02-12-06
“Not Yet,” she said. Her voice was measured and calm, calmer than she’d ever thought she’d feel when this time arrived. “Give me a little longer. Just long enough to know who I am.”
But Death had not come to bargain that night and took her away.
The Words That Remain – Charles de Lint
Sometimes you have to visit the past to heal and to face the future. But, don’t spend too long in the past. For when you do, you forget to live in the present and everything that occurred between then and today becomes no more. – TDS
The time was so long ago, over 20 years ago now but I can remember the feelings and emotions as if they were yesterday. They bubble up inside me, they take my breath away the leave me empty, dark and lonely. Even today I wonder how a child of the light can so easily become one with the darkness. Is it really two sides of one coin? Does everyone have the ability to find overwhelming darkness the same way one can also find overwhelming light? And if we have the choice between the two, why do some people decide to live in the dark?
The story isn’t about what occurred to lead me up to the point or what followed that brought me here today. The story is about a moment in time, a breath that was taken, something that was so intense that it forever becomes one of the snapshots that you will have to present along with the others that will be used to define your life before you are allowed to leave this world and move onto your next.
The day… I think you are supposed to describe the day when you tell the story. Was it summer, spring, winter or fall? Was the sun shining so bright that you were blinded or was the rain falling and the world was covered in grey? But, I guess that is the thing about the darkness. You can’t see or feel, you have no senses all you are is dark. There was no past or present there is no markers in your life that you can use to point to for you are too blinded to see. That is the moment which I remember. That moment, that wasn’t really a moment I guess since there were no markers of time around it to help you distinguish it.
It was the moment of my death. My time to die I guess. Some would say it was by my choice others would say it was by the world around me’s choice. Maybe it was just marked on the string of life as the moment which I became no more. But, there I was making the choice, taking control. Darkness so black, breath so labored, and dreams no more. During one breath and no more there was light so golden I felt as if I was giddy, drunk on how it made me feel as it poured through every essence of my being. I could see so clearly everything around me. I was no longer in my room but instead in a world of white but touched by the gold of life. For that unbelievable gold light from that moment on could be the only thing I could call life.
I stood before a man, a man that wore a face which so many would recognize. But, I knew that even though the image was a man and the image was universal that it meant nothing except for something that I could relate too using imagery that made sense to me in this lifetime. A hand was held out too me. A single hand…
An offer was made, so very simple, so very pure. Take the hand and I would be one with the energy and the light or I could stay in the world I had left behind and learn the lessons I came to learn to live life. Such a simple offer and yet such a very hard choice for to take the hand was the easy route for death is such an easier path than deciding to live. But, what would life have to offer me?
I made a deal, a wonderful deal and I chose to live… So many years later so many experiences and snapshots in my life’s book and yet still I wonder about the deal I made. Did I fulfill my part of it and when will the marker be called in again?
I feel like I have fulfilled a lot of my destiny but in fulfilling it did I forget about the experience of life itself? Is this world a place to learn or is it a place to experience or maybe it really is about playing the markers of debts owed and accumulated.
So many elements in my life in the last year come down to the synchronicity of the universe moving around me and pointing me in different directions. I am becoming more but yet I still feel lost for even though I know the feel and taste of the light it only left me wanting more of it rather than being satisfied that at least I experienced it in a moment of time.
I have always equated falling in love with what that light felt like. That joy and completion that final mending of a soul tore into two, but lately I have started to wonder what love really feels like and how many people know how to experience it. I hear the words thrown around and bounced back and forth. But, I don’t know anyone that can give selflessly of themselves to another being. Maybe if everyone in the world could just glimpse that golden light and bathe themselves in it for just a second then they could learn and become so much more than just people living here trying to get by day by day, year by year…
Death came by and called about 25 years ago now and yet still I look around and ask for more time to experience life, love and the time to learn who I am a bit better.
