death – The Agape Narrative Project

Before I ever knew about my Father in heaven, I knew the one that He gave me to be my earthly father, or who I would call Dad or Pops. He was, for better or for worse, my best friend and a constant in my life. People knew we had issues or disagreements at times but when you saw us together, you knew we were just alike and as he would say “best buds.”.

On Monday, August 7th of 2023, my Dad’s body was found on the floor of his childhood home but he was no longer there. After a few days of processing, answering the same questions over and over, and being around people; I have finally sat down alone and listened to some voicemails I have on my phone. Tears of joy are something that many do not have the privilege of having in these moments and I thank the Lord that I do. In one, he calls me just to check up on me and see how something turned out after I had left his house. In the last months especially, he would just call me and be a dad. “Do you need anything son? I am worried about you. If you need anything bud, give me a call.” Meanwhile my dad was suffering with all of his physical and mental ailments while fighting against nurses and family encouraging him to go to the hospital. At times he was the most stubborn person to ever exist and at other times what some would call a “saint.” He would be the most foolish and unreasonable person but he also loved that same way. My dad was the kind of man that would be barely able to survive but would offer you assistance in a time of need at the cost of himself. I thank God that this was the dad I was given. I praise the Lord that I was able to learn from what he did well and did wrong. My dad was not a perfect man but he was perfectly chosen by God to be mine.

In another voicemail, he was calling to let me know how the food I had made him turned out. Occasionally he would call me and say he just wanted some grilled food, and if anyone knows me they know I have a passion for grilling. I had dropped off some chicken and grilled corn and he had called me just to tell me that “everything was excellent.” While I can’t say I got much support for the sports I had tried out for or other hobbies, he would always make sure to say he was proud of me but would only say he liked something if he actually did. He mentions that he “never had that corn before” and he would “buy a couple bags of that.” Classic Pops. My dad was a simple man with simple joys. Especially because it was just sweet corn grilled with some extra virgin olive oil. Pops would find a new food spot and eat the same thing every time he went and would go 2-4 times a week until he got tired of it. Some of his favorite things were a cold can of coke, bad sci-fi movies, olive garden, and watching people. Every Saturday during the months they were open, he would attempt to lure me into going to his house since I lived near the bbq chicken stand he liked. He never wanted to ask for help but if I “just so happened to be going out that way… could you stop and get me some of that chicken?” And if I told him I was grilling I would get asked about what he could get from the menu.

Right after he is at the closing of his voicemail he comes back to say he also had enough for them to have two meals but then he chuckles. My heart swells up every time I hear it. That little smirk and chuckle he had reminds me of so many times we have had together. I remember playing with a can of tomato soup in the kitchen and “pretending” that it was open and I looked right at him and flipped it over my head. As I realized that the can was not pretending once I felt and saw all of the sauce run down my shirt and onto the floor. I remember he smirked and made that sound after I demanded he not tell my older brother about this. He made that sound often in those goofy moments of me being a kid as well as when he would act like the big kid he was. He would laugh and chuckle unapologetically even in the worst times and man… I miss that. Even though at some times I would have to give him a quick jab of “dad…” to let him know it was not appropriate and then he would cover his mouth and insincerely say “Oh. I am sorry.” As I grew into an adult my dad slowly went from the driver seat to the passenger seat. Pops and I had a lot of miles together and the long car rides and conversations were truly a blessing. In the last week of his time here, I told him about the promise of a new and glorified body to believers in Christ. Dad had a history of telling me to shut up when those kind of conversations came up but towards the end he asked me a lot of questions. When he heard about the new body and no more pain he looked at me and said “now THAT sounds like heaven!”

