeming to live at all. The elder started to give an impromptu prayer of hope, love and strength. The group could be heard to say an emotional, "Amen," and then suddenly his eyes were open and he turned to his wife and with his last strength he hugged her and said, "I love you," and lied down and breathed in one last time, and then it was over. The room was suddenly in emotional turmoil as the realization that he was gone, with tears shed over the pain of him leaving all too soon, with so much love left to give. The elder stood up, and walked into the other room, trying to be strong and yet a tear could be seen falling down his cheek.
His eyes were open again, and he was now looking down on his own body and his sickness was gone. Like a sudden rush of truth he realized he knew this was not the end, and yet he could do nothing now to change it. He watched as his family cried over his loss, and how emotional his passing had been. Reaching out to comfort them, his touch was not felt. Then a voice could be heard, "They can not see or feel you, that time has passed." He looked to the other side of the room and there was a man he had not seen in over a decade, a man who died of advancing years when he was just a young man. He was puzzled, "I don't understand, why is this happening, why am I not asleep and in nothingness?" The man laughed, "It is always the same with us Witnesses, we all ask the same question and yet we all seem to know the same answer. You know that answer, don't you?" He shock his head, and wanted to much to explain it to his family and bring their faults teaching to there attention. The older man spoke up, "It is no use, they, more then any others will never hear you, feel you or even sense your desire to help them. Through their faith, they have closed any hope of that." The older man then walked from the room, and signaled him to follow. "I don't want to leave, there is so much I need to explain to them and I know it would remove the hurt and help them so much." The older man looked sad, "But that will not be, now come with me."
The younger man followed the man to the next room and soon he realized he was no longer at home and set in a Kingdom Hall next to his childhood self and watched as his family was attending a memorial of his grandmother. He looked around the room and saw faces he knew, and standing next to them were people he did not recognize. They seemed out of place, almost faded and then he realize, they were other ghost or spirits like himself attending meetings and memorials in the Kingdom Hall, even after they died. Why? Why did this happen this way and why was he here to see it. He shock his head in sadness and on his shoulder was a tap that he felt, and he turned, "Hello my special one." It was his grandmother, she was at her own memorial and exactly the way he remembered her. He reached out and hugged her and told her how much he missed her. She paused and stepped back and spoke in a loving tone, "Time means nothing now to you and I, and already you are seeing what is really the truth of our existence. I know it troubles you, as it did me when I passed at this time in your childhood. I wanted so much to tell you, so much to be able to explain the mistakes you were making. Soon, I accepted that I could not and yet this is where we would end up meeting. For that I am sorry, and I wish I had never brought this religion to your mother and on to you." The man hugged her again and told her it was okay, and not her fault. As he held her, and closed his eyes, he opened them again and found he was at his own wedding day.
On the stage was his wife, and him. All so young, and so many years ago. In the audience was the friends he knew of that time, younger, but the faces were the same. He looked on the stage and there by his side was his grandmother smiling and by her, a grandfather who died before he was even born. He looked like him some, only a little shorter and yet those eyes were the same. Then a voice was heard across the room, "Well, look who made it", and he saw his old friend from his teens. He died in a car accident one night, on the way home from the meeting and after that night he decided to straighten up and be a Witness. As a matter of fact, his death was what changed his life forever. They shock hands, but that was not enough, they hugged and smiled. His friend laughed, "I know that look, your troubled and confused." He shock his head, "Well, yes, this all makes no sense." Well, I felt the same way as you, "One moment I am driving down the road thinking about my next talk, and wham I am hit by a truck, felt some pain and next thing you know I am standing in a Kingdom Hall with you and my buddies all sad looking and ignoring me. I was upset with you for awhile, thought I was getting the silent treatment and then suddenly I started asking, how did I get here and someone comes up to you and says I died. Kind of a shock, to say the least." He then paused, "I watched you grow up though, without me, you did your best and raised a good family. You were a good man, and I am glad I knew you when I did." The man set there looking at this younger friend of his and wishing he saw him back then, so that he could have known and done something. Yet he didn't. He started to speak and then suddenly he realized it was not his wedding day anymore, it was his own memorial.
His wife, his daughter and friends all set in the front row of the Kingdom Hall, with sadness in there eyes. He wished he could get them to see him, to know what was happening to them. Instead they set there, shallow, sad, and empty. He could see others around them, in the Kingdom Hall, ones who were alive and those still attending that he remembered dying over the decades and he felt so sad and discouraged at where it all came too. His daughter seemed angry, and he did not blame her, to loss a father when she was so young was just not fair and he worried about her so much. He had to step away and not Witness this pain, so he walked in to the other room and suddenly he was at the Kingdom Hall again.
It was years later, and he realized that time was passing now faster then he expected. His wife was there, but she was older and he could tell the years were hard on her. He wondered what became of his daughter, and wanted so much to ask. Suddenly an elder came to the stage and spoke, "This is to inform the congregation that Sister Smith has been disfellowshiped." The words caught him off guard and he looked to his wife, who was teared up, that was his daughter. What happened, he wondered? Was she okay, was his wife not speaking to her. Oh, they needed each other so much and now they were separate. He reached to touch his wife, and suddenly she was gone.
The Kingdom Hall was full again with different people, but familiar faces and age upon there face. Again an elder rose to make an announcement, "Sister Smith has been disfellowshiped." My goodness, now his wife, both of them had been disfellowshiped and left the religion. Yet no answers, no reasons, oh the frustration he felt and the emptiness of knowing he was on some roller coaster of nothingness and no hope of ever getting off it. Was this some sort of hell for Witnesses, some cruel cosmic joke that he is destined to live with for eternity. He stood there in the back of that Kingdom Hall, watching in what seemed like time in fast forward, the faces of people he knew aging and people he never met coming and going. No wife, no daughter, no way of ever seeming to get out of this place.
He could not believe the emptiness of the place, and all the wasted hopes and desires. He walked to the front of the Kingdom Hall, which was empty now and yet it seemed lit to him. He set in a chair, and felt pain in his very being. He placed his face in to his hands, and wanted so much to cry and end this. Then he felt a hand on his shoulder, and turned and looked up, and there standing behind him was an older woman that almost looked like his grandmother and yet something was different. He did not speak, he just looked at her. She smiled, and spoke, "Dad, it's time for you to go now, you have been here long enough." She then took his hand, and pulled him slowly along to the back of the hall. He stopped her for a moment and looked back and saw all those whom he remembered in the Kingdom Hall, all dead now and sitting there and feeling alone. He wanted to say something to them, to help them, and his daughter spoke, "Don't worry about them dad, your with us now" and he looked over and saw his wife, his grandmother and all the rest of those he loved waiting outside for him. His wife took his other hand, and they move him forward, and as he did, he realized he was finally free and outside was where he was meant to be. Not in some building full of empty dreams and hopeless desires, but with the love of family, and friends, who were what his life was all about in the first place and for the first time in what seemed like an eternity of emptiness and despair, he looked upon his wife and daughter and he smiled.