The Lesson

  There were many reasons to dislike Richard Ellison. He was spoiled rotten, extremely rude, got the biggest allowance on the block and was the person responsible for my untimely death. Yes, I said death, but don't call me a liar just yet. What had started out as the first day at the beach that summer ended up with my limp body being squeezed in the middle of a circle of curious spectators. The brief passage back from what seemed a predestined reunion to my unpleasant encounter with that swim-suited throng lasted just minutes, but it launched me on a lifelong search to find the pieces that I left in a place separating the living and the dead.

    That drowning exhibition questioned my cherished beliefs, which in a twelve-year-old are not too far on their way to being carved on rock. For the time being let's forget I mentioned that word, I really don't like rocks. Getting back to beliefs, I wanted new ones after my reunion and I stumbled upon Abraham Maslow’s article, A Theory of Human Motivation. I was interested in all the pieces that form an individual and Abraham seemed to know what they were.

    His term, "self-actualization" implies the attainment of one's basic physiological needs; having your own inner security, sharing love, belonging to another, and of course creating self-esteem. I found self-actualization is very difficult when you're missing pieces. You should pay close attention to this story because it seemed to me back then that time passed slowly, but now looking back, I realize my life has raced by all too quickly. I don't know why that happened or if it's even true. Could it be just another missing piece? The best place to start is to join those curious spectators whose faces are stenciled into memory, remember we are talking about my death and that's personal.

    The summer sky was a brilliant blue with a few scattered clouds that would whisk away in irregular shapes and then reform in the winds that sent ripples fanning out across Long Island Sound. I can feel those goose pimples rising on my small, tanned, chest. I was inside a boy then, but I lost him that day. These were carefree summer days enhanced by personal freedom; I swam where I wanted. Boys then were mystical, physical, and adventurous. They weren't held captive by Dolby-encoded, attention-grabbing 3-D graphics. 

    We were enthralled by sleek, glistening grey forms arching above the waves, diving deep and reappearing far away. These visitors had no schoolbooks or pockets burdened with Pez dispensers, rabbit feet or bulky jackknifes. We transformed ourselves into porpoises leaving the world above to glide over the wave-formed ridges of sand. Richard and I had learned to hold our breath and with open eyes leave the surface to disperse crabs.

    Back then boys did their thing; collected scars, chipped teeth, split lips, and taught each other how to spit and whistle. Girls did the meaningless things that we never really cared about. There were no helmets when you rode your bike, just wind that brought tears. We saw our world from a rubber-wheeled horse and later heard a car engine from resonating baseball cards fastened with clothespins. We had hair cropped into a thick one-quarter inch mat. 

    In those days there were no cylindrical buoys a mere ten feet offshore with their restrictive "No Swimming Beyond Buoy" red letters to interfere with being a boy. We brought glass soda bottles, played touch football, swam with our dogs, flew kites, kicked sand, and best of all dove out to deeper water to escape the watchful eyes of muscled lifeguards and vigilant mothers. It was a different time; we were part of nature, not an armored defensive observer fearing injury on a bicycle or a swim. Risk-taking was a teacher and offered big rewards to small boys impressing bigger ones.

    I never thought playing catch with a tennis ball on that sandbar would change my core beliefs, but that is just where they began to unravel. One's certain, unshakable believe in one's own immortality at the tender age of twelve, that has to be the biggest myth of childhood; Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and all the gods past and present with their legions of vexed devotees pale in comparison.

    Playing catch with Richard wasn't fun; as usual he was making the tennis ball unattainable. I'm certain now that the idea in his twisted mind was to take me further and further from the safety of the sandbar to the shady waters harboring swift currents. Why am I certain, because he didn't stay to watch my beach drama unfold, and he looked me in the eyes only once and that was years later.

