IN THE DAYS THAT FOLlowed, I forced myself to continue working at the club, though it had become a huge burden of late. The conversations I had with Joe made things very clear to me, and I knew it was just a matter of time before I would have to be true to myself and find a better way to make a living. A way that didn’t dilute my very soul.
I would be eternally grateful to Joe for all the wisdom he imparted to me, but I wondered why we had never really discussed his amputated leg again and why he hadn’t just magically fixed everything for himself. He had aspirations of accomplishing great things here on earth, helping people to help themselves. Why would he willingly choose to challenge himself with an amputation? Wasn’t life hard enough?
We were sitting out on my patio one evening, enjoying the late-summer breeze that wafted softly across our faces and rustled the leaves on my tomato plants. “So, if you really are God, or whatever it is you call yourself these days,” I challenged, “why don’t you just ‘heal thyself’?”
I mean, really, what was the point in walking around minus a leg if you really didn’t have to? If I were God, I certainly wouldn’t let anything impair me. I definitely don’t like to suffer, and I couldn’t help but wonder why all these religious types seem to think there’s some kind of glory in suffering. That’s something I never really understood.
“Because it wouldn’t be fair,” Joe answered matter-of-factly. “It may be hard to believe,” he continued, “but the funny thing is that everyone here on earth has the same amount of troubles. I went to great pains to make sure no one person had any more or any less heartache in their life than everyone else. The thing I didn’t count on was the vast difference in the capacity of each human being to handle sorrow.” He said it almost wistfully, as though he was genuinely impressed with the human race. I wasn’t going to argue with him there.
“Some people are just so great,” he went on. “You throw them a curve ball and they just handle it and say ‘Okay, what else have you got up your sleeve for me?’ I mean, they not only find a way to cope with it, but they’re poised and ready for whatever is next … and they take the gift that’s wrapped inside and keep moving forward.” He looked pensive for a moment then, and added, “Even I never knew people could be so resilient. Especially women. I had no idea what incredible beings I had created in them.”
A few moments elapsed before he spoke again, and I felt no obligation to fill the silence. This was definitely his show, and I wasn’t about to interfere.
“Of course, there are always the ones who complain about every little ache and pain and inconvenience in their lives,” he said blandly, “but they’re the ones who really suffer, because they can’t see the incredible gifts I’ve given them. They seem almost afraid to believe that life can be good, that the hard stuff is just as much of a gift as the easy stuff. They don’t seem to appreciate the handcrafted lessons in the middle of the problems, lessons that were meant to make their lives easier and easier.”
“Well, you still haven’t explained why you didn’t just grow another leg,” I insisted.
“Haven’t I?” he asked, dark eyes glowing like embers that were fanned from some very deep place inside of him. “I thought you understood that, Heather.” There was something about the way he said my name that made me feel like a sixties teenager at a Beatles concert.
“Maybe I missed it,” I conceded. “But isn’t life tough enough without having to use a prosthesis? Why don’t you just grow a new leg and get on with your mission here?” I asked, certain that I was making perfect sense.
He stared long and hard at me, not in a judgmental way, but in a deep and probing way. “It wouldn’t be fair,” he finally repeated. “I didn’t put anyone here without some kind of challenge in their lives,” he continued. “What would be the point?” He didn’t wait for me to answer before adding, “Besides, how could I give everyone an equal share of problems and then not give myself any at all? Really, Heather, what kind of guy do you think I am?”
I had no idea how to answer that question; I only knew I wished there were more like him. I was intrigued by what he was saying. “Are you trying to tell me that babies born with birth defects and princesses and stockbrokers on Wall Street and people born in third-world countries and doctors and cops and maybe even strippers, all have the same amount of stress and pain in their lives? The same amount of unhappiness?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” he replied with utter and unquestionable sincerity. “You can’t even imagine what lengths I went to in order to be certain that no one got shortchanged in the process. The only difference among people is the way they handle their challenges. Some don’t even bat an eye, while others cry and complain all the way through life.”
“Oh,” was all I was capable of saying as I looked back on all the complaining I’d done since I’d met him.
He smiled warmly at me, then added, “There’s nothing wrong with a little complaining, Heather, as long as you get right to work fixing whatever it is that is causing your pain.”
