by Ron Savarese
“Are you serious?” I asked.
She took both of my hands in hers. “Why not, what do you have to lose? It sounds like this woman is just trying to help you. You don’t have to believe everything she’s told you. You don’t have to buy her story about your destiny, and all that stuff, but obviously she’s trying to give you a gift. I think it’s sweet, and it’s a connection to your childhood. You should go, honey.”
That night, with the kids farmed out for the weekend with the neighbors or school friends, Jessica and I drank wine and listened to music and talked to each other in a way we hadn’t done since that summer we first met. We fell asleep in each other’s arms, on the floor, in front of the fire.
I dreamed of Ava that night. And in my dream, she was a young woman. She was unpacking boxes as she moved into a Spanish colonial house, with an exquisite garden, a fabulous water fountain, and lush, colorful flowers and plants.
I woke up refreshed and told Jessica I would try to get in touch with Ava.
1996
I sent two letters to the return address on Ava’s letter. Several months passed and both of my letters were returned, marked “UNDELIVERABLE.” I tried unsuccessfully for another month or so to get in touch with her.
When it became clear that any further attempts would more than likely be fruitless, and after some encouragement from Jessica, I made plans to fly up to my old hometown and try to find the package. I didn’t want anyone to know I was coming in. It was going to be a stealth trip: I would fly up, rent a car, drive to the white house with black shutters, if it was still there, and make my way down the path to the cabin where Ava once lived.
I landed at the airport on a cloudy, drizzly, downright ugly, gray day, in early February, and drove a couple of hours to my destination. The white house with the black shutters was still there. It was run down since I had last been there, so much so, that it looked like it could be abandoned. I didn’t think anybody lived there.
Large sections of cracked white paint peeled away from the house like dead skin. Most of the shutters, grayed and speckled from the wind and rain and snow, hung lop-sided from their hinges. Several shutters barely clung to the faded, white wooden frame.
Slinging my backpack with a short gardener’s shovel inside over one shoulder, I made my way up the front steps and knocked several times on the door. When it seemed no one would answer, I decided to walk the path to Ava’s cabin. I passed the wooden gate that marked the entrance to the trail.
The path was familiar. Where did the time go? Nothing had changed, or so it seemed. So I walked past the familiar trees and rocks to Ava’s cloistered haven.
When I arrived at her cabin it looked like it had been preserved in a solution which rendered it changeless. Had someone kept up the place? Was Ava still living here? Should I knock on the door?
I knocked. No one answered. I knocked again, still no answer. I turned the door handle and walked inside. The kitchen table where we used to have our lessons was still there in the same spot. Had Ava been here recently? How could it be that so little had changed? That was thirty years ago. I looked around quickly, and then walked outside.
The rose trellis was still there, too, just like it had been many years ago. Gone now, though, were the robin’s nest and any sign of the birds that made it their home. Green ivy had grown over the window panes that used to be bare. There, on the ground in the matted grass, beside the oak tree, was a small stone cross.
I took my shovel from my backpack and dug into the damp, moist ground. A foot down, my shovel struck something hard. I dug faster, throwing scoops of dirt into a pile around where I dug. With each shovelful of dirt, my heart beat faster. I dug and scraped and clawed at a hard metal box. I pulled the box out and brushed off the dirt.
I stuck the box in my pack-pack, refilled the hole, and stood there wondering what to do next. I looked up into the sky. I took a deep breath. I walked inside and sat at the table. I set the box on the table and opened it. Inside was a large envelope wrapped in air-tight plastic wrap.
I took out my pocket knife and cut the plastic carefully, so as not to damage what I expected to find inside. I opened the package. Inside the envelope were three, thick, white papers with a symbol on each paper; and several notebooks filled with Ava’s elaborate notes and drawings, and formulas and instructions. I placed the papers and instructions back in the envelope and put the metal box back inside my backpack then closed the door and walked back to my car.
My heart was still pounding hard as I passed the house. Just as I reached the gate I heard a noise. A door slammed. An old woman stepped out onto the porch.
“Hey mister, what do you think you’re doing on my property?”
I took a step toward the porch. “Hello there,” I called out. “I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t scare you. I knocked on the door several times, but when no one answered I went down the path to see a woman who lived near the river.”
With the help of a crooked brown cane, the old woman hobbled toward the front porch steps. She leaned on the cane. “Nobody lives down there no more. How’d you know there was something down there anyway?”
I walked closer to the steps. “You’re Martha, right? Do you remember me?” I asked. “I used to come here when I was a boy to see a woman named Ava.”
The old woman smiled. “You’re that boy?” She laughed, “Why, you’re all grown up, now!”
I stepped onto the first step. “Yes, that happens,” I said. “It was a long time ago. Do you know how I can find Ava? I got a letter from her a few months ago and I’d like to get in touch with her.”
The woman moved a little closer to the edge of the porch. “Why, Ava passed away a few months back,” she said.
Jessica didn’t ask much about my trip. Perhaps she knew I wanted to keep most of the memories to myself. She gave me space. We had gotten better about that as we got older.
I was reluctant at first to look at the contents of the package again. I kept it in my bedroom under a stack of books I hadn’t bothered with in years. Then after a couple days when I was alone in the house, I opened the package and looked.
