Three Loud Knocks...

above my side of the bed on the wall behind the head board struck at 4:30 AM, Thursday, early morning. 11/3/11.
I sat there in bed wondering, what the hell was that? It was unmistakable, even in my sleep state what I heard. Normally I would tune in and ask "what is that?" However, this was so precise and specific that my shock took over and I kind of retreated, not wanting to know or even connect that this was perhaps "real." I laid there for another hour before I fell back asleep. That evening going to bed I asked Peter if he heard the knocks, and he confirmed that he had indeed, but tried to ignore it also. "We watched too much American Horror Story," he said. Many times during that day I thought of my dear friend Byron, who lives in New York. Byron, who I have mentioned here before as he lives across the street from Patti Smith. I heard Byron talking in my head. "High-Society voices," he said. I laughed to myself. Little funny things he has said to me over the years, funny things just between us. Things I had not shared with anyone else and I thought to myself, "funny how this particular thing between us on one else knows about...and as funny as it is I have no one else to share it with."
I learned the next day, Friday, that my dear beloved friend Byron had passed the day before. No one seems to be sure when he died, although I have a pretty good idea.
My beloved friend Liza told me she was just reading about the number 3 in spiritual terms, connecting to the perfection of Birth, Life, Death. She felt that the three loud knocks resonated with this, and Byron passing.
When someone close to us passes through, they leave the door open and through them we can connect to the multidimentionality of All That Is, of who we are. I have experienced this many times in the last two days. Connecting with Byron, even when I am at work and trying to focus on the job Byron will pop through and I will be transported to another place and time. Suddenly backstage at the Winter Garden Theatre and Bryon is passing me in the dark carrying a wig. In the smoke lounge laughing as he flicks another cigarette out the window. "Did I tell you about the time I flicked a cigarette into the open window of a taxi driver and it accidentally landed right in his crotch?" Laughing until tears formed in the edges of my eyes.
"Tout a lour." I find myself saying to the performer I just apparently had a quick change with during the show Bring It On, which I am currently working on. "Tout a lour" was what Byron always said to me and what I said back to him whenever he left. I bounced out with Byron without thinking of it. Of course I am fairly susceptible to wandering, although Byron is helping. I think about Byron downloading his Life as he passes and wonder how that affects those of us who shared it with him. Does it cull from us those memories, those attachments, those shared experiences and work them through so he can pass easily? Do they hold him down, slow him down, keep him near for a bit longer because the pain of the belief of separation is too much to bear? I hope Byron flows easily into All That Is. I hope he is detached from these earthly experiences, and enjoys the expanse of the infinite that he is. I know these aspects of him that are so funny, so courageous, so connected to the beautiful mystery of Life, and so giving to those he encountered and worked with and shared with but I know that he is infinitely much more than this. He is complete. He is 3 and has experienced Birth, Life, Death, and upon leaving (or maybe it was upon arriving?) gave three loud knocks.
Thanks Byron.