Looking down a gently slanting slope, abundantly decorated with flowers and the greenest grass, I watch a meandering quiet brook in the shrubbery below. Birds are a singing and every thing is joyful, gentle and calm.

This is it; gone with the wind, the end of the road. I walk down the hill but suddenly I feel someone touching my shoulder.

“Slow down, my friend,” I hear. When I look over my shoulder I see a tall bearded figure who is friendly nodding to me. He carries a huge bunch of keys. “Saint Peter, the guardian,” he says, yet I realize no gate of heaven is to be seen. Peter smiles. “That business about the gate is a fable,” he says, “but in this bunch of keys your key is included, the key to your very heart.” He rumbles for a while and shows me a big old-fashioned key.

1944~Oldenburg~HSB~Leiderdorp~20?? is engraved on it, but also a bar code.
“Bar code, now what!?!” I exclaim. Peter grins. “Here we opt also for modern times, you know. We are done with carrying large books.“

He draws the code through a small device and the movie of my life unfolds itself. It is all there. My birth and younger years; Leiden, the Rembrandt High school; my marriage with Annie; 38 years in the bookshop; three daughters, one son and seven grandchildren; Bach’s wonderful music; the Zoeterwoude council; runningfox.nl; and last but not least our fantastic apartment overlooking the park and polder landscapes of western Holland, as well as our golden anniversary. And of course, also the failures, the mistakes and the ‘I would want to have done that otherwise’ moments are shown.

Just this morning, my wife Annie and I were standing hand-in-hand on our balcony, enjoying a stunning sunrise with fantastic colours in a magical palette of beauty, calling forth many expectations. A few hours later I did not feel well. My heart worked overtime and after Annie had called 911, not much later I found myself in the Intensive Care Unit of the local regional hospital, where I just blew out my last breath.

“It is time,” Peter tells me. From the bank of the creek I can see three magnificent women coming my way. Their feet are bare and they are wearing blue robes; each of them in another hue. They are our daughter Judith, Paula my mother, and my grandmother Jacoba. I run towards them and with heavy emotions we hug each other for a long time.

As you know, time isn’t linear but perpendicular and it is therefore that these potentials of what ultimately is inevitable, already has taken place or either is just taking place right now. Future, present and past, presented in a single phrase.

A blackbird is singing as if to acknowledge all this. But it isn’t a blackbird that is singing. It is the alarm clock wanting me to get out of my state of slumbering and enter a new day. One of many more that still have to come until the day arrives I will meet Peter at the gate and ‘my’ three women near the stream in the valley.
It is good to have had this glimpse into what is yet to come. It gives me trust and I know now that it will be a grand day when at long last I will be able to let go of all that transpired during my current lifetime on this very Earth.

I am very grateful to have been able to experience this foretaste of what was, is and ultimately will be.