Proof of Heaven

by Mary Curran Hackett

  We children were extreme in our devotion, too, but we were far more disgruntled. We hated that my parents always invited wayward guests, lost souls, lonely widows or widowers, introverted bachelors, and even priests to our house for dinner on Sundays and even precious holidays. My parents’ idea of family literally included everyone they met. The kettle and the pot of coffee were always on, and my mother and father could be found holding court at any time of the day or night. (And to this day, in the evening, a bonfire burns at the end of our street, and around it you will find my parents and countless friends and family members circled round it, laughing, drinking, loving, and living the only way they know how.)

  But throughout my childhood I had a secret and it was hard to keep. I wasn’t so sure I believed it all. Throughout my childhood, I had never actually seen or experienced God in spite of all my piety. Like the character Colm in my story, I collapsed on a regular basis as a child (and never experienced the visions I had often heard people with near-death experiences had). I was what my family called “delicate” or “a fainter.” I was frequently short of breath, listless, weak, in incredible amounts of pain, and prone to unconsciousness. I missed school often, and at one point in the sixth grade, I was absent for more than a month while the rest of the family went on with work and school. As a teenager, I pushed myself by playing sports and even training for marathons because I didn’t want anything or anyone to slow me down. But since my first collapse, which occurred more than twenty-five years ago, I have probably hit the floor nearly a hundred times. I have gone down on busy Metro platforms with subways ripping by within inches of my head, in museums surrounded by crowds of strangers, on sidewalks, and always it seemed, at the most inopportune moments.

  One night in 2003, when I was twenty-six, my heart stopped beating while driving my daughter home from preschool, nearly killing us both. I remember the world going very quiet and still while looking at her for a brief second in the rearview mirror, and I knew there was nothing I could do before it all went black.

  My father, who happened to be outside on that cold January day chopping wood, stepped out into the road because he heard a speeding car. As it came closer he saw my body slumped over the wheel, and the car accelerating as it barreled toward him. He leaped out of the way as my car crashed through a large, icy snowbank and came to a stop within a couple of feet of my parents’ living room window. He ran immediately to my daughter and pulled her out of the vehicle. She was safe, thanks in part to the snowsuit that packed her so snugly into the car seat. I don’t have any memory of any of the accident, but in the ambulance I remember my friend Nibby, an EMT fireman who knew my father, yelling at me to come back, screaming at me to stay with them.

  I was met at the hospital by a police officer who had come to take away my license. As sick and confused as I was, I was more upset about losing my license than the accident. Without the ability to drive, I couldn’t get to my job. I was a single mom at the time and had mountains of debt. I received no child support from my daughter’s father, and I was living in my parents’ basement while juggling a demanding career and side work. Losing my license was equivalent to financial suicide.

  Shortly after, I moved to Cincinnati to be close to my boyfriend (now husband) and where I would have access to reliable public transportation and good hospitals. It was in one of those hospitals during a routine doctor’s appointment that I flatlined again. When I woke up, there was a cluster of doctors and nurses standing over me—others rushed at me with needles and paddles and screamed at me to wake up. (I woke up spontaneously after almost two minutes of being asystole.) Later on, through the chaos, I found the calm, smiling face of an Indian doctor, who said, “There you are, my good girl.” Within days I had a pacemaker installed and a treatment plan for the rest of my life. I was eventually diagnosed with several related disorders all linked to a form of dysautonomia, which was explained to me as a condition in which the brain was at war with the heart and other parts of my body. It summed up my life perfectly in more ways than one. My brain and heart often wanted entirely different things.

  I have since been diagnosed with malignant neurocardiogenic syncope disorder, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), and left atrial reentrant tachycardia. However, my conditions are well managed (I can even drive now), but I’ve been told they are incurable, so I do my best to take care of myself and my children.

