I Talk to Dead People, Part Three: Rhonda visits

I had a dear friend when I was young. We knew one another from the second grade. Rhonda and I got along well. We were buddies, pals, and partners in crime. When we discovered how wonderful telephones were, we spent many hours chatting on the phone.

I envied Rhonda’s long telephone cord. (This was the age before cordless telephones.) The long cord allowed her to roam all over her house. Meanwhile, I was stuck sitting at the proper “telephone table.”

This little metal torture device had a small table for the phone to sit upon. Just beneath that was a rack large enough for one city telephone book. The seat was a joke. Anyone other than a child had to sit perfectly still, lest the whole thing decide to tip over. The telephone table was shoved into a corner of my parents’ dining room. This stabilized the unit and provided zero privacy. Exactly what a pre-teen wants, no?

With the long telephone cord, Rhonda could wander through her house, go into her room, or even hide in the bathroom. “Ignore the running water. You don’t hear a thing,” she would say. She read excerpts from her dad’s Playboy magazines. “I cannot believe any woman would say this. Just listen and tell me what you think…” We spent many a hot Summer day simply talking. We were best friends.

I went to my bathroom and cried when my father called to say that Rhonda had died. It was just before her 30th birthday. I was a whole seven weeks OLDER than Rhonda. How could she be dead?

We had grown apart after we married. Rhonda married the weekend before I did. I was her bridesmaid. She fixed my hair for my wedding, then drove me to the service. We tried visiting or calling, but our husbands hated each other. Jerks. So we lost touch. I heard she had a son. I don’t know if she ever heard about my kids.

Early one morning I dreamed about Rhonda. I visualized her at her old house, hiding in the bathroom, telling me secrets on the phone. I realized something was not quite right. Why wasn’t I in the dining room of the old house? Hey, we aren’t teenagers anymore! Suddenly, the answer hit me:

“Rhonda! You’re dead!”

The dream dissolved around us. We were standing in a white mist. She moved towards me as she laughed at my ignorance. “Janie,” she teased, “Don’t you know? I can visit the people I love ANY TIME I WANT TO!”

I woke with a start. This was important news, even if Rhonda had been dead two years. It took me a few days, but I got the courage and acquired her grandmother’s telephone number. I talked with her MawMaw and shared what I had dreamed. MawMaw informed me that the dream had taken place very near the anniversary of Rhonda’s death. At her encouragement, I called Rhonda’s mother and told her the news.

We cried together. It was wonderful, sad news. Rhonda was still aware of us and still cared enough to check up on us. Rhonda was safe in Heaven, waiting and watching. One day we will join her.