The In-Between: Part Two Exploration of the Transition Between Life and Death Part 2 of 3

06/25/2026

By the time Mr Mac contacted me, I was already inside the hospital, sitting quietly in the cafeteria waiting for him.

I let him know where he could meet me, and he told me he was on his way with a friend, a brother in Christ. They were heading to the hospital to pray over his friend and neighbor, Eddie.

From what I understood, Eddie was not just someone Mr Mac had met recently. He had known him for years, possibly decades. As long as I have known Mr Mac, Eddie had been part of his life in some way.

I believe I met Mr Mac a little over twenty years ago.

His full name is McKinley Darden, but I have always known him simply as Mr Mac.

He was never really my pastor in the traditional sense.

I visited his church a few times over the years, but our relationship was never built around regular church attendance. It was built around friendship, fellowship, camaraderie, and mutual respect.

We originally met in an insurance office, inside the same building where I was renting a recording studio space. At the time, I was working on several music projects that I never released.

It seems like I have been working on music all my life and only recently began putting anything out into the world.

During a recent visit, Mr Mac told me something I had not known before.

He said that whenever I came to his church, he and the congregation were always grateful when I showed up because I brought something with me.

A certain light.

I did not realize that at the time.

Sometimes people see things in us long before we see them in ourselves.

Eventually, Mr Mac arrived at the hospital with his friend, Jaime.

I stood up and hugged Mr Mac. Then I greeted Jaime and hugged him as well.

Mr Mac told me that Jaime and he had been friends for many years, and that Jaime was a godly man.

Mr Mac noticed the water in front of me and told me to sit down.

"No, you sit down," he said. "Looks like you're having lunch or drinking something."

"No," I said. "It's just water."

He decided to sit at the table where I had been waiting. I pulled up another chair for Jaime, and the three of us sat together for a moment before Jaime stepped away to find something to drink.

Mr Mac looked at me.

"You doing all right?" he asked.

Then almost immediately, he added, "You don't look like it."

I told him the truth as best as I could.

"I don't know," I said. "Kind of not. I have a lot of questions. A lot of stuff going on."

He nodded.

"Yeah," he said. "I can tell."

I began telling him about the encounter I had at the store with Priscilla, the medium, and how she seemed to recognize that I was grieving before I had really told her anything.

I asked him if he thought that was something people could just tell.

He said that people can usually tell when someone is going through something.

Then he asked me how long my mother had been gone.

I think he may have forgotten, and that is okay.

People have their own lives, their own concerns, their own families, their own pain, and their own responsibilities. Not everyone can carry the exact calendar of someone else's grief.

I told him it had been a year and some change.

But as soon as I said that, I realized that it has probably been closer to a year and a half now.

I keep saying a year and some change because it still feels recent.

It still hurts to say that much time has passed.

The farther away the date moves from the moment she left, the farther away it feels like she is in some strange way.

Part of me wants to reverse that.

Part of me wants to pull her closer instead of watching time quietly stretch the distance.

Mr Mac looked at me and said that was a long time to be mourning.

He was not saying it cruelly.

He was not dismissing my grief.

He was trying to help me understand that grief has a process, and that in the biblical world, mourning was often given a specific period of expression.

He mentioned that in biblical times, seven days was often understood as a mourning period for loved ones. He connected it to David and Bathsheba and the child God did not allow to live.

They explained that the ones left behind, the loved ones still living, are given a chance to express themselves and make peace with the person who is passing or has passed.

That can happen during the funeral.

It can also happen during the transition, as someone is departing from this realm.

He did not say it exactly that way.

That is how I am explaining what I understood from the conversation.

Then I told him something I had not really expected to say in that moment.

I told him I had never had a funeral for my mother.

He looked taken aback.

I explained that financially, it had been difficult.

We had cremated her remains, but her loss also created a financial loss for my father's survival.

My parents had both been living on Social Security. Her check stopped. The bills did not. The mortgage did not. Life did not pause and politely wait for us to grieve.

I stepped in.

Since then, my father and I have both been paddling just to stay above water.

We have not had much of a chance to do anything beyond survive.

Mr Mac seemed to understand more clearly after that.

"A year and a half later and no funeral?" he said.

It was not judgment.

It was recognition.

He said he understood now why I felt the way I did.

A funeral, he explained, is part of the process.

He said I needed someone to do the procedure.

I needed a funeral for her.

I needed someone to say words over her.

Jaime brought up the fact that she had already been cremated and that burial was not necessarily required now.

I told him that a burial is still what I want for her.

I want her remains to have a final resting place.