  This particular novel, however, first took root in me in 2006, when while bathing my son, I watched as he stopped breathing and began to die in my arms. He was sitting up one minute in the water and then suddenly he collapsed. He would have slammed his head on the tub had I not caught him in my arms. Within seconds, his face went ashy, his lips turned blue, and he stopped breathing and moving. It transformed me. I had never been on the other side of watching someone lose consciousness. To deal with my fear of losing my son to what I thought was my own condition, I began to write Proof of Heaven after I returned home from the hospital. (Colm’s collapse was thought to be a possible epileptic attack or severe asthma attack. It was most likely the latter, since he has since suffered from several subsequent asthma attacks.)

  That night a million thoughts raced through my head, but in the end all I could think was: What would I do? What would I do if I lost my son? How does any mother go on? Later that same night when I couldn’t sleep, I sat staring at him and I had a vision (the closest I have ever come to a religious experience) that I knew I had to get on paper. The first chapter flowed out of me, but I left the file on my computer untouched. Meanwhile, I taught En-glish literature, acquired and edited several books for others, and continued to write all sorts of other stories and articles. One day while cleaning my computer, I accidentally found a file named PROOF, and as I was about to press Delete, for some reason, I started to read it. Cate, Dr. Basu, Sean, and Colm started to live and breathe inside my head; and they literally wouldn’t let me sleep until I finished putting their story on paper. In writing this novel, I was able to see things clearly for the first time.

  For me this story is really not about proving whether there is or isn’t a heaven, or a God. I leave those questions for my readers to decide. What interests me are the questions we face in life and how we mere mortals deal with them. My wish is to understand the limitless capacity our hearts and minds have to embrace and understand love. It’s about what makes a family a family, because many of us, like the characters in my book, craft our own version of a family. Proof of Heaven is also about sacrifice—we all make sacrifices every day for the people we love. And, ultimately, this story is a love story between a parent and a child—the unique sort of love that knows no bounds. It travels the world. It’s bigger and shinier than the largest, most ornate cathedrals, both the ones built by man and the ones found in nature. It blossoms from the soul and expands and grows and eventually explodes—with an energy only equaled to the electricity and energy of the stars—and the human heart.

  Q & A with Mary Curran Hackett

  How long did it take you to write Proof of Heaven?

  There are three answers to this question: I could say, “It took me two weeks.” But then I would have to amend and say, “Well, if you included edits, it took two years.” And then upon thinking further, I would have to say “Actually, it took me about thirty-five years—because in some way, everything in my life was leading up to this moment.” All would be the right answer, but I’ll start with the first answer.

  Most writers will not believe me when I say that I wrote the first draft in two weeks—all four hundred original pages of it in October 2009 (with the exception of the first chapter and last chapter, which I wrote one night after an agonizing night in the hospital with my sick son in 2006). The rest I wrote between October 16 and October 31 to be exact. On October 16, 2009, while cleaning out a flash drive I came across a file that simply said PROOF. I almost pressed Delete, but miraculously I didn’t. Instead I opened the file to see what it was. As soon as I began reading, I felt an
overwhelming rush—like an electric charge—go through my entire body. I just knew I had something here. I could hardly believe I had forgotten about it or left the file alone for so long. I suppose at the time I first wrote it, I simply thought of the story as a cathartic exercise—a way to purge the fear and anxiety I felt after almost losing my son.

  Going against all the rules of the publishing world, I threw a query letter together quickly, attached it to the chapter, and e-mailed it to an agent I came across on a writers’ blog that I subscribed to. I said I had “a novel” I thought she might like to consider. When I awoke the next day, the agent in NYC had responded and said she wanted to see the entire manuscript. Of course, I didn’t have an entire manuscript. I had a first chapter. I wrote back and asked for “a couple of weeks” to tidy up the manuscript. (OK, I don’t suggest lying to people, but something told me I could write this baby if I put my mind to it.) So I went to my husband and laid it out for him. Between teaching two classes at the University of Cincinnati, carrying a full editing load at my day job, and caring for two kids, something would have to give—most likely sleep and the weekends. I would need all day Saturday and Sunday for a couple weeks to work straight through, and I would need his help to keep the kids busy at night. That meant bath time, homework help, and story time were all on him, so I could work. And work I did. After my day jobs, I came home, threw on my writing sweater—a dingy, Irish wool housecoat—and went to work.

