Joe’s Story

By Lysandra Lucille Lavender

Where shall I start?  Joe’s journey of the soul began when he realized he was not really living his life, he was living the life he thought he was supposed to live.  It was a clear realization, which suddenly hit him in the heart, literally.  He had a heart attack at his desk, the desk where he sat doing the job he could barely face each day, which he did because he was responsible, and it made his parents happy to say “my son, the accountant”.  Every good son wants his parents to be happy with his career.  Even bad sons would like to their parents to be proud of them.  Aren’t they bad because, at some level, they want their parents to notice them and love them, to be proud of them?

Joe’s problem was very clear to him as he floated above his body.  He was amazed at how detached he felt from the whole situation.  Here he had been doing all the “right” things in his life; in spite of the acute pressure he felt building in his chest.  Now the pressure had exploded and some very earnest folks in uniforms were putting all their efforts into getting that quiet heart to work again.  To Joe, it seemed so unnecessary.  Floating felt just perfect.

As he was drifting blissfully away toward the most beautiful scene, he became aware of someone clearing their throat, or that was what the thought he heard.  He turned his head to the left and saw various shades of light, really more like pieces of colored light, coming together and forming a person.

“How do I look? OK? Nose in the right place and all? I wasn’t really prepared, you know, wasn’t expecting this quite so soon.  Must have been the annual report that did the trick for you.  You know, helped you turn the corner.”

Joe just looked blankly.  He thought he must be seeing things and tried to turn toward the light.  Isn’t that the right thing to do, the correct procedure at a time like this?  After all, judging from all the activity going on with the paramedics, he was dead.

“Wait a minute there, Joe!  We have to talk before you go heading up there to the lighted area.  Don’t you want to know who I am?”

“Well, I guess you are some sort of Guide or Guardian Angel.”  Joe paused to consider his new companion, all freshly assembled.   “Or a figment of my dying brain.”

“I do fall into the Guide category, Joe.  I am here to offer you help in assessing your present situation and consider your options for your future.  You do have options, you know.  Heard of free will?  This is a time for choice and it’s my job to help you take a look at what those choices can be.  Naturally, Infinity has a part here, but really, your basic first step choice is to return to your body and continue your life or go on up to the Light and prepare for a series of choices, a whole mind boggling list of this or that, worse than a Sunday Brunch at a Beverly Hills Hotel on Mother’s Day.  You can’t pick them all…plate’s too small. Want to talk about it?”

Joe considered his body.  Not the body of an athlete, but he had been comfortable in it.  The paramedics were rolling him out to their truck as fast as they could go.  He thought it was strange that he didn’t really feel interested in what became of it.  His body was disappearing from view and he had no real interest in where it was going.

“The light is fine with me.  I am sort of curious about the afterlife.  Not too much of anything happens in my neck of the woods.”

“Afterlife is really just life after life after life.  You don’t get to quit living, Joe.  You are an infinite being, an expression of the One.  However, before you turn your back on that pudgy body of yours, think about what you came to earth to do.  You had a plan, do you remember it?  A little something about marriage and kids?  Remember?  And by the way, my name is Sam.”

“Sam?  Do I know you?”

“Yes, though not from a physical experience, I am just around a lot, in your mind, trying to help you along when you hit a rough patch.  Like the year-end report.  You really let that get under your skin and mess you up.  This whole heart attack thing was your encapsulated stress exploding in your chest.  I’m the one who kept bringing up the idea to work out or take a dance class.  Both good ways to vent stress, and meet women.  Marriage, remember?”

“If you were telling me to dance, who was pushing me to work harder, longer, keep it all perfect or else?”

“Your own fears, Joe.  Just plain old human false sense of fear.  But, you can still choose to get back into that body and try again.  You can make a go of it.  Get married and have that kid.”  Sam was smiling with his voice; his whole face was lit with joy.

“How am I supposed to get married and have kids?  I’m fat; work all the time and I am the proverbial nerd.  A glorified pencil pusher who goes to work, home, eats, sleeps and back to work.  That’s my life.  And I don’t miss it.”

“Joe, the kid, the child, the soul you agreed to father, what about him?  Sure, he can find another way into incarnation, but you have a bit of an agreement for this work between the two of you.  Think about it, Joe.  Remember?”

