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CHAPTER 3

         Seeing the Light

Sam was fishing along a lazy river bank. He had no idea where he was or how he got there. A yellow sun blazed overhead while white cumulous clouds drifted across a deep blue canvas. The azure river serpentined through a mountain valley of forty shades of green. This must be heaven, he thought. Off in the distance downstream, a wriggling horny green tail was propelling what appeared to be an alligator like creature toward him at a slow but steady pace. When it was very close, the clouds suddenly turned dark and thundered. The water turned black as coal. The alligator with eyes like burning red coals stood on its hind feet in front of Sam. Sam threw his rod to the ground and turned quickly to run, but the river monster grabbed him and pulled him back. Sam bit the beast’s arm. Unfazed, the monster wrapped both arms around Sam and started squeezing like a boa constrictor tightening its death grip. Sam could not breathe. This must be hell he concluded as he passed out.

A dim light appeared in the distance. It kept growing brighter like it was approaching. Was this the legendary light referred to by so many near dead? Sam wondered. It was always associated with heaven, but now Sam wasn’t so sure. Maybe it was another deception like the river, a cruel trick. “Let’s stop the games,” he yelled to God. “Which is it? Heaven or hell? I know what I deserve. Let’s just get it over.” Sudden pain shot through every fiber of his body. His heart sunk with the final answer: Hell!

*****

Sam’s eyes popped open; a ceiling light shined in his face. It wasn’t heaven and it wasn’t hell. It was earth. He was in a hospital room with lines and tubes running every which way into his body and down his throat.

He tried to move but couldn’t. Was he chained up? Was it another trick? He struggled to free himself, but only his left arm and leg seemed to obey. Then he could see the casts. He was bandaged up from head to toe. His right arm and leg were encased in plaster. He was mummified, but not dead.

Sam struggled to remember how he got there. Random images flashed in front of him. The pain became more and more real as the drugs wore off. It helped shed some of the fuzziness. It all started to come back. The plane. The nosedive. The spin. Jerking and pulling at the controls. The whirling earth rushing at him with no chance for escape. Those last few seconds. The panic and then the peace. He made his peace with God in the last seconds. How did he escape?

Then he remembered the end. The spin started to unravel into a diving spiral as the redlined engine roared like a WWII dive bomber. The nose began to respond and lift finally leveling off just a few feet from impact. It was too late to climb. The woods were right there in front of him. No, they weren’t woods. Just a thick row of trees planted as a windbreak between two fields. The last thing he remembered was rocketing through the tree limbs at what seemed like supersonic speed ripping the wings off. It was as if the hand of God had grabbed that plane, swung it around like a father swings a child, and hurled it in the direction of those trees and that field.

He was alive! He couldn’t believe it. What had he done to deserve this?

There were voices coming from the corner of the room. Figures started to hover around him. A tiny light flashed into one eye and then the other. His eyes recovered long enough to reveal a beautiful face smiling at him and then he could feel a needle sink into his arm. That angelic face was the last thing he remembered.

Sam slept. Sleep without dreams. Everyone’s prayer. No tormenting dreams this time. Just peaceful rest. The first time since he was a child.

When Sam awoke, he could see that same pretty face like time had not passed. So it wasn’t a dream. She was adjusting some IV’s. His eyes and mind were clearer. He tried to lift his head to speak, but the pain, the lovely evidence that he was still alive, brought it back to the pillow. She wasn’t aware he was staring at what he thought was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Or had he seen her before? There was something familiar.

“Now I know I’m in heaven,” he said eking out muted words, “for mine eyes have seen an angel.” Sam blushed through his bandages at his unusual boldness. Was it the drugs, he wondered?

She turned and giggled. He managed an awkward smile. It hurt.

“Ahhh,” she teased, “the sandman liveth. You’ve been out for quite a while.”

“Really . . . how long?” he asked.

“Four days,” she replied. “You’ve had company the whole time. Your parents and grandfather just stepped out to get some lunch. I’ll send them a message you’re awake.”