I was honestly overwhelmed with my capacity for loving him at that moment. There seemed to be no limit to it. As always, though he knew everything about me, he never once criticized me. Me! A so-called fallen woman, a heathen … a stripper! How could any woman resist falling in love with a man like that?!
But he was God; he should be used to people adoring him and, well, I guess, loving him. What was there not to love? The man knew everything about me, yet never judged me, never tried to change me. For the first time in my life, I understood the story of how Mary Magdalene once washed his feet with her tears and dried them with her long, abundant hair. Of course that was in the days when he’d allowed himself to have two feet.
I had always resented that story, especially as a young child in parochial school. Even at age six, I had found the concept of a woman washing a man’s feet degrading to my gender. I always figured it was far better to have them lusting after me. Yet here I was, falling into the incredible depths of Joe’s bottomless eyes, suddenly wanting to do whatever it would take to sooth his disappointment in the human race. If Joe’s behavior was an example of the kind of compassion we should all show to our fellow humans, I was certain most of us had been doing a pretty shabby job, at best. For the first time in years, I felt a little ashamed.
His warm hand encompassed my shoulder then, and he said simply, “Don’t.”
“‘Don’t’ what?” I asked, still unaccustomed to the fact that he could hear my thoughts.
“Don’t obsess on the past,” he said, tenderly brushing a strand of hair from my face. “You’re doing the best you can, and that’s all I ask.” We were both quiet for a long moment; then he added, “My most precious gift to you is the present moment. Use it to heal the wounded past.”
Those were the last words I thought about before falling asleep that night. “Don’t obsess on the past…. My most precious gift to you is the present moment.” The words tumbled softly off my lips like a magical mantra as I relinquished all the meaningless, extraneous thoughts of my consciousness and slipped aimlessly into a soft, vast cocoon of slumber and dreams.
I was languidly aware of the familiar scent of salt-saturated air and the feel of tepid ocean waves, lapping at my bare feet and sending rays of warmth and well-being throughout my entire body. The sun was not the white-hot fireball of mid July, but rather a gentle caress of warmth upon my skin. I breathed in the salty splendor and tilted my face up to absorb all of the sun’s loveliness, as earth and sky conspired to fill me with a sense of wholeness and utter contentment.
It was then that I noticed I was holding something flimsy in my hands. For some reason known only to dreamers, I was unable to identify it with my eyes, but whatever it was, I somehow knew it held great power for me.
I examined the fragile parcel with only my hands, noting its small, square shape and slightly craggy texture. I had the urge to hold it to my heart, and as I did, I found myself soaring through the cloudless, wide-open spaces of that boundless summer sky.
Far above the beach and the sea I sailed. I passed a flock of pelicans gliding gracefully through their celestial playground before dipping down to scoop their next meal from the smorgasbord the ocean waves offered them. I held the square object in my hands at a different angle, and gently my body swerved in the same direction. Whatever the object was, it had given me wings of a sort and it was directing my flight path. As long as I had the mysterious object in my hands, I knew my flight was guided by something much bigger than me. I aimed it upward and went higher still, finding myself among a group of seagulls at play, and I was overwhelmed with the pure joy of being, for once in my life, in harmony with the universe.
I flew even higher, not at all frightened or concerned about how I was going to get down. The higher I went, the better I felt, and suddenly I knew why birds sing for no apparent reason. I sang too, though for the life of me, I can’t remember the song. An odd sensation seized me then, something I had never felt before. It was as though someone had opened a secret door to my very soul and begun filling it with a warm, syrupy liquid that gave my entire body a golden glow.
When it seemed my soul had been filled to overflowing, I sensed that I was beginning to float ever-so-gently back down to earth. I drifted listlessly, swaying quietly through the luminous sky. I passed the seagulls on the way down and smiled wordlessly at them. I passed the pelicans next, and a few of them seemed to be showing off for me as they nose-dived into the turquoise ocean waves for their dinner.
I felt my feet touch the sun-warmed sand, and I was content to be back where everything was familiar again. I glanced down at the mysterious package still clutched in my hands and was surprised by what I saw.
It was several blank pages of very expensive looking stationery bound together with a blue velvet ribbon. There was something written in calligraphy across the top of the first page. “Heather’s Hurdles,” it said, and I felt a question ripple the smooth surface of my placid mind. Before the question completely formed though, a feather, the color of golden sand, floated softly past my face and landed perfectly in the middle of the page, dripping ink and leaving a stain in the shape of a kiss.
