SUMMER JOHNSON
SOMEWHERE BETWEEN THE CONFLUENCE AND THE GREY AREA
So, a little update:
Cooper died on my birthday. My boy appeared at the gates of our old pier, on the edge of our endless ocean, smiling, waiting. And for the first time since I was alive, I could sense that he was truly, fully, finally happy. He got his happy ending. We both did.
He took my hand, and we were young again. All in all, I think he did well down on Earth. Really well. I’m proud of him. So proud. And I didn’t even have to help him that much. I wish I could’ve gotten him to pursue the book sooner, but there is only so much we can do from up here. Only the living can reach for their dreams. The dead can move manuscripts to the top of slush piles, though. Our story will endure. We deserve it.
He just crossed over, and I’m with him now. I will not question why he did not return to Lily, why his heaven contained me. These things decide themselves. I suspect she had someone to meet, herself. But I love her and I always will – and if I saw her today, I would thank her for keeping my boy safe in my place. In any event, I have missed Cooper’s hugs so much. Learning that he still loved me, and that I was always his End Love after all those endless decades was…well, there are no words. There will never be words. Humans have not yet come up with them. Cooper and I are sitting on the edge of the world right now, about to watch a cosmic sunset, and we have a lot to catch up on. And that is all I will have to say about that. About us. Forever. I think you’ve already seen enough, and I have found enough freedom in sharing my story. It is time for our happily ever after, and I am about to hold his hand for ten thousand years.
But to the human who is reading this right now, holding the story of my life on Earth in your hands: yes, you. I see you, for everything you are, and everything you wish to be. And I love you so much. I know who you are thinking of right now – the person this book reminded you of, the one you can’t be with, but wish you could. If the one you love and miss is still down on Earth, go get them. Run to them. Now. Live out the love that time and fate denied me. You will never regret the love you give out down there, trust me on that one. The very tanned, youthful, and repaired hand I am holding in mine here in the sunset glow under this oak tree somewhere above and beyond and within Jacksonville Beach, Florida is living proof of that. Eternal proof. I understand it all so clearly now: I was being kept in the grey area to observe the Earthly miracle of immortal love. I was watching my own destiny play out without me in the form of Cooper’s burning flame for me. Part of the point of a human’s life on Earth is to plant a seed of love – the point of their life after Earth is to see what becomes of that love. I waited fifty years for him, and he still came. All my love is sitting right here with me, on the edge of the world, two souls eternally fused, ready to move on to whatever comes next. Together.
And if the one your spirit misses is up here with me in the grey area, the in-between, just know that they either are around or have been around, and that they send their best. They don’t have to be present for you to feel their love. Some of them are even right beside me, waiting. Watching. Have you no faith?
So what are you doing, just sitting there? Go make them proud. Live the life your soul wants to live. Do the thing your heart wants to do. Live a life that writes you a ticket to the good side. It is never too late in this fever-dream illusion you call life, and it all starts whenever you want it to. I do not mourn my life, because I found freedom in forever. I found the truth in eternity, and I wouldn’t go back for anything now.
Actually, I’m going to do you a solid and let you in on a little secret, something I have been trying to conceal all along. Whoever said “life is but a dream” was not lying. They were a Chosen One relaying something one of us wanted to say, but the full truth was not allowed to get out – that would have disrupted the ancient balance of humanity. But forget about the rules. I never was one for guidelines, I suppose. I’ve already broken them all, anyway, by offering my testimony. So since I have already broken through to you, I am going to tell you what I am not supposed to: there is a reason you feel so lost and numb and on your own. You are technically sleeping right now, and you only wake up at what you call “death.” Death is nothing but a starting line at which point you are cured of your humanity. Life really is a dream, and at the end of life is when you wake up and learn the truth: that I am the one who is really alive. How many humans actually live out their highest potential? How many smile when they get out of bed, how many jump into the ocean instead of looking at it, how many learn to speak Spanish in their middle ages, how many are buzzing and crackling every day with life, not “life,” but LIFE? Know this: what you are doing right now is not living, and the crossover of death is where you step out of yourself and have to watch yourself make the same series of endless mistakes over and over again that you humans call “life.” Death is simply the correction of a lifelong mistake you never even knew you were making. I am the one who knows that only in death can you find life, only in oblivion can you find freedom, only when you look back can you discover that you were lost and afraid and asleep all along. Humans should fear life, not death, because death is simply deliverance from humanity’s curse of blinding fear. It is a cleansing bath, a reverse baptism, one brave and final step into the sun.
Or maybe not. Maybe you can break the cycle. The truth is in your hands now, in the form of my heavenly testimony. These are the guidelines on how to fix your life. You are stumbling around in shades of grey, so pinch yourself on the arm, dust off the window, and see the light. Wake up early – I dare you. Don’t be like me, the girl who had to sit back and watch her life go on without her and learn everything she could’ve done to be happier in the past tense. Be happy, present tense. A dreamlife on Earth is a gift that not all get the chance to waste like you do. It is time for you to start living.
This is the truth you are not allowed to learn yet: you are asleep, and your whole life up to this point has been a dream. So now you know – wake up and go.
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Open your eyes.