logo-image

The Light Beneath the Door

Shackelford Funeral Directors • Mar 26, 2015

As I have mentioned previously, there are those evenings when I end up being the only living person in the building, usually due to work that I haven’t managed to accomplish during the day. On those occasions I’m in and out of the office up front, digging in the records or the candy bowl that sits on the counter—meaning before I can depart for home I have to lock the door from the office to the foyer and the door from the foyer into the service hall. And lately, whether or not we’ve had a visitation and no matter who actually locked up the building at 5:00 or sometime thereafter, the light has been on in the men’s restroom. I started to say bathroom, but someone told me we don’t bathe in there . . . although there are some folks who have.

I can see the door right before I pass through the last door I have to lock. Since I’m walking across the hall to the restrooms and the lounge that will someday live on the first floor, I will glance in that direction. You know, just to make certain no one is hiding in the dark, waiting to pounce on me as I come around the stairs. And the restroom light is always beckoning to me from beneath the door.

I didn’t think much about it the first time . . . or the second . . . but by the third I was beginning to wonder. I would knock on the door (as though anyone hiding in there is going to tell me it’s occupied), then push it open just enough to reach in and flip the light switch. (That way no one can grab my arm and yank me into the Twilight Zone.) The first time I just turned and walked back toward the foyer, through the door into the service hall, and never looked back . . . just like I did the second time. But the third time . . . the third time I stopped before entering the back hallway. I stopped and I turned and I watched the door, the door to the men’s restroom. I stood and I watched that sliver of a crack, fully expecting it to light up again.

The whole time I was standing there, which seemed like forever but was probably a hair shy of that, I contemplated what I would do if the light actually came back on. And what would that mean? There could be a short in the switch. There could be someone standing on the toilet (so I couldn’t see their feet if I actually looked under the stall door), waiting until everyone left so they could frolic about the building. Or we could be haunted by a ghost that was afraid of the dark and liked to hang out in the men’s room. The only one I was okay with was the short in the switch, and ascertaining that to be the problem was beyond my area of expertise. The other two required making a hasty exit to I-didn’t-know-where ‘cause every door in the building has a cantankerous 37 year old lock that may or may not cooperate at any given time, and if I’m being chased by something, I don’t want that to be a time of cantankerousness. And it needs to be something that’s really slow.

So why is it such an issue if the light is on or even if it refuses to remain extinguished until the next business day? Because I don’t understand it. I can make up all sorts of reasons, but the fact remains that I don’t understand it. It constitutes an unknown—and unknowns are the things many of us fear the most. Enter the analogy with Death.

Although we understand the body’s response to death, we have no one who can actually tell us what happens to that person based on their own experience. No one is alive today that has ever come back from the dead and reported on the trip. So we don’t know if we’re aware of what happens around us. We don’t know if we’re in a holding pattern waiting for some future event or if it’s like falling asleep and not waking up for the next million years. We just don’t know. Religion answers that question based on their particular belief system; atheists provide a completely different response. The fact is what lies immediately beyond death is perhaps the greatest unknown of all. And when faced with that unknown—and the certainty of its coming—many of us deny its existence instead of preparing for its eventual arrival. If we’re not careful, that fear will suck the life right out of living—and what good is being alive if you’re too afraid of death to enjoy the trip?

 

By Lisa Thomas 28 Mar, 2024
There’s a place I’m privileged to visit on occasion—a civilized wilderness of sorts—where very few people intrude and my desire for hermitism (not to be confused with hermetism which is a philosophical or religious system based on the teaching of Hermes Trismegistus . . . mine just means I like being left alone) is fulfilled.
By Lisa Thomas 20 Mar, 2024
I am a lover of words and occasionally manage to put them together in a half-way decent manner. Ask me to speak to you spontaneously . . . off the cuff . . . with no preparation . . . and my brain freezes.
By Lisa Thomas 14 Mar, 2024
In a bookcase in the office in Savannah, you’ll find all kinds of books, mostly on grief (which makes perfect sense given that it’s an office in a funeral home).
By Lisa Thomas 07 Mar, 2024
When my daughter was in second grade the music program at her school disappeared. I don’t remember if it was a lack of personnel or a lack of funding or a lack of personnel caused by a lack of funding . . .
By Lisa Thomas 29 Feb, 2024
On November 21st of 2021, I wrote the blog “The Ultimate Reminder” about a gentleman I’d literally known all my life . . . about his acknowledgment that his circle of older family members and friends was rapidly dwindling . . . about how hard it was to watch them leave.
By Lisa Thomas 22 Feb, 2024
Recently local and national news outlets picked up the story of Pauline Pusser’s exhumation, turning it into front page news and lead stories.
By Lisa Thomas 14 Feb, 2024
We didn’t meet under the best of circumstances—I was the funeral director and he was the husband grieving the imminent death of his wife.
By Lisa Thomas 08 Feb, 2024
They stand beside the casket, gazing at its contents, lingering as long as possible . . . unwilling to leave because they know, once they do, they will never again see that person on this earth.
By Lisa Thomas 01 Feb, 2024
Last Tuesday I saw something I’ve never seen before, and that’s sayin’ a lot, given how many years I’ve been around to see things.
By Lisa Thomas 25 Jan, 2024
I was sitting in the library Tuesday night (yes, we have a library because I have a million books, all of which my children will someday be required to sort through and pack up since I cannot bring myself to do anything but add to the collection . . . unless they follow my suggestion to take what they want from the house and set fire to the rest . . . please do not judge me . . .).
More Posts
Share by: