Blinded By Science

I was in the ninth grade before I ran into my first aggressively atheist science teacher. He made it his business, not just to teach, but to ridicule everything I believed.

I was disappointed because I loved science. In every achievement test my science scores were always the highest. But it appeared that science didn’t love me back.

It reminded me again of my childhood experience with death. From my perspective my teacher simply didn’t have all the information I did. He seemed very angry about the whole thing and I felt kind of sorry for him.

Just An Opinion

But I did notice one thing for the first time. There was never any evidence presented that showed why God was not supposed to exist. In fact, scientifically there was no way to prove that anything did not exist. The best you could prove was that you couldn’t measure it. This seemed to me more a problem with a scientist’s ability to measure than anything else.

It might have been my childhood experience that caused me to look at the gaps in my teacher’s argument rather than simply accepting what he said. In any case, the argument seemed tainted by anger and a desire not to see. He was making a leap of logic that science could never prove. It was just an opinion.

Uncle Ray

It was about this time that my Uncle Ray got sick. My middle name is Ray, after my uncle who had no children of his own. I loved Uncle Ray, in no small part due to the fact that he laughed at lot, loved his nieces and nephews and tried hard to spoil us all. Hard not to love that.

He always wore well-starched, long-sleeved, white dress shirts to work. When you hugged him he was crisp.

But this trip was different. Uncle Ray was in intensive care and not doing well. It was a what-if kind of trip. When we arrived the usual excitement of a visit to Memphis was quickly extinguished by the news that Uncle Ray had taken a turn for the worse.

Death Watch

Not wanting to leave him alone in the hospital, the adults divided up the task into shifts. For the first time, my brother (16) and I (14) were considered old enough to participate in this grownup ritual. Not really understanding what was going on, we were ferried to the hospital to take our turn.

Uncle Ray was neither crisp nor smiling. He was asleep when we got there. We were told to let him sleep and to be there, in case.

Eventually a nurse came in and woke him. He was surprised to see us and didn’t seem that keen on having two teenage boys staring at him while he slept. He didn’t need “watching”. Made sense to me but there we were at his bedside for several hours anyway, clueless, unneeded and without a ride.

Out Of His Head

He went back to sleep for about forty-five minutes and then woke with a start. He lit up with a radiant smile and looked toward the foot of the bed.

“Hey!” he said. “Look who’s here! I haven’t seen you in forever.” He looked at us and pointed. There was no one there.

“We don’t see anyone,” we answered. He frowned and proceeded to have a conversation with no one. It was like listening to one side of a telephone conversation. He was animated and happy. It sounded like he was catching up on old times.

We thought he was obviously hallucinating and were a little freaked out. My brother ran to get the nurse and I sat there watching. I was only fourteen and it was weird when the adult in the room was acting crazy.

Only The Drugs

By the time the nurse got there, he had settled back down to sleep. She woke him up and asked if he was okay. Uncle Ray nodded and said he was fine, annoyed at being woken and loudly questioned. The nurse reassured us it was only the drugs he was taking and left.

My brother and I agreed, in all of our vast experience, that it was more than just the medicine. It was serious. At the very least it was seriously uncomfortable. We felt responsible but had no clue what to do with someone talking out of their head. We wanted the nurse to fix it but that wasn’t going to happen.

It was quiet for a good while and we began to relax when the scene repeated itself. This time the apparent visitor was someone new and Uncle Ray appeared elated. My brother went for the nurse again.

Invisible Argument

Uncle Ray turned to me and said, “Well now, surely you can see them.” He had a confident, told-you-so look on his face. I shook my head and he gave me a disgusted look and continued the conversation.

I was alone in the room with my sick, hallucinating uncle and had no idea what to do, but I knew I should do something. I reached over, took his hand and mumbled something about it being okay.

He felt my hand and looked down, then shot a clear, challenging look straight into my eyes. “Oh, you don’t believe me!” he said. He gave me the most disgusted look I’d ever seen on his face and tossed my hand off of his. He continued to stare me down until he said, “Huh?” and looked away, back toward the foot of the bed, as if someone had called his name. He listened intently and then said, “Oh, okay. Alright.” At that he settled back down and closed his eyes.

When my brother got back with the nurse we tried to explain what was happening. She was annoyed at being bothered again. Obviously, he was a very sick man on heavy medication and we were ignorant kids. She told us not to worry about it and left with a roll of her eyes.

Back and Forth

The third conversation happened a little while later and this time we let it go on without interrupting. I was getting used to the weirdness by now so I paid closer attention. I watched Uncle Ray talk with several people. The odd thing was that they were conversations with listening pauses and information exchanged.  Eventually, he laid his head back down and closed his eyes.

At this point, someone came to take our place and we rode back to my grandmother’s house. We were glad to be away from that dreadful hospital and the unsettling conversations with no one.

Before we got back to the house, the call had come. Uncle Ray had passed away. He never woke again.

Questions

Since we were apparently the last people to talk to him before he died, family members were curious. What happened while we were there? Did he say any last words? Was he in pain? That sort of thing.

We related the story which only brought more questions. Who was he talking to? Did he mention any names? The questions persisted, hungry for one last contact.

He had called people by name but they were no names we knew. We mentioned the ones we could recall.

People stopped what they were doing and stared at us like we’d seen aliens. Conversation stopped.

The names were all relatives I’d never heard of, that had died before I was born.

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