Unfortunately, the past few years I've lost a handful of people very, very close to me. Besides a supportive family and friends, Mitch Albom's books Tuesdays with Morrie, For One More Day, and, the most influential one, The Five People You Meet In Heaven gave me a sense of closure and acceptance of the people I lost. This story is loosely based on the heaven system used in The Five People You Meet In Heaven and has given me the capability of coping with another family member I recently lost. This'll be a short chaptered story and I sincerely hope you enjoy.
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Prologue
Jack Stevens was seventy-five when he died.
It wasn't on a particularly eventful day. It was a rather hot Sunday, in the middle of the draining summer season, and as a normal church session ended and the inhabitants of the the building began to walk out and start on with their respectable day, he wobbled down the cement stairs leading toward the parking lot with a cane in hand.
Years on the farm had strained his back to the point of no return. At the age of fifty-eight, he could no longer hold a plow nor scrape it against soil to till the land and a year later he retired from the vocation all together, moving back to the city to be with his younger sister who compellingly took care of her aging brother with her doting husband and children. Jack was a quiet occupant of his sister's busy household, often cleaning up after himself, minding after their two rambunctious dogs, and always had money to lend to her children who appeared to have holes in their pockets when they were teenagers.
On this relatively mundane day, however, his aging eyes had been unusually sharp, and as his vision scouted the area, waiting for his niece's car to come pick him up, he noticed a young girl, no older than the age of eleven, busy on her phone, standing on the edge of the closest sidewalk. Red headphones were in her ears and strands of her long brown hair gently blew in the soft warm breeze. Lost in her phone, her thumbs began to rapidly move against its keyboard and with a less than sufficient glance at the empty street, she began to cross.
Jack forced his feet to carry him a little faster than they normally could, clumsily following the oblivious girl and panic struck his body as he yelled for her to stop; a car swinging sharply around the corner. Music emitted from her headphones, her eyes still focused on her cell's screen, and he desperately let go of his cane once he was within a close proximity of the girl, lunging toward her.
It all happened too fast for him to comprehend what had actually occurred. He recalled jumping at the girl, twisting his body to shield her as tires screeched and the sound of a horn echoed violently against the day's empty sky.
A girl's young scream filled his ears and someone else's voice yelling out "Chelsea!" shortly followed after.
Then, his world was immersed in darkness.
Chapter One
When Jack Stevens opened his eyes, he was surrounded with grass; some blades weaving their way into the fabric of his clothes and poking his bare skin that lay beneath his shirt and pants. He blinked, staring skywards at the expanding blue atmosphere above him, and he inhaled a deep breath. His body didn't hurt; didn't feel like any metal or rubber had collided into him at 45mph. Instead, his body even failed to have the normal aches and pains he woke up to on a daily basis.
Carefully, he pulled himself into a sitting position, gasping to himself when he noticed the skin on his arms didn't sag from gravity and old age. Instead, his flesh was new, tight, and tan and firm muscles bulged slightly under his shirt's sleeve. He touched his pants next, realizing he wasn't in his gray slacks from earlier and instead in blue denim overalls. Curiously, he lifted up one pant leg, relieved when the skin on his leg was just as young and new as the skin on his arms.
What was happening? How did his age reverse?
"Oh Mr. Jack, I've been expecting you!" rang a cheerful voice before laughter lofted through the air. It sounded like wind chimes almost.
He turned quickly to his left, the direction where the voice had came from, and his heart dropped at the sight before him. "M-May?" he gulped. She smiled at him in return. "But this… this can't be real. Y-you died. Years ago. When I was twenty-four."
Realization had struck him then. Hard.
"I'm dead." he cried out, numbness reaching to every extremity of his body as the thought of his death crashed into him in a violent wave.
"No need to yell, Mr. Jack, no one else is around to hear you," the young girl flinched. She was just as young and pristine as he had last seen her.
May was one of the few citizens that inhabited the town he lived in when he was a farmer. She was one of the first to introduce herself to the new, aspiring rancher and helped him befriend his then-dog, Rufus, too. However, their short friendship had abruptly come to an end during his third year of residency in Mineral Town when May slipped on patch of ice near the forest's large lake and broke her neck. She was supposed to meet Jack that day, so he could tell her about one of the town's girl he was beginning to fall for.
