The Death of Maggie McKinnley

I gazed at my family through elderly eyes while Father Jacob preformed my last sacrament.  Jack, my husband of 50 years, held my hand and tried to blink his tears away as the Father finished his prayer on a solemn 'Amen'.

I squeezed Jack's hand and gazed at the others that were gathered around my hospice bed.  They spoke in hushed tones and their faces were stained with sorrow but they’d never looked more beautiful to me.  Three generations of my family, gathered around me, at the end.

My doctor had been slowly increasing the amount of morphine flowing through my IV drip all day. I felt better than I had in a long time - since before Cancer swapped my life for pain.

My eyelids were so heavy. I closed them - for a moment. I realized I was dying but I wasn't afraid. It was so deeply comforting to be surrounded by people who loved me. Struggling to keep my eyes open, I tried to tell my family "I love you" with my last breath and then everything went black.

I woke up to the most intense physical pain I’d ever experienced.  Every nerve in my body was either on fire or 37 degrees past hypodermic - I couldn’t quite tell.  At first, I kept my eyes closed tightly against the unyielding pain - hoping it would pass. It didn't.

Eventually, I squinted open in stages until I could make sense of my surroundings. To my abject confusion, I was in St. Joseph’s - my childhood church, sitting on a pew that felt like it was made out of shards of glass.  I tried to stand up but found myself restrained by iron boots that were welded to the floor. Every move I made caused indescribable pain. I realized that something must have gone terribly wrong with my end of life care. 

I opened my mouth to call for help. I tried to tell Jack that the morphine wasn’t working....nothing happened.  I had no voice.  I'd never been so terrified in all my life.

“Oh, Darling!"

A smooth, deep voice resonated through the room.

"You’re not experiencing the worst terror you've ever felt in your life... You're playing a new game now. This is your afterlife, honey. 

I desperately looked around hoping to find the source of the voice but all I saw were fractured memories of my times in the church:  my squalling infant face as I was baptized with water and oil, the moment the Body of Christ touched my tongue during my first communion, my beaming father, lifting my veil and kissing my cheek before handing me over to Jack on our wedding day.

It was beyond disturbing to witness these wonderful events in my life - set to the backdrop of blinding pain. I began to cry tears that burned my face like fiery acid.

“At 10:24pm on July 5^th 2019 you, Mary Margret McKinnley – better known as Maggie, died from an overdose of Morphine.”

'No,' I thought.  'This isn’t real.'

“Oh, sweet Maggie.  This actually might be the most real thing you’ve ever experienced.”

A man suddenly appeared, draped over the alter. He had dark skin and perfectly symmetrical features and was dressed in a smart pin stripped suit. His face was alight with amusement.

“Hallelujah, Maggie McKinnley!  Welcome to hell!” 

‘This can’t be happening,’ I prayed. ‘Oh, Lord! Please help me!’

The man on the alter tisked his tongue as he rose and began walking toward me.

“Oh, Maggie, don't you understand? There is no more help for you." 

Fresh acid tears streamed down my face as I realized that the morphine drip I’d agreed to during my final hours was akin to suicide.  Father Jacob had been wrong after all! I’d broken a commandment. I’d ended my otherwise devout life with a sin.

“Oh, Silly girl...no. Do you honestly think a benevolent Creator would punish you for ending your life on your own terms – especially considering the circumstances?"

'But I was a devout Christian my whole life!' I screamed inside my head.

"I was so devout!" The man on the alter was mocking me now.

“Really, Maggie?  Your devout life?  Is that what you think?  That you lived devoutly?  Let me ask you a question:  who, exactly, were you devout to in your life?” 

Righteous indignation swelled inside me as I thought as loudly as I could, ‘I don’t have to answer this! Who the hell are you?’

He was two pews in front of me now, resting a casual hand on the ornately carved wood.  My pain hadn’t seemed to subside, but I must have gotten used to it because it hadn’t been in the forefront of my mind until I met his piercing stare - then pain enveloped me again, with a vengeance, until I looked away.

“Oh, Mary.” he purred “You know exactly who I am. I’m the Lucifer, baby.”

I wanted to object, wanted to call him a drug addled hallucination but something about his words rang true.  I was desperately trying to make sense out of what was happening and my thoughts were no longer coherent, but one was pervasive: what could I have possibly done to disappoint God so completely?

