Letters from an Astrophysicist by Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Author:Neil DeGrasse Tyson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2019-09-08T16:00:00+00:00

Dead Man Talking

Wednesday, March 27, 2019

Dear Cousin Neil,

The day after my father died, I went to the funeral home to view his body. He’d been sick for nearly a decade following a series of debilitating strokes and his death, while painful, was expected.

Walking into the funeral home I could just barely see his body stretched out on a table in front. I gathered my courage and knew the time had come for me to say my goodbyes. Just then, I heard an old familiar voice say to me “What the f%#k are you doing kid? Get out of here!”

I stopped dead in my tracks and spun around only to find no one there.

I knew that voice, it was one I hadn’t heard in ten years. My dad’s stroke had left his voice forever changed; yet I knew to the core of my being that the voice I heard belonged to my father.

Hearing him use the words ‘kid’ and ‘f%#k’ also confirmed it was definitely him. He always called me kid, and to him, f%#k was just an adjective.

Without thinking, I said (out-loud) “I’m here to see you.” He said, “I’m not there!” I started to leave and stopped in my tracks, turned around and said, “No! I came to see you and I’m going to see you!” He said, “Fine, go look.”

As I walked up to the body I wasn’t sad anymore. As I looked down at him, his body looked waxy and his face misshapen from the breathing tube he had been on, I heard him say, “See? I told you I’m not here.”

Happier and more peaceful than I had been only minutes before, I literally skipped out of the funeral home. Years later, it still feels real but logically doesn’t make sense.

What do you think really happened?

Seanlai Cochrane

Delray Beach, FL

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