“That’s not funny. Besides, this is a wedding, not a prom,” I said, laughing as well.
“No fucking difference—a dress, flowers, and fucking disaster.” She was still laughing. “Except I’m worried you’re the one who’s going to be covered in blood before all is said and done,” she said, getting a serious look in her eyes. “Figuratively speaking, of course. At least, I hope.” She had a way of driving a point home, like driving a nail into your coffin while you were still living. This particular point hit me right between the shoulder blades, causing chills to race up and down my spine. Fucking creepy chick, but I loved her like a sister.
We talked for a little while longer that night and had a few more drinks. It was like old times. Even though we never spoke of it, you could feel that there was this tension between us. Something we both knew that was going unsaid. We knew this was the end of an era for both of us. The dynamic duo would live to see another day and many more adventures, but I could tell she could sense there was something coming, and I’m sure in her words she would tell you she could feel a bad energy beginning to form. At this point in my life, I neither believed in or paid attention to things of that nature, but Zoe did.
Finally, I got up to go home. I gave her a hug and was almost out the door when I could have sworn I heard her whisper very quietly, “Don’t go.” I stuck my head around the corner, “Did you say something?”
“I said I love you,” she said, standing up to give me another hug. This time she walked me to the door.
“Tell Christmas I said hi,” I heard Zoe giggle as she closed the door. I laughed too, because I knew she didn’t like her. The truth is she had liked my former girlfriend, Eve, who’d replaced her, a whole lot more. My choice of Eve, Zoe could live with. My future ex-wife drove Zoe crazy. I started the car and headed down the street.
I had to laugh on my way home that night, thinking about Zoe and her cards. What a ridiculous thought. Call off an entire wedding because of a tarot reading? Then I started worrying that Zoe might be making too many of her life’s decisions based upon the draw of a deck of cards. I kept driving and thinking, with her voice ringing in my head.
“It is all going to come crashing down with a bolt of lightning. When it does, you are going to understand true grief and profound fear like you never have before.”
Let’s hope it was all just a game, just a game of cards. That is what I told myself at the time. It was just a game of cards. Funny, the things we will tell ourselves to get us through the night.
It’s just a game of cards––the roll of the dice, the spin of the wheel ––and somehow I think life is a little bit more complicated than that. Yet the draw of one card can mean a whole lot more. It has much more to it than just luck. The meaning of the Tower card in a tarot deck can foreshadow a whole array of things. I would find that the image from the Tower would come to mean many things to me on a personal, and in the end a historical, level. But to tell you now would give away the story and dilute your understanding.
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Chapter 3
May 2011
Do you remember the moment in your life when you were forced to face death for the first time? Do you remember how you felt, and did it frighten you? I do. I remember having to face death at a very early age and the effect it had on me, as I saw all of the adults I cared for falling apart around me even though they were trying to hide it. I remember this event well.
I had an uncle; he was the younger brother of my dad. He looked a whole lot like my dad. I remember that I would look at him and wonder how this person could look so much like my father. My cousin Renee gave me a picture of her father not too long ago. It was of us, my grandfather, and my uncle. We were sitting on a couch. I wanted so much to remember that moment when I looked at that photo. These were two people whom I loved very much, and they were now gone. In years to come, my cousin Renee would follow them in death and leave all of us behind. Her heart would give out, and she would be gone as well. The photo now remains; an otherwise forgotten moment with these two men, who looked like my father, imprinted on my mind. These two men who were now gone.
I heard a song. A religious song about seeing the light, and it brought back a memory so clear that it took my breath away. It was of my uncle sitting in a chair in my boyhood home. He was skinny and frail, and, at the time, I did not understand he was dying. The cancer was already eating him away and diminishing the man I once knew. I remember looking at him. I could tell there was something wrong. I could tell he was sick, but I didn’t have an understanding how sick a person could get. He was there with his family. Another one of my uncles was playing a guitar and he was singing. He was singing about seeing the light. “I saw the light,” I could hear his voice as the song played on.
The moment sticks with me, and even now, as an adult, when I think about it, I have this overwhelming love and admiration for my uncle. He did not falter at this time of trial. He was resolved that he was soon going to see the light. I get it now. I guess it was one of those “aha moments” that Oprah talks about. I understand it completely. He knew he was dying and even though he might have been afraid, he was resolved and he wanted us to know it. “I saw the light.”
He died shortly after that. It was a cancer that could not be stopped. I can remember my grandmother falling apart, and it was the first time I can remember my father crying. At that moment, I understood my uncle was gone. I came to the realization that he had passed, and that there would be a time when everyone I love would be leaving. I would be going as well. “I saw the light.” I find comfort in those words today because of that moment. It was beautiful. That was how I learned about death, and because of my uncle, I will never be afraid.
“I’m ready to die.”
The thought went through my mind as I lay on the hard table. The scalpel cut into my main artery and I could feel the warmth of my own blood in contrast to the cold temperature of the room. The surgical team flocked around me.
“If this is it, I am ready to go.”
