Me: Okay, Erik, it’s your turn to pick! Let’s play Hollywood Squares!

Jamie and Erik laugh.

Jamie (to Erik): Who? Audrey Hepburn? Okay, then. Run get her.

Me: Oh, okay.

Erik disappears.

Jamie: Audrey Hepburn! She’s on the list?

Me: Yeah.

(Pause)

Jamie: Okay, she’s here.

Me: Oh, good! How does she look?

Jamie: She’s thin!

Me: She was very thin, I know that.

Jamie: I didn’t realize she was that thin. She shows up as being older. She’s very elegant. She’s wearing like a black dress; it’s kind of pinched at the waist, tea length, goes below the knee.

Me: Okay.

Audrey: Good morning.

Me: Good morning! Thank you for coming!

Audrey: How may I help you?

Me: Aw, you’re so sweet. We’d like to ask you some questions, if that’s okay. Erik, do you want to start off and ask the first question?

(Pause)

Jamie: He’s actually not asking her anything important. He said hello to her, and he’s thanking her for coming. She’s being very polite with him. Um, Erik is complementing her on her acting.

Audrey: Acting just happened to be the job I could do to allow me to go into what I was really concerned with in life.

Me: And what was that?

Jamie: She’s showing me visuals, like her as a goodwill ambassador.

Me: Oh yeah. Exactly. She was very involved in humanitarian endeavors.

Jamie: She’s still talking to Erik. She’s telling him how she traveled all over the world and did interviews and radio presentations and all kinds of promotions to help children, dying children, hunger.

Me: I remember that about her and felt such admiration for all that she did.

(Pause)

Me: So, Audrey, what kind of beliefs did you have about the afterlife?

Jamie listens for several seconds.

Jamie (to me): No wait a second! Is she English?

Me: Um, I don’t really know. She had kind of a British accent, so she must be.

Jamie: Good pronunciation! There’s something—it’s not an American kind of English, but it’s not like hardcore British English.

Me: Hm.

Audrey: In traveling the world, it allowed me to adapt my religious beliefs from my childhood into more of a spiritual belief: that God is seen in everything and everyone.

Jamie (to Audrey): Are you associated with one particular church or—

Audrey: No.

Me: Okay. So I suppose your spiritual beliefs didn’t change much after you crossed over?

Audrey: It didn’t, and I was very pleased with myself, without being able to find that bit of expansive magic within the idea of belief.

Me: Um hm.

Audrey: Faith is so intangible. For example, you may never hold it or grab it, but it certainly touches you, just like music.

Me: Oh! I love that thought. How beautiful!

Jamie: It is, isn’t it?

Audrey: I just felt so blessed to be able to see people die. I saw the hardships. I’ve seen things that I believe most people couldn’t endure. I was indeed blessed to be there in that moment in time when their souls passed from their bodies. It comforted me and helped me expand my knowledge of humanity and spirituality.

Jamie: She said she would draw about it. It inspired her to—You’re an artist?

Audrey (chuckling softly): In a lesser sense and in lesser words, yes.

Jamie laughs hard.

Jamie: I don’t think I can say it in lesser words!

Audrey giggles and places a hand over her heart.

Me: Aw! Well, what was your death like?

Audrey: I recall it being very painful. I had a terrible case of cancer.

Jamie: I love how she speaks! “I had a terrible case of cancer.”

(Jamie mimics her elegant diction and accent.)

Jamie: Oh, and she puts her hand over her abdomen as she says it.

Me: Yeah, she had colon cancer.

Jamie: Oh! Oh, I’m sorry!

Audrey: It wreaked havoc on my figure! And once I got past the pain, I remember—it’s quite like the feeling of someone putting on you a belt or a corset that is much too tight. You cannot catch your breath. And so your body starts to feel quite foreign, because you can’t make it do the things that you desire.

Me: Yeah.

Audrey: And then when someone pulls the corset off—ahhh.

(She inhales deeply and with a sense of relief.)

Audrey: The gasp of death; the pain is gone; the body is free. That is how my passing was.

Me: Oh!

Audrey: I didn’t wander off into the light. The light very much came to me. I felt the presence of my dear family. We had such hardships and lost so many of the people we loved when I was younger.

(Jamie listens for a while)

Jamie: The war? From the war?

(Pause)

Jamie: Huh. I was just sort of asking her what war, when? She’s talking about World War II.

Me: Gosh, I don’t know very much about her life. I’ve watched most of her movies, but I don’t know much about her personal life.

Jamie: She’s talking about Adolph Hitler, the Nazis. Is she German?

Me: I don’t know?

Jamie (to Audrey): Where are you from?

Audrey: I was born in Belgium.

Me: Oh, wow! That rings a bell!

Jamie: So Belgium is right next to Germany.

Me: Yep, pretty much in the middle of Europe.

Jamie (to Audrey): Wow, so that was your childhood during the war?

Audrey: Yes.

Me: Oh my goodness.

Audrey: And it was such a dream to be able to be reunited. It didn’t even concern me that I had left my body. I was just so pleased, so happy, full of tears to have the people I love the most around me.

Me: Awww.

Audrey: It was quite an unexpected reunion.

Me: How wonderful!