  I have to admit, as exciting as it is to say “I wrote a book,” what I am most proud of is, not just writing it, but how I did it. In those two weeks, I got the kids up and ready for school, dropped them off, picked them up, made it to class every day, handed in my manuscripts for my day job on time, made every dinner (they were not my best), moved every load of wash (my husband folded), and still made it to the fall festival—hayride and all.

  I was no prima donna writer—there was no whisking myself off to a silent room or a quaint coffee shop to write in peace. I wrote while sitting on the couch while my husband watched Family Guy and crunched potato chips. I wrote lying on my son’s bed while he crashed trains into tractors and made explosion sounds. I wrote in my daughter’s room while she practiced her recorder and sang Taylor Swift songs at the top of her lungs. For two weeks I subsisted on coffee and M&Ms. I laid off my meds (I don’t recommend this either) so I could rely on my natural propensity for my heart to beat 200 beats per minute—just to keep awake. A couple days before I sent out the manuscript I read the entire thing aloud to my husband, and meanwhile I had my father-in-law, brother, sister, and a couple of friends read it as well, and they all encouraged me to send it on. So on October 31, 2009, just before dressing the kids in their Halloween costumes—I clicked on Send and put the story of my life in the hands of someone else.

  Of course, between then and the publication of the book, two years passed. And in that time the real work happened. I did a lot of rewriting and editing. I think I changed the ending no less than six times. To make a very long story short, with the help of my wonderful agent, Marly Rusoff (who, as it turns out, was not the original agent who was interested in the novel in October 2009) and my editor, Lucia Macro, we have the Proof of Heaven you hold in your hands today.

  Are your characters based on anyone you know?

  Yes. There are four main characters in this story—Cathleen, Sean, Dr. Basu, and Colm. Each one is near and dear to me. While these characters are based on people I know in real life, the experiences and their stories are all complete works of fiction. They speak, act, and do things as their character and the story dictate. But for a little more background on each character—here you go:

  CATHLEEN

  Cathleen is by and large based on some of my own experiences. My middle name is Cathleen. I grew up being called Mary Cathleen. And like Cathleen, I have to take faith day by day. I have had fits and starts with my devoutness too. When I was at Catholic University, I went to Mass every morning with a boy. I was absolutely head over heels for him. There was nothing real about my devoutness though. I think a lot of the reason I got up and went to church each morning was so I could sit next to him! It was really a show. I don’t think I ever felt close to God then. I had no idea how to really pray. I had so many doubts. I was reading a lot of the existentialists then, and I had more doubt than true faith—for sure. I was so confused by it all. The “boy” and I would stay up all night and talk, and he would tell me about this “flame” inside him or this dripping faucet that was about to overflow—and how he “heard” God “calling” him. I was at once jealous—because I didn’t have any experience like that, and because he loved God more than me. How could I compete with God? A blonde, maybe. Now I could take that on. But God? No competition. But there have been times in my life when I think the act of getting up and praying has gotten me through the day. When I was a single mom, I took my infant daughter to Mass every morning. I didn’t do it because I believed, or because of some sort of devoutness, or even out of fear or guilt. I did it because it got me out of the house early and it framed my day. I also felt great comfort in hearing the words of Jesus, “Blessed are those who are persecuted” and seeing him suffer on the cross. It was truly the loneliest and hardest time of my life. I had so many people saying things about me and judging me, and in many cases, just being cruel. Just knowing there was someone out there—dead or alive—who had felt and known that pain of being misunderstood helped me get through every day.

