Going Home
As the shadows outside his window grew long and then finally disappeared into the darkness of night, James called out for his daughter to come and close the window and light the candle.
Approaching him she could feel her heart twist in pain as he lay there helpless and frail. How she asked herself could life be so unkind? Here was her father, a man who had been active and self reliant all of his life, now confined and dependent on others to do even the simplest of things for him. Drawing closer she fought back the tears that welled in her eyes and tried to feign a light heartedness.
"What's ya need Dad, is the night air getting a little bite in it?" Would you like me to close the window and turn on the news? Tilting his head to one side he said "Yeah close the window but I'd rather talk a bit, if you have the time. Why don't you light the candle over there on the table and come sit awhile and we can cure the ills of the world like we used to do in the early morning hours so many years ago." Now he was the one fighting back the tears.
"Gee dad I'd love to, just let me turn dinner down and I'll come right back, okay?"
Oh I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking, of course its dinner time and your family is hungry, you know its funny but since your mother's been gone I rarely ever think of food. She was such a good cook. You go now, finish with your dinner and later on we can have that talk."
"I'm sorry dad let me light the candle and turn on the set and then I'll get back just as soon as I can."
"The candle will be fine, don't worry about me I'll be here, " he said, with a forced bit of laughter in his voice.
Lighting the candle and then stopping to tidy his bedside table, she then walked around the bed, and began closing the window, as the window was about to make contact with the casement, through a small tear in the screen came a moth, slapping at it her father laughingly said " Don't worry about it he won't eat much!" With that the moth disappeared to some out of sight area of the room, and the daughter sighed smiled and turned and left the room saying she'd be back soon to have that talk.
As this shadow of the man he had been laid there he began to wonder just how long did he have to wait? Just then the almost transparent, bluish white, gossamer winged moth came out of his hiding place and fluttered about James's head a second, close enough for James to almost be able to see the flickering candle through the wings, and then, in determined flight, the moth flew towards and candle. James laid there watching he began to wonder and remember. Wonder at why it is that the moth is always attracted to the light and remember his experience with also once being attracted to the light and remembered his experience with also once being attracted to the light.
The moth, circling and then darting away from the candle, reminded James of that experience he had when he suffered his massive heart attack.
He had been changing a tire on his car when all of a sudden it was as if someone had hit him in the bread basket, he couldn't breathe and his body just fell over. The next thing he remembered he was being carried towards an ambulance but something was wrong, he was watching what was happening as though he wasn't involved. He realized then that he was outside his body and he felt none of the pain that had been so agonizing a moment ago. He heard the attendants say he was a goner and watched as they felt for a pulse and began pushing up and down on his chest.
Arriving at the hospital the doctors took one look and decided to open him up right there in the emergency room, as they did so James began to look around and in doing so became aware of a very bright light and a long tunnel leading to it. As he started to venture towards the light, which emanated peace and harmony and felt so warm and loving, he turned back to see the doctor pull his heart from his chest and begin to massage it. Turning back again towards the light James could feel a longing and sense of belonging, he suddenly wanted to become one with the light but at that same moment he could hear the doctors saying " I'm getting a heart beat, he can make it!" Now bathing in the light at the end of the tunnel and wanting to reach the warmth of it he could feel it slipping away as he gently began to float back from the light and slowly back into his body. His last awareness of the light was a voice telling him, " You're not done yet, it's not yet time." Then there was nothing but darkness.
James was brought up short as his daughter came around the corner and asked if he'd like some dinner? He told her no he wasn't hungry and she left again.
Refocusing on the candle and the moth, he began to wonder if maybe the light he had seen and the light a moth is drawn to might be of the same dimension? Could the moth be experiencing the same feeling of peace, contentment and the sense of warmth of Home that he had experienced, before they had drug him back. Was the moths circling of the candle his " tunnel" and when and if he flew into the light would he be in the same warm comfortable place James had almost made it to?
Then as James sat contemplating this, the moth almost as if he knew what James was thinking, turned right into the flame and in a blink of an eye was gone.
James briefly smiled, raised his hands to applaud the choice the moth had made, and from out of nowhere he felt an all consuming pain, and suddenly found himself standing on the other side of the tunnel and finally home.