"Didn't your mother ever tell you staring is rude?" May giggled, holding out her hand for him to take. "Come on, Mr. Jack, I know this meadow is fun to play on but I've got to take you somewhere else so we can talk."
Jack hesitantly took her hand, rising to his feet and followed the tiny girl down the hill and toward the town. His stomach turned and he resisted the urge to blanch, noticing the town was completely empty; the only two souls within the vast area being himself and May. Nonetheless, he went with her without a complaint or protest as she eventually led him past his farm, the winery, the library, the mayor's house, hospital and toward the abandoned church, just as wonderfully peaceful and clean as he last remembered. The two headed toward the back of the building and into a small area he'd play with May and Stu occasionally, and where he managed to forage expensive truffles during the fall season.
Suddenly she stopped and dropped his hand, turning to him, beaming. "Just like old times, huh Mr. Jack?"
Jack was able to catch a glimpse of his reflection in one of the church's windows, carefully analyzing his youthful face with sharp eyes. It had been a change, certainly, going from his aged seventy-five face back to what he looked like over fifty years ago. When he was young, wonderfully naive, and filled to the brim with energy and patience.
He glanced over his shoulder to look at the girl. He cracked her a faint smile and he sighed. "Yeah," he fixed his ball cap before he shoved his hands into his overall's pockets, rubbing the heel of his boot against the ground. "It's definitely something."
"I haven't seen you in what, a bajillion years?" she laughed. "At least I saw you right before I died."
He felt himself recoil at the bluntness of her words. If he had just woken up a little earlier that day, or hadn't catered unnecessarily to one of his moody livestock, or just ran a little faster toward the lake, maybe she'd be alive.
"Oh May," Jack looked at her, pleadingly, feeling his legs crumble under him and he shakily, and less than gracefully, plunked himself onto the stump he and the petite little girl used to play with near the church whenever he frequented Carter with prayers, confessions, or even gifts. "I'm so sorry. You shouldn't have died so young. It's just not fair. I can't imagine what Joanna…"
He trailed off, feeling his insides clench at his mention of the absent mother of May. Since the very beginning of his stay at Mineral Town the woman, not a year older than he was, was never present; never a constant figure in the little girl's childhood. He wasn't the one to ever pry into someone's life, but Barley would offer him small snippets of the woman's past however, barely knew where her present had currently laid; nor gave a thought of her impending future.
May smiled gently at the farmer, resting a tiny hand on his arm as his eyes fell to the grass beneath their feet. "No mommy or daddy should ever have to bury their children. That's not how life is supposed to go. But sometimes, things happen, and the circle of life gets a little messed up." She gave him a sharp poke, gaining his attention once again. "When I died, Mommy came to my funeral, remember? Then her and grandpa made up and she lived with him until he passed away too. Maybe I was supposed to leave so Mommy would stay."
The farmer felt his mouth run dry, marveling at the little girl's astounding and unique perception of her ill-fated death. He always presumed the tiny girl was beyond her years. She was always so intuitive and intelligent, perhaps a little naive at times but that came associated with her age. Some days, however, he'd take her on walks, with little Rufus paddling along, and she'd take his hand in hers and she'd tell him about her new fight with Stu and how stupid boys could be –– excluding Jack, of course –– and what new lesson Carter had taught them about the Harvest Goddess still fresh in her mind. And at times, only when clouds covered the sky and the forest faded to a dark green color and the birds' chirps quieted down, did she tell him she felt frighteningly alone, and wondered where her mother had gone to and if Joanna would ever stick around.
It was on these intimate walks did Jack come to a silent understanding that May might have been young, yes, but she wasn't foolish or stupid. She internalized her feelings often so Barley wouldn't fuss over her and also, perhaps, in hopes of making herself forgot about her feelings if she ignored them long enough.
"May, why am I here? Is this heaven?" he asked her quietly, bringing a hand to touch the nape of his neck warm from the sun's pleasant glow.
The little girl giggled and shook her head, her pigtails swinging side to side. "No Mr. Jack, it's not. It's my heaven, actually," she replied with a brilliant grin. "Well, just the beginning of it, I guess. I've been waiting for you for a long time to teach you a lesson like Mr. Carter used to teach me and Stu."