She stepped out and gave some directions to one of the orderlies.

She came back in sat next to Sam. “How do you feel?” she asked.

“Pretty much how I look,” he replied surveying all the casts, bandages, and tubes with what little he could move his head. “Is it as bad as it looks?”

“I won’t lie. It was serious. Touch and go for a while. You’re very lucky. Someone was looking out for you. Someone not of this earth, I suspect. The doctor’s been called and he will give you all the specifics, but it was one of those just save his life, stop the bleeding, and then worry about all the broken bones. You had broken ribs, internal hemorrhaging, concussion. They kept you in a coma to start the healing. But you’re out of the woods now. You’re going to need a lot of rest. You won’t be going anywhere for a while. I’ve been praying for you every night.”

Nice but odd, Sam thought. Some stranger praying for him. Now he knew she was an angel.

“Thank you. How did they find me? The last thing I remember is crashing out in the country. I just remember some trees, closing my eyes, and praying.”

“I can only tell you what your family told me. They are such nice people. Apparently you crashed into a farmer’s field while he was planting winter wheat. If that farmer had not been out there when you crashed, they never would have gotten there in time. He said he was just driving his tractor on a beautiful Sunday afternoon when this bright yellow rocket crashed through the trees out of nowhere right in front of him. It had no wings or landing gear and hit the freshly plowed field like a bobsled. He said you plowed a mighty nice furrow for a while until it flipped end for end with a few twists in the air and finally planted itself nose first in the ground. It sounded like you did a double gainer with a twist that would have made Greg Louganis jealous.” She giggled again.

“You’re funny,” Sam said. “What’s your name?”

“Mo.”

“Mo? What is that short for?

“It’s not short for anything,” she replied. “Just Mo. M-O.”

Sam laughed but the pain brought the seriousness back to his face.

“Uh . . . sorry,” he said. “Just an unusual name. I like it though. There must be a story.”

She giggled again. There was something about her laugh. He loved to hear it.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “Everybody asks. My Dad came up with it. I’m named after a Chinese prostitute.” She watched his face for a reaction.

“Interesting,” Sam said. “I think there’s more.”

“There is. If you knew my fundamentalist father, you would never imagine this. He abhors any kind of sin or appearance of sin, but apparently there were at least two prostitutes he was willing to forgive: Rahab who assisted the Israelites in Jericho and Yu Mo, a Chinese prostitute who gave her life during a Japanese invasion to save the lives of young convent schoolgirls who would have been raped and killed. I’m kind of proud of it. Kind of proud of my dad.”

“Well, I would be proud of it,” Sam agreed. “You look familiar. I don’t want to embarrass myself, but have I seen you before?”

“You probably should,” she laughed. “It’s possible I was one of the last persons you saw before you tried to kill yourself. Remember Sunday morning? Coffee? I was sitting on the veranda across the alley from your apartment. You looked at me and got up and left. Was it something I said?” She laughed again.

Sam turned a new shade of red. “Ohhh . . . Yeah. Sorry. Wasn’t in too good a shape that morning.”

“Kind of looked that way even from a distance,” Mo concurred smiling. “I’m not judging. Been there.”

Sam’s family filed into the room. “Sammy,” his mother cried as she entered. How he hated her calling him Sammy, but somehow it didn’t seem to matter now.

“I’ll leave you in the good hands of these wonderful people. I’ll be back with the doctor shortly,” Mo said. She stood in the doorway for a minute to see Sam’s family reunite.

His father and grandfather stood back smiling with simple relief. His mother rushed over with tears in her eyes. She bent over and kissed him softly on the cheek. She didn’t know whether to touch him or not.

“Does it hurt? I thought I lost you,” she cried. Then her face transformed into that old familiar motherly look. He knew he was about to get it.

“What in the world were you thinking,” she started.

He winked at Mo. She muffled a laugh and disappeared.

Her lecture was short lived as she sat staring at her son, thankful he was alive.

