Did My Friend Know He Was Going To Die?
Many years ago (back in the 90s), a close friend came to visit me where I live in California. My friend, Daniel, was an American who had been living and working (as a college professor) in Japan. We were both middle aged. I had met Daniel when he and I were both in our 20s. Our friendship was a close one and had gone on for a long time. Daniel went to work in Japan after he married a Japanese woman. He liked to travel, a mutual interest, and he had learned to be fluent in Japanese (his wife spoke fluent English, she also had worked as a college instructor). Our mutual interests were travel, gardening, cooking, reading, occultism (we attended lectures together at the Theosophical Society).
During what turned out to be our last visit, while eating at Barney's Beanery, a restaurant in West Hollywood, CA, Danny told me he had become involved with what he described as "very high level people." I asked him, " Do you mean powerful people, such as rich people or government leaders, or do you mean people who are spiritually advanced or powerful occultists?" He said, "Both." But he seemed very reluctant to tell me more.
The year before, he had also visited me in LA but brought he wife and infant son along so I could meet them. His wife behaved strangely, not actually speaking with me but, if I asked her a question, she would whisper her answer to her husband, my friend, in Japanese and he would translate it to me in English. When I asked him why she was doing that, he said she was uncomfortable speaking English because she was underconfident about her ability to speak English correctly especially because I was an English teacher and would look down on her poor grammar or incorrect word usage. Since she herself had lived in the US for many years while making a decent living as a college instructor in Sociology for several years before getting married to my friend, it seemed unlikely that she would still be struggling in English or worry about the reaction of an English teacher.
At the end of our last visit, the one where he didn't bring his family with him, he asked me to drive him to the airport to catch his flight home to Japan. I was surprised because I had seen him off before for flights across the US or one of the oceans and he had always insisted that I drop him off at a bus to the airport. It's somewhat of a long drive and difficult parking to take someone directly to the airport in LA and Danny knew this and had never asked me before. However, I had time off from work (spring break) and did not mind taking him right to his flight out of LAX and did so.
When we got to his flight, they'd already begun the boarding. He seemed a bit emotionally agitated, which was not his usual personality and he seemed to hold on longer than usual as he hugged me goodbye. All that day, during our lunch at Barney's, and as I drove him to the airport, I got the feeling there was something he wanted to tell me but was trying hard not to tell me. If I asked him about this, he skillfully changed the subject.
After our hug, he turned to board the plane, taking out his ticket and passport handing the ticket and showing his passport to the attendant as he then walked thru the boarding tunnel and into the plane.
Now here is what haunts me: As he walked into the boarding tunnel, just before he got to the point where I would've lost sight of him, he stopped and turned around and looked right at me, as if he wanted to catch one more look at me or wanted me to be able to catch one more look at him or both. At that moment, I felt sure we would never see each other again in this life. It was an awful feeling but I didn't know what I could do. I wasn't going to try and stop him from boarding his flight back to his home and family. But I drove back from the airport feeling very sad and still seeing the look on his face when he turned and looked at me for what would indeed turn out to the last time I would ever see him.
About 6 months later, I got the news in a phone call from his sister in New York state; Daniel had died suddenly, shockingly at the age of 39 and no one, including his doctor, knew exactly what had killed him. The only witness to his death was, sadly, his 3 year old son who reported that his daddy had been lying on the couch reading the newspaper, had gotten up and suddenly fallen down on the floor. His wife had gone out shopping. She called the Japanese equivalent of 911 for help. The emergency people came within about 5 minutes but it was too late. The evening before, he had been out to dinner with his wife and her brother and, in the middle of the dinner, pausing in the middle of a meal, he'd had a sudden choking fit and was taken to an emergency hospital; it appeared he had not been choking on food. The doctors at the emergency hospital said they didn't know what could've caused the choking. He wasn't choking when he fell down in his living room and died according to his young son.
I was devastated to hear the news. I'd lost a very close and good friend. Daniel was a 39 year old vegetarian who went swimming and biking daily, ate organic, had good dental health and, and generally took good care of himself. He came from a family where most people died in their 80s.
Another unusual thing; the day after he died, and before the police in their area (suburban Tokyo) completed the investigation into Daniel's death, his wife, now his widow, packed up everything and moved to the town in upstate New York where Daniel's two sisters and much of their family lived. She got a job teaching high school and still lives there today.
I knew Daniel pretty well. You get to know the expressions on a close friend's face. I am absolutely sure that, somehow, when Daniel turned to look at me as he walked through that boarding tunnel at LAX, he KNEW we would never see each other again. And, also, I am sure he had a major secret of some kind he was considering telling me but decided not to do so.
Any thought about this? I've certainly thought about it a lot over the years. I am wondering if anyone here has any take on it. Have you ever had a premonition of a friend's death as I think I did that day? What could have been the secret he hesitated to tell me? What happened to my friend? Healthy 39 year old men don't usually die suddenly of no apparent reason, do they?
