I’m standing, if you can call it that, in a city street while the ghosts of people, past present and future rush around me. I catch moments in lives so different from each other that to the untrained eye they are breath-taking, yet I am unmoved. I have seen versions of these people repeatedly, inexorably coming to the same conclusion.
Humans are so predictable, so full of their own self-importance, as though the Universe revolves around them, and it does. Like each cell within a body, each is unique but just as vital to the whole and when their purpose is done, they move on in the continuum, being born, growing, learning, living and dying.
I’m here to nudge him in the right direction. I’ve watched him from before birth. The spark of life, possibilities and probabilities, choices to be made, lessons to learn.
This trial has been the hardest so far. If only he could see it as stengthening medicine, but he’s too involved to take matters lightly. He cannot cut the cord just yet. He doesn’t know what to do. I’ve been prompting but he can’t hear me because the raging, emotional storm inside him is shutting out all sound but his own tortured thoughts.
Everybody goes through hell.
The last few months have pushed him beyond what he has ever had to experience. He’s lost friends, support. Lawyers asked questions which proved, to his own mind, his worthlessness, that he has wasted his life.
Not true, but this is how he feels.
There’s a sense that everyone’s against him.
Also not true, but when you feel like this, no help is possible. Clarity is illusive.
It’s final. Decisions have been made. It’s out of his control. He is bankrupt, emotionally, physically, spiritually and financially. How did it come to this? He leaves the offices of Barrett, Molesworth and Company and despairs at his own existence. He trudges the streets in vain trying to come to terms with life. He passes people, shops, cafes, bars but he sees nothing. The traffic is at a standstill in the centre of the city. He walks further out of the CBD towards the overpass where the traffic is fast and free flowing.
I hear his thoughts, “I would never have done to her what she did to me. I allowed this to happen. Nothing I do will ever change a thing. I wish I’d never met her. Wish I’d never fallen in love...She doesn’t love me, she proved it. Oh, so easy to say one thing and do another… It’s me, though. She did it, but I am at fault…The lawyers have made her out to be the hero, but I bear the scars that no one can erase… She took my name, my reputation, everything I had. She took all of me and threw it in the trash… She hurt me so badly but never said sorry until today. Sorry? Huh! Way too little, way too late. “
I surround him with love.
“I have no strength left to fight…”
I surround him with love.
“…I don’t want to be here any more…”
I surround him with love.
“…What’s the point in living?”
He hates himself and loathes self-pity but the tears flow down his cheeks regardless.
He pauses at the edge of the freeway. There’s a gap in the traffic.
I surround him with love.
He thinks, “When the next truck comes I’ll run in front of it.”
I surround him with love.
Cars pass by.
I surround him with love.
He’s about to step out.
I surround him with love.
He hears his name being called- a phantom.
He hesitates.
There’s no one here but me, though he can’t see me.
I surround him with love, and tell him that life is worth living. No matter how bad it may seem, everything is only temporary.
He pauses, foot poised in mid-air. A truck rumbles through a red light. Air rushes and pushes in a gust as he’s wavering on the kerb. Realising the close shave, he shivers as he sobs, and pulls himself together.
It’s all right.
He was this close to being just another road toll statistic.
Stay here. Tomorrow and the next day and the one after that, will be a little easier. I promise.
Things will be different. You will make it that way, one little piece at a time. You can make a difference.
I surround him with love.
I surround you with love.
I surround you with love.
I surround you with love.
You are loved.