But both Mr Mac and Jaime agreed that the funeral and the words spoken over her were the important part.

That was what they believed would bring peace.

God's peace.

The important part was not necessarily the burial itself.

The important part was the ceremony.

The words.

The prayer.

The release.

Mr Mac said it would help put that to rest in my heart.

He told me my spirit should be free.

My mother was a godly woman, he said, and my spirit should be free knowing she is in a better place.

He said I should not continue to mourn like this.

He said my mother would not want me to continue mourning this way.

Then he told me he would help me provide a Christian ceremony for her so we could put this to rest.

Hearing that did something to me.

Not because everything was suddenly fixed.

It was not.

But something about the conversation began pointing toward a step I had not taken yet.

Not another song.

Not another article.

Not another theory.

A real-world action.

A ceremony.

A moment of release.

A chance to speak words over her and give my heart somewhere to place what it has been carrying.

I then told him more about my encounter with Priscilla, the medium.

I told him that she said my mother had sent a message about not mourning anymore.

That she was fine.

I expected him to find that strange.

He did not.

Jaime did not either.

My father had not found it strange the day before when I told him about it.

Instead, Mr Mac said that was the Holy Spirit operating through her to send that message.

He believed it was not just something for me to think about, but something I needed to put into action.

To exercise it.

Jaime agreed.

They said that was God working.

No one at that table seemed disturbed by the idea.

They said the Spirit was in her, and that she was following God's principles.

That surprised me.

Not because I expected them to be harsh.

But because I expected more resistance.

Instead, they received it through their own Christian understanding.

They did not view it as something separate from God.

They viewed it as God finding a way to reach me.

Jaime then said something simple that stayed with me.

Mourning is for a season.

Everything is a season.

Even physical death is a season.

That idea connected directly to the larger question I had been asking throughout this entire series.

If physical death is a season, then perhaps death is not merely an ending.

Perhaps, in the Christian view, it is a transition.

Mr Mac included a verse that kept coming up in my research.

"To be absent from the body is to be with Christ Jesus."

He explained that this, to him, is the transition.

To love God.

To believe in Jesus as His Son.

To believe that Jesus died, rose again, and sits at the right hand of God.

That is it.

Jaime added the bottom line plainly.

If my mother knew God as her Lord and Savior, she is fine.

Mr Mac said God wants me to have peace about it.

He told me to read 2 Corinthians 5:8.

He also explained that the body is not what goes to Heaven.

The spirit does.

The body goes back to dust.

That led me to ask about something I had believed for a long time.

I asked him about the idea of a sleep period before judgment.

Soul sleep.

The belief that after death, the soul rests in an unconscious or dormant state until the resurrection and final judgment.

He did not agree with that view.

According to Mr Mac, there is no sleep or dormant period before judgment the way I had believed.

We leave the body and are instantly in God's presence.

There is no Purgatory.

No waiting room.

No suspended state.

No long unconscious pause.

For him, the transition is immediate.

Absent from the body.

Present with the Lord.

That does not mean my own questions disappeared.

But it did give me a clearer understanding of his Christian perspective.

He also said something that felt connected to the way many people misunderstand faith.

The Holy Spirit is not looking for perfect people.

The Holy Spirit is looking for imperfect people to be made perfect in Him.

People often believe they have to act a certain way or become a certain kind of person before they can please God.

But Mr Mac said that is not true.

People overcomplicate it.

It is simpler than that.

God gives us free will.

He does not force us.

He gives us the choice to choose Him or reject Him.

To believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus.

To accept what has already been paid for.

At some point, I mentioned Philippians 1:21-24, where Paul expresses that to live is Christ and to die is gain. Paul writes about desiring to depart and be with Christ, but also recognizing that remaining in the flesh is more necessary for the people he is serving.

I told Mr Mac that I understood that feeling.

The wanting to depart.

The feeling of being here and suffering until we leave.

I told him that staying can sometimes feel like waiting around in pain.

He explained that when Paul was speaking to the Philippians, he was saying that remaining here was an opportunity to do God's work.

Paul desired to be with Christ, but remaining in the body was more needful.

That, Mr Mac explained, is part of the purpose.

The purpose of all of us.

To do the work of God.

To spread the Word of God.

I told him that it still feels like we suffer until we leave.

He said there will be times we suffer for Christ because of the Word of God, and there will be times we suffer because of our sinful nature.

The very nature of man, he explained, is to walk according to the flesh.

When we walk according to the flesh, we make mistakes.

We make bad decisions.

But if we are in the will of God, that is gain.

