“No. That’s what you picked up on and feel is missing. His spirit isn’t here. He’s somewhere between the hospital and here. He wasn’t supposed to leave the hospital. It wasn’t his time. He’s halfway. He can’t stay here. You picked up on it. That means he can hear you.”
“Whoa. Isn’t this God-level stuff? Who lives, who dies, and, I guess, who goes back? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not any kind of God.”
Fate didn’t argue with me. He went on to tell me that I had a chance to help this boy.
“Why me?”
“Because you need to do this.”
He was right, I think. Even as I was forgiving myself. Even as I was learning to let go, I was still holding on to . . . something.
I opened the door slowly and stood just outside the threshold. I nervously looked at Fate, and he gave me one of those “go on” flicks of his wrists and fingers. You know the one. It’s like International Sign Language for “What the hell are you so afraid of?”
“Hey, kid, it’s me again. Third time’s a charm and all, right?” I just started talking. I told him about my friend Steve, who lived in my neighborhood. Steve got hit by a car while riding a Big Wheel down the sidewalk. He was badly hurt but was now a firefighter saving other people’s lives. I quietly wondered if that had been Fate’s work too. I told the boy about my love of watching cars and tried to get him to laugh about the irony of being hit by one. He didn’t laugh. He didn’t do much of anything.
I told him about the girl in the movie and how I had pressed C. I told him about my parents’ fights. I told him about Blondie, who was resting her head on his foot. I explained how funny Fate was. I tried to ask him questions about his friends. I told him about mine. “You’d love Timmy,” I said. “In fact, you should go look him up.” I asked him about sports and positions he played. I wondered who his favorite skater was and asked if he surfed. I was a rambling mess. Babbling run-on sentences. I was feeling desperate. He just stared.
I took a deep breath and stopped beating around the bush. “Listen, I want you to go back. I need you to go back. If you won’t do it for you, do it for me. I messed up so many things in my life. I messed up love. I messed up passion. I messed up the meaning of risk and contentment. I messed up gratitude. I focused on the wrong things for so, so long, and I let fear dictate my days. My life. I didn’t listen to Fate. I didn’t listen to myself. You can do all of that. But only if you go back.” I told him about Jess. I told him that he could learn from my mistakes. I could help him live a life of—
I stopped myself. Why would he care about going back for me? He didn’t know me. What right did I have to tell him what to do? He was a teenager, after all. He didn’t want to listen to some old dude. What was I missing?
I continued. “I know it sounds like I’m carrying tons of regret. I’m not. I’m trying not to. Not anymore. I now know that I did the best I could at the time. That’s what we all do. That’s all we can do. I’m guessing that you’re scared. You’re probably afraid that your friends are going to be mad and your parents are going to ground you. I know you swore on your life not to jump without a friend to stand watch, and you probably feel guilty. I promise that none of that matters. None of that is true. They just want you to be back with them. You’re not going to be in trouble. You don’t need to feel guilty or to carry any of this with you. They just want you back.”
At some point, he had turned away from me and began looking at the wall, but now he turned and looked at me. That’s what it was. He was afraid that he was going to be in trouble. He was afraid that his parents wouldn’t love him. That his friends wouldn’t talk to him. He had broken his promise to them. He felt ashamed. He needed permission to go back. To go be himself.
I walked to him, gave him a hug, and whispered in his ear. Privately. It was as honest a moment as I’d ever had in my life. Maybe only second to the time I cried after making love to Jess. But he needed to know. “Guilt is not worth dying over. Fear is not worth dying over. There is no shame. You have a lifetime of love and friendship ahead of you. You have a lifetime of memories to make. Go back.”
He smiled. Still, he didn’t talk. I really wanted him to talk.
I looked away from him and to the door to see if Fate was watching. When I turned back to talk to the boy some more, he was gone.
“Where did he go? Wheredidhego?” I panicked and stood up, frantically looking around the room.
“Back,” Fate said with a single black tear rolling down his mask. “He went back.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
An unemployed data analyst rides home on the train in London after another failed job interview. Unable to contain his emotions, he shares his entire story with the man sitting next to him. When they get off the train at the same stop, the man, a hiring manager for a tech company, offers him a better job than the ones he had been applying for.
The boy was gone.
Back to his family and friends.
Back to his life.
I sat quietly and thought about the opportunity he now had. How many times had I said, “If I only knew then what I know now”? The boy, perhaps, had learned the ultimate version of this cliché. Imagine the opportunity to learn from death and bring those lessons back to life. I wondered if he would remember our conversation. Would he be able to share his near-death experience with his family? Or was it a death-death experience? I had read a few books written by those who had such experiences. They described weird sounds, angels, voices, inner peace, deeper consciousness, and awareness. The book I’d really like to read is Near Death: Ten Years Later. I want to know if the lessons stuck. It’s easy to find perspective. Much harder to keep it.