“Well, you’ll have to tell us what happened,” Sam’s father said. “All we know is the ending and thank God for that farmer.”

His dad’s recounting of the crash from the farmer wasn’t as colorful as Mo’s, but it was consistent. Sam did his best to explain what happened but his father had no idea what he was talking about— stalls, spins, ailerons, elevators, dive bombers. His father was an accountant like Steve and as such knew about balance sheets—not aerodynamics.

“I guess the best way to sum it up, Dad, is I flew too close to the sun.” Sam tried to laugh but it was too painful.

“I’ll sum it up as a miracle,” his father added.  “Just a plain old fashioned miracle.”

“For sure,” replied Sam.

“What’s Steve got to say?” asked Sam. “I know he doesn’t suffer fools, but thankfully God does.”

“Oh, he didn’t say much,” his mother chimed in defensively. “He was here the first day with Father David. He didn’t stay long. They prayed over you, talked to the doctor and said he’d be back.”

Sure, thought Sam.

Grandfather Season, always the quiet one, just sat and listened contentedly as everyone debated.

“Pop, I’m so sorry I haven’t been over to see you. What do you think?” Sam asked. “A miracle?”

“Most assuredly so,” Pop replied.

The doctor came in and waded through the family. He smiled at Sam. “Lucky man,” he said.

“That’s what I hear,” Sam agreed.

The doctor checked all his vital signs. He was pleased with what he saw. He gave him a shot. “You’re going to need a lot of rest,” he said. “You are officially upgraded from critical to fair.” He patted him gently on the shoulder and left.

*****

When Sam awoke the clock on the wall showed it was just after three in the morning. He looked over to see his grandfather still sitting in that little chair looking at him.

Norman was a quiet man, always staying in the background, unnoticed except by a few. But everyone knew he was the anchor holding the family together. His steady demeanor never failed despite the worst of situations, and he had had a few. This time was no different. When the news came with the possibility of the worst, he just prayed and thanked God, the God of the living, not the dead, for whatever outcome He willed. Norman was very pleased with this outcome because he knew something the others did not.

“Hello,” he said quietly. Sam saw a look in his grandfather’s blue eyes that was familiar, but was stronger now. It was the look of wisdom, love, maybe faith or maybe all these things. Norman moved his chair closer to the bed.

“Hi, Pop,” Sam said groggily. He started to apologize for not coming to see him but his grandfather gently cut him off.

“It’s okay, Sam,” he said.

“Thanks, Pop, for no lecture. Everyone else jumps on my every mistake and then saves them to use again, particularly Steve. But you  . . . well, you have never done that. It’s like you know something they don’t.”

“Everything is like it’s supposed to be, Sam. If it’s a secret, it’s hiding in plain sight,” he replied. “Simple as seeing God in everything.”

“God in this? I guess I almost saw him face to face, but I don’t know how He was involved in saving me from my stupidity,” Sam said.

“I don’t know about mistakes, Sam. God doesn’t make mistakes. He’s a lot closer to this than you know.”

“What do you mean, Pop?”

“I have a feeling you’ll figure it out very soon, Sam. It’s not something I can explain. But there are some things I need to share with you tonight, just between you and me. After they had you stabilized, I went to the crash site Monday morning to see some things for myself. All the stories told today don’t do justice to the picture I saw. No one could have walked away from that. Nothing but a crumpled yellow tin can upended in the dirt. No wings. No landing gear. That was all stripped off back in that tree line. It was wonderful. You could see God in this whole thing from beginning to end.

“I talked to the farmer. He was upset that the NTSB had stopped his planting and taped the whole field off, but he had quite a sense of humor. He wanted me to thank you for plowing up half the field for him.”

They both laughed until Sam grimaced in pain. “Don’t make me laugh, Pop,” he grinned.

“Sorry,” Norman said. “Couldn’t help sharing that. He also wanted me to let you know he was grateful to be there for you and then he handed me this. He found it on the dash. After he dragged you from the cockpit, he didn’t want it to get stolen by some gold diggers. He thought it might be valuable. He was right in ways he didn’t know.”