Lucifer laughed then.  It was a rich, joyful laugh and it filled me with the worst tremors of fear I’d yet experienced.  

“Disappoint him?  Oh, baby.  Don’t flatter yourself.  My boy doesn’t even know you exist. Your life was empty, meaningless.  You didn’t even make it onto God’s radar.”

A thrill of hope filled me, momentarily chasing my pain away.  The Devil was a trickster, a charlatan, the liar of all liars.  Surely, this was my last test.  If I remained pure and steadfast in my belief in the Lord surely this nightmare would give way to the pearly gates of heaven.

“You know, Maggie…they almost all think that at first, and honestly, I’m just about sick of it.  I have the worst reputation in modern day Earth.”  Lucifer began pacing back and forth across the aisle with the coiled tension of a caged tiger.

“The Father of Lies, the root of all evil, tempter, usurper, traitor….Bah!  I am an Angel!”

As he shouted the word angel, he threw up his arms and was surrounded with pure golden light that beckoned me to look at him again.  He was beautiful.  Looking at him drenched in gold, was like a balm to my soul.  I suddenly felt warm and comfortable and loved.  I stared at him in unintentional adoration for a moment and then, as he laughed again, the beautiful light dimmed and physical pain came rushing back to me.

“They say I was cast out, they say God stopped loving me.  That’s how mankind justifies their own wickedness – the devil made me do it.  Puh-lease. I am, and always have been, God’s favorite.  His most trusted adviser.  I don’t make you people do anything, but I watch everything you do.  And if you are not worthy of God, I don’t bother him with you.”

I suddenly believed him.  There was just one thing I still didn’t understand. "What did I do wrong? I was a faithful wife, a good Christian…I did everything I was supposed to do."

Lucifer’s voice held contempt as he answered me.  “Did you really, Mary Margaret? Did you?”

Lucifer stopped pacing and stood before me with his arms stretched out in supplication. He morphed into the form of a dirty hobo who looked vaguely familiar.  “Did you love me like a brother?”

An image of my younger self answered before I could. The stylish woman I was in my late 20’s appeared from nowhere to look down her nose at Lucifer, side stepping his outstretched arms.

“Why don’t they do something about these disgraceful people?” she said, as she clutched her pocketbook closer and hurried back into the nothingness from which she’d come.

Hobo Lucifer transformed into the Hijab clad woman who lived down the street from me a few years ago.  “Did you love me like a sister?”

Again, I saved myself from having to answer by reappearing, as an old woman this time, looking suspiciously at my neighbor and whispering about decreasing property values.

Lucifer shimmered and changed one last time.  He took on the features of Steven, my youngest son.  I didn’t think that the pain I was experiencing could get any worse, but looking at Stevie, my heart shattered.  He was 17 years old, the day he told his father and I that he was gay.  For the first time, I experienced his pain in that moment, instead of just my own.  I felt his heartbreak.  I felt his shame.  I felt the same pain my baby boy felt as his father and I called him an abomination and slammed the door of his home in his face - our final act as his parents.

I closed my eyes around a fresh batch of acid tears and understood.  I may have been a good Christian, but I hadn’t been a good person.  I was given a simple task; to love my fellow man – and I’d failed.  I hadn’t even properly loved my own.

“I’m so sorry!”  These were the first words I’d been able to vocalize in hell.  My voice sounded sharp and weak, as if it carried the weight of my newly revealed transgressions.

“You are sorry, Mary.”  Lucifer’s tone was more remorseful than mocking this time.  “If it helps at all, you aren’t alone.”

The devil snapped his fingers and I opened my eyes to see that I was no longer in St. Joseph’s Church.  I was sitting on a bench, in a row of benches that extended farther that I could see in every direction. I was lost in a sea of faces. 

Lucifer’s form vanished but his voice echoed around the cavernous void of lost humanity, “Most people get it wrong, Mary.  I keep all of you unworthy souls away from God, he has such faith in you pathetic humans…it would hurt him deeply to know what his favorite creations are really like.”

As his voice faded away horrified screams and pain wracked shrieks filled my ears.  I raised my own voice, hoping to be heard over the cacophony of noise around me, “Is there anything I can do?”

Lucifer’s laugh reached my ears over the din around me as his form faded away, “Yes, Mary.  You can feel remorse with no self pity attached to it.  But good luck with that, no one ever has.”