Chapter Twenty-eight
There was nothing, darkness, my heart felt empty. Was I dead? Was I alive? Where was I? I couldn’t feel my arms or legs. I could see nothing and hear nothing but my thoughts. Was this death? The only thing that seemed to work was my mind. What was the last thing I could remember? A stranger coming to me, offering me death or a cursed life: what kind of choice was that? And what choice had I made?
It was as if my mind were somehow disconnected from my body. I wasn’t in any pain, but I couldn’t feel anything. The electrical impulses that I had always taken for granted to move my body at will were absent. I concentrated on feeling my fingertips and couldn’t. I tried with all my willpower to move a finger, again – nothing.
I tried to make my eyes open and something inside told me they were open, but I could only see darkness. There was no light anywhere. There were no sound vibrations for my ears to hear. This must be death.
But if I were dead, where was the white light, the city of gold, the pearly gates? Where were my grandparents? Where was Paul? Death couldn’t possibly be nothingness, could it? All the stories had always promised death was its own reward. How could this feeling be a reward?
I stayed in the darkness, alone with only my thoughts. Is this what we take with us? Our imagination and memories are all we have when a life is over? I thought of Paul, how his struggle in life nearly made his death seem peaceful. Paul did nothing to deserve death. His worst mistake was trying to be a showoff at the mall, attempting to get a girl’s attention. I wondered, if we were both dead, could we communicate the way Rewsna had communicated with me while I was alive?
My mind wandered a little when I remembered telling Max about Rewsna. He believed the whole story, believed in me, believed that there was a force in the universe that wanted us to be together. It seemed strange that one of my last conversations with Max had been talking about our future. I replayed those precious few minutes in my mind; he was my future and now my life was over.
I’ve never been to another country. I’ve never made a difference in anyone’s life - except for Paul - and one could argue that I was responsible or at least a contributing factor to his death. In my mind I yelled out, “Paul, can you hear me? Are you there? Paul, I’m so sorry. Maybe this is the punishment I get from the universe for shortening your life. I wish I could go back and do it again; I promise I wouldn’t have called the police. Paul, are you there?”
Nothing. No response from Paul, no response from anyone. I was alone with my thoughts. I began begging God to end this, not to leave me suspended like this. If I were being punished, take everything. Don’t leave me alone with my thoughts. I replayed Paul’s death, the gun shot, listening to his last words as blood filled his lungs and his heart gave up. I remembered how I wanted to fold inside myself, but Max wouldn’t let me: my first kiss with Max in the hospital, our morning on the shooting range, spending that first perfect day together. I thought I had so much more time. I thought our time together would last forever, until we were too old even to remember how we had met. Yet in death, I found myself reliving every one of our moments, thousands of time over.
If I were dead, Max must be devastated. I thought how he must have returned to camp and found my body. Did he try to revive me again? Maybe we were destined to be together only a short time. We had things we had to accomplish. What were they? Empathy, Trust, Virtue and Passion – what better way to learn to empathize with what had happened to Paul than to be killed myself? Death is nothing like I had ever imagined. I don’t know what I expected; Max told me we chose each other before we were born and chose our obstacles for this life. How did we do that? Were we suspended in nothingness and happened across each other? Is that what I was now, just suspended? How long do I have to wait for Max? How long have I already waited? It could have been seconds or days or even years. Time meant little. I didn’t feel pain, there was no agony, only thoughts. Or maybe because Max and I didn’t accomplish the things we were supposed to I was being punished by the universe?
I tried to scream out but heard nothing. My mind raced around to a riddle I heard as a child - If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there, does it still make a sound? With that same logic, if I had to overcome obstacles in my life with a partner but my life was cut short, what would happen to my partner? What would my death mean to Max? How would he overcome his obstacles? If he failed, would he start over with a new life or would it just be over? How could we find each other again? Do I wait for him suspended in the universe until we can both be reborn and start over? How would we find each other in the universe again?
I felt bitter that I no longer had my body. What had I done to deserve this? Did I fail some test, did it have anything to do with empathy, trust, virtue or passion? How could I have failed something so completely, without even knowing I had been challenged?
My mind began racing in a new direction. What if I am not dead? What if this is some sort of test? I thought of a Pascal quote - The power of a man’s virtue should not be measured by his special efforts, but by his ordinary doing. Virtue was one of the challenges I was to face. Had something I did in this ordinary meeting with a stranger somehow made me fail Virtue’s test? I thought of the stranger at the camp site: I had offered him food, I spoke with him. What kind of test could I have failed?
If I weren’t dead, how could I describe this suspension? I cleared my head and as clearly as possible I asked, “Rewsna, can you hear me?” There was no response. I waited for a sound or a feeling but continued only to feel the emptiness. As I thought about my question, I decided to ask it again, “Rewsna, I know you can hear me because I still exist and so do you. Tell me how I get back to Max. He needs me.”
This time I could hear her, but she sounded thousands of miles away. I couldn’t make out her words, but I knew she had just answered. I concentrated on the emptiness and clearly thought, “Rewsna, I know you can hear me. I need you to speak more clearly to me. Tell me, how do I get back to Max?”