Norman handed Sam an old tarnished silver coin. Sam’s eyes opened wide. It was only a few days ago since he had first seen that coin, but somehow he knew it was going to be following him for a long time. He took it with his good hand and examined it. It was different. It had changed again. On one side was a figure of a great white haired man sitting on a throne. The other side was a figure of one man laying hands on a sick man.

Sam’s mind went into overdrive. “Pop, do you know what this is? Is this what you meant you could see God in this? I almost died. Are you saying He orchestrated this crash?” Sam laid the coin on the night table.

“Yes,” said Norman.

Sam waited expecting more of an answer. “What does that mean, Pop? All I know is I’m still here whether luck, serendipity, or divine intervention. I don’t feel I deserve any special favor from God, but I sure don’t know why he would try to kill me.”

“God isn’t much good at trying. Doing is His specialty.  He’s much nearer than you realize, Sam,” said Norman. “He is not only with you. He is in you. In your heart and in your mouth.”

Sam’s groggy mind struggled to understand what his grandfather was trying to tell him. He and his grandfather had many conversations in the past. His words were so simple. Too simple, but they always rang true somehow. His words made something in the heart jump like a child kicking, a child yearning to be born.

“I believe you, Pop. I don’t pretend to understand. I just don’t know what’s going on. What’s with this coin? It’s been plaguing me ever since Sunday. It’s the weirdest thing. It won’t go away. Maybe it has value as silver, but it’s freaking me out. Have you ever heard of anything like this?”

Norman smiled. “Well, I’ve studied a few things about lost coins,” he started.

“The lost coin? Is that what you . . . they call it?” Sam echoed.

Norman grinned, “Yes, that’s what the mystics call it—the lost coin.”

“The mystics? Who are they?” he asked.

Norman smiled patiently. “They’re just simple people. Like you and me. People whose hearts are tuned to God. They see God in all things. What some call evil and what some call good, it’s all the same to them. They see with the single eye. That’s all. “

“Well, what does it mean to me? Why has this thing shown up now?”

“The first time the coin was mentioned in Scripture was when Jesus was asked if it was right to pay taxes to Caesar. He said show me a coin. They brought him a denarius. ‘Whose image and inscription are on it?’ he asked. They responded ‘Caesar’, but they didn’t notice on the opposite side of the coin, the ‘tails’ side, was the image of a lamb. And they also did didn’t realize that the side with the lamb was the head, not the tail.  The tax collectors who tried to spend it met with bad fortune.

“Eventually this coin was found by a righteous man, a mystic, who understood it could not be used for selfish gain but only for furtherance of the kingdom of God. Before he died, he handed it off to another, who in turn handed it to another and so on. It was continually paid forward, so to speak. If this is it, then God has a special plan for you. And based on the events of the last few days, it appears it has a mission for you.”

“So what are you saying? Is it a good luck charm? A magical talisman? Something with super powers?” Sam asked.

“No,” Norman laughed. “It’s only a symbol. The only power it has is your faith in the power behind the symbol. It’s a sign post showing you the way—your mission.”

“What mission? Me? Wouldn’t I be the last person God would choose?”

“The last will be first, Sam. Its real meaning is found in the parable of the lost coin. A woman had ten silver coins and lost one. She sweeps the house looking for it. When she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors. I have found my lost coin, she tells them. Rejoice with me.”

“Pop, I’ve read that, but to be honest, I don’t know what it means.”

“It means, Sam, that God left all to find one lost coin. And that one will leave all to find others. You will come to understand.”

Sam was silent. He mulled his grandfather’s words. He suddenly became very tired. He wondered how his grandfather knew so much about the coin as he slipped into deep sleep without another word.

Norman sat there in the dim light looking at his grandson. The coin on the night stand was gone. He felt an object in his pocket. He pulled out an old tarnished silver coin. It was the same as at it had been for many years. On the heads side was the likeness of the son of man. On the tails side was the image of a young Norman Season.