I was still crying from the shock. I was so incredibly grateful to be alive.
In a flash all this would have ended, would have gone. I would have never been able to smell the earth again, to feel this breeze or the sun on my skin again. The sky and the trees would have disappeared. I was so incredibly happy, euphoric, to still have all this. To still be alive.
For ages I walked and walked and walked along the verge, in this enchanted state, marvelling at everything… at life. How magnificent my life now seemed, despite all its flaws, now that I’d so narrowly escaped death. This human experience, with its highs and lows.
I sat down on the verge, still recovering from the shock, and I looked at the forest around me. These trees were tall and ancient, and a gravelly sandy path led into the forest – it was drenched in the evening sun and seemed warm and inviting. Oak sat next to me. My true friend.
Trees. How strange a thing trees were. Tall spikes of wood shooting out from the earth beneath them. Energy growing towards the sky.
Rays of light pierced through the forest. The sight of them took my breath away. I felt their gentle warmth caress me. A deep sense of love suddenly surged through my body: an infinite, all-consuming explosion of love, for everything. So explosive it stunned me and brought tears to my eyes. I heard a flutter of wings to my right, my head turned towards the sound. A group of five swallows rose from a large branch, as though without reason or purpose, for they simply floated and danced in the air above me, back and forth, round and round, up and down, pirouetting and suspended in space.
‘Jack,’ I whispered into the air, without even realising I had done it until the sound echoed in my ear.
It’s like the fish swimming around and wondering what water is and where to find it. When something is so obvious, you can’t see it. And it remains hidden from you because you are looking for it. You look for it everywhere and yet it’s the very make up of who you are, of everything, of life. Being. Just being. It’s closer to you than breathing itself. Life is the treasure.
These words of Jack’s suddenly flooded back to me, so clear, as though he were there, speaking them again.
I stretched my arms out towards the big blue open sky as though it was the most natural thing to do. Colour. Breathtaking colour. Gold light glowed through the gaps in my fingers. I smiled like a child. Light. That strange and mysterious thing called light. The prisms dropped away and life, in all its glory, was finally seen. I breathed a sigh of profound relief.