This time as I concentrated I could hear her, “Lauren, you are more powerful than the beast realized. Will yourself free. Concentrate on your passion for Max.”
Will myself free? What beast? I was being held here by someone or something?
I did just what Rewsna instructed. I remembered sitting in Max’s truck talking for hours. I lingered on the memory of lying next to him on his couch in his apartment. I heard Max’s words echo in my mind the night Max declared his love for me. All these memories made me feel…warm. I felt a flash of light in my mind like a lightning strike, then blackness again.
I heard Rewsna’s encouraging words again, “Again, Lauren, do it again.”
I pulled the memory of our first real conversation together that night in the hospital intertwined with that very first kiss. I thought back to the night I had been shot, riding to the hospital in the ambulance, that first recognition when I looked in his eyes. More lights flashed in my mind, and those images I had been replaying in my mind changed – I kept replaying them, and they came back to me in rich color. Instead of simply revisiting those memories, it was as though I were reliving them. I could feel the electrical impulses from my brain again, trying to awaken my body.
Rewsna’s voice sounded again, “Lauren, break free of the beast. Use your passion for Max to take you back to him. Do not fear the beast. He cannot keep his hold on you. You are stronger, you are more complete. He is but a fragment of evil and cannot hold you unless you let him.”
In that instant I let my life flood my memories. Events from childhood with Seth that were fun and easy…growing up helping my friends with encouraging words and love…entering a new stage of my life with these feelings for Max. My memories overflowed, and the more I thought, the more colorful they became. More light seemed to be all around me, and then I could feel my fingers. I flexed the muscles in my hand and could feel my
hand respond.
I could feel the ache of my body, as if I had been tied up for hours. I flexed my hand and made a fist a second time, then did it with my other hand. As I did so, I could feel a tightness in my chest and a heaviness in my body. I tried to sit up, but couldn’t. I opened my eyes and looked at a white room with sunlight flowing in the window. I lay on a hospital bed and could hear a machine that looked a little like a plunger, forcing air into my lungs. I was on a ventilator. I couldn’t pick up my head to look around. My body felt wrong.
I reached around with my hand, searching for the bed remote to alert a nurse that I needed help. Both hands frantically felt in every direction around them, but they were so clumsy I had difficulty finding anything beyond the bed frame. I tried slapping the mattress, but it made only a quiet thump. I hit the bed rail and felt a sharp pain jolt through my hand. I tried to scream but nothing came out. I tried to move my legs in an effort to kick, but that effort was fruitless, too.
I was able to reach the electrodes over my chest and pulled them off. The steady beeping that had been sounding in the background became a low pitch whine from the machine behind me. A nurse came running through the doorway. I made eye contact with her, my fingers still holding the electrodes I had removed. She gasped out loud and pushed a button on the wall. The phone rang, and I heard her answer, “Doctor, Ms. Davis is awake. Come here!” There was a pause as she was getting instructions, then she affirmed, “I’m quite certain she is awake. Please come.” The nurse hung up the phone.
She looked at me, walked closer to me, and took my hand in hers. “Lauren, the doctor is on his way. He’ll be here in a few minutes.”
I scanned the room, but it looked different than the last time I found myself in a hospital. Flowers didn’t line all the walls, and the room had some personal touches. My family’s picture was hanging on the wall; a picture of Seth and me was setting on a dresser. An overstuffed couch set along a back wall and didn’t look like one that would be waiting in a hospital room for visitors. A stack of magazines was setting in a magazine holder. As I took this all in, an older gentleman with a bright white lab coat walked through the door.
The doctor shined a light in my eyes, and although the light physically hurt – it actually felt good to feel the pain. Those hours I had spent in nothingness made me welcome the pain. The nurse was on the phone while the doctor was checking my eyes and listening to my heart. I couldn’t hear everything she said, but I did hear her say, “That’s right, she is awake. The doctor is examining her now.”
As I tried to listen to the nurse on the phone, the doctor asked me, “Lauren, do you know where you are?” I tried to speak but my windpipe was blocked with the ventilator, so my response sounded like a gag. I shook my head that I did not know where I was.
Wearing a kind expression, the doctor replied, “Don’t try to speak. We’re going to get the tube out. It is going to hurt, but your lungs are functioning on their own. They are weak, so we are going to have to keep an eye on you to make sure they don’t collapse after we remove the equipment.”
I nodded that I understood.
He was right. I can only equate this feeling to having a hot branding iron removed from my esophagus. The pain was excruciating - far worse than anything I had felt in my life. I reverted back briefly to the nothingness feeling I’d had for the last several hours, then was again thankful for the pain.
My breathing was labored, as if my lungs weren’t sure how to fill up. My body was full of strange sensations. I could feel my toes but could not tell if I was moving them. I was unable to sit up in the bed. I couldn’t speak.