    I told myself two could play this game, so I was busy speeding the ball on its way. Trust Richard to complain," Knock it off, you can't throw hard and in my direction at the same time." The wet tennis ball whizzed past my ear to Richard's freckled face. I remember seeing it in slow motion headed right for the space between startled eyes. Those eyes grew bigger, but he never flinched. Richard was raising his left hand in front of a head anchored in defiance. The ball stung his palm and bounced to his lower lip. When he reached to pick it up, I could see the start of tears but he fought them back.

    Richard lofted the ball softly in my direction. I jumped up but it passed over my outstretched fingertips to splash down several feet from the sandbar. Glancing back I saw Richard dive away toward the shore, I dug my feet into the sandy bottom with my toes piercing sand. This was the best dolphin dive of my life. My hands were out in front and my palms pressed tightly together as I cut through the water. The temperature was going from cool to cold and I realized that winter currents had been chiseling the sandbar gliding beneath me exposing a collage of stones. A blue crab was on his toes waving pinchers from seaweed-covered rocks. My glide ended. I prepared to touch down and propel into the next ascending arc, but the lesson of my life had begun.

    I sank feet-first into deeper, colder water watching the tennis ball above grow smaller as it floated away. From my crouching position on the bottom I leaped to the sky waiting to open my mouth until after I broke through saltwater to welcoming daylight, but my upward momentum ended quickly. Welcoming light was two feet above my outstretched fingertips. I sank slowly without the reassuring supply of air that usually accompanies a descending porpoise. I scrapped a large rock and mounted a slippery, mussel-coated platform that sliced my right foot. I glanced down to see thin green ribbons of blood streaming away.

    I had a surge of energy and an intense awareness unlike any I had experienced before. Fear had fused pressure on my eardrums, light filtering from above, and a resolute silence. One sound did emerge and it was steadily mounting in intensity, the purest I had ever heard; it was my beating heart. Colors were now a vivid panorama of blue shades of water, grey and brown sand and differing hues of seaweed. My legs pressed into the sharp mussels and seconds later with adrenalin pumping, I felt the water break over my head as I entered daylight’s warm air. I scanned the beach; it was an animated postcard, rich in color and sound. The fading cry of a seagull trailed off as I began dropping to the safety of my rock.

    I folded my legs while my arms fanned the sea keeping me over my safe haven. That one rock on the sloping side of a vanishing sandbar was my ticket back to sky and life. The bottom was slanting away into deep water on my right. The beach must be to my left. All I needed was a full set of lungs and I'd dive again towards the beach. I saw it unfold in my mind's eye, one dive would take me to shore and another to where on tiptoes my head could break the surface. Two more dives and I'd be in shallow, warmer water near the noise of splashing children and the chatter of women in beach chairs. A sprint on hot sand would bring a white terrycloth towel, a mother's smiling face and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich encased in wax paper. I could already taste it.

    My left foot dug into the mussels and my big toe felt a sharp stab of pain. I didn’t care because I had made the frightening discovery that my rock was tumbling away. I might never again break the surface or fill my lungs with air. I watched the rock sliding away. The surface seemed tantalizingly close. The only sound I heard was the drumming of a heart beating faster to spread what oxygen remained from useless limbs toward a resourceful brain. 

    My legs were becoming rubber and my arms were growing heavier. My legs floundered in a losing effort to keep me afloat as the floor of rippled sand approached. My eyes felt like they were being pushed out of my head in time to a drumming heart banging in my ears. The weak metallic-tinged aroma that ushers in a bloody nose flooded my senses. Hemoglobin was racing out to bond with life-giving oxygen, but it rode a wave of panic. My hands grasped a contorted face below eyes were throbbing.

    The body told me to breathe, but I wouldn't do it. That one gulp of salt water would initiate a frantic struggle. Would I fight destiny only to settle to the bottom as an unknown something traveling to wherever we go when life ends? My heart was about to explode, and so I did it. I took in a mouthful of salty, cold water and it filled starving lungs. That first gulp tasted like all human fluids; blood, sweat, tears, saliva, and maybe even the embryonic fluid I once had known as a fetus. It had no nourishment, but strangely other almost comforting swallows followed.