Still, I was always a little jealous of these experiences. It’s warped, but I thought the people who had these experiences were “lucky.” In theory, I thought the perspective of nearly dying was the advantage of a lifetime. To get that second chance. But then, I had a few harrowing experiences of my own while backpacking in deep snow in the Colorado backcountry. Or the time I helped crew a world record attempt to swim the Sea of Cortez and got stuck in the middle of a huge tropical storm. We all thought we were going to die that night. Instead of coming back with renewed life, however, I merely tried to downplay the danger. “It wasn’t that big of a deal.” I guess it’s not as much about the experience as it is about the person who had the experience. Even with something like my near-near-near-death experience, we need to be able to change. We need to allow the fear we feel or felt to mix with the perspective gained to create fearlessness. We need to integrate new learning into the old systems.
Maybe the boy would someday write his own book. His friends would, no doubt, love to hear stories of black-winged angels! I wondered if I would be remembered and, if so, how I would be described. Probably as just some ancient dude who was older than his parents. Or maybe he wouldn’t remember anything at all.
Hopefully, the messages learned would be woven into the fabric of his soul. Maybe he would “just have a strange feeling” when presented with those life moments that challenged him to choose between fitting in or belonging. He wouldn’t know why, but somehow, he’d always make the most self-expressive and self-loving choices. My hope was simply that, before death came, he would learn the most important lessons about life.
My God, how I wanted to talk to Jess. I wanted to tell her everything that had happened. I wanted to tell her about the boy. She had listened to me cry about my relationships with my mom and sister. She had dealt with my mood swings, darkness, and depression—the demons I fought daily. She tried to help with her words, actions, and love. But I struggled to accept any of it. These battles and the darkness were part of who I was, and as much as I hated them for making me feel weak and less than, I let them offer me a kind of security. Going dark was an excuse. I wished that I could have better used my demons to drive my writing or channel some kind of art; instead, I allowed them to suppress it. I allowed the demons to suppress me. Suppress who I really was. I allowed them to pick out my mask each morning—my reflection dictating who I pretended to be that day. Even at the very end, when things were better, I was still afraid to seize a day without some kind of mask. Without my security blanket.
Now, with the boy gone, as I sat on the bed and looked at the mirror above the desk, I only saw myself looking back. My own reflection. I flashed back to sitting on my bed with the bottle of pills when I was thirteen. The demons weren’t gone, but I no longer had to fight them. If I had only just accepted them and realized that they were part of me. Because that is my truth. They are part of my authentic self. Fighting them meant not being authentic. Not being authentic meant feeling less than whole. Not feeling whole meant trying to fit in and looking for validation outside of myself. Not getting that validation . . . What a vicious cycle. No wonder the bottom dropped out repeatedly. Just over and over and over and over again.
I smiled in the mirror. And the reflection smiled back. I don’t remember the last time that had happened. I wanted to tell Jess about all of this. I wanted to thank her. And apologize. She’d brush off the apology with some kind of “You’re entitled to your experience” line, but I knew, secretly, she would appreciate it.
I looked at Blondie, again curled up on a pillow. She never questioned anything. She could sleep anywhere. Her mind didn’t race. Her life was always about the moment. Perhaps that’s why dogs were always so therapeutic. We have no choice but to be in their moment as we pet them. This time, I wouldn’t wake her. I had faith that she would find me. Wherever I was.
I quietly got up from the bed and slipped out of the room. I wanted to see the others. I didn’t want the dinner to be over. I wanted to find Mort and tell him about this experience. Not in pride but in wonder. And in eternal gratitude.
I was delighted to hear music as I turned left at the doorway. Given God’s apparent ease with interior design and moving walls and furniture, who knew what I might find? I was walking back toward the dining room but hoped that I’d find yet another completely new experience. I was getting closer, and the music grew louder. I heard singing. The song was unmistakable: “Imagine.”
Those lyrics meant more now than they had at any other time. The DJ certainly had good timing. I wondered if God was behind the turntables. Not too many holy references to God’s ability to mix. I cracked myself up thinking about this when I turned left down another hallway. I stopped in my tracks.
Fate stood waiting for me.
“How do you feel?” he asked casually.
“Ironically,” I responded without a hint of any, “I feel alive.”
“Authentic. Truth. Whole. Peace,” he confirmed.
“May I ask you something?” I asked, feeling fearless and changing the subject without thinking.
He nodded.