The doctor was busy scribbling information on a tablet PC he held in his hand. Without looking up he explained, “Lauren, don’t try to speak. You have been in a coma for an extended period of time. The nurse has contacted your family, so they know you’re awake. We need to run some tests to see if there is any permanent damage. Do you understand?”
I again nodded that I understood, but what did he mean for an extended period of time?
I was poked and prodded. I lost count of the number of nurses and doctors that were in and out. Finally, the nurse that had initially come in when I woke up offered me a drink of water. She adjusted the bed so my head was elevated. The water felt amazing. My mouth was so dry that the feeling of liquid in it was nearly absorbed. I tried to swallow but gagged initially. I took another small sip and was able to swallow. I could feel the coolness of the water all the way down my throat. After several sips of water, I was moved to a gurney for I don’t know how many other tests.
I felt my eyelids getting heavy and my mind began losing the fight to stay awake. My whole body ached with each new movement. As I began to doze off on the gurney, I felt my body being lifted back onto the hospital bed. My eyelids fluttered and the nurse again offered me a sip of water.
In a hoarse voice I was able to whisper, “Where’s Max?”
The nurse looked confused and responded, “I’m sorry, Lauren, I don’t know a Max.”
How could she not know Max? She had to know Max. A flash went through my mind when I saw the picture of Seth and me on the dresser – Max hadn’t been a dream, right? He really existed. He came to me in a dream, but then we met. He saved my life. Max couldn’t have been a figment of my imagination.
She followed quickly with, “But I’ve only been working here for six months.”
Confusion overtook me. I couldn’t formulate a question because her answer was so utterly absurd. She had only been here for six months? How long had I been here? She must have seen the confusion on my face when she responded, “Lauren, you have been in a coma for more than two years.”
A tear escaped my eye, and she grabbed a tissue to catch it. More followed, but I couldn’t ask her anything else. Two years? How was that possible? Where was Max? What happened that night at the campsite? What happened to Max? I closed my eyes and relived those last memories that I had before the nothingness.
As an infinite number of questions spun in my mind, Mom came through the door. She was crying, not sad tears, but her face was soaked, eyeliner and mascara marks streaming down her face. She took me in her arms and held me so tight I was sure I wouldn’t be able to breathe. She was hard to understand through the sobs.
A hoarse whisper came from me, “Dad?” She told me he was on his way. My brother Steve would be here in a few hours. Seth was on his way, too; she had left a message for Rachael but hadn’t been able to talk to her. I was glad she had contacted everyone, but she didn’t say anything about Max.
I couldn’t not know, so I asked, “Max?”
Her expression changed, softened a little. “Lauren, I’m so sorry, but he really blamed himself for this accident. It was tearing him apart to see you this way. We all told him it wasn’t his fault, but he couldn’t be comforted. He stayed with you night and day for over a year, and then when there was no improvement, he couldn’t take it anymore. Max joined the Navy. He hasn’t written in a while, but the last letter I got from him said he was in Afghanistan with the Marines serving as some sort of a medical person. He told me he was a Corpsman.”
I was devastated. Afghanistan? How could he have left? As I tried to sit up, my muscles refused to cooperate. A wave of relief intermixed itself with the devastation – Max wasn’t a dream. He was real. I couldn’t think straight. Why would he have left? Was I really in that bad of shape?
The next several hours were a rush of more doctors, more nurses, my family and friends. Seth brought news clippings of my accident. The story alleged I was mauled by a bear, and I was brought down off the mountaintop by helicopter. The news clippings stated I had been in critical condition for three weeks. Seth told me I was in a nursing home now, not a hospital – which explained the pictures and furniture in my room.
Everyone told me about what I had missed the last couple years. My brother, who I r
arely talked to, was now married and was a father. Seth and Amanda were living together; they got a house right after she graduated college – she was a reporter at the same news station where she did her internship. Rachael was doing well for herself, and my parents seemed exactly the same. It was still hard to wrap my mind around the idea that I had just missed two and a half years.
My mom was the only one who had kept in contact with Max. She had sent him a text after she got to the nursing home to tell him I was awake, but she hadn’t gotten a response. She told me that wasn’t uncommon, that he was essentially in the middle of nowhere and rarely had his cell phone with him if he was out on a mission.
That first night was full of excitement. Everyone was talking at once, doctors and nurses joining in on filling in my last two and a half years. I was excited to be alive again and anxious for Max to know that I was okay. When it got so late that I could no longer keep my eyes open, I asked Mom to call Max again. She left him a voice mail telling him I was okay.
I had found my destiny. I found him exactly the way he told me I would in that dream. The dream, no matter how many times I had it, never changed much. A dull ache permeated from my chest. I knew a person’s heart doesn’t actually break, but this steady ache was a constant reminder that Max wasn’t here.
I don’t know what happened to me on that camping trip. I have no idea how I lost two and a half years of my life. The only thing I really knew was I needed Max. As the light from the window began to diminish, one-by-one my visitors left. I lay there turning everything over in my mind. I closed my eyes, willing myself to see Max, and his images flooded my mind in vibrant color. For now, this would have to be enough.