The Door To Forever

Chapter 3

3

The years rolled by. I made friends at school, and Tommy visited me often, but never when anyone else was around. As I grew older, my curiosity about Tommy increased, and I would pepper him with questions at times. His usual response was that I was still not old enough to understand how he could pop into my world in a second or two and pop out just as quickly.

I graduated from elementary school. That meant a longer bus ride for high school to a larger, neighboring town than our local village. I am not naming many names in my story because I am writing this incognito, and I do not think I will end up revealing my real name. I’ll just say that it is a writer’s right to change his mind on that subject, so we shall see what we shall see as time passes and the story develops. High school brought to me an expanded collection of new friends. I enjoyed that immensely because growing up in the country at a young age resulted in my best friends being invisible to apparently everybody but me. Tom regularly popped in when convenient to my activities at home, and I was certainly always glad to see him. As I neared my teens, we agreed we should be called Tom and John instead of Tommy and Johnny.

I learned to drive when I was sixteen. I did not have my own car, so I could not toot around very much on my own. High school graduation brought on a new challenge. I had absolutely no inkling what I wanted to do with my life. My parents encouraged me to go on to college anyway and figure out my future during the journey. That reasoning kind of made sense to me, so that is precisely the approach I took. I chose a very reputable college in Cincinnati. It was approximately a two-hour drive from home, but a long walk. I still did not have a car at my disposal.

College life was fun, well, for a little while anyway. New friends, new school, big city, lots of drinking; what more could a teenager ask for? Unfortunately, it came to a crashing halt. It was five weeks after classes started. My roommate in the residence had a car, and we quickly bonded. We were out cruising for babes on a Saturday evening. We had a couple of beers, but we made sure we were not drunk. I heard squealing tires at an intersection, and then my lights went out.

The next thing I remember, I was in this luscious, strange place, sitting there under a tree chatting with my deceased grandfather. We were having a grand time reminiscing about the fun times we spent together while we were fishing the local lakes and streams. There were others there around us, but I cannot recall actually knowing any of them. Suddenly my grandfather looked up in the air, somewhere, and said, “You’ve got to go back.” And then everything went blank.

Blank has no time, so it is difficult to say how long I was gone. Then, there I was back again, chatting with my beloved grandfather as if I had never left. It was a shorter chat this time, and then everything went blank again.

The next thing I remember, I was in a hospital room, surround by doctors, nurses, and my family. I was pretty much covered in bandages and medical tubes. My mother burst into happy tears when I opened my eyes and blankly stared around the room.

Before I continue with the story, I want to first go back and fill you in on the information I later discovered about the squealing tires and everything else that occurred before I woke up to the welcoming committee assembled in my hospital room.

My roommate and I were having a great time singing our hearts out to the song on the radio. I cannot remember what the song was anymore. We were going through an intersection with the right-of-way and another vehicle, driven by one of our own college students who apparently did not see his stop sign to the right of me, or our car, until the last second and slammed on his brakes. Unfortunately, not soon enough for me, and his car smashed into my door. That is when my lights went out, and I remember nothing until I was sitting up in the clouds enjoying my chat with my dearly departed grandfather.

I was in pretty bad shape. Actually, that is a bit of an understatement; I was in terrible shape. I had head injuries, internal injuries, a shattered right thigh bone, and a broken right arm below the elbow. Fortunately, the nearest hospital was only a couple of blocks away from our accident scene, so they had me in the emergency room within minutes. My roommate, as well as the driver of the other car and his passenger, only suffered minor injuries, so I was the top priority patient on arrival.

Because my lights were out, I cannot tell you everything that happened. I was told my heart stopped for seven minutes at one point in the operating room. That must have been when I paid my first visit to my grandfather. They got my heart going again, and obviously, my soul returned to my body, but I remember nothing from that time as my lights were still out. For some reason, my heart stopped another time, apparently for only a minute or two, and that was when I paid Grandpa a second but abbreviated visit.

I remember nothing from that point on until I woke up some thirty-six hours later in my hospital room. Even then, I was spaced out on pain killers and do not remember much. My mother told me many months later that the doctors had indicated that my chances of survival after they pieced me back together were a coin toss. Fortunately, the coin landed heads.

After the doctors assured my parents that I was out of danger and on my way to a slow recovery, my family returned back home but usually visited me on the weekends. My college roommate was my most common visitor, but a few other students that I became friendly with over my five weeks at college, as well as the driver of the car that smashed into us, dropped in occasionally. And let’s not forget Tom. He may not count as a person, but he counts as a visitor.

I was in a semi-private room and, at times, had a roommate, but more often than not, I was the only resident. I had understood a long time before the accident that Tom could pop in and not be seen, or he could pop in and be seen only by me. He told me he checked in on me many times each day, but only made himself visible when things were pretty quiet around there, and we were not likely to be disturbed by an unexpected visitor or nurse. Even though all or most other people could not see him, he figured it would not look too good if a nurse or doctor checked in on me and caught me talking away to nobody. It was difficult for me to disagree with Tom on that one.

When we had time to chat, I told Tom about my visits with my grandfather. He assured me that those visits were not imaginary but real. When my heart stopped pumping, my soul departed from my body and visited with the soul of my grandfather on the other side. This was not at all unusual, according to Tom, but most people, like even me, he mentioned, do not talk about it after it happens because they feel that others will think their head injuries rattled their sanity. Fortunately for me, I guess, my earlier experiences with Jason, Crystal, Nancy, and Tom prepared me to readily accept that I did indeed have an enjoyable but brief visit with my dearly departed Grandpa.

Now that I was more or less grown up and experienced my first trips to Heaven, Tom was ready to fill me in a little on how all of this worked. He explained that on the death of a body, the soul and spirit depart and travel to the other side, or Heaven if you prefer the term. Souls there can then assume a variety of responsibilities during their tenure on the other side, just like he was my guide through the previous ten years or so, and Jason, Crystal, and Nancy were my playmates for a shorter while, before their next incarnation in a new body. There were oodles of other responsibilities that souls on the other side could assume, but that chat would take place down the road sometime, Tom advised me.

I was not allowed to get out of bed for three months because of the condition of my shattered thigh bone. Then, they fitted me with a cast, but not a walking cast, for another month. It was wonderful to be able to just hobble around the hospital a bit on my crutches and see more of the world I desperately missed. I next got a walking cast for a couple of more months. When it was removed, I experienced the tortures of rehab therapy. Not fun, but necessary.

I, of course, missed the remainder of my first year of college. Five weeks of classes does not qualify for any credits. The good news was that I was allowed to return home to my parents for the summer as long as I promised to continue my therapy exercises. That was a pleasure, I assure you. Being home, I mean, not the therapy exercises.