Now like any family, there were a lot of bad things as well. I have never been one to act like my dad was perfect or that my family is. We are not. I am not. But he was my dad and I miss him. I know that when I see a good deal on something he would like I will eventually forget and reach for my phone to call or text him and realize I cannot. I know that I will have life events and moments that I will want to share with him and I cannot. I know that I am also not the only person missing him and that everyone eventually has loved ones die. Many that have seen me in this time are worried because I am not responding as they would expect. There are many reasons why. My dad and I had a great relationship and I knew he loved me and that he knew I loved him. He went out how he wanted regardless of the pleading we all had made to get him more comfortable. I know he wished he did almost everything differently but I told him I did not share the same sentiments. He apologized to me and my siblings a lot in the past few months. He would look at me and say he was a failure as a dad and I would ask him what he thought of me. When he would answer me I would say “where do you think I got it from?” and he would smirk and laugh with a tear in his eye. Then we would call each other names to break the tension. I saw my dad cry more as he got older. I saw a very aggressive and angry man get softer and love his wife better over time. I saw light in him at times and I know I shared that light that God gave me with him. I do not know where my dad is now, but I know God is perfectly just, loving, merciful, and righteous. I know that I will always have a perfect Heavenly Father and that my dad was a gift. I hope that those who carry his memories will learn from his love and also unlearn the anger and unforgiveness that he regretted so much in his life. Thank you God for my dad who has passed on, and I trust you that whatever happened on that day was good, just, and loving. Thank you for the peace you have given me in this time and the joy I feel in my heart. I pray that others will have the same.

Waking up in a paralyzed type state and seeing something approaching you is ultimate fear for me. Trying to scream and you just mutter a hum type sound while your partner snores their ass off while you prepare to have your soul ripped out from your body is how I imagine I will actually die. Not that the figure in the dream is real but I can see my having a heart attack during one of these events. Words honestly do not give the fear justice. It is similar to imagining what war is like from your comfy apartment in Pennsylvania. You do not know what it is like until you experience the actual event. For those interested, on the podcast I co-host and produce we discuss some of these topics and dreams I have had. I will explain some stuff here but I highly recommend that episode.

When I was younger I had a difficult childhood. After being given up by my mother I moved into an apartment above a local convenience store/grocery market with my brother, step-mother, and half sister. This store was across the street from a Quaker church that has an actual underground cavern that was used to hide slaves. There were many rumors but the historical society even acknowledged this fact. The store was connected to the church through this underground route. Many employees would dread going to the basement at all times of the day and reported strange occurrences. The attic of the apartment was once sealed off in a seance to help keep the spirits up there. My father of course needed to space… so fuck the ghosts.

So now I am living in a haunted home that has historical documentation of not only under ground railroad caverns but also it was documented as haunted. It was not unusual for me to hear footsteps or hear voices, especially in the attic. This made me accustomed to the idea that things happen out of my control. The first time I remember being “attacked” was on my bed in my mid-teen years. I was just taking a cat nap after school. My friends had just left for work, the sun was shining, and I just ate two chicken BBQ sandwiches and drank a gallon of Turkey Hill green tea from the store I lived above. I woke up abruptly to a cloud of black over me. I saw a dark I can only describe as negative light. It had motion and seemed to get closer to me. My step-mother was in the room next to me. We were only separated by a wall but I was frozen in fear. I tried to scream. I honestly thought I did scream. After the ordeal lasted about 7 seconds my eyes slammed shut and I fell off the bed. After hitting the floor I yelled at my step-mother for not assisting me after I yelled for her. She ran in to the room and said I never made a sound and there was nothing there.

Now I am being haunted directly by these fucking ghosts. Or so I thought. For years I blocked these kind of memories from my mind. Maybe my brain was trying to keep me sane. Maybe it was a dream or just something I made up. I tried to just forget as much as I could. But Even before then I always had a fear of things at my window or door at night. As a child I never felt safe at night. Years passed. Of course some things happened but nothing major. So I moved out with my now wife. We had a new place. I owned guns, put up black out curtains, and was ready for the alien invasion. But really I never did feel safe in the safest place for most people. My bed was never a form of comfort when I was alone. I always felt vulnerable in those rooms. The moment that I changed my perspective on what was happening to me was when it happened mid-day when my wife was awake. I was working 7:30PM to 7:30AM at the time. My wife woke me up to tell me that she was going out with her friend and whatever else she said. I mumbled through her voice something like “okay, love you, bye, sleep time.” She proceeded to the bathroom and heard me making odd noises. When she walked in I was borderline seizing. She shook me until I had become responsive and I just cried and said do not leave me. When she asked what happened I was still in shock and could not respond.