  Also, like Cathleen, I fell in love with a gorgeous boy who was a musician—although unlike the character Pierce, who played the guitar, my daughter’s father played the banjo. I don’t think I ever prayed, bartered, or begged more with any man or God, to have him stay with me and my daughter. But, in the end, my love wasn’t enough. Nothing I could do or say would change what his heart felt. And in the end, it was all as it was meant to be. It took a very long time for my heart to accept what the body and mind already knew. I am grateful now for his honesty and his truth. Because without it, I would still be pining. He made it possible for me to build the life I have now with my daughter, my husband, and our son. I forgive him, love him no less, though in a very different way, and wish him all the best. I truly believe if it weren’t for that experience, I wouldn’t be the person I am today, and I actually thank God every day for it—the pain and all— because without it, I wouldn’t have Brigid, I would never have met Greg, and I wouldn’t have our wonderful son, Colm.

  SEAN

  Sean is an amalgamation of men in my life—especially my two brothers, my father, and my husband. No men in my life have meant more to me or shaped me more than these guys. My father was a firefighter—but before that, he was in the seminary. He wanted to be a priest as a young man. He and my mother are probably the most devout people I have ever met. (With the exception of Mother Teresa, who I met while I was at Catholic U. She kind of holds the record in my book.) I can honestly say, though, that everything my parents do, they do for God. Even having us kids was—in a way—for God. My father felt the call to be a priest as a young man, but something in him, like Sean, changed. A few years after that change of heart, he married my mom. Also, my father’s mother died when he was a toddler, and he grew up not knowing her. My husband’s mother also died when he was a boy, and it fundamentally changed him, too. So that aspect of Sean is definitely pulled from real experiences. But Sean’s attitude, temperament, and motivations are all my brothers’, especially my brother Sean. He’s a giant, and he too spoke of being a priest when he was younger. He’s wild—the life of every party, a phenomenal dancer, and has such a quick wit and easy way about him. He’s also very loyal. He’d pretty much walk through fire to help out anyone he loves. He’s also lost many people in his life he has loved—especially some of his closest friends—and like the character Sean, he has had to reach inside himself to find the strength to go on without those people by his side. He likes his “sauce” as he says, but he’s not a falling-down drunk (although he knows plenty of them
). The darker side of the character Sean—his volatile temper and passion—I have to say belongs to my brother Val, who, like the character Sean, had aspirations to be a fighter pilot. Val did end up joining the navy and flew in some superfast planes. As children, we did go to the Intrepid and spent hours watching Blue Angels shows as kids. But Val has been known to fly off the handle at times in his life. He’s one of the most driven, passionate, fiery people I know. But I know his intensity is just an expression of his love—combined with fear. I have been on the receiving end of his temper, and looking back, I know it was coming from a place of helplessness and frustration. He just wanted the best for me and loved me so much. I think it was—at times—even physically difficult on him to watch me seemingly self-destruct. He definitely lost it on me a few times in my day. And like the character Sean who recognizes this and is ultimately forgiven, so too is my brother. I love him.

  I love them all.

  DR. BASU

  Dr. Basu was originally named Dr. Gandhi. I had editors say that was a little clichéd, and it made them picture Ben Kingsley as Gandhi! But I had a different vision of who Dr. Gandhi was. When I flatlined in 2004, the doctor who stepped in and took action and put a pacemaker in and diagnosed me—finally—was my own Dr. Guarang Gandhi. He was a young man—from India—and he had a wonderful bedside manner. He took his time with me, spent time talking to my daughter, and had a warm, kind smile. In fact, he walked into the office much the same way Dr. Basu does in this book. He immediately started talking to my daughter (Colm hadn’t been born yet). He bent right down and started asking her questions about her name and how old she was, and he told her a little story. He seemed very calm and so different from all the other physicians I had ever had. But two years later, he left the practice and I was assigned a different doctor. And that is where the similarities end.