Fate slowly nodded. I started to wonder about the expression under the mask but wasn’t going to add this question to the Encyclopedia of Questions or this moment to Erik’s List of Missed Moments.
My sister got up from the couch, slowly walked to my mom, and knelt on the floor in front of that oversized red chair with the faded flowers. “You both did the best you could, you know. Erik needed someone to blame for whatever he felt like he was missing in his life.”
I wanted to defend myself, but she was probably right. Maybe not entirely right, but mostly.
“He was nearly fifty years old, Mom. He had every chance to make a choice and just let it all go.” They were both crying now.
“I wish that . . .” my mom wailed, unable to finish the thought. Then, my sister, God bless her, really, I thought, please, God, bless her, said the most amazing thing. “He knows, Mom. Erik can hear you right now, and he knows. No more regrets for either of you.”
How did she? Wait, what? Oh, how I wanted to just ask a billion questions. As she said this to my mom, I swore she was looking at me. I felt a hand on my shoulder. This time it was Mort’s.
“Don’t you get it, Erik? She loves you. She always did.” Then he added, “Forgive yourself.”
Forgive myself? I wanted to defensively blurt out, “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” But he was right. I just hadn’t ever thought of it that way. The anger I was holding onto had turned into blame and then shame. All of which made me treat them terribly. All of which made me feel guilty. All of which created a spiral from which I could never recover. This wasn’t their fault anymore. I was a big boy, and after some time, it couldn’t be their fault anymore. Not that it ever was. It was my choice to hang onto all that I held onto. My fault to keep stuffing my suitcase full of more and more shame. The longer I went without a relationship with them . . . the more I blamed myself. Mort was right. I had dug the hole I was in. I needed to forgive myself. But it was more than just that. I abandoned my childhood after that fight when I was seven. I abandoned myself. I needed to make peace with that, too. I quietly wished that I could see them again and make everything different.
I leaned back in my chair and took a deep, cleansing breath. Fate startled me as he cleared his throat with a kind of annoyed “Excuse me, dude, but I’m not done with you” tone. I opened my eyes, leaned forward, and shrugged my shoulders with a return look of “What do you mean you’re not done with me?”
He cocked his head playfully and then said, “No, Ray. It was you.”8
What? I knew the reference. Maybe it was time to warm up to this Fate character. Dude had a seriously warped sense of humor. He was quoting Field of Dreams. I just didn’t understand why.
Then I got it. In the movie, Kevin Costner’s character, Ray Kinsella, figures out that he had to let go of the guilt and anger he felt about his father to be happy. He had to let go of that burden. Granted, in the movie, Ray was alive, and his dad was dead. The exact opposite of what I was experiencing, but there was still great reward for giving in to peace. Ray got to play catch with his dad, and I got . . .
Jess.
There she was, sitting on the back deck of our little guesthouse. Just like I had hoped. The weathered wood was still badly in need of new stain and the same three slats remained dangerously missing. I was supposed to fix that. What I wouldn’t give to be able to do it now. Jess wore an oversized shirt over her knees, which were pulled to her chest. Her long hair flowed from her favorite hemp hat that we bought at a music festival. She wasn’t sure how it looked, but it was perfect on her. On brand. She sipped mint tea from the big mug with the tie-dyed design. We bought that on Haight Street in San Francisco. The shadows and breeze told me it was mid-afternoon. She looked peaceful. Daydreaming.
Then the placemat went dark. It was just a blink of a moment, but it was enough because I was wholly in it. Was this what faith felt like? Was faith less about religion or spirituality and really about awareness? Was having faith in yourself simply being aware of yourself? They seemed like okay questions to ask. For once, I was going to feel grateful for what I had and not focus on what I was missing.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
An unhoused man approaches a businessman and asks for money to buy a lottery ticket. Despite thinking it is just an excuse, the businessman gives the down-on-his-luck traveler a few dollars. The next day, the man is waiting for the Good Samaritan. He had won and wanted to share the news . . . and the winnings.
The lights came back on, and a sense of calm settled around the table. A sense of peace. A sense of satisfaction. I had always feared and despised the idea of being content. It felt like I was giving up and settling. If I felt content, it meant I was no longer seeking to move forward. No longer searching for a challenge. No longer wanting to better myself. To me, content meant the death of ambition and drive. I was the living embodiment of an Alan Watts quote, “. . . everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.”9
That was me. Looking beyond myself. Always panicked with a slow, low-burning anxiety. According to the therapists, this was the result of feeling like I was never enough. I always needed to do more. To be more. This is how I proved my value. For the first time in my life . . . damn . . . I mean for the first time ever, I felt like I didn’t need to do that anymore.
I was doing it wrong. The real meaning of contentment was that you had peace in your heart. It was a result of authenticity. If you were at peace driving forward, you could be content. If you were authentic about your place in life, you could be content. Contentment wasn’t weak. It was beautiful. Contentment wasn’t a slow death. It was honest. I think that by taking responsibility for my role in the downward cycle of my relationship with my mom and sister, I felt more authentic, which allowed me, for the first time, to experience how contentment should feel: empowering.
I had an expectation that heaven was the place where questions automatically stopped. Where everything was forgiven and healed. The place where everything was perfect upon arrival. Where I was perfect upon arrival. That certainly wasn’t my experience. Heaven, instead, appeared to be the place where I had the opportunity to safely free myself from all the fears that haunted me in life. A place where I could let go of the pain that I caused with lies and deceit. In life, I was always afraid of hurting people if I followed my soul. I couldn’t be content. It felt selfish. “Me first” was never an option. In life, I privately feared that my actions would, if heaven existed, keep me from being welcomed. It’s not that I thought there was a hell. Just that heaven was a kind of tennis and golf club to which you needed a special invitation to join.