Of course, I do know that any time you say goodbye to anyone, even a casual bye-bye to a co-worker as you leave work for the day, or a wave to a neighbor as you drive down your driveway to go grocery shopping, may be a permanent goodbye. The hard sad truth is that anytime we part with someone, we may never see that person again. Not in this life anyway (I'm a Christian). Some goodbyes are, sadly, sometimes surprisingly, permanent goodbyes as mine was with Daniel that day. Nevertheless, I believe Daniel knew it and I did not but I sensed it. Somehow, to some degree, for at least that one moment, we both knew.
During what turned out to be our last visit, while eating at Barney's Beanery, a restaurant in West Hollywood, CA, Danny told me he had become involved with what he described as "very high level people." I asked him, " Do you mean powerful people, such as rich people or government leaders, or do you mean people who are spiritually advanced or powerful occultists?" He said, "Both." But he seemed very reluctant to tell me more.
The year before, he had also visited me in LA but brought he wife and infant son along so I could meet them. His wife behaved strangely, not actually speaking with me but, if I asked her a question, she would whisper her answer to her husband, my friend, in Japanese and he would translate it to me in English. When I asked him why she was doing that, he said she was uncomfortable speaking English because she was underconfident about her ability to speak English correctly especially because I was an English teacher and would look down on her poor grammar or incorrect word usage. Since she herself had lived in the US for many years while making a decent living as a college instructor in Sociology for several years before getting married to my friend, it seemed unlikely that she would still be struggling in English or worry about the reaction of an English teacher.
At the end of our last visit, the one where he didn't bring his family with him, he asked me to drive him to the airport to catch his flight home to Japan. I was surprised because I had seen him off before for flights across the US or one of the oceans and he had always insisted that I drop him off at a bus to the airport. It's somewhat of a long drive and difficult parking to take someone directly to the airport in LA and Danny knew this and had never asked me before. However, I had time off from work (spring break) and did not mind taking him right to his flight out of LAX and did so.
When we got to his flight, they'd already begun the boarding. He seemed a bit emotionally agitated, which was not his usual personality and he seemed to hold on longer than usual as he hugged me goodbye. All that day, during our lunch at Barney's, and as I drove him to the airport, I got the feeling there was something he wanted to tell me but was trying hard not to tell me. If I asked him about this, he skillfully changed the subject.
After our hug, he turned to board the plane, taking out his ticket and passport handing the ticket and showing his passport to the attendant as he then walked thru the boarding tunnel and into the plane.
Now here is what haunts me: As he walked into the boarding tunnel, just before he got to the point where I would've lost sight of him, he stopped and turned around and looked right at me, as if he wanted to catch one more look at me or wanted me to be able to catch one more look at him or both. At that moment, I felt sure we would never see each other again in this life. It was an awful feeling but I didn't know what I could do. I wasn't going to try and stop him from boarding his flight back to his home and family. But I drove back from the airport feeling very sad and still seeing the look on his face when he turned and looked at me for what would indeed turn out to the last time I would ever see him.
About 6 months later, I got the news in a phone call from his sister in New York state; Daniel had died suddenly, shockingly at the age of 39 and no one, including his doctor, knew exactly what had killed him. The only witness to his death was, sadly, his 3 year old son who reported that his daddy had been lying on the couch reading the newspaper, had gotten up and suddenly fallen down on the floor. His wife had gone out shopping. She called the Japanese equivalent of 911 for help. The emergency people came within about 5 minutes but it was too late. The evening before, he had been out to dinner with his wife and her brother and, in the middle of the dinner, pausing in the middle of a meal, he'd had a sudden choking fit and was taken to an emergency hospital; it appeared he had not been choking on food. The doctors at the emergency hospital said they didn't know what could've caused the choking. He wasn't choking when he fell down in his living room and died according to his young son.
I was devastated to hear the news. I'd lost a very close and good friend. Daniel was a 39 year old vegetarian who went swimming and biking daily, ate organic, had good dental health and, and generally took good care of himself. He came from a family where most people died in their 80s.
Another unusual thing; the day after he died, and before the police in their area (suburban Tokyo) completed the investigation into Daniel's death, his wife, now his widow, packed up everything and moved to the town in upstate New York where Daniel's two sisters and much of their family lived. She got a job teaching high school and still lives there today.
I knew Daniel pretty well. You get to know the expressions on a close friend's face. I am absolutely sure that, somehow, when Daniel turned to look at me as he walked through that boarding tunnel at LAX, he KNEW we would never see each other again. And, also, I am sure he had a major secret of some kind he was considering telling me but decided not to do so.
Any thought about this? I've certainly thought about it a lot over the years. I am wondering if anyone here has any take on it. Have you ever had a premonition of a friend's death as I think I did that day? What could have been the secret he hesitated to tell me? What happened to my friend? Healthy 39 year old men don't usually die suddenly of no apparent reason, do they?
Of course, I do know that any time you say goodbye to anyone, even a casual bye-bye to a co-worker as you leave work for the day, or a wave to a neighbor as you drive down your driveway to go grocery shopping, may be a permanent goodbye. The hard sad truth is that anytime we part with someone, we may never see that person again. Not in this life anyway (I'm a Christian). Some goodbyes are, sadly, sometimes surprisingly, permanent goodbyes as mine was with Daniel that day. Nevertheless, I believe Daniel knew it and I did not but I sensed it. Somehow, to some degree, for at least that one moment, we both knew.
70-79, F
