February of present year: Bobby's POV
Sometimes, there are moments in our lives which make us question what we know to be true.
And because what we know to be true makes us who we are, these periods of doubt can test us to the core. How we respond to them, shows the world what we are really made of.
For Bob Belden, these moments in life had always been met head on with the scientific logic he'd been educated with. Having completed his graduate degree with a perfect 4.0, he was known in the research community as a respectably objective scientist. He had always relied on proven truths to explain the inconsistencies of life. He had always felt secure in his atheism.
But, as he and his niece Laura stepped off the elevator onto the cancer floor of the Sleepyside Regional Hospital, Bobby began to ask himself a frightening question: What if everything I ever thought to be true about God and the universe is wrong?
His mind reeled.
If God wasn't real enough to be there for me when I needed him the most, why is He suddenly taking every opportunity to interrupt my life now?
He tried not to remember the day when he lost all faith in God. Didn't want to think about the terrifying sound of his cousin Hallie's screams. The icy chill gripping his heart with the realization that his beloved friend Dan Mangan was dead. He wanted to forget the moment he'd broken free from his mother to respond to Hallie's voice, rushed to the doorway, and discovered his siblings struggling to hold their hysterical cousin back. Why are they trying to keep her away from him? He had wondered.
Now, as he stood in the same place, experiencing the same sights and hospital smells as when he was a ten-year-old boy being forced to wait in the hallway, he did his best to resist the memories his brain was immediately recalling. He didn't want to relive the desperation. Didn't want to imagine himself as an innocent boy pathetically begging God to save Dan; the silent pleas for God to send an army of doctors and nurses into the young man's hospital room to revive him; to fix the problem; to make everything better. Most of all…he didn't want to remember the way he felt when he realized that God wasn't responding.
But, remember it all… he did.
It was painfully and hauntingly real.
And yet, despite the old feelings of abandonment threatening to overtake him, he was surprised to find that anger was no longer a part of the experience. Gone was the bitter rage he once felt when he concluded that a good and loving God simply couldn't exist at all if someone as devoted as Dan could slip into death without a hint of supernatural intervention.
He no longer hated the possibility of God taking Dan out of this world.
In fact, for the first time in over twenty years, the very thought of a Heavenly Father calling His child home somehow brought Bobby a small sense of peace.
Could there really be such a God?
Could it be that He didn't abandon me that day, but that…in ignoring my prayers…He simply answered Dan's?
The sobering thoughts made it easier for Bobby to keep his legs moving down the corridor toward Ashley's recovery room. With every step, he gained confidence.
If there is a God, and Dan is with Him, then I'm ready to see what Dan tried to show me by giving me the witness cube. I'm ready to know why he believed.
He followed Laura down the hall, knowing that the next time he passed this way… he wouldn't be the same person.