Where am I? I couldn’t see anything, anyone. A sudden wind blew, fierce as a winter storm. I was swept into a great whirling tunnel of darkness. Far off in the distance, I heard someone talking. A voice I recognized—my neurosurgeon. Relax, I reminded myself. You’re still under. They said surgery could take as long as eight hours.
An image bloomed before me as if I’d opened a giant pop-up picture book. A handsome red dun quarter horse neighed and pawed at the dirt outside his stable. Gunner. If it hadn’t been for him . . .
“I’m getting close to the right optic nerve,” I heard my surgeon say. I braced myself, but there was no pain. Only a cold sensation—a scalpel?—inside my skull.
I’d been having dizziness and mild leg tremors for weeks. Nothing serious, I thought. Then one day my gentle Gunner reared and nearly threw me from the saddle. The whiplash brought on suddenly worsening symptoms—severe headaches, my legs wouldn’t hold me. A visit to the doctor revealed a tumor. Because of its size and location, the surgery to remove it would be complicated.
I felt the cold breath of the wind against my skin. It swept me deeper into the tunnel. Gunner disappeared. Now I was holding a phone to my ear. Another familiar voice was on the line, one that made each hair on the back of my neck bristle. Our conversation was stiff, stilted. Then it erupted. Accusations, yelling, fighting, again.
The wind carried the phone from my hand. Another voice, a friendly one, echoed in the darkness. My brother. “You have so much anger toward him, Dorinda,” he said. “It’s causing you so much pain. I keep praying something will happen so you can let it go.”
Impossible. There’s no forgiving what he did.
I reached out to stroke a russet mane. Gunner. I began brushing him, grooming him from head to hooves. Something I did after all those angry phone calls. I rested my cheek against his sleek coat, breathed in the scent of cut hay. He could soothe me like nothing else. I’d always wanted a horse, and when my husband had bought him for me, I couldn’t have been happier.
I was surrounded by blessings. A loving husband, wonderful children, a devoted brother, a beautiful horse. And yet . . .
The air crackled. The surrounding darkness burst into red-orange flames. Fire pressed in on me from all sides, leaping up from nowhere and everywhere all at once. Heat pervaded my body.
A face flickered into view through the flames—my own. I was only nine years old, trying to make sense of what my father had told me. My mother was dead. She had been diagnosed with postpartum depression at age thirty-two and had been sent to a mental hospital. She’d undergone shock therapy but hadn’t gotten better. She had committed suicide.
I felt something on my lower legs tightening, then releasing. The pneumatic compression stockings that the nurse had put on me before the operation. Air was being pumped into them to prevent blood clots. You are still in surgery. None of this is real.
But it was. The fire intensified, sending up plumes of ash and smoke. Through the haze, I saw another face, one that made me cringe. “Your new mother,” Dad said. Less than a year after my mother had died. His second wife was cruel and controlling. When harsh words didn’t keep my siblings and me in line, an occasional beating made up the difference. I finally escaped when I turned eighteen. But the damage was done. I could never forgive Dad for what he put us through. No matter how he tried to reach out. No matter what my brother said.
“I just don’t want you trapped by your anger. You deserve to be free, Dorinda.” My brother, his voice faint amid the roar of the fire. He had forgiven. I couldn’t understand it. He’d suffered through the same trauma. He had been only a baby when Mom had died, so he’d never known a loving mother. How was he able to move on? How could I?
As quickly as it had combusted, the fire dissipated. The heat, the anger in me softened and cooled. The pressure on my legs. I felt it again. The air pumps working diligently. The anesthesia had to be the reason for all of this, yet how could it be so clear, so vivid? The reality of the operating room was still there, even as I felt outside my body, outside time and space itself.
The wind caught me once more, rushing against me, lifting me. My body went weightless. I heard something through the curtain of wind.
“Forgive him. He does not know what he does,” said a deep male voice. Not a command, not advice. A voice of absolute love, absolute honesty. It wasn’t the surgeon. Or my dad. Or my brother. I trusted it inherently, like a truth I’d always known.
All at once light flared from the nothingness around me, a star flowering into life. It was wondrous, shimmering brighter with each moment. The light pulsed in white-gold bursts toward me, then through me, suffusing me with an indescribable peace. All my anger and hatred were washed away. I could rest now.
When I opened my eyes, I was in the recovery room, my husband sitting beside my bed. “You’re awake,” he said, taking my hand. “How do you feel? Do you need anything?”
“I have to call Dad,” I told him. “There’s something I need to say.”