The thought continued as the catheter began to make its journey to my heart. I knew I was in trouble. No other time in my life had I been in this type of trouble before, never this type of real physical trouble. My heart was only working at 5 percent capacity. It was amazing that I had made it this far without a heart attack, or without just simply falling over dead. At any moment, I could be put completely under and my chest could be cracked open. There would be no time for anything if that were to happen. It would just be lights out.
“If it is my time, I am ready to die.”
A sense of calm came over me as I let myself feel the resolve to give in to whatever fate lay ahead of me. If that fate was my death, then I was ready to give in to it. That declaration gave me a sense of peace. At that moment, I was not afraid of death. I knew what it meant if they had to do open-heart surgery. It would mean they would stop my heart. It would mean they would kill me. With that thought entered the realization that I was ready to die.
“Wait.”
My granddaughter’s face flashed in my mind. Her little hand holding my hand, her arms around my neck holding me tight, her little kiss upon my cheek, her big blue eyes looking at me with all the love a child can give. I heard her voice, “Papa? Papa? Papa?”
“Wait. What about her? What about Caroline?”
A single tear began to roll down my cheek. How could I have been such a fool? What would they tell her? What would they tell her happened to her papa? How would she ever understand why I was no longer there to be with her? What nerve I had, to give up so damned easy. What nerve I had, to give up so damned easy on her. I couldn’t give up. I refused to give up on her and on that cold table, with tears in my eyes, I came to terms with the true meaning of this life, and to my surprise it had very little to do with me. It had everything to do with her and those who love me.
Bring those moments back—the happy ones,
the painful ones, and even those moments of complete despair. I want them all. I want to keep them locked away where I can take them out whenever I choose to remember. I even want to call to mind those memories that involuntarily overwhelm me without my consent. I want to feel it all over again: the bad, the good, and the downright despicable. I want to experience it over again. I want to remember. These are the moments of a lifetime, and those memories left behind have very little to do with me, but they have everything to do with the ones I love.
I can still picture Lydia at 18, walking out the front door of my house, saying, “I’m leaving, Dad, and you can’t stop me.” God, I wanted to stop her. I wanted to tell her it was a horrible world out there. I wanted to tell her to wait a little while longer before growing up. I wanted to tell her to be Daddy’s little girl just a little while longer. I wanted to tell her not to go, but before the words could come out of my mouth, the door slammed and she was gone. My baby was gone. I remember feeling like I wanted to die that day. I had never felt such pain like that before in my life. It was huge and heavy. It ripped at my insides and tore at my soul. “I love you.” It was too late. I was talking to a door already closed. My baby was gone, running down the street with her clothes in her hand, to the boy who was waiting for her in his car, around the corner. In a flash of a moment she was gone, and I would be forever changed. “I’m your princess, Daddy.” I could see her standing in front of me dressed in a crown and those plastic shoes with sparkles on top. “You’ll always be my princess, Lydia. Daddy’s princess.”
I remember Michael walking up to the high school the night of his graduation. “Is my costume straight?” I am still not sure why he called his cap and gown a costume. Was it just his way of trying to be antiestablishment? Michael was always a rebel with a big heart, standing up for those who were less fortunate than himself. Whatever the reason for his strange choice of words, it triggered something within me. It triggered a memory, a moment in time so real that for a split second, I was seeing him walking into school when he was in third grade, on Halloween, dressed in his Batman costume. “Is my costume straight, Daddy?” The innocence of it all took my breath away. He was standing there, looking up at me with those big, ice-blue eyes peering through his Batman mask, his chubby cheeks making the whole thing look more cute than menacing. He was so proud of that costume. Months after Halloween, I would wake up on Saturday mornings to find him in front of the television watching cartoons with that mask and cape on, with Matthew at his side dressed as Robin. “Dad . . . Dad . . . Dad, what is wrong with you?” he asked, bringing me back to the present. I smiled at him, trying to hide the tear in my eye, not saying anything because of the lump in my throat. I straightened his cap and sent him on his way. The black robe fluttered in the wind as he walked away from me and I had to laugh. “There goes my caped crusader.”
Matthew at 19, waving goodbye to me from a car window on his way to live in South Carolina, for his first time without me. The moment playing the same way it played so many years before, when I put him on the school bus for the very first time on the first day of school. My mother standing next to me, ready to pounce, “If you take one step toward that bus, I will break your knees.” Matthew waving goodbye to me with tears in his eyes as the bus slowly drove away. God, I wanted to stop that bus and, for a moment, I did consider giving up my healthy knees to get him off and keep him safe at home. Now here I am, years later, still wanting to stop that car, but you need to let them go. You have to give them the space to explore the world. As the car drove off into the distance, the only words that would come out were, “Be safe.” Once again, I was left there, standing alone, and all I could do for weeks afterward was cry, because I felt like I had lost something. I felt like I had lost him, just like the others before. No one can prepare you for the day your children leave home.