Now I was thinking that everyone was welcomed if they were willing to allow themselves to be exposed and their true authenticity revealed. Frankly, after seeing my mom and sister, I stopped thinking of heaven as a location altogether. It was spiritual. Heaven was a feeling. Authentic contentment.
I thought about all the times when I described something unspeakably beautiful in nature as “heaven on earth.” No. Heaven on earth was actually something in me. Heaven on earth was the beauty of a pure heart. With a pure heart, only then can we see true beauty in any other form, be it in nature, music, art, or humanity. Only then can we truly experience love.
I had moments in my life when I felt overwhelmed by the Colorado backcountry or the way Jess looked at me. Now I knew what those moments really were. They were moments when I was content. Pure belonging. Pure of heart. Pure peace. I struggled not to give in to the temptation and think about all that I missed because I hadn’t understood it when I was alive. How much more life could I have experienced? How many more moments? How could I have loved myself?
Fate settled at the center of the table, his legs crossed atop something like a lazy Susan. He spun slowly, an enigmatic smile playing on his lips, his expression both serene and mysterious. My mom would have misidentified it as an “eating-shit grin” instead of what it really was—a “shit-eating grin.” She had a funny habit of getting things slightly wrong. Like always calling the movie Moneyball, based on Michael Lewis’ book and the Oakland A’s, “Money Balls.” I teased her that she made it sound like porn. In that version, the general manager probably wouldn’t be named Billy Beane, as he was in the actual book. No. In the porn version, he’d be something like Billy Boner. Until this very moment, that habit of hers annoyed me to no end. Now I felt like I was going to miss it. Billy Boner. That’s funny.
As Fate continued to spin with that clown-like grin, I felt wide open. Unlike any other time in my, well, any other time ever. I felt totally in the moment. What came before didn’t matter. What happened next wasn’t a consideration. I was a mixed cocktail of these powerful, positive emotions. As Fate kept spinning in silence, I finally noticed the boy sitting to my left. I had been so stuck in my own experience and so taken by Mort that until now, I hadn’t even noticed this boy. I hadn’t made any effort to introduce myself. As much as I always prided myself on being aware of the people and activities around me, I certainly didn’t hold up to that standard here. Epic fail. I hadn’t even noticed someone sitting right next to me. Much less a kid. How could I have missed him?
Trying to introduce myself, I leaned over, offered my hand, and whispered, “I’m Erik.” He just stared straight ahead, transfixed, without any hint of emotion. Maybe he didn’t speak English? It would be just like me to assume that he did. Or that he’d want to talk to me. Maybe he was just too scared. Or shy.
He was only about fifteen and wore the white Hurley T-shirt and tattered jeans that were the uniform of his generation. He wore blue Vans, slip-ons, no laces. Total skater vibe with his shoulder-length brown highlighted hair covered by a backward sun-bleached, red baseball hat featuring a Minor League Baseball team logo. I guess he looked Hispanic. I wasn’t sure. Maybe Native American?
His complexion was dark, but his origin wasn’t the only feature that felt unclear to me. Something wasn’t right. It felt like something was missing. Two eyes. Two ears. Nose. Everything physical seemed to be in order. But while everyone else in the room felt vibrant, this kid felt distant. Cold. Like his spirit wasn’t in the room. Like he was there, but he wasn’t there. Transparent.
Perhaps he was angry. I didn’t know his story, but who could blame him for being pissed if he were here at such a young age? He violently pushed back his chair, sending it crashing to the floor behind us, and bolted out of the room as the lights came all the way up. I wanted badly to rush after him. Nobody else seemed to flinch when his chair exploded onto the floor. It created a huge crash. How could they not notice something so totally out of place? Amid peace and contentment was an almost violent level of emotion. Where did he go? These thoughts were interrupted.
Harry Caray was back. “Alllll riiiiiight!!! It’s time for intermission. We hope you all enjoyed the first act. Please take a few minutes to walk around, introduce yourselves to some new friends, and, of course, join me in singing ‘Take Me Out to the Ballgame’!”
This was our seventh-inning stretch.
He wasted no time diving into his signature song. “A-one, a-two, a-three! Take me out to the baaaaaall gaaaaaaammme . . .” We broke out in chorus with the angels filling in as the Universe’s greatest backup singers. It didn’t even faze me that everyone knew the words when I assumed at least half the people in the room had never heard the song, much less seen a baseball game. Asking that question would only take away the enjoyment of the moment. I was more than happy to sing along and nothing more. “For it’s one, two, three strikes, you’re out at the olllllld balllllll gaaaaaame!”
Harry finished up with another “Alllllll riiiiiiight!” and invited us to head outside to enjoy what he called “the fireworks show.” One by one, we all streamed outside through the sliding glass doors. I could swear that we walked through the same doors that previously led from the pool and the giant lawn where we played earlier. They, um, were gone. No pool. No field. I just smiled and laughed. Of course they’re gone. In their place was an amphitheater with hundreds of oversized, plush seats that were angled slightly to give the perfect view of the pitch-black sky above us.
I sank into a soft, bean-bag-like cushion next to Mort, leaned back, and looked up into the blackness. I was expecting a familiar show and waited for the first firework to burst into the sky. Usually, it was a small one. Something to just whet the audience’s appetite. One of those traditional rockets that screams into the night and booms into a sprinkling flower of color.
Apparently, I was a slow learner. Why I still expected the same thing I had experienced in life was beyond me. Why did I expect anything? What was the point? This was to be a fireworks show like no other.
I was surprised by a shooting star that streaked across the canvas of night. First just the one. Then a second. And a third. One by one, these stars shot across the sky, each creating a unique pattern of light in their wake. As though each was its own paintbrush. Their patterns were like clouds, and my eyes could make out shapes in the light.
A horse.
Or a dog.
A little girl.