I opened one of the books marked Time Portals. Inside were elegant, detailed, drawings of planets, and solar systems, and galaxies, all with precise measurements and diagrams of dimensions and realms of existence. How did she do this? What did it mean? What was she trying to show me? I rifled through the other notebooks awed by the scope and breadth of her work.
In spite of the complex drawing and words, her instructions seemed simple enough: Meditate on each of the three symbols daily, keep a journal of vivid dreams, do not assign any mental meaning to the images.
Why not? I thought. What do I have to lose? What could happen? Jessica was right. I didn’t have to buy her story. But I could certainly try it on. So I followed Ava’s instructions: I started my daily routine of sitting quietly and focusing separately on each of the three symbols for about five minutes each.
Days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months. After the first week I noticed an enhancement of my mood and my ability to concentrate. I felt better. After the first month I noticed that things seemed to work better. My life improved. Things seemed to flow and work out effortlessly. Three months passed. I grew more confident and found I no longer had an inner urge to judge. I was more willing to observe events and let them unfold without feeling like I had to take control. This was something new for me and I reveled in my new-found well being. I thought about that time that Ava had given me the first symbol and I remembered how I felt after the first few weeks.
I dreamed some dreams but nothing exceptionally vivid. I continued to feel better emotionally. The sense of calm and grace I experienced grew more profound each month. I wondered how long this enhanced state would last. Without thinking much about it, I cut down on my drinking significantly, to the point where I only occasionally had a glass of wine with dinner. After several more months, I dreamed some dreams but recorded only a few in my journal.
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Then one night I had a dream:
I’m standing in the river behind my house with Maria. The water is shallow, up to our knees. She and I are scooping old-fashioned baby dolls out of the water: the kind with eyelids that close when you tilt the head back. We scoop up dozens of dolls and place them in a white sack. It’s a bright sunny day but the water is murky and brown.
I reach into the water and I scoop up a doll and realize that it’s actually a dead baby. The baby is Maria’s daughter. I walk to Maria and hold out the baby. Maria takes the baby in her arms and begins to cry. I tell her not to worry because something wonderful is going to happen. She looks at the baby. Then, the baby comes back to life. Maria smiles.
Maria sets her baby down in the water. The baby becomes a child. Maria and her child walk out of the river together, over the riverbank, and in the direction of the setting sun.
I woke up around three. I was on my knees in the middle of the bed. And for a few moments, even though the room was dark, and only a little light from the moon filtered in through the windows, I could see everything clearly as if it was the middle of the afternoon. I knelt in the bed in a daze trying to snap myself out of a fog.
Jessica awakened and calmed me and told me it was only a dream and comforted me back to sleep. I told Jessica about the dream over a cup of coffee that morning. She asked me what I thought it meant. I told her I had no idea but that I hadn’t dreamt like that in a long time. It reminded me of the kind of dreams I used to have when I was a kid. Jessica asked if I wrote the dream in my journal. I told her I did.
The subject changed, with neither of us giving the dream much more thought. We talked about the kids and what was going on for the weekend. Then, around nine, just as I was getting ready to walk out the door for the office, the phone rang.
Jessica answered. “Hold on one minute. He’s right here,” she said. She handed me the phone. “It’s your cousin Carol,” she whispered.
“Oh, really? Great! I haven’t heard from her in a while.” I put the phone to my ear. “Hello, Carry. What’s goin’ on?”
I could hear her take a deep breath.
“Joe, I just wanted to call to let you know. If you haven’t already heard, Maria Fedderson passed away last night.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said.
“No,” she said. “It’s a real shock. Apparently, she died in her sleep. Mark tried to wake her but she was already gone. They think it was an aneurism or something. She’s your age, isn’t she? Young.”
“But why…how…” I stuttered.
“Oh, Joe. That’s what we all thought,” Carol said. “Do you think you can make it up?”
“Carol, no—I…”
“Oh it’s okay. I know you’re busy, but I thought you might want to send Mark a card or something. He sure has had a string of bad luck. First his daughter. Now Maria.”
I held the phone to my ear and looked at Jessica. Carol was silent for a moment. Then she spoke again. “Oh, and you might want to get in touch with Albert,” she said. “He’s really been struggling lately. I saw him last week at a family picnic. He’s lost weight. He didn’t look so good. We think he’s using drugs.”
“He’s probably been using them for awhile,” I said.
“I don’t know,” Carry said. “Maybe you’re right. He asked about you. I think he really misses you, Joe.”
She waited for my answer, but I didn’t have one. An image started to form: Albert reeling, falling… but I pushed it away. Then Carry spoke again. “Hey, I’m sorry about Maria. I know you two were close once. Joe, I gotta go. I’ll call you in a couple of days, okay? We miss you. Come home and visit soon, okay?”
I hung up the phone.
“Got to be kidding about what?” Jessica asked.
“Maria Fedderson died in her sleep last night.”
“Oh, my god! Your dream last night!” Jessica said.
I flopped into a chair. “Yes. The dream. And Ava’s package.”