"Teach me a lesson?" Jack repeated, swallowing down a lump of hard air that collected in the base of his dry throat.
"Yes a lesson," May piped. "I may be young, Mr. Jack, but that doesn't mean I can't teach you a new thing or two."
The farmer gripped the edge of the stump, silently relieved the feeling in his hands, as well as his other senses, hadn't left him. He never was the one to really give a thought regarding his afterlife by being far too preoccupied with his busy life happening then and now. However, he always assumed his body would go numb or he'd float away like a wispy, weightless cloud of silver thin smoke that was supposed to be his soul.
Casting his eyes upwards to the cloudless sky, he briefly wondered why a deserted version of Mineral Town placed permanently on hold during the spring season had been May's heaven. Despite her unnerving intuition, she was still a child nonetheless and he figured heaven to a small adolescent should have been a never-ending carnival, a candy shop, or a video-game palace. Any place, he thought, that wasn't the boring old town she grew up in.
"You said you waited for me," he mumbled next, meeting her eyes once again, "why me? Why not your grandfather or your mom?"
"Because, Mr. Jack," she smiled, answering him as if it was the most simple question in the world, "you saved me."
"I saved you?" he said, thoroughly confused and lost at the cast off of her words. "But, I… you still died, May. I-if I came sooner, or maybe if I didn't convince Barley to let you play more rather than stay home, you-you," he paused, exhaling a sharp breath ridden with festering guilt that grew in the pit of his stomach, "you'd be alive."
May gave him a quick jab to his ribs and he flinched in response, cradling his temporarily bruised side with a hand. "Don't blame yourself for a silly thing like that, Mr. Jack. I waited for you here because you did save me, maybe just not the way you wanted." She bent down and plucked a Toy Flower from the ground, offering it to him. He quietly took it, holding it gingerly in his free hand. "You know, the minute you pick a flower, it begins to die, even if you put it in a vase filled with the best water and place it near a window so it'll get a lot of sunlight."
He looked at her desperately, and she stared back, unwavering, gleaming under the sunlight that gently fell across the quiet town.
"And it'll die if you keep it stuck to the ground," she continued, "but at least when you pick a flower and put it in a vase in your house or give it to a pretty girl, its free, it travels, and everyone's able to look at how beautiful it is. If you hadn't come along, Mr. Jack, if you hadn't taken me on walks or to the beach to play with your doggie, I'd be all alone in my house with grandpa. I love grandpa, but he was always so busy with the farm and all the cows and sheep. I don't like being alone, no one does. Sometimes days feel like years when you're alone, you know. If you didn't tell grandpa to lighten up on me, I'd be stuck to the ground. But instead you picked me up, you took me to places I never really visited around town, and I became friends with all the pretty girls, and I was happy again, even when mommy still wasn't home."
She smiled at him again and this time, the sun felt a bit more warmer and a bit more pleasant at that fleeting moment.
"So Mr. Jack, I'm here to tell you to let go of all your guilt," she giggled. "Because you've always been guilty over things that were never really your fault, like when your cows or chickens or sheep died. You forget to realize that you gave your animals a wonderful life with a big yard to roam around in and a warm barn to sleep in. You're guilty that you didn't save me in time and you're guilty because I died when really, you're the reason I was able to live. Now, Mr. Jack, you helped me again, and I'm finally able to move on and you're ready to meet the next person."
"I have more people to meet?" he frowned, standing quickly to his feet as the earth shook beneath them. The world around him began to blur; the colors colliding into each other like a kaleidoscope and he glanced at May in alarm. "You're not staying with me?"
"I gotta go, Mr. Jack," replied May, unfazed by the rapidly changing scenery surrounding them. "I have to move on. But you still have four," she held up a hand proudly, wiggling four small little fingers at him, "more people to meet. Each one will teach you a lesson like I did. I hope I see you soon, Mr. Jack!"
"Wait!" he called after her. "Did I ever save the girl?"
And within a split second, with a whirl of color and the uncomfortable feeling of loss of gravity, May blatantly ignored his question, waving at him before she vanished from his sight, and in her place was an ever-expanding ocean.