If we suffer for Christ, that is gain.

We are good.

Jaime added that in this life, we are going to have trials.

Mr Mac added that if Christ suffered because of the Word of God, then we are going to suffer in a similar manner so that we may gain and so our faith may be tested.

Then he asked what kind of suffering I was talking about.

I answered as honestly as I could.

"My heart," I said.

The deep ache.

Mr Mac said that kind of suffering was the enemy.

God does not want my heart to suffer like that, he said.

Those are attributes of the enemy.

At the same time, he acknowledged that we suffer because we are finite creatures.

We have emotions.

We have pain.

People pass, and we hurt.

That suffering exists because we are finite.

If we were divine, he explained, we would only see the Spirit of God.

We would only walk in the Spirit.

But because we are flesh, we struggle.

He referenced David and the idea that we are born in sin and iniquity.

I told him it feels horrible to be born into sin.

He explained that it goes back to Adam and Eve.

I told him it does not seem fair that we are paying for that.

Then I said that maybe this place is like a filtration system.

A place where it is determined who passes and who fails.

He explained that it comes down to free will.

We are given a choice.

God gives us the choice to choose Him or reject Him.

To believe in His death and resurrection.

He reminded me that God loved the world so much that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life.

Eternity.

Forever and ever.

Infinity.

Mr Mac went on to explain that to know God is to love God, and to know God is to have joy.

Not simply joy because I know Him, but joy because of who He is.

According to Mr Mac, knowing who God is should bring joy into my life because His Spirit lives within me. That means even in my darkest hour, joy can still exist there.

Not because the darkness disappears.

Not because pain stops being painful.

But because the Spirit of God remains present inside of it.

He explained that if I believe Jesus died for our sins, rose again, and sits at the right hand of God, then I also have to believe what the Word of God says about life, death, forgiveness, and eternity.

My sins have already been paid for.

That was part of what he kept returning to.

People often believe they have to act a certain way, look a certain way, or become a certain kind of person before they can please God.

But Mr Mac explained that people tend to overcomplicate it.

It is simpler than that.

God gives us free will.

He does not force us.

He gives us the choice to choose Him or reject Him.

At some point, I told him that this life sometimes feels like a testing ground.

He answered that God will never tempt us, but He will test us.

He explained that inside every person, there is a war going on.

The spirit of this world and the Spirit of God.

He gave me the old analogy about the two dogs.

Whichever dog you feed more is the one that wins.

If I feed myself the Word of God, then I will not be starving spiritually.

Daily bread.

But if I feed myself only the ways of the world, then I am going to become weak.

The power, he said, is in the Word of Jesus.

The war itself is happening in a place we cannot see or touch.

He compared the Spirit of God to the wind.

You cannot see it.

You cannot hold it in your hands.

But you know it is there.

You can feel its effect.

That, he said, is where trust comes in.

Faith.

Belief.

I then asked him again about the transition.

Are we automatically with God when we die?

Mr Mac explained that Jesus has already prepared a place for those who belong to Him.

He said that Christ did not leave us alone when He departed this world. He left us with the Holy Spirit.

So even here, before death, we are not alone.

According to Mr Mac, the Holy Spirit lives within believers, which is why Jesus said His followers would do greater works.

He spoke about the new Kingdom.

A new Jerusalem.

A new Heaven.

A new earth.

This current earth, he said, will be no more.

What comes next will be eternal.

In his view, there is no complicated sequence for the soul after death.

No long pause.

No sleep before judgment.

No purgatory.

No waiting around somewhere between worlds.

For Mr Mac, it comes down to belief.

Jesus, the Father, and the Holy Spirit are one.

The Holy Trinity.

One Spirit.

I am reiterating his words in my own way, but the essence was clear.

Trying to understand eternity with a finite brain is difficult.

Trying to apply human logic to divine reality has limits.

At the end of the day, he kept returning to the same foundation.

Stay in the Word of God.

Daily bread.

Jaime added that there will be tests, but God will see us through them.

He said we should enjoy the ride.

Then it was time to see Eddie.

As we made our way to the fourth floor, walking down the hallway toward Eddie's room, it felt like we were on a mission to do something.

Something good.

Something inside of me felt different.

I was still in a fog, but maybe it was a different kind of fog.

Maybe even a good fog.

I am still not sure how to explain it.

We reached the room and walked in.

Mr Mac entered first.

Then me.

Then Jaime.

Eddie was lying in the hospital bed, connected to the kinds of machines and lines people are typically connected to when they are seriously ill in a hospital room.

He was not awake.

He did not look well.

