One lovely spring day last year, I learned to respect the wisdom of the old chestnuts "be careful what you ask for" and "always check your sources."
In 2008, I retired from a long and satisfying career teaching college biology. While still cherishing memories of my time in the classroom and laboratory, I happily explored what I was going to do when I "grew up." Occasionally, I wondered whether my absence really made a difference. My answer came rather unexpectedly.
Late on the Thursday afternoon before Easter, 2009, my wife Susan and I arrived home from running errands. We drifted to the living room with steaming cups of decaf coffee, ready to finalize plans for the upcoming weekend. Just as we prepared to sit down, I caught sight of our facing neighbour Karen pulling into her driveway. She jumped from the car and, with her good friend Doris in tow, strode purposefully toward our house.
Cup in hand, I threw open the front door and cheerily invited our friends to join us. They stopped dead in their tracks. Frozen in place, they stared up at me from the driveway, unable to say a word. Karen finally squeaked out, "We're here to invite you to a barbecue Saturday." Her evident distress belied her attempt at a smile.
Doris leaned toward Karen and whispered, "We've got to tell him." As I ushered them up the front stairs, their story spilled out, along with occasional tears.
Doris works part-time at the local college where Susan teaches and from which I had recently retired. Less than half an hour earlier, someone at the college had phoned her to report that I had died. Despite a warning to avoid contacting Susan because she was "busy making arrangements," Doris and Karen immediately rushed across town to support Susan in her time of loss. Now they were talking to a spectre on the front porch.
Our shaken friends readily accepted wine in place of the proffered coffee. The four of us huddled in the living room, trying to make sense of this mystery. I decided to phone Doris's contact at the college. Imagine her reaction to this call from the dead. Immediately placed on hold, I sat there wondering whether the connection was still live. The receiver finally crackled with the uncharacteristically gruff voice of the dean asking, "Who is this?" Fortunately, it did not take me long to convince him that I was indeed alive.
The dean said a trusted faculty member and family friend had called with word of my demise a couple of hours earlier. The dean claimed that few people were in the loop, but I knew better. As my former colleagues confirmed later, the word spread rapidly from office to office. On hearing it, some cried outright, some called home, but everyone honoured Susan's apparent request for time to make arrangements. However, as Susan soon discovered, they began sending a flood of condolence e-mails.
Given the impending long weekend, we scurried about trying to limit the rumour's spread even as we attempted to find its source. Pushing her considerable keyboarding skills to the limit, Susan sent off a flurry of e-mails while reassuring distraught friends by telephone. Making full use of the restorative properties of the wine, Karen and Doris also employed their cellphones to good effect. After my earlier experience, I steered clear of calling people directly. I was texting on my cellphone when the first flowers arrived.
As Doris carried the pot of pink tulips into the living room, Susan's first thought was, "What am I going to do if these keep coming all weekend?" Bob, the bearer of the flowers, was still at the door. Consoled with hugs and reassuring words, my good friend and former office-mate joined us for wine in the living room. To our surprise, Bob soon revealed that he had learned of my "death" more than eight hours ago. We listened intently as he told his tale.
Early that morning, a phone call had shattered his sound sleep. The woman on the line identified herself as "Peter and Susan's neighbour." At "Susan's" request, she was calling to tell Bob that "Peter" had been taken to an out-of-town hospital and that he had died overnight. "Susan" also had requested that no one disturb her while she made preparations. Shortly after the phone call, Bob passed on the sad news to a few friends. All of a sudden, as though reading from a bad script, we had the where, when and how of the rumour's inception; we still needed to discover the why.
Susan perked up when she heard the name of the hospital. She turned to Bob and gently reminded him that he had a half-brother named Peter married to - Susan. They lived near the hospital in question; we do not.
The logic was ironclad: Bob's half-brother Peter must have died. Bob just had to contact his sister-in-law for confirmation. That took more than an hour-and-a-half. Our party grew as he waited. Doris and Karen's husbands arrived, along with our son Brian. Rather than return home alone, Bob chose to stay with us, comforted by our companionship.
Even in the shadow of Bob's loss, we all celebrated life. I barbecued hastily thawed chicken to feed the gathering. More wine appeared on cue. We toasted our good fortune. We rejoiced in one another's company. We savoured our renewed camaraderie well into the night.
On the eve of Easter, we had our own deaths and "resurrection" to contemplate. In the electric release that comes with sidestepping a tragedy, we realized that we were staging a wake. My wake. On our terms. What more could one ask?
Peter Woodruff lives in Saint Lambert, Que.