Letter 71 – The Experience

Garrett,

It was late summer after you died when I got sick. I was sick in a way that I hadn’t experienced before. My body felt like it was a thousand years old. I slept for ten hours, took a four-hour nap, and then went to bed early. I could feel myself slowing down for several days before that, until one morning, I couldn’t get up when my alarm clock went off. I stayed home for a week. I barely moved. Just enough to go downstairs and settle on the couch, and then later, go back up to bed.

The morning it happened, Genevieve was home. I remember laying down on the couch and feeling like I was getting ready to take the best nap ever. I heard her playing a video game in the background and closed my eyes.

I became aware of a warm ray of sunshine shining directly down onto me. It felt amazing. The sun was coming down right over top of me and I could feel the light behind my closed eyelids. I wasn’t awake, but I didn’t feel that I was sleeping, either.

As I lay there, I heard the most amazing music. I knew it was the background sound from Genevieve’s video game, but it sounded incredible. This is the most amazing music I’ve ever heard, I remember thinking to myself. This music is perfect. And then I became aware of the sun shining down onto me. Of how warm and bright it was and how great it felt to be laying there. And as I lay there experiencing this complete enjoyment of the sun, I thought to myself, is this God’s great light that is shining down on me? Am I basking in God’s great light? Garrett, I have never said words like these before in my life. I have never said, or thought, anything like that. And yet, as I lay there, I thought to myself, If I am basking in God’s great light, would it be possible to see my son? Garrett, is it possible to see you?

And then, there you were.

You were standing in a field of grasses. In a rolling landscape. Farmland, it looked like. You were wearing overalls and no shirt, and you were bathed in sunshine. I looked at you. I looked at you for a long time, drinking you in. And you stood there with a little smile on your face. You didn’t move, and you didn’t speak.

I remember asking you, Garrett, can I touch you? Can I touch you? And then I was there, standing in front of you, and I put my hands on both of your arms. It was an astounding moment, to feel your skin beneath my hands. Garrett, I said. And I just let myself hold you, and feel your skin, and be close to you.

After a few moments, or many minutes, you gently left me, and I found myself on the couch, under the shining sun, my eyes closed. And I heard my daughter’s music, and I heard her fingers on the keyboard, and I wondered to myself, did I just see my son? I didn’t want to open my eyes. I was suspended in a feeling of peace and incredible joy. I wanted to stay there for as long as I could. I lay there until I felt the sun move away from my body, and then I opened my eyes. There are no words to describe that time.  When I saw my son, and he was well, and I held him lightly for one last time.

When I told Kevin about it, it was through a stream of tears. It had been so real. I had seen you. Touched you. Felt the sun streaming down onto us.

When I told Alex about it days later, we laughed as I made my was through the story. It was so unlike me. To say these things. Who says, wait, am I in God’s great light? Am I basking in God’s great light? I would never say such a thing. We laughed at the absurdity of me saying something like that. And I said, I know, I know, but it’s true. I literally asked myself if I was bathing in God’s great light. And I told her about you, standing there, wearing overalls. He’s never worn overalls in his life, I told her. But there he was, standing there in overalls, with no shirt on. And as we laughed our way through the story, it didn’t feel any less true. And Genevieve’s video game music was the most amazing music I had ever heard. I can laugh about it, and I can cry over it, and every time, it is still true.