“Do you think it had anything to do with those drawings you’ve been looking at?” Jessica asked.
Could it be that I had something to do with Maria’s death? I put all the notebooks and folders and the symbols in a box. I put the dream journal away. I told myself that someday I should just burn the box with all the stuff in it. Just burn it all. I had had enough of Ava’s magic. I was done with it once and for all.
But I heard that little voice again. And it said, don’t be afraid.
What was it about these symbols? Maybe they did give me access to other dimensions. And what would that mean? Is that what happened with my dream of Maria? Had I tapped into something?
That day, I thought about the times with Maria. I remembered when we were young, when life seemed so simple and uncomplicated. I remembered how we used to play when we were kids, and how she helped me deal with my sadness and despair after the loss of my family. And I remembered our first kiss. And I cried.
So once again my connection with Ava had ultimately brought only death. That night, I took out the bourbon and tied one on. And kept tying them on, night after night.
THE LIGHT PLACE
The whiteness is all around me again. Glowing. Shining. Shimmering.
Music whispers and sighs. Notes caress each cell, each corpuscle.
I’m falling, floating.
I’m dying.
“Joe.” A woman’s voice. A voice I know.
“Who’s there?”
I hold up my hand to shield my eyes from the blinding light as crystals or diamonds or some kind of something I don’t know what, cling to me.
“Look over here. Do you see me?”
“No! Help me, I’m falling. I can’t see. It’s too bright.”
“Let go. Just surrender to it. You’ll be okay. Let yourself fall. It’s okay. Give yourself time to adjust to the light.”
“I’m breaking apart. I’m blinking on and off. Where are you—oh, please, can you help?”
“Let go. Let the light absorb you. Let yourself fall.”
“What’s happening to me? I’m breaking apart. Am I dying?”
I grab my wrist to make sure it’s still solid, to make sure I’m still here. But I’m nothing but a bundle of light.
“You’re going to be okay. I’m here now. Can you see me?”
“I can see a little better now.”
“Be calm. Look over here.”
I turn my head toward the sound of her voice. Out of the light, a solid image forms. First indistinctly, then it takes the shape of a woman. Her eyes are golden-brown, her skin is a light olive, her hair is almost black, and it curls softly to her shoulders.
“Maria, is that you?”
“Yes, it’s me. There’s not much time. I learned you were here so I asked to see you. I don’t have long. Listen to me Joe. Do you know what’s happening to you?”
Maria’s image fades in and out.
“I’m not sure. I think I’m dying. Is this part of it?”
“Yes, you’re between life and death, Joe. And the time for your decision is drawing near. I can’t stay long. I’m here to tell you that you can still go back.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s not over yet. It’s not too late. You can still go back.”
The light fades to a pallor of lavender and orange and pink and suddenly the free fall stops. I’m on solid ground. I try to stand.
I’m sitting on the bench, next to the brook, in the twilight. Maria sits next to me. Soft thick snowflakes land around us. The cottage windows glow from just across the stone bridge where now a snowman holds a broom.
“Is this what it’s like to die?”
Maria slides close to me and puts her hand in mine. “For you it is,” she says. “Everyone’s experience is different. Everyone leaves Earth in a unique way. But everyone leaves at some point, Joe.”
“What was it like for you?”
“It was easy for me. I died in my sleep.” She looks at me. “You didn’t hav
e to suffer to come here, Joe. You had a choice.”
I squeeze her hand. “I’m beginning to understand that now,” I say. “I dreamed of you the night you died, didn’t I?”
“Yes, you did. You’re the one who helped me. It could have been someone else with the light, but it was you. I’m here to thank you. It wasn’t the symbols, Joe. I know you thought that at the time. The symbols were a part of it. But only a small part—it was what they represent.
“When Ava taught you to meditate she taught you how to quiet your mind and tap into the stillness—the higher mind. Then, when you learned about the three symbols and used them in meditation, you awakened.
“This may be hard for you to understand right now, but it’s important Joe. If you go back don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid of living in an awakened state. And don’t be afraid to listen to the inner voice.”
“You know about Ava.”
Maria smiles and looks at me. “Yes, of course, we all know Ava here.”
“The woman I met when I arrived?”
Maria smiles again. “Yes.”
“I knew it! I knew that was Ava.”
Maria moves closer to me, and places her head on my shoulder without saying a word and rests it there for a little while. Then she sits up straight and looks at me again. “There’s so much to tell you Joe. But my time here is short.”
She peers up into the falling snow and takes a deep breath. She glances at me and her face shines with light.
“I came to this place in that dream, Joe. I had a chance to see my life in a new way. All my friends, and relatives, those who had gone before me, gathered for a celebration in my honor. My little girl was there. My little lost baby girl. This is what I had prayed for every night: that I could see her again. Hold her—again.” Maria’s eyes fill with tears.
I put my hand on the back of her neck, just where it joins her shoulders. “Oh Maria, I’m so sorry that happened. If anything ever happened to one of my…”
“It’s okay,” she interrupts. “I know now that it’s okay, although it nearly destroyed me at the time. I see now that I was given exactly what I needed. Amazing things happen here, Joe. She’s all healed now, and whole again—a beautiful little girl.”
