Water of Life

Chapter 4

Beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep 

Beeping, I heard beeping. When I thought of the afterlife a heart monitor wasn't the first thing that came to mind. White light, maybe a dove or two. But not the constant racking beep of a monitor that should be silent. I had died at Disney with hundreds if not thousands of people singing me off in the night.  As I took inventory of my body. I realized I felt fine. Well truth be told I felt better than fine. I took a deep breath wiggled my toes and fingers and everything seemed to be in working order. 

So when I finally got up the courage to open my eyes. I noticed that I had no iv, no tubes, I wasn't even in the ICU. I was in a normal hospital room. The drapes were drawn back and the clear blue day of a morning sunrise was staring back at me. My first thought was well did the Christians and every other religion get heaven wrong. 

But then I heard a scream and my thoughts turned to a darker thought. What if I was in hell or purgatory. We really didn't go to church like at all. Mom and dad had kinda given up on it. Saying they would rather spend more time with me. We all knew what they were leaving out. The while we still can part. 

The scream was getting closer and I was getting scared. I didn't think I could walk. At least I didn't know if I could. But as I whipped back the sheet and blanket I noticed that my legs looked different. They had muscle I never had and were tan. Instead of the death white they had been for some time now they looked healthy. I swung my legs off the bed and stood up and found I was on two solid legs that didn't feel like they would let me fall. I walked to the door of my room and leaned out. And I saw a woman running by my door her face in her hands. She was crying pretty hard. I would find out why later. 

In the days to come my life really hadn't changed. Tests again became my middle name however, this time it was because for some reason I was cancer free.  I stayed in the hospital in Florida for a day and then was transferred back to our own local one back in Michigan.  There I was poked, prodded and given every scan known to man or in this case woman.  I was given x-rays, sonograms, cat scans, I don't know dog scans, hippo scans and the ever lovely doctor scan.  You know the one where they have you sit there and they just kinda look at you. Turning their heads sideways trying to figure out if your going to sprout another head. Yes that happened a lot over the next month.  They also apparently had to call in some specialist from the CDC.  Thats code word for you might really be a zombie and we just need to make sure your not going to spread it.  

Over the month more and more tests and yes more and more tests would be done trying to figure out my miracle. I was stage 4 cancer. The end stages of stage 4 cancer. You don't just magically come back from that.  But beyond everyone's tests. It seemed I had. So by the time I left the hospital I had probably given away a few gallons of blood, tissue, skin samples, and one small biopsy from my bones. Since the cancer had been the worst there. 

It was strange. I could eat normal food again without wanting to throw it back up. I could walk and run. I could even skip. As we packed up our things to leave. I noticed something in my bag. Someone must have dropped it because I never owned something.......it hit me like a ton of bricks all at once. The old lady catching me. Her putting the pendant around my neck then falling over. I still couldn't remember what she was trying to tell me but, knew this was the reason I was still alive.  I wondered who she was and why she gave me this thing.  I placed the pendant around my neck. And it felt like it belonged there. Like it was supposed to be there. I looked at the stone in the light from the window and noticed that the stone might be solid. But the inside of it reminded me of the waters of the lake I had dreamt about. The inside was watery and moving a swirling mass of clear blue water. It was beautiful.