I felt a vaguely familiar sensation closing in on me that I recognized as impending consciousness. I didn’t want to wake up yet, so I tried to concentrate on the exquisite stationery, the feathered pen, and the sun-drenched sand under my toes. I wasn’t ready to lose the dream, not yet. I wanted to know the meaning of that odd little heading on the stationery, to see what magic the feathered pen would spill onto the pages next, and, oh, how I wanted to fly again!
Reluctantly, I woke up, fighting valiantly for just one more moment of that glorious and intriguing dream. But no, I was undeniably planted firmly in my bed, the alarm clock buzzing next to my head, as obnoxious as the buzzers that announce halftime at basketball games.
I lay there for a moment, gathering my thoughts and trying to remember why I had set the alarm in the first place. Oh, that’s right. I had an appointment that morning with a personal trainer to work on tightening my abs. I groaned prematurely and, with a reluctant sigh, rose from the snug womb of my bed to face the world head-on.
I padded into the kitchen, eyes like halfclosed Venetian blinds, driven only by the need for a caffeine jolt. Plugging in the coffee-maker, I nodded good morning to the man sitting at my breakfast table as I reached for the specialty blend sitting on the counter. Halfway through tearing open the foil bag, I gasped, whirling around in terror to face him, scattering freshly ground hazelnut coffee clear across the kitchen floor.
Joe chuckled softly, shaking his head in amusement as he watched me try to calm myself.
“Took you long enough to notice,” he teased.
“You just about scared me to death!” I scolded, once I was able to find my voice. I stood there trying to still the thunder in my chest and calm the uproar in my stomach.
“Sorry about that,” he apologized. “I guess I thought you’d be used to this kind of thing by now.”
“Used to seeing a strange man sitting at my breakfast table?” I shot back. “Oh, silly me, for finding that a bit unnerving!” I noticed a tremor in my voice, and I could tell that he picked up on it as well.
His amused demeanor immediately melted to a compassionate and contrite posture. He said nothing with his mouth, but his eyes transmitted an ocean of sympathy. Gracefully, he rose from his chair and made his way across the coffee-splattered floor where I stood, my back still pressed up against the sink in a defensive stance.
“I’m sorry I frightened you,” he murmured, an almost tangible sense of sincerity surrounding him. He placed one protective hand on my elbow and the other beneath my chin, gently tilting my face up to the lure of his magnetic eyes. “It’s easy for me to forget how scared you get sometimes,” he confessed. “I keep forgetting that you haven’t learned that lesson yet.”
The tension in my shoulders and back dissolved, and I leaned casually now against the sink, lost in the depths of his face, exquisitely aware of his comforting touch.
“What lesson?” I finally managed to get out. “I should have known there’d be a lesson hidden somewhere in the midst of you giving me heart failure.”
“You don’t have to be afraid anymore, Heather,” he said. “That’s the lesson.”
What did he mean by that? I wondered. That nothing bad will ever happen again?
That I no longer have to lock my doors and windows because no harm can possibly come to me? I could live with that.
“Hold on a minute.” He laughed. “I don’t think you’ve quite got the gist of what I’m saying.”
“I knew that sounded too good to be true,” I muttered.
“Wait, Heather,” he insisted. “You don’t have to be afraid anymore because now you know that I am always with you. I am never farther away than your next breath or your next heartbeat. You never really believed that before. Trust me on this,” he finished earnestly.
I had no doubt that he believed what he was saying, but I wanted more than the promise of his presence. I wanted guarantees that nothing would ever go wrong again in my life. That nothing would ever hurt me or stress me in any way.
He addressed my concern even before I could put it into words.
“Believe me, a life without challenges to conquer would be hell on earth,” he said knowingly. “Where there is pain, always, there is growth,” he added quietly. “Remember that. And growth is the sole purpose of life.”
“This is too heavy for me to absorb this early in the morning.” I sighed, exasperated.
He smiled sympathetically and dropped his gaze to the white linoleum floor, now freckled with hazelnut coffee. “I don’t suppose you have any more of that coffee left,” he mused with the hint of a smile playing on his lips. “It sure smells good.”
I glanced down at the bag that now lay at my feet, its contents spilled across the floor. I looked back up to Joe’s waiting eyes and sighed again.
“Where there is pain, there is growth,” I announced, deadpan. “We’ll have to drink instant.”