Little Do We Know(59)

“You’re not finished here,” I said.

He nodded. “And I instantly knew what you meant. I thought, ‘She’s right, I’m not.’ And that was it. It was like someone pulled the plug on a bathtub. The water went rushing out to all sides, spilling over the edges of the room without walls, and I was thrown to the surface, gasping for breath. And just like that”—he snapped his fingers—“I was in the back of the ambulance. I heard the EMT yell, ‘I’ve got him!’”

I smiled.

Luke didn’t.

“I was so sad.” He rubbed his forehead. “I didn’t even feel pain, I just felt…so empty. And lonely. God, the sadness was so intense. I wanted to get back to that room, back to the water.”

I’d been hovering on the edge of tears, and his words sent me over. “I’m so sorry,” I murmured, even though apologizing for him being alive didn’t make any sense.

“The water was the first thing I remembered when I woke up after surgery, and I felt that sadness all over again. Over the next few days, I started to piece everything together.”

He was quiet. I wondered if I was supposed to ask another question.

“What is your life like now?” I asked.

“I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. Those three minutes are haunting me. I just want to bring myself back there—not because I want to die again or anything—I just need to feel that feeling again, you know?”

I nodded.

He shook out his hands and shifted in place. I thought he was finished. But then he looked at me and said, “Ask me something else.”

I didn’t skip a beat. I knew exactly what to ask. I’d been wanting to ask it ever since that day he showed up on my front doorstep. “Do you think you saw heaven?”

He locked his eyes on mine again. “When I was a little kid, I was terrified of dying. I hated all those apocalypse-type movies and books, where huge numbers of the population have been wiped out; basically, anything that had to do with death. I’d have nightmares for months.” He paused. And then he stared right into the camera. “I don’t know if I saw heaven. But I believe my soul was on its way somewhere else. Someplace good. I’m happy to be alive, but someday, I know I’m going to be in that water again. I’m not ready to die or anything, but I’m not afraid of it anymore.”

I stood and walked over to him. I sat next to him on the top step and wrapped my arms around him. He hugged me back. “Thank you,” he said.

“You’re welcome.”

I felt how much he needed me. I couldn’t remember the last time anyone needed me like that.

And in that moment, I realized this was how Dad felt all the time. People needed him like this every day. It helped me understand his drive and his passion in a way I never had before. I could see why it was addictive.

“See?” I pulled away and smiled at him. “I told you.”

“What?”

“You are nowhere near finished yet.”



We drove home in silence. I didn’t know what to say and I figured he was all talked out, so I just stared out the window, watching the neighborhood blur by.

Luke pulled up to the stoplight a few blocks later and let his forehead fall against the steering wheel. He let out a big breath, like he’d been holding it in for miles. Or maybe eleven days.

“Feel better?” I asked and he nodded. “Good,” I said as I rested my hand on his back.

The light turned green and he pulled into the intersection.

“Thanks for asking the questions. That helped a lot. But…I guess I can’t show Emory the video now.”

“I’ll make sure Aaron edits me out.”

We drove a few more blocks. “Why won’t you tell me what happened with you two?”

I couldn’t give him the details, so I left it vague. “I just said something I shouldn’t have said. And she said something she shouldn’t have said. You know how those fights go? The words slip out and as soon as they do, you wish you could go back in time, just for thirty seconds, and undo the whole thing. But you can’t.”

I paused. “Anyway, Emory’s words got stuck in my head. They wouldn’t go away. I started questioning everything I’d always known, and for a little while, I hated her for that. In less than a minute, with just a few words, she’d taken this huge part of my life away. I found myself listening to Dad’s sermons differently. I would go to my praying rock and sit there for hours, trying to feel something.” I rested my palm on my chest. “A presence. A voice. Anything. But over the past few weeks, I’ve started seeing the whole thing differently.”

Everything.

What happened to Luke eleven days ago, and even what happened back in the church twenty minutes earlier.

“Like what?” he asked.

I tucked one leg under the other and turned toward him. “Two weeks ago, I would have told you, in no uncertain terms, that you got a three-minute glimpse of heaven. I would have told you that there is an afterlife, no question, and that you saw it. I wouldn’t have known this, of course, but I would have believed it with such certainty that it became one and the same. I would have told you that the thick blue water was washing you clean from the inside out. I would have told you that if you ever wanted to float in it again, there was only one choice: to ask Jesus into your life as your Lord and savior. To ask for forgiveness of your sins and choose to be born again. That’s what I’m supposed to tell you right now.”