For a moment, they debated whether they should wake him or let him rest.

Ultimately, they decided to let him rest.

Mr Mac prayed over him.

Jaime prayed over him.

I prayed too.

Every corner of the room was prayed over.

The presence of God was welcomed into that space.

I will leave some of the details there because not everything needs to be repeated publicly.

Some moments are sacred.

Some moments are private.

Especially when someone is frail and lying in a hospital bed.

But I will say this.

They anointed Eddie with oil.

Then they anointed me with oil too.

They prayed over me for deeper understanding, for peace, and perhaps for something I did not even realize I needed.

I was not the one lying in the hospital bed.

But somehow, I was prayed over too.

I did not realize my condition needed prayer.

Apparently it did.

Or does.

I am still not completely sure.

I only know that what happened in that hospital room felt like a divine appointment.

As we prayed over Eddie, something quietly shifted inside of me.

Even though he looked like he was in bad shape, and even though I was not sure whether he was on his deathbed, I felt an unexpected understanding of death come over me.

For some reason, I felt like Eddie was going to be all right either way.

If he stayed here, if God restored his health on this side of Heaven, then he would be all right.

And if his path moved in another direction, if he left this realm and went to be with God, then he would be all right that way too.

For the first time in a long time, death did not feel like a total disconnection.

I do not know why.

But it did not.

There was almost a certainty in the room.

Not a certainty that I could prove.

Not a certainty I could explain logically.

But a certainty I felt.

Either way, he was going to be okay.

Before I left the room, I gently touched him on the heart.

"God bless you," I told him.

"Everything's going to be okay."

I was not saying it just to say something comforting.

I believed it.

Deep down, though, I found myself leaning toward one possibility more than the other.

I felt like God was going to restore Eddie here, on this side.

I felt like his health would be restored.

I guess that is faith.

I guess that is belief.

About fifteen minutes into everything, Eddie opened his eyes.

He recognized McKinley.

He saw me.

He saw Jaime.

Words were spoken.

Eddie replied.

And then we left.

From Mr Mac's account, Eddie acknowledging him and saying what he said was already a blessing.

Before Eddie went into the hospital, Mr Mac said he had not been coherent.

He had not even recognized his own sister.

There were other issues, of course.

But standing there after prayer, after oil, after faith had filled the room, Eddie opened his eyes and recognized him.

Maybe that was the power of prayer.

Maybe that was belief.

No.

Not maybe.

It was.

Afterward, we made our way out of the room and back toward the lobby.

Before parting ways, I brought up The Assignment again.

The flower project.

The idea of taking flowers to nursing homes.

I talked to Mr Mac and Jaime about it there in the lobby as we were leaving.

They both said they would be willing to help.

But they also told me I needed to get right first.

And by that, they meant I needed to take care of my mother's funeral.

That had to come first.

Before moving forward with The Assignment.

Before trying to minister to others in that way.

Before bringing flowers into nursing homes.

I needed to finish what had been left unfinished in my own life.

Mr Mac still said The Assignment was a good thing.

He saw it as a form of ministry.

A way of bringing comfort.

A way of serving.

But first, there was something I needed to lay down.

Something I needed to put to rest.

Something I needed to honor properly.

My mother needed a Christian ceremony.

Words needed to be spoken over her.

Prayer needed to be offered.

Peace needed to be invited in.

And maybe, in some way, I needed permission to stop carrying what had become too heavy to carry alone.

When I first came to the hospital, I thought I was there to ask questions about the transition between life and death.

I thought I was there to talk theology with Mr Mac.

I thought I was there to explore whether the soul sleeps, whether it enters the presence of God immediately, or whether there is some kind of in-between beyond the body.

But by the time I left, the question had changed shape.

It was no longer only about what happens after the body dies.

It was also about what happens to the people left behind.

What happens when grief does not complete its natural process?

What happens when a funeral never happens?

What happens when the heart keeps circling the same unfinished room?

Maybe part of my in-between has not only been philosophical.

Maybe it has been ceremonial.

Maybe it has been spiritual.

Maybe it has been emotional.

Maybe I have been standing somewhere between loss and release, between mourning and peace, between holding on and finally allowing my mother to rest in my heart the way she already rests with God.

I walked into that hospital looking for answers about death.

I walked out with a funeral to plan.

A prayer still sitting on my skin.

A memory of Eddie opening his eyes.

A deeper respect for Mr Mac and Jaime.

And a strange sense that some questions had been answered, while many more were waiting for me in the next part of the journey.

A lot of questions answered.

And many more questions to go.