Associate Producer Julie Caine shares her recent experiences with death.

Julie Caine

I volunteered to produce the TRBQ show about how we face death because, in the past year, death has really been in my face. My mother died. My co-worker died. Several friends and acquaintances committed suicide. And then, of course, there’s Michael Jackson.

Recently, on a long car ride, a friend asked me if I’d ever had encounters with ghosts. My immediate response was, oh no, no ghosts in my life, I don’t believe in that kind of thing.  And then I reconsidered, and started talking about some things that happened a few days after my co-worker, Steve, died suddenly last summer from injuries he sustained in a simple bicycle accident.

Steve, our office manager, was a great guy, friendly, jovial and big-hearted. He was especially kind to folks many of us overlook—telemarketers, couriers, the UPS guy.

After he wiped out on his bike, I went over to his house and brought him some dinner. He seemed okay, just stiff from the fall, and a little embarrassed.

The next morning we got a call from his brother. Steve had collapsed by his bed in the night, and had been rushed to the hospital. It seemed that in the bike accident, he had ruptured his spleen.

 I gave Steve a call on his cell phone, and he answered from his hospital bed. He sounded weak and distant, but laughed about his predicament, and apologized for not coming into the office.  I told him I’d come to visit in the next couple days, and wished him well.

Later that same day, Steve’s liver failed, and his body shut down. By 11pm, he was gone. It was so surreal to get the phone call from his brother saying those words; it was hard to understand.

Steve Nunez: colleague and friend

 A few days later, I was alone in the office. Our outgoing voicemail message was in Steve’s voice, and I had been asked to re-record it in my own. This wasn’t my area of expertise; these kinds of things were Steve’s job.  I had to call the phone company to find out how to change the message.

I called the 800 number, and spiraled through many different prompts, pressing one, pressing nine, entering my telephone number, pressing the star key, feeling more and more agitated with each minute I spent on hold. When I finally reached a human being, I was grumpy. I explained the situation—that our office manager had died, that I didn’t have his password, that I needed help to change our voicemail message.

I got disconnected.

I called again. Pressed one, pressed nine, entered my phone number, hit the star key. When I finally reached a human being again, I repeated my story, only this time much grumpier, starting to get angry, feeling all the stress of the situation, and of Steve’s death.

Again, I got disconnected.

Now I was pissed. I called back, angry, steaming, frustrated, and rude. When I finally reached an agent, I let them have it, started yelling at them, saying, “Can someone there manage to do their job and not disconnect me?” As the agent started to answer my question, her voice began to fade away until I could hear nothing but static on the line.

It was strange. I put down the receiver. I took a breath. And then I started to smile. I said aloud in the empty office, “Okay, Steve, I got you. I’m sorry I’m being so difficult. I promise to be nicer to the people at the phone company. I know they’re just doing their jobs…”

And then I dialed one more time. I was immediately connected to a human being. I explained my situation, and the man on the other end of the phone, said, “Don’t you worry. I’m going to help you do this. My mother just died recently and I completely understand how hard this is.”

And, with that, the problem was solved.

A few nights later, I had a dream. Steve called me from the hospital. He asked me if I would please come and pick him up, he said he didn’t want to be there anymore. In the dream, I said, “Steve, I can’t come pick you up. You died. You had a bike wreck, you went to the hospital, and you died.” And then I said it again, “You died.”

I sat straight up in bed, suddenly awake.

Were these ghost stories? I hadn’t thought so until I started telling them to my friend.  Or, were these psychological creations of a brain that, as Jesse Bering posits, simply cannot conceive of the end of consciousness?

Those experiences with Steve after he died were scary in the moment, they give me goosebumps even now, but they also gave me comfort. Those encounters felt like a farewell, and a final exchange of friendship. Whatever their source, I’m glad to have had them.

--Julie