I had blocked out every example of this happening to me in my past. The story I told above about the black cloud was forgotten about until this moment. Every instance of these types of occurrences came back after this last attack. Over a dozen instances of me being frozen in fear and something sitting on my chest, climbing through my windows, opening the door to just watch me, hands coming from under the bed, shapeshifters, walls being walked through, out of body experiences, etc. I was hit with the proverbial “truck” that just delivered a lethal dose of realization to me. When I bought my dog Monkee I told my wife she was to sleep in the bedroom with us once potty trained. I was subconsciously hiring a 12lb yorkie-mix bodyguard to protect me in my sleep. She was in the room when this attack happened so… bad dog. Many things I did as just second nature were ritualistic to keep me from fear; sleeping with the tv or light on, having a gun close by, checking the closet door before I slept, going back downstairs to just make sure I didn’t have to get up in the night, and more. I still do many of these things to this day. Actual, all of them.

This was not the worst experience I had ever had but it was the most profound attack in my life. It changed me. After my wife had walked away and shut the door I had fallen back asleep. All of a sudden, I felt many presences in the room. I started to open my eyes. Light and colors were there but still blurry. As my eyes started to adjust to the room my lungs felt compressed and my eyes slammed shut. Have you ever closed your eyes and shined a flashlight or turn off the lights afterwards? You can still see and sense the difference in light. The darkness has a tint or red accents that clue you in to the environments visibility. This was present and then just vanished. Like the room I was in dropped below the crust of the earth and I fell into the abyss. The negative light was now in my whole room. Then streams of light would flicker and shoot across my closed eyelids, like directional fireworks. But while this happened the darkness would do the same thing from the opposite direction. It was like good and evil were fighting over my soul. One side was determined to consume me and the other side fought for my survival while I laid paralyzed trying to scream for help. My heart was beating more than a planet fitness can handle. I can not explain to you how it felt other than I actually thought I was being ripped into hell and this was my new reality. I tried to shake and fight. I could control my breathing and could think but was unable to do anything else. Right before my wife woke me up I had stopped fighting. I just gave up. It felt like a championship boxing match with my soul fighting a platoon of demons. I just hoped for death.

After waking up with my wife holding me while I was sobbing, all of the past experiences just smacked me. That is why I was really in shock. I was unable to grasp whether or not it was real. I actually asked myself if I was Neo. (Matrix references are needed to comfort myself.) I asked why me? I had to work in a few hours but how could I rationalize working on a printing press after remembering all the suffering I had endured over the years? I have to this day never been so scared in my life.

After that day I looked up as much as I could. I had to understand why these creatures, people, demons, or whatever were tormenting me. I stumbled across sleep paralysis. I read as much as I could about everything related to the subject. I learned about the threat simulation theory, incubus attacks, etc. What I found most conflicting was that I refused to believe it was in my mind. That something so real was just made up in my imagination. But how do so many people see the same things and experience the same dreams when they never talked about it or met before? It spanned the globe for all of history. Different cultures and tribes who never spoke had the same fearful attacks while in paralyzed states at bed time or during a nap. Common traits for the “presence” are tall shadow figures with red eyes or a man with a hat. While many of mine had nothing to do with these examples, there were a few that had similar characteristics. So as a logical person… I actually just stopped researching. I stopped talking about it and just accepted it as my own brain. Everything in me tells me I would not do this to myself. But it’s either I move on with my life or I look for the monsters that seek my destruction. And even though they still haunt me to this day. I can find comfort in ignorance because it is the only thing keeping me sane.

Tag: death

My Dad’s Passing

Sleep Paralysis