Tim’s Death.

At 5.30am on August 1st 2009 Martin, Tim's stepfather, and I were woken by a loud knock on the door. It was the police. They told us Mr Tim Guest was dead. They said there were no suspicious circumstances but they knew nothing more.
My lips went blue and I was shaking as I called Jo, his wife. She had been trying to call us but we had not heard the phones. Tim had died in the night. We wept together and she told me what had happened.

Tim had been a recreational drug user and had been off all alcohol and drugs for six months because he and Jo were planning to start a family. The night before however, he had gone out, drunk and taken a cocktail of drugs. He had come home and then smoked opium or heroin to help him through the come down. But his tolerance had gone and what once he could have done with relative impunity, he could do no longer. He stopped breathing and died in bed. The only consolation during those first days was that he had not suffered.

I could do nothing but weep all day in between calling people to let them know Tim had died and meditating. That afternoon I felt Tim in the room. He was puzzled. Was he having an nightmare? What was going on. I felt an urge to speak aloud and repeated six times – “Yesterday you were alive, and in the night you died.” I had to say it very calmly and factually with no emotion, as if speaking to someone who can hardly hear. I now know his intellectual mind and thought process were fading as his cognitive mind dissolved which is why I had to speak so simply and clearly. Tim listened and understood he had died.

The next morning, a Sunday, Martin was taking the dogs to the kennels before we drove to London. I was sitting in bed with a cupof tea in deep grief. Tim came and sat on the bed. I could not see him with my eyes but I could sense and feel him extremely vividly. He held my hand and said, “I am so sorry, Mum, I didn’t know what I was doing.” I said, “I know Tim.” And we sat for a long time just being together in a deep wordless love and mutual understanding. Later that day many people who loved him felt him visit them. To say good-bye.

We arrived in London to find his body was now in the mortuary and the coroner had said we could not see the body until after the autopsy. I knew I had to see Tim’s body before then. I was determined. I called the Coroner first thing Monday morning and he immediately agreed. Martin and I went straight round. Tim’s body was in a separate room and looked very peaceful, as if he were just sleeping. But I touched his body and it was oh so cold. And I wept. Like so many other mothers who, throughout history, have wept over their dead sons bodies. Eventually I wiped my tears and could feel Tim in the room. He knew he was dead but wasn’t sure what to do as this body was who he had been for a long time. Again I knew exactly what to say; the words came up from my womb.

I spoke aloud telling him, “This body was once you but it is you no longer. You are a free spirit. You have always been a free spirit but now you no longer have to suffer the constraints of a body. There is no more suffering for you ever again. We who loved you we are your body in the world now. You are completely free.”
Again very matter-of-factly I told him,
“When I am walking in the fells you will look through my eyes and see the mountains, you will feel the wind in my hair. When Jo is swimming you will be with her, swimming with and through her. When your friends are dancing and listening to music you will be there too listening and dancing through them.”
And Martin said,
“Yes, and when I am doing accounts, you can do accounts with me!

Suddenly Tim’s spirit rose and filled the room with light, love and laughter. I said, “On the third day he rose from the dead.” What I had not expected was that my spirit would rise with his. I had thought I would be shrouded in grief under the Earth in darkness for the rest of my life. But Martin and I went for a walk through London and Tim came with us, laughing and playing as we three have done so often. And then I knew our love is forever.

This has continued. My spirit has been travelling through other realms of existence and learning about the deathless, while my body has been in inconsolable loss and heartbreak. Sometimes the loss is uppermost and I weep. Sometimes the liberation is to the fore and I am at peace and joyful. There is everything in death from the most profound heartbreak to the most transcendental freedom and love. Just as there is in life.

I had many more experiences with Tim both personally and phenomenologically. He has helped me through many dark nights. Now he seems to have moved on, though more personal levels of his being and I feel him part of the energy fields of existence. Where he is working with me on shaping life. My life. Jo, his wife’s life. And life on this planet.

The dead do not just evaporate and disappear, they live on in the energy fields of existence where they shape reality rather like force fields shape nature. Rudolph Steiner said that when a young person dies, they do not just live in the pure bliss of being as and older person who has done everything might. All their unlived life and future potential lives on and is actively engaged with life here on Earth. This has been my experience with Tim. The unique Tim-ness that is his spirit is working still.

I have always been totally committed to life on earth and felt strongly that it is here we need to learn about ourselves and each other, work to end suffering and bring healing and peace, to make love, to become conscious. That we must not sacrifice this life here for some mythical after life. But now I understand differently. The very struggles and surrenders of living in a body here on Earth are the muscles that give freedom and peace meaning, that feed the transcendental realms with knowledge, that create the love that feeds the whole of existence. We need the other realms, just as they need us. There is a profound interdependence between worlds. Without death, life has no meaning. And the dead are part of life, just as being alive is to live intimately with death.

Hundreds came to Tim’s funeral. There was an obituary in The Guardian. There is soon to be a tribute in the Observer Review. The Observer Music Monthly for September was dedicated to Tim. I have received emails from all over the world saying what a privilege it had been to know and work with Tim. That he had been a creative and loving individual who will never be forgotten.

His friends who loved him, and there are many, feel him still. Just as I do. Just as Martin does and so to, Jo his wife. That we loved him has made his death all the more profound a loss. Yet it has also give us great strength. Because that love is forever.