Memories of the Divine - Chapter 2

They say a lot of things about dying. The things you feel, the bright light, the memories of your life that bubble up to the surface like spiteful little temptations of all the things you never got any closure for.

Waking up standing completely upright in a green meadow cast in golden sunlight wasn’t what I was expecting. At least, not for me. It surprises me.

As does the woman whose very being radiates calm and serenity so strong that for the first time in years, I feel nothing. But not the normal kind of nothing born of world-weary apathy and a subconscious need to stay afloat in a world full of endless emotion. I feel like I’m just another part of this world. A natural part of existence, not struggling to stay afloat, but rather finding myself experiencing effortless…being.

I try to examine her features but it’s as if they keep shifting, over and over. Each time becoming more and more comforting. Matronly almost.

“I’m sorry about the method. I know that must have been quite far from pleasant.” she says, and her voice almost moves me to tears. As if she were the very manifestation of the peace I had been seeking since…forever. Longer than even my conscious memory could divine.

“Where am I?” I ask.

She smiles and I feel the faint streak of sadness dissipate entirely, as if it were never even a possibility.

“There are many names for it. But I believe there is a specific one that you would be most familiar with.” she says, her voice like golden silk.

“…heaven?” I ask.

She smiles again, sadness bleeding into it this time, and nods. I feel my knees buckle and I fall to the ground. I suddenly feel like I’m being ripped apart from the inside, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I’m sobbing through my hands before I even know what’s happened. My family, my life…gone in an instant just like they always said.

I flinch as I feel her kneel down and grab me in a soft embrace. Its like a cross between being hugged by my father when he talked me off the metaphorical ledge, and basking in the sunlight of a spring afternoon.

“Why?” I croak.

“Because you have a destiny that is not contained to just one world.” she whispers sweetly in my ear.

“I don’t get to stay?” I ask her, my voice sounding hurt and pitiful even to me. “What about my father? Is he here? Can I see him?”

She pulls away and looks me in the eyes. She reaches a hand up and strokes the side of my face, and just for a moment I swear that her features turn to that of my mother. “You will see him again, one day. But for now, you must be on your way.”

She lays her hand on my chest and pushes me back. The world before me lurches as if I’m suddenly falling a great distance away. I reach a hand out in reflex. The tranquility of that world leaves me all at once, drowning in all of the pain, with nothing to anchor me. And for just a moment it feels as if that will be my entire existence for eternity.

And then I hit the ground.