Joe caught a little stir taking place in his heart, or the non-physical place where he thought of feelings being held as a heart.  This triggered something in his memory, not the Joe body memory, but the inner Joe soul kind of memory.  It was a familiar feeling of non-solid truth.  He could clearly see, in his mind, or in his soul, some sort of exchange between two beings, though they were kind of smoky, wispy, in form.  He could hear them talking in a manner he thought resembled a theoretical discussion.

“You were a terrible, selfish father.  I was always running after you on the farm trying to get you to pay attention to me and all I ever heard from you was complaints and bad tempered remarks.  You treated the pigs better than me.  I knew you loved them, but I was never sure if you cared about me.  I began avoiding you at an early age because I couldn’t bear not being loved.”

“My thoughts were always about you, how to feed you and your mother and the rest of the kids.  What if the crops failed again?  What if no one in the city wanted my pigs at a fair price?  How would we survive?  What if I was injured or got sick and died, how would you and the others survive?  These were pressing issues for me.  I did the best I could.  I loved you, how could you not know it?”

The second voice Joe knew was his own, as a boy, and he felt the first voice was his once-father-should–be-son.  Neither voice was angry or impassioned.  It was more like both were discussing the content of an almost intellectual dilemma.  Two points of view, no right or wrong, just “is”.

Then a third voice spoke.  Joe recognized it as this fellow Sam.  “Both individuals are aware of their perceptions.  Now how could you communicate the most important thing to each other?  Do you remember the most important thing?”

“Love.”

“Yes, love.”

Joe felt the obviousness of the importance shoot through him.  “It is hard to keep that in mind when in a body working out a life.  I know I could feel it, but so many other emotions and fears crowded in on me.  I forgot to show you… I feel like the V-8 commercial!  I could have said it!  Could have expressed it!”

“Hey, I could have worked my way through all the unsure stuff and reached out to you.  You know, been brave and said ‘Hey, Da, I need you. Da, I love you.’  Maybe that would have triggered a softer response from you.  Let’s do this one more time?  You know, get it right so we can pass on to the next level.”

Sam joined them in their joy and enthusiasm for the next go of it on earth.  The three shimmered into Joe’s soul memory.  Joe remembered he had an agreement and knew he was not ready to head to the Light.    “Sam, how do I get back into my body?  And when I do, how do I meet the mother of my son?”

A misty, cloudy feeling surrounded Joe until he began to feel pain, cold and hear controlled, determined voices surrounding him.  He knew he was back in his body, and he was not especially thrilled with it.  But, he was glad to be on track to finish this life.  He drifted into a kind of drugged sleep, noting the sound of his heart as it was recorded on some electronic gizmo.

“Judy, check on Bed A while I get the reports pulled up on screen.  How’s your boy doing with his new sitter? Not everyone can handle a busy two year old.”   Karalee was in her mid fifties, energetic and efficient in every move.  She had come into nursing as a second career about ten years earlier.  Judy was late twenties, attractive and had a gentle way about her.  The two women were very comfortable as a team; they trusted each other’s abilities.   “That ex of yours ever show up after the divorce was finalized?”

“No, he seems to have found a way to disappear.  Joey and I will be fine, though.  He’s a great little boy!  This new sitter seems to like his active nature.”

Judy looked at the face of the man in her care.  He had barely made it into here care alive.  He had a nice enough face.  She felt she would like him once he woke up and started his return to his life.  Maybe he’d make some changes in his way of living and have a really good life.  From the information Karalee had on the computer screen, it looked like he could recover nicely.  Judy paused a minute to look at him.  She didn’t often really look at her patients, professional demeanor was part of her job, but she liked this man for some reason and wondered who he was.

A barely noticeable wave of harmony moved through the Intensive Care Room.  It was an inner wave that moved from person to person, heart center to heart center.  As all the pieces of the puzzle quietly moved into place, Sam smiled.  He was pleased with the probabilities unfolding here for Joe and Judy and Joey.  Perhaps the unfolding of Divine good could not always be appreciated so easily, but in this case he was very grateful to see the seeds planted in such fertile ground.

For more from the author, you can visit her on the web at Unfolding Soul.