    Suddenly, I had no urge to fight for life. Now this is the important part; I was resigned to my fate and eager to experience that unknown future. Where would I go? What or who would I become? I had settled to the bottom and was aware of a black, oval-shaped stone worn smooth by waves. This stone was pressing into my shoulder blade. I knew it was black and oval yet I never saw it. My eyes were open staring straight up at the banded layers of multi-colored water. Maybe it was light going through different temperature zones or currents or both. As I looked through it far on the other side was a blank, colorless sky. My world down there was peaceful and quiet. I no longer heard my heart; there was an overwhelming silence.

    Off to my left I saw a large shadow that was spreading along the bottom. It appeared as if it would soon cover me just like it had the other objects populating the sand. I looked at this shadow and it seemed to be curling at the edges as it became darker. It was not menacing as it unfolded before me because I was fascinated. I thought were there undersea clouds? The edges of this cloud touched my feet and it was warm and soothing. Here I was under a warm blanket-like cloud curling over me. My next awareness was the voice of my dead grandmother, "You settle down, Little Man. Get a good night's rest." I had missed her voice and it resonated in soothing tones. I turned my head towards her voice expecting to see her speaking, but not from that place.

    The soothing blanket-like cloud had elongated into a bright, curved passageway. Her face hung from the tubular wall of this luminous corridor. I thought, I'm wide-awake can't I get up and walk inside closer to you? She had heard me somehow and was telling me to walk toward her with a smiling face that beckoned. At the same time there appeared to be a movie screen spreading over the inside lining of the passageway. 

    On this screen I watched the smiling faces of everyone I loved. I saw two sisters, a mother, a father, and those close relatives who had died, even my brother. He appeared to be maybe twenty years old and he smiled while holding a set of car keys. It would be five years until I had my first look at him in my mother's arms. But that moment in a gateway to or from a watery world, I recognized the adult face of my brother.

    Totally at peace, I walked over mussels and rocks that felt like a deep luxurious carpet and years later I stopped in mid-sentence as I touched my first Alpaca sweater. Strangely, I felt an overwhelming urge in a crowded men's store to remove loafers and socks and stand on that sweater. By then I had tried almost everything to recapture that underwater experience. As I walked towards my grandmother who stood near the end of the tunnel, I felt weightless with contentment beyond description. Here is the strangest part, I reached out my hand to grasp my grandmother's hand, but my vision or reality ended as I touched her. A chilling darkness unlike any I could attempt to express surrounded me. My nostrils were moist, salty and dripping, and then my eyes opened to see the sky.

    I focused on my mother's tears of joy and was aware of the hushed crowd gathered in a tight circle around my shivering body. Life returned, but why had I come back? What's more, where did that passageway lead and even better had I traveled down that same passageway during my birth? That is the moment I started looking for missing pieces and new beliefs, but I told you that. This adult believes stars made the chemicals that comprise living organisms. No man-conceived, instinct-inspired or self-deluding revelation caused this. It has been a long march from primitive bacterium to the red, white, black, brown, and yellow two-legged warriors that populating our planet and somehow one seems more eager than the other to toss a bomb and start a war to defend his created deity.

    I believe life is limitless, self-perpetuating and will be found in billions of worlds that orbit the countless suns in expanding galaxies that may be locked in their own never-ending cycle of birth and death. In the meantime, I'm treading air and waiting for my eventual return to that tunnel. I’ve looked very hard but I never found that skinny kid I lost at the beach. Oh! Richard he resurfaced. He came to town to bury a grandson. You should have seen his eyes; he was staring right through me after that car hit Oliver. My younger brother drove it but it wasn't his fault. Oliver had chased a tennis ball down a sloping lawn into the street. I can see Richard lofting the ball softly in his direction, Oliver jumps but it passes above small fingertips. Some people never seem to learn.

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