There are two moments that are the most important of your life. The first is the day your children are born, and the second is the day your grandchildren are born. My granddaughter Caroline came into the world on a New Year’s Day. Nothing could have prepared me for the emotional drain of my daughter Lydia going through labor. The thought of her enduring that unbearable pain, without being able to help her, was difficult. There was only a hallway between us, but it might as well have been miles. The moment that I saw her with Caroline for the first time literally took my breath away. I could not speak. I could hardly move. I just stood there, and then I started to tremble. Words cannot describe what I felt at the moment I saw my child holding her child for the first time. It was one of the most beautiful moments of my life.
Then Chelsea came along when Caroline was two. I held Caroline in my arms as we walked to see her baby sister for the very first time. She held me tight around the neck. “I love you, Papa,” she whispered into my ear, and I could tell by the tiny shake in her voice that she was nervous. When we walked into the room, there was a white curtain pulled so we couldn’t see anything at first, and then it was drawn back like a theater curtain at showtime. That is the moment when Caroline saw her baby sister for the first time. It took her breath away; an audible gasp left her body, the same way it always did for me at that moment. The same thing that happened to me when her mother was born and when she was born. And now we stood there, sharing that moment together, when Chelsea was born. It took our breath away. There’s nothing like it.
These are the kind of moments that define who we are. It has nothing to do with us, in actuality. It has everything to do with those we love. How arrogant of me to think that this life was ever about me. In that moment, when I was ready to give myself over to death, I stopped myself because Caroline reminded me it was not my decision to make. Life is important and we need to fight for every second of it we can get. We need to fight for those who love us and those we love in return. And when our breath is taken away, it needs to be for birth and not for death.
There was a time when I thought I was ready to give up the fight. When I thought I had no more fight within me, and all that was left was anger. How do you begin to start over when you have absolutely nothing left but anger? The same anger that got me in trouble was the same anger that saved my life. My rebirth was a slow one. My return to the living was often painful, if not misunderstood. I need to talk about those days, months, and years after the haunting. I need to get it out. I need to let it go. In some way, I feel maybe, if I share it with you, I will be able to put it behind me and begin to leave it back in the past, where it belongs.
I was walking in the park today when I heard a woman screaming. Anytime I hear someone screaming, my automatic response is to prepare for the worst. Get ready for the demon. The scream felt like it was surrounding me. I realize now it was a trick of acoustics, due to the trees, as I was crossing the creek on the bridge, headed toward the playground. She was screaming, “Oh my God! No!” Four words. “Oh my God! No!” Most of you might have run to the source of the scream, but at first I just stood frozen. “Oh my God! No!” Then I slowly began to walk toward the sound of the commotion as I heard other voices. “Call 911.” “Don’t move him.” “Get the children away.” The last phrase was a good indicator I was in for something really ugly. “Get the children away.” Away so they could not see the carnage that was about to lay before me. Away before their little minds were completely destroyed by a memory that would never be erased. But it was too late for me, because on the ground before me, in his mother’s arms, lay a little boy gushing blood from his head. His mother was screaming as the boy was losing consciousness in her arms. “Oh my God, no. Please, baby, no.” And for some reason, at that moment I remembered Rachel and the tragic end to her life. Rachel, who was the young mother on my paranormal team. I am not sure why. It could have been all of the blood and the shock of the scene, but the thoughts came to me just the way they always had in the dream. The shotgun against her forehead and then BOOM! The paramedics moved me out of the way to get to the child. Rachel was gone and still, at that moment, I stood
there asking God if it were somehow my fault. I was asking God if all of the death and destruction were because of me and my unwillingness to see the truth. Were other people’s lives paying the price for some kind of karmic bill, for a pendulum that had swung one way, which now had to swing the other way, before it could once again settle? Rachel’s head exploded in my mind. I found my way to a bench and I sat down as they put the little boy into an ambulance and drove away. The blood was still fresh on the pavement and glistening in front of me. I never should have taken those vulnerable people with me, and I should have protected those young people from the house during those dark days. In a way, I am the guilty one. I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t know the consequences of my actions. I didn’t know it would try to eat us alive. Now I find myself waking up screaming. In some ways, it would have been easier to have been one of those who had died. Living the nightmare over and over is hell. BOOM! Rachel’s head exploding in my mind once again. Boom.
Now I have a clear understanding of death. I have seen it over and over.
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Chapter 4
November 2005
It was November 2005; we had all been through a lot. I guess that would be an understatement. We had all been through hell and back. Mr. Winters, the landlord of the Screaming House, had just rented the house to another family with small children. He had sent me a final e-mail stating that he could hear the children playing upstairs in the house: “I can hear their little angel screams. I hope their guardian angels are watching over them tonight.” The family Mr. Winters was talking about in the e-mail lasted only four months in the house. Their small baby had begun to be terrorized by something within its walls. They would find unexplained scratches and such on the child. When they would try to take a picture of the baby, it would always be blocked by some sort of black shadow. It did not take them long to pack up and go.
Blessed Are the Wicked Page 3